Blogger Interviews Which Are Truly Useful

22 | Posted In Blogging by David

These days, I see a lot of blogger interviews. I get asked to be interviewed quite a bit, too. And one thing really stands out to me…

Most interviews of bloggers are incredibly unoriginal and boring.

Being on my side of the interview, I get asked the same basic questions over and over again. It is rare that I see anybody ask something truly unique. Usually, the question is asked more for me to do all the legwork and brain dump, all so that the blogger can name-drop me and hopefully get me to retweet their post. Problem is, if I keep answering the same questions, then bringing those answers to my audience is boring because they’ve heard it all before.

Some people do interviews that are pretty compelling, however. Two such guys are Sid and Srini, over at BlogcastFM.

I did an interview with BlogcastFM awhile back and it was a lot of fun. Then I met both of these guys at Blogworld and it was a blast hanging out. Really cool guys. But, here’s the thing…

These guys have interviewed a LOT of bloggers (well over 100 so far, and counting). Every interview they do is designed to extract real, actionable information from the person they’re interviewing. But, here’s the thing…

Bloggers are already overwhelmed!. Piling more information, especially 1-hour interviews, onto an already overcrowded mind isn’t going to do a lot of good. They know that, so they’ve gone above and beyond and have set up a new service which I recommend wholeheartedly.

It is called BlogcastFM Premium. What they’re doing is taking their prior interviews and the future ones, and making each one USEFUL. They do that by doing the following:

  • Interviews are downloadable so you can listen to them from anywhere (car, gym, etc.)
  • Action worksheets for each interview, prepared by a professional blog consultant (Mike Tiojanco). You’ll get the summary of all sites and tools mentioned, strategies and techniques discussed, notes from the conversation which are ORGANIZED, etc. Most people would just chuck out a transcript created by somebody with questionable English skills, but these guys have thought about making things useful for busy people.
  • Each interview will come with mind maps of all the hot points of the interview. You’ll get the mind maps in either xMind format or PDF.

I think that’s pretty cool.

When you sign up, you’re going to immediately get access to interviews of people like Adam Baker (Man Vs Debt), Dave Navarro (Launch Coach), Scott Stratten (UnMarketing), Yaro Starak (Entrepreneurs Journey), Michael Martine (Remarkablogger), and many others. You’ll be getting 12 interviews per month from these guys.

…. AAANNNNDDD….. yours truly is coming up next in their lineup. :) I’m talking about topics like how I outsource content on PCMech, how to repurpose content, how to get over your fear of doing web video, my internal criteria for accepting or denying guest posts, and a lot more. It was a fun interview.

Here’s a little screenshot of what you’ll get with my interview, and every other interview offers the same goodies.

Screen shot 2010-11-15 at 12.15.16 PM.png

So, here’s the part where I ask you to sign up. :) Obviously, I’ll make a little scratch as an affiliate (that’s obvious), but I really think Sid and Srini have created one of the most useful blogger interview series on the Internet… and they’ve gone through a lot of work to make the stuff truly useful for busy bloggers.

This is a monthly program, but at 12 interviews per month, it is extremely high value. And, they tell me that their intro rate to this BlogcastFM Premium program is ending on Thursday, November 19th. So, you better get on that. :) After that, it goes up a pretty fair amount.

I recommend that you sign up and download the action worksheets and mind maps. Go over them and start applying the information to your business. As for the interviews, put them on your MP3 player and listen to them while you’re driving, working, or working out. Listening to these is a FAR better use of time than music or talk radio.

Check Out BlogcastFM Premium. I wholeheartedly endorse these guys.

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  • http://trafficcoleman.com/ TrafficColeman

    David I do a number of interview each month and try to make each one as different as possible for the reason you listed. We all are busy people and none of us what to ask the same crap over and over again.

    “TrafficColeman “Signing Off”

  • Anonymous

    David,

    Can’t possibly thank you enough for such a glowing review. The truth is our community wouldn’t be what it is without the interviewees like you who have made the whole thing possible. It’s been a blast to take this journey and learn from thought leaders like you.

    Cheers,
    Srini

  • http://www.prolificliving.com/blog Farnoosh

    Sid and Srini rock the interview world and I was delighted to be asked to be interviewed on the fab BlogcastFM too and have enjoyed every single interview to which I have listened – and Gosh I can’t believe I have not yet listened to yours, David, I’ll queue that up for this week for sure! Thanks for a shout-out at some awesome “kids” doing great stuff!

  • http://www.calawreport.com John Corcoran

    David:

    First, I have to say that I really respect your work and your blog. Usually I totally agree with you. But in this instance, I have to strongly disagree with you.

    I have been meaning to email or comment on this topic recently directly on BlogcastFM because I have been listening to a lot of BlogcastFM lately. I’ve looked to comment on BlogcastFM but their comments are disabled on the individual posts. Hopefully those guys read this post.

    I think Srini and Sid are providing a valuable resource, but the interviews are nearly impossible to listen to because they are so self-interested and self-absorbed.

    Srini spends more of the interview talking about himself than he does about the interviewee. No one is listening to these podcasts to hear about Srini — they’re listening for the interviewee.

    In one interview, Srini grilled the interviewee, who had spoken at BlogWorld, about how they applied to speak, what they included in the interview application, and why they think they got accepted. You could tell that he was only interested in figuring out why his application to be a speaker at BlogWorld was rejected (which he basically admitted).

    You may have enjoyed being interviewed by them and they may be nice guys (I’m sure they are — they sound like guys I’d get a beer with), but from a listener’s perspective, it’s hard to handle.

    I highly suggest Srini and Sid study some of the most successful interviewers — Charlie Rose, Larry King, etc. Even if you don’t like their style, you have to realize that a good interviewer comes in very prepared, knowledgeable and curious about the interviewee, and doesn’t talk much about him or herself. Podcasting may be a new medium but the interview skills are the same.

    Contrast BlogcastFM to some of Yaro’s blogger interviews. Even though Yaro has an amazingly successful career he could talk about during the interview, he doesn’t. He focuses on his interviewee, because it would be the wrong forum for Yaro to talk about himself. Of course, some reference to your own life is OK but 50%+ of the interview should NOT be focuses on the interviewer.

    I’m sure writing this blog post will guarantee I never get interviewed on BlogcastFM, but if BlogcastFM’s hosts will work on improving their techniques and focusing more on the interviewees than themselves, then it will be worth it to me because I’d like for BlogcastFM to be a valuable resource for years into the future. I would love to subscribe to BlogcastFM Premium as well, if I thought I’d be learning more about the interviewees rather than just more about the hosts.

    Right now, I think BlogcastFM misses the mark. But maybe it’s just me. Am I wrong? Am I the only one who thinks so?

  • LaVonne Ellis

    I signed up for Blogcastfm Premium as soon as I heard about it and saw the amazingly low price — but David, I thought you were going to give us some tips about how to ask better questions. I’ve been doing more interviews lately but I don’t want to bore my guest OR my audience with the same old questions. At least tell us which ones you hear over and over!

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Well, I obviously disagree, John. But, you’re entitled to your opinion. I didn’t listen to the one about Blogworld, but my thoughts would be this:

    It sounds more interesting to me than the typical question like “What are your traffic secrets?” that we hear all the time. When you do 100+ interviews, I’d personally love to listen to one about the behind the scenes stuff with speaker applications. The interviewer’s job is to extract information from the person which is unique, not necessarily just info about the person being interviewed. Because, otherwise, we hear 100 people saying various versions of the same stuff. Get my point?

    You can either look at each interview as a separate little unit, in which case you’ll inevitably start getting copycat stuff, or you try to use each interview to add onto a different aspect of a growing library of stuff.

    If Srini wants to reply here to your comment, by all means. :-) But, that’s my view.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    No problem, dude. Glad I could help. I think its a cool thing you guys got going on there.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Well, it isn’t that certain questions are automatically boring. It really depends on your audience. But, see, most bloggers who interview other bloggers have an audience of…. bloggers. Those people also frequent many other sites about blogging, and they’ve seen many other interviews. So, it turns into this incenstuous thing, really. I think people just need to think about that when interviewing bloggers.

    But, for me, I usually get a lot of questions like…
    - What do you do to build traffic?
    - Why is a list important?
    - How do you make money?
    - If you were to start over, what would you do?

    etc etc.

    If your audience has really never seen that stuff before, then fine. But otherwise, get inventive. How bout getting more personal and asking about how a full-time blogger balances out the job with personal time or the family? You could also “make news” by getting a blogger to comment on stuff happening in the news of the niche, or on other blogs. Just random thoughts. :-)

  • http://www.calawreport.com John Corcoran

    I agree that “what are your traffic secrets?” is a boring question, and it’s boring to hear the same answer for 100 different bloggers. However, I think it’s possible to interview 100+ bloggers without asking the same question over and over again AND without talking about yourself so much that the listeners end up not learning much about the interviewee.

    It would have been interesting if Srini had used the interview with the Blogworld speaker to focus on JUST the process of speaking at Blogworld. That would have been really interesting. He wouldn’t even have to ask a single question about traffic secrets. However, the problem was it was clear he was just upset he hadn’t been picked as a speaker. The interview was him airing his sour grapes, not providing valuable information for his audience.

    I forgot to mention another great interviewer who Srini could study: Terry Gross, of NPR. She’s been at it 20+ years, asks very informed questions, and she faces the same challenges as the BlogcastFM guys in that she interviews individuals from the same profession over and over again. For example, she has probably interviewed over 1,000 authors alone, but she doesn’t ask “what are you secrets to getting people to buy your book?” to each author, and she doesn’t talk about herself.

    I like your suggestion about getting an interviewee to “make news” by getting a blogger to comment on stuff happening in the news of the niche, or on other blogs. Maybe you should start DavidRisleyFM?

  • http://www.calawreport.com John Corcoran

    I agree that “what are your traffic secrets?” is a boring question, and it’s boring to hear the same answer for 100 different bloggers. However, I think it’s possible to interview 100+ bloggers without asking the same question over and over again AND without talking about yourself so much that the listeners end up not learning much about the interviewee.

    It would have been interesting if Srini had used the interview with the Blogworld speaker to focus on JUST the process of speaking at Blogworld. That would have been really interesting. He wouldn’t even have to ask a single question about traffic secrets. However, the problem was it was clear he was just upset he hadn’t been picked as a speaker. The interview was him airing his sour grapes, not providing valuable information for his audience.

    I forgot to mention another great interviewer who Srini could study: Terry Gross, of NPR. She’s been at it 20+ years, asks very informed questions, and she faces the same challenges as the BlogcastFM guys in that she interviews individuals from the same profession over and over again. For example, she has probably interviewed over 1,000 authors alone, but she doesn’t ask “what are you secrets to getting people to buy your book?” to each author, and she doesn’t talk about herself.

    I like your suggestion about getting an interviewee to “make news” by getting a blogger to comment on stuff happening in the news of the niche, or on other blogs. Maybe you should start DavidRisleyFM?

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Heheh… :-) Well, the idea of podcasting has occurred to me many times now, but I just haven’t pulled the trigger yet. We’ll see. :-)

  • Alison

    Hi there. Forced to delurk in order to disagree.

    I’ve listened to a lot of BlogcastFM pieces and I really enjoy them; I find the interviewers very low key, actually. I particularly like the range they offer in terms of interviewees. Seems to me they are following each blogger’s story so it’s always different…

  • Anonymous

    Often when people ask to interview Dave, I’ll offer to work with them to create a unique angle and set of questions. I’ll provide background information and suggest a hook so that the interview is unique and tailored to that audience. It’s win/win all around :D

  • http://DonnyGamble.com Donny Gamble

    This is definitely a unique program because they are leveraging other experts knowledge to create a value added product. I particularly like the fat that they are putting the interviews in many different formats.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Nice. :-) I need to get somebody to work for me as closely as you do with Dave.

  • http://www.liangcha-herbaltea.com/blog Ben Sanami (FB Herbal Tea)

    Exactly, more questions about how they balance blogging and personal life would be nice instead of the same old – How much are you making a month, a year? I don’t care how much you make – one reason why I like Problogger because he never really says or I should say “brag” about how much he makes. Stick to the facts and be useful means a lot to all of us just starting out.

  • http://twitter.com/stackideas Stackideas

    Perhaps they need an e-book on how to ask questions that would appeal to the interviewee and readers as well…

  • Anonymous

    I accept payment in ice creams. I shall ask my minion to touch base. I kid, dude

    (note to self: document what I do so others can learn from it)

  • http://kikolani.com/ Kristi Hines

    I’m not an interview expert by any means, but I think part of what Srini does when talking about something other than the interviewee is to make the interviewee more relaxed.

    I actually talked to Srini for a while at Blog World, and when he talked about some things that he was working on, it helped drive me into talking about some things I probably wouldn’t have thought to say off the top of my head.

    As far as asking about the application process, maybe he was doing that for other bloggers who had applied to speak but didn’t make the cut. I think I’ll be listening to that before I submit any speaking ideas to an event!

    They are definitely both great guys, and I have enjoyed several of their interviews so far (about to dig into the premium content). I guess it depends on the types of interviews you like to listen to – I’m personally not a Larry King fan, myself anyway. :)

  • http://kikolani.com/ Kristi Hines

    I’m not an interview expert by any means, but I think part of what Srini does when talking about something other than the interviewee is to make the interviewee more relaxed.

    I actually talked to Srini for a while at Blog World, and when he talked about some things that he was working on, it helped drive me into talking about some things I probably wouldn’t have thought to say off the top of my head.

    As far as asking about the application process, maybe he was doing that for other bloggers who had applied to speak but didn’t make the cut. I think I’ll be listening to that before I submit any speaking ideas to an event!

    They are definitely both great guys, and I have enjoyed several of their interviews so far (about to dig into the premium content). I guess it depends on the types of interviews you like to listen to – I’m personally not a Larry King fan, myself anyway. :)

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    I haven’t looked, but I bet there are a lot of such ebooks out there already. But, hey, its certainly an idea. :-)

  • http://www.denvermarketingfirm.com Jonathan Roseland

    Hmm I’m trying to find info on the subject of landing interviews w/big shots for my blog… Can you recommend some info on that?