The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur

Many people who are wanting to blog often ask me how I get ideas and content to write my posts. One great place to get fresh content is from interviewing experts.

Darren Rowse, author of the blog ProBlogger obviously agrees as he recently wrote a post called Two Tips on Landing Interviews for Your Blog.

Clearly Darren is referring to “email” interviews, where you email questions to the subject and they email a response. While this can be a great way to get responses from a large number of people, I’m not really in favour of email interviews. Perhaps this is my journalism background speaking but I really think the best way to conduct an interview is by talking with a person, usually by phone.

How do you do this? Send a short email introducing yourself and stating what you want the interview for and what it will be about. Give a time limit. For my book, my interviews have taken about an hour. For your blog they could be much shorter, even as brief as five or ten minutes. Suggest a couple of dates and times. This will save some back and forth emails if these dates work for your subject. If they don’t, they will likely suggest an alternate date if they are interested.

Don’t worry about rejection. Most people are flattered to be asked and I’ve rarely been turned down. In fact, the only “rejection” I had was actually someone who had to cancel and we’re still trying to reschedule.

You need to decide in advance whether you’ll record the interview. The advantage of recording is you don’t have to take detailed notes and can concentrate on what the person is saying. You also have the option of using the recording as a free giveaway or a product. The downside is some people are nervous about recordings and become inhibited.

If you do decide to record the interview, it’s easy to do using a bridge line, Skype or physical recording devices. If you are going to record you need to practice ahead of time to make sure the recording device works. Of course, you must get permission before recording. Ideally, let the subject know in advance if you are planning to record.

When it comes time to do the interview, it’s a good idea to send a reminder email the day before. Make sure you have prepared a list of questions so you get the most out of this person’s time. When you get the person on the phone, be polite and ask your questions. Be sure you really listen to their responses and be prepared to go “off script” if they say something interesting that you want to follow up on.

When you reach the time limit you specified, end the call. If you and the expert are really on a roll, they may be willing to continue, but don’t assume. Say something like, “We’ve reach the twenty minutes I promised this interview would take. Thanks for your time. I do have some more questions I’d like to ask if you don’t mind going overtime, but I understand if your schedule doesn’t allow it.”

When the call is finished, send a thank you. If you have a snail mail address, send a card rather than an email. When you post the article you write as a result of the interview, send the link to the expert with another brief note of thanks. Be sure to include a link to their website or blog.

Clearly conducting interviews is more time consuming than just using your own knowledge to write posts, but it can be very rewarding. Interviews give you fresh content, can increase your readership if you land a big name interview and they can lead to unexpected business relationships with the experts you speak with. If you’ve never done an interview, plan to give one a try in the next few weeks.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Have you landed a big interview for your blog, ezine or podcast? Tell us how you did it by leaving a comment below.

Since this is the beginning of 2009 I’ve naturally been thinking about my goals for the coming year. I’m working on what I want to accomplish and how I’m going to do it. While I was pondering this question, I read an article by Charlie Cook. He says if you’re setting goals for 2009 you should write them in the past tense, as if you’ve already accomplished them.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this advice, and it’s probably not your first time either. Many experts suggest this. But does the tense really make a difference?

Several years ago, after taking a course based on Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way, I was writing morning pages. If you haven’t read The Artist’s Way, morning pages are three pages, written long hand, that you write first thing in the morning. They are to help clear your head and improve your creativity.

One morning I awoke and found I was bored of the morning pages. There was too much whining about my day. I was sick of it. On a whim I decided to write my pages as if I was living my ideal life. I wrote three pages about what I had “done” the previous day. I put in everything I wanted my dream life to be, written as if I had already accomplished it.

Fast forward to today; with a few exceptions, I’ve accomplished much of what I wrote that day. I still have some things to achieve, but I’m well on the way to getting there.

So, does this mean writing your goals in the past tense, as if you have already achieved them, work better? I don’t know for sure, but it can’t hurt. If you find that you didn’t achieve many of your goals for 2008, consider setting your goals for 2009 in the past tense.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Another powerful tip for achieving goals is to make them public. Nothing motivates you more than having to make sure you don’t lose face. So feel free to share your personal or business goals here by leaving a comment. Maybe it will be just the motivation you need to really achieve them this time.

I can’t believe it’s December 31^st. Where did the year go?

At this time of year it’s natural to start planning for 2009, setting New Year’s resolutions. But on the last day of the year, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on what you’ve done over the past year. What were your successes over the past year; what did you achieve? Take a moment to celebrate them. Even if you didn’t achieve all your goals, you need to celebrate what you did achieve. The majority of businesses fail in the first three years. Just still being around is worth celebrating.

If you’re like me, you probably spend a lot of energy focusing on the future, aiming for the next goal. But as entrepreneurs, we don’t have a boss to give us a pat on the back and tell us “good job”. So for today, I’m asking you to give yourself that pat on the back. Tomorrow you can take a look at what you didn’t achieve and set new goals.

Here’s a virtual toast to all your successes. And may you have many more to come.

Happy New Year!

Andrea J. Stenberg

Okay, now it’s time to really celebrate your successes. Please leave a comment telling us what you are celebrating about your business.

On Christmas Eve I turned off my computer and didn’t log back in until yesterday morning. When I opened my email, there were 175 messages waiting for me. Since I have a pretty good SPAM filter, I knew most of the messages were really for me.

I scanned quickly through the emails and found at least half were Merry Christmas messages. Now I have nothing against Christmas … I love it. Want to send me a hard copy Christmas card? I’ll keep it up through New Years. But if you are one of almost 100 Christmas emails, I promise you it will be deleted without being opened. Nothing against you, I just don’t have the time.

If you really want to send a greeting to your list, you’re far better off picking a time of year when people are less likely to receive mass emails. Groundhog Day anyone? Chinese New Year? International Button Collectors Day (okay I made that one up).

I once belonged to a membership site where they collected birthdays. On my birthday, the first message in my inbox as a happy birthday from the coach. Now I knew perfectly well that the message was just an autoresponder that went to everyone on their birthday, but it still made me smile.

By all means, send the occasional email that is just about wishing your list well, rather than your usual newsletter or sales pitch. Just pick the right time so you get a smile from your recipients, not an annoyed delete.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Earlier in December I signed up for a trail version of a membership site from a well-known internet marketer. I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to put it to use so I set up a reminder for myself to cancel the membership if I wasn’t using it.

When the reminder popped up last week I couldn’t even remember the URL of the site - that’s how little I used it. After digging around I found it and located the “help desk”. After much digging in the FAQs I located a webpage with instructions on how to cancel my membership. How simple is that?

Turns out, not so simple. You have to enter your login and password info in order to cancel. If I couldn’t easily find the URL for this site, how easy do you think it was for me to find that info? But, not to worry. I entered my email address in the “lost your password” field.

Now most password retrieval systems send a new temporary password to your email address. Not this site. I was asked the name of my favorite pet. Now I’m fairly certain I never gave them this info, but I dutifully tried every pet I’ve ever had. Big surprise, none worked.

At this point we’re at about 30 minutes of trying to cancel my subscription and I’m no further ahead. But wait, there’s a phone number for customer service. I’ll call that. I dial the long distance number and get a recorded message telling me to go to the website help desk. No way to reach a real person.

Next I sign into the help desk site and send an email “ticket” requesting help. This was late in the day on the 23^rd, two days before Christmas. I checked my email at noon on the 24^th. No news from the membership site “help” desk. Seeing as Christmas was on a Thursday, I took an extended long weekend and didn’t check my email until today.

This morning I found a message from the nohelp desk saying because I hadn’t responded within 72 hours they’ve closed my ticket. There was no earlier email from them. When I logged into the nohelp site and located my original message there was no reply there as well.

It is now seven days since I first started trying to cancel my membership and I’m no further ahead. I’ve sent another message through the nohelp desk. I’m going to spend some time today working my social media networks to contact Mr. Big Internet Marketer directly. If I don’t get a response by the 31^st, I’m going public. It shouldn’t take this long to cancel a membership. Not to mention, if I wasn’t trying to cancel my membership but log in, this wouldn’t be any better.

Mr. Big Internet Marketer has done some real damage with this fiasco. On the 23^rd when I first started the Herculean task of cancelling my membership, I wasn’t a disgruntled customer; just someone who didn’t have time to put this service to good use. I might have even considered purchasing from him again in the future.

A week later, I’m really annoyed and working my way up to angry customer from hell. Not only will I never purchase from him again, I’ll tell anyone who asks not to either.

The lesson here is to make your help desk or customer service easy to use - customer friendly if you will. By all means have an FAQ and automated system for simple and frequent requests. But you really need to make it possible for a customer to get help from a real live person. Even a direct email address works. But leaving someone as frustrated as I am is not worth the savings.

Andrea J. Stenberg