A good example will be interviewing people about my desire for a local “little or no sugar” bakery/pastry shop. An interview like this validates the idea and gets people thinking about it.
One of my questions will be this: If a shop like that existed in Austin, would you come check it out? If they say “yes,” I would go on to keep them in mind if I end up doing something about my desire. My next question would be this: Okay, this is not a promise, but if I end up starting something like that would mind that I let you know?
Based on the response I get, this gives me a chance to get peoples opinion and a decent list of people to contact if I were to go through with it. Anything is possible.
Why a “little sugar or no sugar pastry shop”? Well, I love pastries but dislike how almost the pastry shops I go to have very little options for people like me, so I have thought about starting a shop like that in Austin. You could have a similar desire, or one entirely different, but starting a conversation about it can lead to interesting results.
But back to the scenario where you have people in your neighborhood who are already doing something you want to learn about. This was my case with small business. Start with them.
How do you reach them, though, and upon what grounds?
This is where you build a platform. When I say a platform, I mean creating a basis for why you would like to interview them.
This was my platform: To hear and document the stories of small business owners in Austin, Texas. To learn from it myself, share it with others — on my blog (I talk about that below) and online, and possibly be of help in one way or another.
This is a sensible platform and it’s win-win — I want to learn, provide value, help, and share the lessons. With this sort of clarity, you can start a conversation with almost anyone.
2. Go
Now, it’s time to go. With you blog set up, a clear platform in mind, and a few useful tools, you all set to get out there in your local community and talk to people.
I assume that you do know your local community fairly well, or at least know where to find people. With this fair understanding of your local community, or where the pros you’d like interview hang out, decide how you’d like to contact them. Will you make contact in person, via phone, or via email?
I chose in person by walking up to the shops directly and introducing myself and sharing the purpose of my project — -it’s more weighty, and shows seriousness.
Now, go out and meet them.
3. Connect
Whether you contact your prospects — the people you’d like to interview — in person, by email, or by phone, on your first encounter present your idea or grounds for why you’d like to interview them. In other words, your reason for connection.
This again goes back to the platform you set in step 1.
An example, in person: Hi, my name is Kingston, and I’m currently doing a 21-Day project of interviewing small business owners in Austin about their journeys as business owners and what makes them unique. The hope is to document it, share it on my blog and online, and learn from it myself. Would you have 20–30 minutes to share your story with me?
With this mini presentation, most business will ask a few questions to get to know, or check out your blog, and try to find a good time and date to sit with you. That’s the appointment setting time.
After this, you’ll decide on a date and time that works for you both. But generally, set appointments on what works for your subject and work around their time.
4. Firm Up
With an appointment set, consider it to be tentative, not set in stone. Why? That gives you a reason to make sure it happens. This is precious time, not only to you but to the business owner/ or professional, and making sure it happens is good use of time on both ends. So confirm it.
Confirm appointments via email and phone. Canceled interviews don’t happen, and time is wasted in the process. Guard against it by confirming ahead of time.
5. Chat
Do the interview. Have a guide of sorts, one that’s loose yet shows the way. Use questions that are useful to the subject and gets them to share their story. Look for lesson points by asking good questions — what was difficult in starting your profession or business? What didn’t you anticipate? How did you overcome challenges. What will you like to teach others from your story?
An interview that focused on stories always makes for a good chat. Good for the subject, since they get to talk about their own stories; and you, as it gives you a chance to know them more, brings up lessons most people can learn from, and eases the atmosphere by making it more of a conversation than a stiff interview.
Note: Every interview should be recorded. I use my smartphone’s voice recorder and a lapel microphone.
6. Write/Inform
Package the experience into words and audio. With the interview done, you not only now have an interview on record, but a story to tell as well.
How? With each owner, you went through a process of contacting them, setting the appointment, firming it up, and then doing the interview. All this took you through some steps, emotions, encounters, even mistakes, and all this is a story you now have. Write about it.
What’s more, every interview you do will have a story behind it. So with every interview you have writing material in the form of the by-product. This is what you practice your writing with, and what gets posted on your blog.
So write about it on your blog and upload the interview to your blog and share it with others — your friends, family, online friends, and others you may know. Also inform your subject — the professional you interviewed — of the upload, and begin sharing it on social media, if you want.
7. Repeat
Rinse and repeat it for your next interview. Learn from the first one, prepare for the second one, and do it again.
