Content is crucial when it comes to information marketing and product creation. Not just any old content, but fresh, original and quality content that provides value to your market place. But creating your own product or writing an ebook is not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, especially when you’re just starting out.
But, what if there was a proven system where you could create your own information product in as little as 12 hours… without having to write a single word?
In fact, this was the exact same system I used to create my #1 best-selling book, eMillions. It actually worked too well that my publisher rejected the manuscript telling me it was “too long”. (More about this in a future blog post) 
But before I tell you, let me give you a classic example on how this system works.
On the left is a book called Chicken Soup for the Soul. It’s a huge bestseller and probably one of the best selling book series of all time. Over 100 million copies of this series had been sold worldwide. I’m sure you’ve read it before, if not, at least heard of it.
Anyways, let’s get right to the point. The whole secret behind this success is actually right on the front cover – the subtitle 101 Stories To Open The Heart And Rekindle The Spirit.
You see, Mark and Jack (the authors) really didn’t write too much of the book. They might have written the introduction but that’s pretty much it. But for the most part, it was from… guess what?
OTHER PEOPLE.
Mark and Jack got people to contribute stories, then all they did was edited and compiled them to create this phenomenally successfully series of books.
It’s all about finding a way to profit from OTHER PEOPLE’S INFORMATION.
LEVERAGE is what this is all about.
So, the question is:
- How can YOU apply this to YOUR internet business?
- How can YOU become somebody who profits from other people’s information?
- How can YOU create a product that is yours to sell and control, without actually writing the content yourself?
The “long answer” will be revealed over the course of the next few days into a 6 part series.
The “short answer” is simply…
INTERVIEWS.
That’s right -Â Conducting interviews with experts, thought-leaders and authorities in your field.
That’s what I’m going to be talking about over the course of this 6 part mini-series: How to profit from other people’s information by interviewing them. Interviews are a great strategy, but ONLY if you know how to do them. I know it because I’ve been through the process with my eMillions project.
Interviewing is one of the most important skills you can learn as an online information marketer
In a nutshell, this is a rough outline of what the 6 posts will cover:
- Why you should do interviews
- How to find the experts
- How to land the big interviews with experts
- How to come up with good questions to ask
- How to conduct the interview itself
- Packaging the content
BONUS: How to write a killer interview proposal (video)
Without further to do, let’s tackle the first one – why should you use interviews to create your content?
1. Leverage
a)Â Knowledge – You get to leverage and tap into the knowledge of the person you are interviewing. If the person is an expert in your field, chances are, he/she will know a lot more than you and is able to bring out that knowledge (if you interview them in the right way – more on that in series #4 and #5).
b) Credibility – The benefit of interviewing an expert is that they bring credibility and authority. Let’s take Tiger Woods as an example. He is an expert. He has the credentials. He is a leading authority in the golf industry. That’s why his book How I Play Golf is a huge bestseller. On the other hand, I’m not good at golf, so if I wrote a book on golf it probably won’t do too well. But if I were to interview Tiger Woods and turn that into a product, there’s no doubt that it would be a success.
2. “Free” Content
It’s super easy to set up those interviews and extract the content out of the expert (that is if you know what you’re doing – I’ll reveal this in the upcoming posts in this series). Most of the time, the experts will happily do those interviews with you for free, since they’ll get publicity in return. While it’s going to take some work coming up with good questions, the interviewee actually does most of the talking (i.e. content creation).
3. Instant Content Creation
It’s faster than any other content creation process out there. It’s almost likecreating content at the speed of sound. For example, when I interviewed Tom Beal, the time it took from sending the email to him and finish conducting the interview took only 12 hours.
If it wasn’t for the 12 hour time zone between Hong Kong (where I live) and New York (where Tom lives), it probably would have taken a lot less. If you know of any other content-creation methods where I can crank out 13,000 words in less than 12 hours without having to write a single word, tell me in the comment section. I’ll be curious to know 
4. Expert By Association
Similar to the first point about leveraging the expert’s credibility, by interviewing the experts in your field, it adds a certain level of perceived expertise to you. In other words, you sort of automatically “become the expert” as well. The reason for this is because people begin to see you talking to all the other experts and will eventually see you as the expert too, even if you don’t know anything about the topic. So by associating yourself with someone who is already well known in that field, you automatically increase your credibility in the industry.
But beyond this, you actually become a true expert as well after conducting many interviews within one niche. Not only does your customers/subscribers who listen to the interviews learn, you also learn from the experts. The more interviews you do, the more you learn, and the more you become of an expert.
5. Build Connections & Relationships
Let’s say you’ve finished interviewing all those experts and compiled them into an ebook or packaged them into a home-study course. And the time has come to launch your product… you need some joint-venture partners. Well, what better candidates for JV partners than those experts you’ve just interviewed?
If you have done your research right (I’ll show you where you can find the RIGHT experts in the next post), the experts you’ve interviewed should be the ones that have huge influences, large numbers of followers and big mailing lists. Chances are, if you’ve impressed your interviewees well enough by either asking good questions or being very professional and polite, they will come back and promote your product. Hey, why not? They are featured in the product, which means they are getting publicity. It only makes good sense for them to promote the product that they’re featured in.
Apart from the joint venture side, by positioning yourself as an interviewer also opens up more doors to world class though leaders and top influencers in your field. A public interview accelerates your rapport with that expert way faster than a private 1-on-1 conversation. You’ll become friends with industry leaders in your field and be able to leverage their network and connect to more interviewees and business partners.
6. Break Into Niches Even If You’re Unknown
I touched on this already with the Tiger Woods example and the “expert by association” point. So even if you are a complete unknown to that market place, by leveraging your expert’s name and credibility, you can not only turn your product into a hotseller, but also become an industry expert yourself almost instantly. That way, you’ve just successfully broke into that niche.
7. Become A Better Communicator
Lastly, on a personal benefit, the more you interview, the better communicator you become. It’ll help you with business in general in terms of becoming a better speaker and negotiator. You’ll also become better at communicating with your prospects thus close deals more easily.
That’s it for the time being. In the next post, I’m going to be talking about where to find the experts for your interviews.
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June 16th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
This is a great post and I love the Chicken Soup reference. I hadn’t thought of doing interviews on my blog, but now I might seek some out as it seems like something my readers might really enjoy.
Good stuff!
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June 16th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Very interesting you should bring up interviewing. I have been interviewing authors and experts since 2002 for my book reviewing and author interviewing site bookpleasures.com. Over the years, I have interviewed over 500 interviewees and not only does it provide great content, but also it permits me to learn a great deal about many topics.
Norm, Publisher & Editor Bookpleasures.com
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June 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I think interviews are a really good idea for blogs because it will introduce a new wave of readers.. I think it also shows that the blog owner does have some presence in the blogosphere, as they are able to interview an expert on a certain topic
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June 17th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Yeah, interviews are great for business. Good article as always
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June 17th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I have not yet done any interviews on my blog, but this has certainly got me thinking about doing so. Thanks.
Nicole Price´s last blog post..Weight Loss Pills and Supplements – Do You Need Them?
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June 17th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
There is no substitute for experience. Having structured interviews with industry experts can provide a wealth of knowledge. I think it is a great strategy.
Douglas White´s last blog post..CNN Executives on Twitter: Douglas White of Prosperity Research interview
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June 17th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Hi Stanley, I think this is a great idea for a series. Interviews really are ideal for the content of a book or of a site. I’ll definitely tune in to the rest of the series.
Nick Tart´s last blog post..40 Chinese Proverbs for Entrepreneurship
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June 17th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Great article! Interviews are a great way to promote information in a more personal way. As far as marketing strategies and multimedia interviews are concerned, blog.directagents.com recently posted an article about this very thing. http://blog.directagents.com/2009/06/mutlimedia-no-longer-optional/ . I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the posts on this topic.
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June 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Thank you very much for explaining everything in detail!
keep posting!
breaking news´s last blog post..Watch the Lakers Parade Live from Los Angeles
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June 18th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Is it just me or did you jump up a few hundred subscribers since the last time I commented here?
Last Minute Gift Ideas´s last blog post..Get the Braun Series 7- 790cc Pulsonic Shaver for Father’s Day
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Stanley Tang (37 comments) Reply:
June 21st, 2009 at 3:41 am
I think it’s the latter
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June 19th, 2009 at 2:10 am
Genius. Pure Genius. This is a really great idea man. I’m so bummed I didn’t think of this before. I can definitely incorporate this into my site with ease. Thanks so much for this idea. I will be revisiting your site for the other sections of this topic.
Thanks.
Dan
DansMuayThaiMMA´s last blog post..Gina Carano And Kim Couture At The Couture Christmas Party
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June 19th, 2009 at 2:28 am
PS I have added you to my Google Reader.
Dan
DansMuayThaiMMA´s last blog post..Gina Carano And Kim Couture At The Couture Christmas Party
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June 19th, 2009 at 5:36 am
I have been trying to incorporate more interviews into my blog over the last few months and have found them to be very well received.
While interviews are fairly simple they provide a lot of value not only for your readers but yourself as well.
Great read.
P.S Chick soup is on the left ;D
Bud Hennekes´s last blog post..Why I Love Riding The Subway And You Should Too
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Stanley Tang (37 comments) Reply:
June 21st, 2009 at 3:45 am
LOL my bad. Well spotted Bud
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June 19th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I have been thinking about this before but never really put it into work.
Diabetis´s last blog post..A type 2 diabetis
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June 20th, 2009 at 2:55 am
Hi Stanley,
What a terrific post full of good information!
I used this very same approach for starting my website
business. To give proper credit, I first learned of this from
Tellman Knudson, who used interviews when he started out.
What was rally great about this is I already had expertise in my
area (creating a powerful mind-set to achieve success) but my
expertise had been primarily in the Entertainment & Engineering worlds.
By doing interviews on my topic with successful Internet entrepreneurs,
it opened up a whole new world to me that would’ve taken me a lot longer
to get noticed in had I not conducted the interviews.
So, all that to say it works really well & definitely is a proven strategy
everyone should consider using in their online business.
Looking forward to the rest of your posts!
Michael
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Stanley Tang (37 comments) Reply:
June 21st, 2009 at 3:49 am
Great to see you Michael.
I was actually a great fan of Zentimental when you launched it back then. The interviews were awesome
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June 20th, 2009 at 3:08 am
As a follow up to my initial reply, just to let you folks know, a few years ago when I first retired, my wife and I began a travel site called sketchandtravel.com. We blended my travel articles with my wife’s art. In order to add content and secure some expert travel advice, I would interview travel authors and writers. This opened many doors for us and was a great enhancement for the site. We still have the site, however, our travel writing days are over.
Regards,
Norm, Editor of Bookpleasures.com
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June 21st, 2009 at 2:21 pm
[...] This blog post is part of a 6-part mini-series on “Profiting With Interviews“. [...]
June 25th, 2009 at 5:05 am
That Chicken soup thing is interesting; I would have never thought about a book like that in that way. Truly, it’s the interviewee’s book! All the author needs to do is write a short introduction – BAM! Easy money. Great article!
Thanks for the lesson,
Logan
YouthBusinessBlog.com
Logan´s last blog post..9 Tips To Better Self-Promotion
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June 26th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
[...] This blog post is part of a 6-part mini-series on “Profiting With Interviews“. [...]
July 4th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I share with all of you some tips for getting a lot of traffic to your blogs:
Tip 1: Make a good content
This point is very important
Tip 2: Make a brand around your blog
This point is very important because your visitors return to your blog in the future.
Tip 3: Get high quality backlinks
This point is very important because Google is a major search engine.
Tip 4: Promote your site on social websites like facebook, myspace and news aggregators like Digg.
Tip 5: Post frequently
Tip 6: Be patient
This is the most important tip because only with years of hard work you see a good results.
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Duncan (1 comments) Reply:
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:46 am
Thanks for this. No. 1 has always been my first priority in getting huge traffic to a site.
People get profites from other, its just a matter of how.
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July 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Interviews are a great way to inform your customers with a high identification.
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July 25th, 2009 at 10:25 am
[...] This blog post is part of a 6-part mini-series on “Profiting With Interviews“. [...]
July 27th, 2009 at 11:01 am
That’s a great post. Now I think I’ve read everything concerning interviews. Will take into consideration the tips and tricks. Thanks…
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August 5th, 2009 at 12:16 am
all these are very good advices I can use for my blog
thanks.
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August 18th, 2009 at 11:18 am
[...] This blog post is part of a 6-part mini-series on “Profiting With Interviews“. [...]
August 24th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Interviews allows you to assess more of the persona of people in person rather than just reading some text or talking on the phone.
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September 29th, 2009 at 8:44 am
That is true that interviewing different people you will learn more
its realy great post and very informative
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November 20th, 2009 at 4:58 am
Hi Stanley, I think this is a great idea for a series. Interviews really are ideal for the content of a book or of a site.
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December 19th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
[...] Present your content via the telephone – normally in an interview type format. However, I have listened to a few teleseminars that was just the expert speaking the entire time. It’s called expert by association. [...]
December 27th, 2009 at 3:38 am
took me forever to get through this, now i gotta go through the next 5 parts
thanks
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May 17th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Thank you for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbour were preparing to do some research about that. We got a good book on that matter from our local library and most books where not as influensive as your information.
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