This blog post is part of a 6-part mini-series on “Profiting With Interviews“.

You’ve done your research. You’ve identified the experts you plan to interview. Now the question is… how to get those people to agree to conduct the interviews? I’ve included a few tips below on how I got those interviews for my book eMillions.

1. Introduce Yourself

Get in touch with your expert in a polite and professional manner. The medium I used for my eMillions project was via email. However, it’s a lot more effective if you are able to pick up the phone and talk to them in person. Obviously, it takes a lot more guts and courage to do this.

Regardless of whether you’re using email or phone, you want to start off by telling them a little bit about yourself and how you know them. If you are a customer, subscriber or promoted one of their products as an affiliate before, tell them! If you were recommended by another expert who you’ve contacted, say that as well.

Remember, personalization is the key. Your email/proposal has to speak directly to the potential interviewee. If that means you’re contacting 50 people, it means you’ve got to write 50 individual emails (obviously, you can have the same “rough” layout for each email). Visit their website, subscribe to their newsletter, study their materials. It’s going to take some time, but, trust me, it’s worth it. Never, ever use email blasts.

2. Get Straight To The Point

Don’t go on and on blabbering about yourself, who you are, what the project is etc. These people are usually very busy and you don’t want to be wasting to much of their time. Get straight to the point and tell them why you are emailing them. Something like, “I am writing to ask for a favor to conduct an interview with you…” will do. You don’t want to make it too complicated or “fluffy”.

Remember – KISS (keep it simple stupid)

3. Tell Them How The Interview Will Be Used

Tell them where the interview will be used and an approximate date of when it will be published. The last thing an interviewee wants to see is that they took an hour of their time out to do this interview only to find out that you never published it.

In my case, I told the interviewee that I was currently in the process of compiling a collection of success stories into a physical book published by Morgan James Publishing (NOTE: In this case, it was vitally important to mention the publisher’s name as this helps build credibility for yourself) towards the end of 2008.

4. “What’s In It For Me?”

You’ve got to give incentives. What are they going to get as an result of taking an hour of their time with you? You’ve got to have that compelling reason or hook. Take some time to brainstorm some ideas. It takes time to craft an offer, but it’s well worth it. Usually with interviews, the obvious “what’s in it for me” is the exposure and publicity.

People WANT publicity.

That’s the key. It’s human nature that we all have egos to some extend. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to get some of those people to say “Yes”.

In my case, I gave the experts free publicity and promotion of their products. But on top of that, I gave them the opportunity to promote my book and get 100% commission for each sale when I launch it this November 2008. To the average marketer, this might sound like a stupid idea to give all your profits away, but anybody who understands the power of backend marketing will understand that this is in fact a very smart move. I’ll talk more about backend strategies in a later blog post.

5. The “Cool Kid” Syndrome

When you are able to secure one expert to conduct an interview, leverage that expert’s credibility in your next interview proposals. For example, you can add “Oh, by the way, these people have also agreed to contribute to this project…” I call it the cool kid syndrome because everybody likes hanging out with the cool people at the time. Soon, you’ll be able to fan that out and find the number of “yes” growing very quickly. Sort of like a snowball effect.

However, NEVER EVER LIE. Even if they come back with a “maybe”. Don’t go out there thinking that these experts won’t bother checking those people you’ve given them. If one of those people happen to be their friends and they go and check, then you’re credibility will be damaged FOREVER.

6. Follow Up

If they don’t respond in a day or two, don’t panic. These experts are usually very busy so there’s a good chance he/she might have missed your email. Heck, it might have even gone into the SPAM filters. The solution is to send a follow-up email to remind them. If they don’t respond, follow-up again. And again. And again. You’ve got to persevere.

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

-Thomas Edison

The more you follow-up, the higher your chances of getting the attention of the potential interviewee. Most of the time, a second or third email will do the trick. If not, just wait for another opportunity.

If the person tells you that they’re busy and get back to them 6 weeks later, then get back to them 6 weeks later (no sooner, no later). Make sure you follow-up and don’t push it too hard that the person becomes annoyed (for example, emailing them EVERY SINGLE DAY for 6 months). For example, with Yanik Silver, it took me 6 months before we were finally able to get together on the phone. You’ve got to be patient and persevere.

7. Don’t Take Rejections Personally

Inevitably, you’re going to get “No”s. In fact, many will not even respond. Don’t take it personally. Just thank them and move on. During my quest to getting interviews for my book, I probably send out around 100+ emails and got 15 “Yes”es.

If you really, really want to get hold of that person, perhaps you can wait for several months and ask them again (if you believe that it their reason for rejection was because they were busy at the time). Read the last point for more information on following-up.

That concludes the post. Remember, you’ll get better and better at writing those proposals as you go along. In a way, getting interviews is much like a joint venture proposal (actually, technically speaking, it is a joint venture). You might want to read my post – 5 Reasons Why I Won’t Read Your JV Proposal

You’ll be surprised by how much people will say agree to the interview. Miracles will happen. People who you might not have expected to say “Yes” will say “Yes”; people who you expect to say “Yes” may say “No”. I would have never even dreamed of being able to talk to people like Mark Joyner,ShoeMoney, Rob Cowie etc.

In the next post, I’ll be talking about how to arrange and conduct the actual interview itself so you can extract the best content out of your expert.