Interview Archives - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

How to Conduct an Impactful Media Interview

The news release has been issued to the media and now they are calling asking for an interview. Do you pick up the phone and start talking? No. Take a few minutes to read this article and learn some techniques to make sure your media interview is impactful.

Preparation is the key to a successful media interview. Think about it this way – would you step on the stage and give a presentation to thousands of people without preparing your thoughts and fine tuning your message? Hopefully not. You would spend some time reviewing your notes, checking out your appearance and making sure you remember your key points. Think about your media interview as a presentation to a large group of people. Even if you can’t see them, hundreds or even thousands (possibly millions) of people will read the article, listen to the interview or watch the clip.

Okay let’s get started with some basic ways to prepare.

1. Write down your three key messages. When you are done your interview, what are the three key points you want the reporter, and audience, to remember?

2. Formulate your interview around these key points. When asked questions that are “off message” go back to these points. Use them to transition out of sticky questions. Example – while that’s a good question, I want to stress what’s important to remember is… insert key message.

3. Determine what media outlet you are talking to and the average length of audio or video clips or story length for print. If it’s radio and the interview’s for a short news story, keep your interview short as they will likely only use a 10-30 second clip. If it’s television or video, you might get 60 seconds of you speaking in the story.

4. Tailor your message to meet the needs of the audience of the media outlet. Is this a local news outlet? National? Is the audience your peers or the general public? Each media interview should be unique, tailored to meet the needs of the specific audience, versus repeating the same information the same way in 10 different media interviews.

5. Take stock of your appearance. Solid colours are best for video interviews. No crazy patterns or logos (unless it’s your own company’s logo). For women – no clunky jewellery or exposed cleavage. And for men – button up your shirt and empty your pockets so you aren’t tempted to jingle your keys.

6. Don’t ramble. Stick to your three key points. This way when your comments are edited, what appears in the story will be on topic.

7. Thank the reporter. Too few people take the time to say thank you.

Once the story is live, review the coverage to see how well you delivered your message and identify how you can improve for future interviews.

Timely & Lucrative Audio Interview Ideas

Lucrative to one person may mean something different to another.

There’s millions and millions of different topics and niches and products out there.

My niche, the internet marketing crowd and copywriting and marketing niche, it is such a small niche.

Copywriting niche, if you ask ten people on the street, “What is copywriting?” I guarantee you probably out of ten, maybe one may know what copywriting is.

My niche is a very small niche, but there are huge niches out there. One niche that I like within my small niche here is I like business opportunity. It’s that saying, “Catch a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life.”

When you’re selling a business opportunity on how to make money, or you’re selling them a system that he can implement and use to provide for his family for the rest of his life, that has a lot of value. There are a lot of people looking for that. So, I like business opportunity. One of my main products is an HMA Marketing Consulting System. That really is a business opportunity. It teaches you how to be a marketing consultant, and if you take to it and study it and implement it, you could make a nice living doing marketing consulting. So, it’s a short cut to the process.

Those type products have a lot of value, and it’s great to use audio interviews, expert interviews and testimonial type interviews to promote that type of thing.

So, I would go with business opportunities and you might find some other niches that are even more popular that have a higher demand and say, “Do your research.”

A lot of my recordings aren’t necessarily business opportunity, but they’re information trainings. Copywriting really, it could be a business opportunity, but there’s skills like negotiating and copywriting and sales scripting and how to get more referrals. Those are all skill type interviews, and those actually will translate into more money in your pocket.

So, my niche, business skills and business opportunities have been pretty good for me. So, I would stick with something like that, and I would also think about the type of margins when you’re creating your information product. What could they sell for?

Business opportunities tend to sell for higher margins. People will pay more for those. People will pay a million dollars. I don’t know how much a McDonald’s franchise is. Maybe they’re two or three million now, or they’ll pay a million dollars for a Subway. Franchises are being sold everyday, and these things go for fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, a million dollars because they’re business opportunities.

When people buy into them, they believe that that franchise is going to support them for the rest of their life. So, I would consider something like that with high margin. I absolutely believe that audio can sell high ticket items like that.

Interview With Author Jan Pippins

Jan Pippins, author of Henry Darrow: Lightning in the Bottle, explains how she first got involved writing the biography of veteran actor, Henry Darrow, the first actor of Puerto Rican heritage to star in an American television series. In chronicling the obstacles and successes during the actor’s more than fifty years in show business, Pippins (who co-wrote the book with Darrow) combined personal interviews, internet archives, and the actor’s personal memorabilia collection.

Although Pippins has written professionally for many years, this is her first book. Throughout several careers, she has written legislation, a local newspaper column, short news articles for trade publications and “Where are they now?” fan articles. But when she met the ALMA and Emmy Award-winning actor on her first trip to Los Angeles, she knew he would make the perfect subject for a book.

“It’s a story of life, work, love and redemption,” Pippins says. “Henry Darrow’s story entertains, inspires, and introduces readers to a very human hero who succeeded despite very long odds.”

Insider Scoop on Mid-Century America Show Business

In particular, the book follows the ups and downs of show business in mid-century America from Darrow’s unique perspective. He provides the insider scoop on how public sentiment, government intervention, advertising projections and hard feelings joined forces to kill the landmark series The High Chaparral and other television westerns. He also shares his observations about the problems confronting Latinos and other minorities before, during, and after the Civil Rights struggles of 1960s and how some people like Darrow surmounted those obstacles. The benefits of stardom, however, often came at great personal cost, such as the alienation from his children.

How did Pippins choose this particular subject? “Actually the subject chose me,” she says. “Darrow’s life has all the components of a good novel: a protagonist with big dreams and even bigger talent overcomes humble beginnings, life-threatening illness, crippling anxiety and prejudice to become an international star. At the height of his fame, he put his own hard-won career on the line to open doors for others. Hollywood chews people up and spits them out, but Henry was a working actor for over fifty years. When he asked me to write his biography, how could I refuse?”

Researching and Writing the Biography

Darrow’s massive memorabilia collection helped the author find the right background materials and authenticate stories from various sources. “He’s a packrat,” she says. “We cleaned out one garage and two closets, making his wife, Lauren, very pleased. It was sweaty work, but worth it.”

Her additional research included reading books on the history of Hispanics in the entertainment industry, television and movie westerns, and American history covering pertinent time periods. She also credits internet newspaper and trade magazine archives with helping her establish the proper context for Darrow’s biography.

As enjoyable as the researching and writing was for Pippins, she did face challenges in telling the story of someone in the public eye. One particular challenge was in structuring a career that spans over such a long period. She decided to begin Henry Darrow: Lightning in the Bottle, with a scene of the actor at age seventy-five while he was rehearsing for a demanding role in a stage play of “My Fair Lady.”

Pippins describes the opening of her book: “His knees are bad, his back aches and his memory is failing. For the first time in his life, he’s unsure of himself as an actor. From there we flashback through Henry’s remarkable life and career in three sections – three acts as if in a play. At the end we circle back around to ‘My Fair Lady’ and what happened in that performance.”

The author also recognized the importance of telling someone’s life story with accuracy, attention to detail, and tender loving care. According to Pippins, “While writing the book, I was acutely aware that I had a significant responsibility. This kind and charming man, his wonderful wife, friends and family entrusted me with their stories. I owed my best work to everyone involved, including eventual readers.”

Book Details

Henry Darrow: Lightning in the Bottle. Authors: Jan Pippins and Henry Darrow. Publisher: BearManor Media, 2012. Pages: 392. http://www.henrydarrowbook.com. ISBN: 978-1593936884.