I have since been looking at some screenshots of the latest version of Pamela and I can see that things are slightly different to the version in the video, and although you may not have the tabbed navigation that I have, if you click on Call Recording on the left, the options should appear beneath it as sub-categories.

You can click on the links below to access these programs:

Skype

Pamela

(these are affiliate links)

He wrote: ‘I said; “The interviewer being hostile” Doesn’t even have to be aggressive (or satirical like Terry Wogan and David Ike, or Clive Anderson and the BeeGees). Disasters like Mark (Facebook) Zuckerberg being interviewed by that quack reporter women (Sa rah La cy) at the SXSW Keynote. It even made it to YouTube. And NEITHER of them came out particularly well. You can argue that a good interviewer will delve…’

Again, I will cover what to do if you find yourself being interviewed by a hostile/aggressive interviewer in another post. But I wanted to use this point to finish off the series of posts on you as the interviewer.

If you are interviewing someone for your niche or business you have to ask yourself what you would gain by being a hostile interviewer? Probably nothing except to scare off your interviewee and any other future subjects, as well as lose the opportunity to get some great material because your subject will clam up.

You are not Larry King or even Michael Parkinson. Both have developed a style that digs deeper in interviews, but then both interview subjects where it is essential to dig deeper in order to get to the crux of political issues or to find an angle with a well-known celebrity that others haven’t found to keep up their viewer ratings.

Nor are you a shock jock like Howard Stern whose interviews are designed to be irreverent and funny – more to glorify himself than those he is interviewing.

If you see yourself as a pretender to one of these crowns then you need to take broadcast and/or journalism training, hone your skills and get a career in this arena.

As an interviewer for podcasts or product creation you will produce better and more valuable interviews by putting your subject at ease and asking pertinent (not impertinent) questions.

As for what you can learn from the Sarah Lacey incident…From all accounts she actually does have a laid-back, relaxed style of interviewing (and is more used to print media than broadcast). Part of the problem was that Mark Zuckerberg is quite a difficult person to interview. But as you can see that when asked the right questions he can talk in detail.

Sarah wasn’t attuned to her topic, her interviewee or the audience. Rather than asking Mark Zuckerberg questions that his audience wanted to hear, she talked about personal stories, flirted, came out with odd interjections and often made statements. Mark Zuckerberg even suggested she ask more questions. The audience became restless and revolted using Twitter. Sarah would have saved herself this embarrassment by doing her research and asking the audience (or potential audience) what they wanted to know. As it was, things went a lot better when she opened up questions to the floor and played a role as moderator.

First, you have to understand that this is not a common occurrence, even among professionals. Your first interview does not have to be conducted in front of a huge audience or with a difficult interviewee. Just make it two people talking about a mutual topic of interest. Do your homework. Ask your newsletter or blog readers what they would most like to know. Ask open-ended questions during the interview to push the interviewee into answering in sentences. If things become stilted or difficult, suggest a change of question or an end to the interview. Anything that is pre-recorded can be edited to remove the difficult moments or points where things dry up.

Again, the important thing is to relax and enjoy what you are doing and your interviewee will relax too.

What are the dullest interviews to listen to? What really turns you off from an interview?

The worst interviews, in my opinion, are those where the interviewee just keeps answering yes and no. The interviewer never asks them an open question nor do they get the opportunity to elaborate on a yes or no answer.

This is usually due to one of three reasons:

• The interviewer simply doesn’t know any better
• The interviewer is lazy and hasn’t thought through the interview properly
• The interviewer thinks he/she knows the subject better than the person they are interviewing and requires only a back-up “yes” or “no” to boost their ego

Examples of closed questions, requiring yes or no answers:

• “You are an expert on horse care. Is that right?”
• “Good grooming is really important, isn’t it?”
• “You should use a variety of brushes and implements for grooming a horse properly, shouldn’t you?”

Now, similar questions but open-ended:

• “Can you tell me more about your experience in horse care and what qualified you for your position as head groom at Newmarket?”
• “Why is good grooming so important?”
• “What brushes and implements do you recommend for grooming a horse properly and why are they the important ones?”

Never give your interviewee the opportunity to give a one word answer. They will almost always take the easy way out if you do. As you can see from the open-ended questions above, it would be difficult (or impossible) to answer them in less than a few sentences.

Your role as an interviewer is not to show your own expertise, it is to prompt your guest to talk as much as possible on their topic. Your input should be minimal – guiding and punctuating the interview not dominating it.

Again, let’s look at this from the interviewer’s point of view.

If you have done your research and prepared your questions/flow of the interview (as described in tip #2 and tip #3) you shouldn’t have any problems with running out of things to ask. If you do, you have probably come to the end of the interview!

Sometimes, though, nerves do make you forget what you wanted to say next which is why it is always useful to have notes in front of you, as well as a pen to jot extra ideas down while you are listening to the interviewee’s replies.

If you are really worried about drying up, have a “rescue” question handy. This is the question you ask when your mind has gone blank. For example, when I was interviewing pop groups or artists (particularly those I didn’t know a lot about because they were very new on the scene) I used to ask very generic questions such as “what’s next for you?” or “where do you go from here?”

Some potential generic back-up questions are:

“What is the biggest misconception others have about [insert niche/business etc]?”

“What question do you get asked the most about [insert niche/business]?”

“If you could offer one piece of advice about this [insert niche/business], what would it be?”

Once you have some experience of interviewing people you will become more adept at handling those moments, but in the meantime don’t panic. As long as the interview is recorded you can always edit out any pregnant pauses, false starts etc. And the interviewee will not think any less of you for it – they will probably have a few stutters and stammers of their own.

Remember, you are not going to be struck down if you make a mistake. Civilisation as we know it will not end because you paused while trying to think of your next question.

Just relax and enjoy the interview.

Let’s address them one by one:

1. My voice sounds awful

We all cringe when we hear our own voices, but you have to realise that the way you hear your voice is different to the way others hear it. That’s the reason we are usually shocked when we hear a recording of our voice because it isn’t the way you hear it when you speak.

I just took a phone call from a radio producer and I think my voice is sounding dreadful today. I’m having a few throat problems and I joked about it. He said, “Really? I thought you were sounding quite sexy.”

We are all critical of how we sound but most people have perfectly pleasant voices. If you are aware that your voice is heavily accented then you might want to practice slowing down your speech and making yourself clearer (i.e. no mumbling or slang terms) but the listener’s ear adapts quickly to an accent and will tune-in to what you are saying in a matter of minutes.

Other voices that can be hard on the ear are high-pitched, whiney and/or nasally voices (think of Janice from the Friends’ series). Again, if you truly feel you fit into this category (you probably don’t and are being too hard on yourself) then you can work on your voice to make it more acceptable to the listener.

You need to bear in mind that when you are speaking in an interview or on a podcast people are less concerned with what you sound like than they are with what you have to say (and if you are the interviewer your speech contribution should be significantly less than the interviewee). I recently listened to an interview featuring a woman with a very whiney voice and wondered whether I would be able to listen for long (as you can imagine, I can be ultra-critical on voices at times) but the subject was so fascinating and valuable that I soon realised I had been listening for an hour and the voice had only bothered me for the first few minutes.

Don’t let the sound of your voice put you off creating your own audio products. The more you record your voice the easier it will become. You will probably always remain critical of the way you sound, but you can channel that criticism into something positive in order to improve over time.

I pretty much covered this in Tip #5. Try to let the interview move along naturally. If the interviewee covers a topic you were going to ask about later, let them follow that line of thought and ask any related questions. If new and better questions arise out of what is being said then ask them. Only return to your pre-planned interview notes if things go completely off topic.

Tip #7 – Relax!

I’ve said it already but it is worth saying again. Relax! Your interview will be so much better for it. And you’ll enjoy it more too.

Tip #8 – Say Thank You

Remember always to thank your guest at the end of the interview, but also follow-up with a thank you card/note of thanks. It’s just good manners and good karma. Most interviewees also appreciate a copy of the interview for their records. If you are working in a niche then bad news will travel fast within the community. On the other hand, a good experience could furnish you with more willing interviewees or a chance for a follow-up interview later on.

If you have any questions about interviewing that have arisen from my Interviewing Tips posts, please post them in the comments section below.

It’s easy to be worrying so much about everything running smoothly and what you are going to say next that you completely forget to involve yourself in the interview and pay attention to what is being said. If you are not connected with the interview and listening to what is being said you run the risk of; annoying your interviewee by making it appear you are not interested in what is being said, losing your audience because they can hear you are not engaged in the subject matter, and missing the opportunities that arise to make this a GREAT interview.

Pre-planning and the right questions alone do not make a great interview. By giving your full attention to what is being said you will be able to:

• ask the right questions at the right time, so the interview flows better
• relax and encourage the interviewee by making it clear you are fascinated by what they say
• engage your listeners through your own interest and enthusiasm for the subject (if an interviewer is drawn into an interview their listeners will be too)
• discover areas of interest and topics you may not have considered in the planning stages that will give added value to the interview and take it to a whole new level.

I listen to a lot of marketing interviews and so often it can be a stray comment that leads to a question the interviewer probably hadn’t even considered prior to the interview, which then results in a huge nugget of wisdom neither participant had expected to cover.

There are a number of ways to do this:

• Brief them on the general outline of the interview. If they ask for questions beforehand, supply them with your questions or your plan for the flow of the interview but explain that these are not rigid. An interview based on set questions alone can sound very dull and boring, especially if you have both been “practising” ahead of the event.
• Chat with them a little before you start recording. Factor-in a little “getting to know you” time.
• Make sure they are comfortable with the equipment. Explain what you are doing and how you are recording and take some test audio for levels etc.

All these will also help you feel at ease too. Having two relaxed people talking together will make for a more natural interview.

Of course, there are some people who are experienced at being interviewed and you will need to judge how much time to give them beforehand – you don’t want to waste their time if they are ready to launch straight into it.

Another lesson from my radio days: I discovered very quickly that if I was uptight and nervous about an interview it usually made my guests very nervous too. I remember once being stuck in traffic on my way to the radio station and arriving with barely 5 minutes to go until the start of the show (which I was covering for the regular presenter).

One of the first items in the show was a sponsored slot with local chefs coming in, sharing their favourite recipes, and actually cooking in the studio. I raced in all harassed and tried to grab everything I needed while greeting the chef and trying to explain the format. I knew that in my stressed state I was making it worse for him and was running the risk of creating havoc for the interview – imagine Moules Marinere being cooked live on-air by a chef who is all flustered because I am. But I just couldn’t calm down. I was usually well-prepared for my shows and always arrived at least an hour ahead to ensure things went smoothly.

This was one of those occasions when everything could have gone wrong, but because the chef was experienced at interviews and cooking under pressure he breezed through it and helped me relax as well.

I was so aware of how unprofessional I had been and how lucky I was to have him as my guest that day – raising the standards of the show on my behalf – that I made a huge apology to him later.

You may not have someone so experienced so you will need to relax or at least create an aura of relaxation, even if you are churning with nerves inside.

This could take the form of a flowchart. Or it could be a list of questions/topics you definitely want to cover.

Take this example of a fictional interview topic of Working on a Cruise Ship (off the top of my head):

Introduction  »  Expert gives their background  »  jobs that are available  »  where to find job listings  »  skills and qualifications  »  interview tips  »  Visas and travel documents  »  what to expect onboard  »  employment rights  »  what if things go wrong  »  Pros and Cons  »  Thanks and Final Thoughts

This will give you a better overall view of the interview and will help you to relax knowing that you are prepared and have a point of reference should things dry-up or go too far off at a tangent.

Tip #2: Know Your Topic and Interviewee

No, you don’t have to take them down to the pub and grill them for a life history before the interview (although, maybe not a bad idea), but as far as possible make sure you have a good background of the interviewee and the subject matter.

If this is not a topic you know much about then do some simple online research. Find the top 10-20 sites online for the subject and make notes as you learn interesting facts. Visit forums and message boards and see what people are talking about within the topic and what questions they are asking. This doesn’t have to be a long process, but the more you know about the subject and the language of the audience to whom the interview is targeted, the easier the interview will be.

If you don’t know your interviewee very well, ask them for a short bio. This is just a few paragraphs of information on them and why they are particularly suited to talk to you on this topic. Depending on the nature of the interview, you may want to ask them if there is anything specific they would like to cover in the interview, any new developments etc.

It’s hard to be exact about what to ask the interviewee prior to the interview because things will change depending on the purpose of the interview. For example, if you are creating a niche product you will probably have a very good idea of what your market wants to know about and the questions you want to ask. But, if someone has requested you record an interview with them for their benefit then they will have a better idea of what they want the interview to cover. However, in both of these cases it is good to be flexible because you or your interviewee may come up with a question or area of interest that will elevate the interview beyond the normal or average.