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The More You Give, The More You Get: How To Get Interviews With Experts In Your Niche

May 13th, 2008 by Mike W. Read more about Reviews, Using Audio

We all know what karma is. What goes around comes around… it’s the law of the universe. Simply put, the more you give, the more you get… or as Robert Cialdini puts it in the science of “Influence”, it’s the rule of reciprocity.

Now, we’ve all heard of reciprocity with our customers. Give them bonuses, surprise them, and as we’ve riffed on, basically delight the customer to get them to love you.

Lets backtrack a little bit. Two years ago we wanted to go into a new niche market. To test the market waters, we setup a landing page and saw a really great sign up rate. So we started to look for partners to help create a product.

And we hit a wall.

Experts were just not responding to our emails or calls. It was difficult to get their attention, much less try to start a partnership with them. So we put the project on the back burner for a long time.

And then one fine day, I came across this product “The Secret Six and The Power of Intimate Interviews - Advanced Edition” by Shaune Clarke. If you haven’t already heard of it, the course teaches you how not just to do an interview as a boring Q&A session — it teaches you how to do an intimate interview.

But it wasn’t just the techniques of doing an intimate interview that really caught my attention. It was this one line on page 17 that rang the proverbial bell:

“As An Interviewer, You Are In A Rare Position To Access Experts”

That insight blew me away. I realized then what we had been missing… we needed to delight our potential business partners too. So I put aside the time to study the course. Okay, I’ll admit… it did seem a bit dreary at first, listening to 12 hours of audio… but let me tell you it was well worth it in the end.

The guide walks you through everything from the power of listening (it’s surprising how often we forget to listen!) to the six different types of questions (and when to use each type) to drawing out best responses from interviewees. Everything is broken down into golden nugget techniques for easy consumption.

What is especially helpful is that every lesson plan links to real life interviews done by Shaune himself (the 12 long hours of audio I was talking about), making it easy to see the practical application of the strategies.

We began implementing the new knowledge immediately.

We sent out emails to experts offering to interview them. We offered to introduce them and their products to our market - for free. All we want is an interview and they can tell everyone on our list in their own words about themselves and their product.

The result?

In one week, the top five leading experts of that niche market replied back with their interest. (not too shabby)

We’ve now used interviews to approach experts across all our projects, and it’s never been easier. By offering just one interview, we get in return:

* access to experts
* credibility
* back end products
* bonus giveaways
* free article content for our blogs and newsletter (where we also get to test the market’s response)
* potential JV partners

…and really, the list goes on.

The more you give, the more you get indeed. That’s the power of karma.

You can check out Shaune’s offer here (recommended).

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About the Author

Mike W. Mike is an internet marketer at MindValley responsible for running marketing tests, designing product launches, and leading an eCommerce project.

Check out other posts by Mike W.

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2 Responses to “The More You Give, The More You Get: How To Get Interviews With Experts In Your Niche”

  1. Jim Stodghill

    Dear Mindvalley Labs: Thank you for all of the valuable insight. I cannot wait to share them with all of my business partners. Rest assured I will be interviewing the leaders in the Travel industry on how to save money vacationing at beautiful resorts around the globe. I know that my clients will also appreciate hearing from the experts on how to build their internet businesses utilizing the advanced marketing techniques that Mindvalley Labs offers.

  2. Chris Brisson

    That IS the secret. I call it “Infiltration Secrets.”

    That’s a technique that I’ve used to reach many “untouchable” experts. It really is very simple to reach these people. The question you need to ask and that they are in tune to is…

    WIIFM - What’s in it for me!

    This is also a great way to get joint venture partners. Interview them first, give it to your subscribers, the “crowd” loved it, why don’t we create a product together.

    Tada!

    I can thank Vishen for that one :)

    Chris

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