March 2008

How I Make My Living Off Interviews Using
A $49 Digital Voice Recorder From Radio Shack Electronics

Michael E. : Welcome everybody. My name is Michael Elahart. I'm here with Michael Senoff from Hardtofindseminars.com. I want to thank you, Michael, for joining us today on the call.

Michael S. : Thanks, Michael, for having me.

Michael E. : What I would like to do and the reason I tracked down Michael Senoff was I heard of him a few years ago and kind of stumbled upon his website and was fortunate enough to do some work for him, and Michael has been responsible through his Hardtofindseminars.com site for a large portion of my marketing education. You go into this website and there are dozens upon dozens of interviews and audio recordings of conferences and marketing seminars. It seems to be endless, and it covers the gamut. And when I stumbled upon this sight, I was just taken aback. Blown away is a better word for it, and it gave me what I like to call my marketing goggles. My marketing glasses. It opened up my mind to look at things in a new way because I hadn't heard of Jay Abraham or some of these master marketers from the 70s and 80s and 90s. So Michael has been responsible for a major portion of mine and what appears to be thousands of people's education.

So, first of all, thanks for joining us today, Michael, and we're going to talk to you about your interviewing skills because you have done so many interviews, and you have covered so many different topics and talked to so many people from different types of businesses that you've established a very unique, cutting edge style of interviewing, and it's such that when you listen to these calls, they're so well prepared and so well edited that you're with it from the beginning to the end. You don't hear a lost of mistakes. You don't hear a lot of diversions. It really cuts to the chase, and it's so much so that I would aspire to model my approach similar to Michael's. So I feel very fortunate to bring Michael to my subscribers and the people in the program and, again, I want to say welcome, Michael.

Michael S. : Thanks for having me. I appreciate it and look forward to hopefully sharing a few ideas with your students.

Michael E. : I'm sure if it's just a portion of what we hear on-line, then everybody will be filled to brim with new concepts and ideas. So can we jump right in?

Michael S. : Yeah, let's do it.

Michael E. : Okay. So, basically, when I stumbled upon your site, I was amazed by this amassed collection of these interviews, and it's come a long way. I think I came across it maybe five years ago. When exactly did you get started with this and tell me how it came about.

Michael S. : Michael, I first published the site in January of 2002. Hardtofindseminars.com, that URL, had nothing to do with the audio interviews on my site. It's almost a fluke that doing these interviews, which are kind of like mini seminars, kind of fit the name. Originally I heard about the eBay stock back then in 2001 and 2002 going through the roof, and I had learned about eBay. I had a pen manufacturing business. I was living down in Pacific Beach in a one-bedroom apartment, and I was doing cold calling selling a pen, which was a red eye remover pen that removes red eye from photographs. It was a good little business, making me money, supporting me, and I was living the single lifestyle in Pacific Beach in San Diego, California which I loved, but I wanted something more.

I had learned about a marketing genius named Jay Abraham, and I remember calling Abraham Publishing and wanting some of his material. I remember Carl Turner on the phone the very first time I talked to him. He quoted me $275 for a set of his Jay Abraham optimization videos. I'm like, "$275"? I mean, this is ridiculous. There was no way I was going to pay $275 for some videos. So I learned about eBay, and I figured, well, how can I get a hold of some of this Jay Abraham stuff without me having to pay for it.

I was doing some networking on-line, and I met a guy who had gone to one of Jay Abraham's seminars, and I had already learned that Jay Abraham charged $15,000 to go through this seminar which was a seminar that trained people on how to do marketing consulting.

To make a long story short I was able to find someone in San Diego, who paid to go to the seminar, and I approached him, and I said, "By any chance do you have your old Jay Abraham tapes from the seminar?" And sure enough they did, and I bought the entire set of tapes.

Now, when Jay Abraham would put someone through his seminar, he had to provide value. So they came home with the audio tapes, with printed transcripts, with 12 different products from his past. Information products that he had compiled into a package, and I purchased this all for $50, and I was just in heaven. At that time I wanted to learn how to sell stuff on eBay. I mean what a dream. To be able to sell stuff on eBay, make money, sit at home, and go to the beach. That's what I wanted to do, and I started a business buying and selling preowned Jay Abraham seminars. It started with that one, but it ended up into a hundred. I had the entire list of 900 people who went to his $20,000 seminar, and I would telemarket them looking for people who had all of the tapes who were willing to sell them to me very inexpensively, and I would piece them apart and start selling them up on eBay. That's where the name Hardtofindseminars came from.

Michael E.: Well, that certainly takes some -- to do that. It's a good lesson for everybody listening that a lot of times when you set out to do something, there's a good possibility that you may not get the results you want, but there's a good possibility in starting the journey that you're going to find another road, another path, which you have, which as you mentioned, this came out of nowhere, and you got the result by testing something and, boom, you launched a business based on your findings. Now, had you failed to do this and you thought about it and you kind of mulled it over and will it work and what do I do, you may have never taken any action.

Michael S.: To tell you that I wasn't nervous, I would be lying. I was pretty nervous. Now years later I'm married with two children. I've got a home now. Would I start that at my point in life today? I don't know. Because I've got more to lose. Back then single, in a one-bedroom apartment, down in Pacific Beach, I didn't really have anything to lose, you know. So I was able to take that risk. I was nervous, but I prevailed and I just went through the fear. I knew in my heart I wasn't doing anything wrong. He may not have liked it because it was a form of competition, but if you really looked at it from a marketing stand point, it was a pretty good deal for him. For years and years I've been promoting his stuff and introducing him to people that because of his price points, you could never get introduced to.

Michael E.: Right.

Michael S.: If any one of those people made money using his techniques, they may contact him directly for a high-end seminar. So he's made his money back because of me.

Michael E.: Exactly. There's a way of doing business on-line today, and that's because information is so easy to get. It's just proliferated through the internet. Now, a method of reaching people is providing free information. Get them the free information so you educate them and you build a trust. Now that is a way of doing business. That's your low barrier of entry to get them into your sphere. Because you are competing with so many people.

So what you have done for him as you mentioned is you've really introduced him to many people such as myself who ended up later buying other programs and buying things through people that he's been affiliated to, and you probably increased his awareness. You can't put a number on it, but I'm sure it's helped more than it's hurt him by any stretch. Would you agree with that?

Michael S.: I would. I don't want to lose track of the whole reason I started doing interviews -- and I'm going to segue into it right now. The reason I started doing interviews on the site and putting more and more audio content is to have a reason to get someone to visit the site, to get them to know that I'm the guy who buys and sells preowned Jay Abraham seminars and other seminars so I could have a chance to sell preowned marketing seminars.

I figured if I do information on marketing and advertising and copyrighting -- the same type of stuff that was taught in the Abraham seminars -- I would attract those types of people. So the whole reason was to bring traffic to my site in order to sell the preowned Jay Abraham stuff. The problem was I was running out of stuff. That list was only 900 people, and I didn't have any more access to preowned stuff. So I knew that I had to start developing and creating my own information products because I'm bringing the people to the site. They like what they're hearing, but I don't have an unlimited supply of preowned Jay Abraham stuff. I couldn't buy the stuff from him and resell it. There weren’t enough margins. So I had to take a different direction towards my business because of the limited supply and the lack of control over the product I had. I had to gain control on intellectual property that I created. That's what these interviews have allowed me to do. To create my own information products, which we'll talk about shortly, where I am not reliant on a limited supply with something I don't have control over.

Michael E.: Well, touching on that just a little bit and still covering a little bit of your background, which I'm curious and many people are curious to know about. We kind of got an idea of how you got started, and what your model was at that time and kind of going with the flow and seeing what the market beared and since you had discovered there's a profit margin in that. Knowing what you know now -- you probably would have done certain things differently -- but continue on with that thought process of the future. What is your business model looking like for the future? What are you thinking about right now for your business as it is today with your interviews and your consulting? What is your model today in the near future?

Michael S.: Okay. My model for the future, as it should be I think for your coaches and your speakers and your authors and your product developers, is the currency of today -- the most valuable currency of today is your time. My model continues to be and my strategy is always aimed at this focus is to buy my time back. And the way I have been able to do this over the years is to automate my sales process by using web audio, i.e. interviews. So I can spend time with my friends, with my family, and do the things that I want to do or not have to do anything if I choose.

Michael E.: Now, in coming up with this new model of doing things, do you think that there was a way that you could have come across this faster? Is there something that you would have done had you sat down and tried to create a map for yourself? I don't know if you have done preplanning or future planning, but are there any mistakes that you have made along the way that you could pass on for people that are getting started and doing interviews before we get into the interviewing techniques but just from a business perspective and your personal business experience. Are there some things that you could have done differently?

Michael S.: I guess looking back on it, it's a learning process like anything. I would tell any of your students: You're going to screw up, and you've got to be willing to fail. If you're not willing to fail, you're never going to get started. So I would say I don't regret anything because you learn from your mistakes and those are your best teachers. So probably say, no, but maybe taking more time and doing it right from the first time would have saved me a little bit of time and a little bit of money, but I didn't really know where it was going. It just kind of evolved.

Michael E.: Well, that kind of leads to some nuts and bolts of interviewing. Because I'm sure after all of these years of doing interviews -- I don't know if you have a number on it -- I would be curious to know if you know how many you have.

Michael S.: I have on the site currently about a 170 hours of audio content that's free. There's probably another 60 to 90 hours of audio that has been created and developed exclusively for information products that I sell.

Michael E.: Well, let's get into this breaking down of how you actually prepare for an interview. Because you mentioned that you cringe when you hear the first interview. I think a lot of us probably don't hear what you hear. I know the people that are usually perfectionist in creating things -- I'm like that myself -- we cringe when we put our first products out there, or we're putting things together. As you mentioned get it out there, because the next one will always be better than the first one, and you have to have the experience.

I particularly like the style that you put in. You start an interview with telling the listener what they're going to hear. What the gem of that interview is in advance so that you can listen to them and then you take a piece of the interview as an intro with a nice little clip of music to kind of bring up the level of anticipation and excitement.

So you're kind of preparing them for an interview, but on top of that you have a production quality that is professional in the sense that you have taken out all of the errors in communication. You have taken out the "ums" and the "ahs," the coughing and the background noise. So it really has a nice pace. And it actually would be much shorter than it would be if you left all of that information in. And you still see a lot of interviews out there -- I even listen to podcasts. I'm a big audio buff. I listen to these things all of the time, and I'm amazed at the production quality. But before we talk about production quality, let's talk about briefly how you prepare for an interview now, if you actually do the preparation and what is your philosophy now in putting an interview together.

Michael S.: Well, there's different types of interviews, and there's different reasons why I would want to do an interview with someone. But there are different kinds of interviews. Some of the interviews that I do will be designed maybe with a big name, a big well-known name marketing expert, which is called marquee value.

So, Michael, you can say to your listeners in your promotions, "I'll be interviewing Michael Senoff with Hardtofindseminars.com." And there maybe a lot of people who want to hear that interview and the value for you is you've got a bigger name marketing expert that you have interviewed. So it's like a feather in your cap. That gives you more credibility. So you'll do that interview with me, but there will be nothing really in it for you except providing good content. Now, I'll do that.

Like, for instance, I had the opportunity to interview Tom Hopkins. He's one of the best known names in sales training, and I didn't ask for anything from him. We did the interview. I tried to pull out as much value as I could. I wasn't going to make anything off of any of his seminars that he was promoting. He had been promoting his yearly Phoenix sales training, which I had no problem plugging and mentioning to the listeners, but the reason I wanted to do that interview with him is I wanted that name. Now I can say Hardtofindseminars.com interviews Tom Hopkins.

So there are a lot of students out there who love Tom Hopkins. He's sold millions of books. His keyword is all over the Internet, and that would bring traffic to my site. There other interviews that I'll do with experts when I'm creating different products. So they may not be a big name. People may not have any idea who they are, but I'm doing that interview with this expert because I'm going to be including that interview in with a series of other interviews on related topics for my product creation. So I don't care about the big name, but I care about having content for a product that I'll be selling. There are other interviews where I'll do interviews with people who offer products and services to sell.

So I'll establish these interviews more in a financial strategy where I'm doing the interview with them. At the end of the interview we will introduce them to their product or service that they're selling, and I will have prenegotiated a deal with them. If I refer anyone over to their product or their website, I will earn a commission. This can be done through an affiliate program or if they have an alternative service. It could be a high end service that sells for thousands of dollars or an e-book that sells for $90.

I have a system in which you can control the flow of the lead. So when someone listens to an interview on my website if they like that expert, they like what they hear, we've built trust and rapport with the listener, and they want more information on this subject, there will be phone number that they can call to get more information with my expert. That's a phone number that I control, and that I know that I've generated that lead, and I can track it. These are three different reasons why one would want to do an interview: Marquee value, joint venture relationships with a financial benefit at the end, and product creation. There are others, but these are my main three.
Michael E.: So is there a recommendation that you can make in terms of: if I'm financial planner, if I'm a life coach, or a business coach? Would you recommend them making a list perhaps of the influential people in my niche, in my segment and then going after those people, collecting the interviews based on particular topics that would benefit the people that are in my practice? You know, you're doing two things. You're providing information. You're also positioning yourself, getting yourself increased credibility by associating yourself with those people, and so having recommendations as to where to get started in a interviewing campaign if you were to say –

Michael S.: Every one of your students is going to be in a different situation. So you may have coaches who you're working with. You may have speakers. You may have authors. Let's take for example that you have authors that maybe they've authored a book for parents who have kids in grade school on how to get better grades for an example. You may have coaches that coach the same thing, or you may have coaches that coach on how to have a better relationship, or you may have speakers that speak on how to plan for your retirement. So those are three examples.

Everyone is promoting and selling something within a particular niche. So they need to ask themselves: How can I bring value to my potential prospects? What value service can I give to them? What information can I get for them that would make them be appreciative of me?

So, for instance, maybe the author who writes the books on how to get better grades for grade school students, other than just having her book she's got her book and this is her book and this is what she's selling on Amazon. What can she do? She can find some of the best educators around the country who have years and years of experience working with grade school children and parents and showing them how to get better grades.

How can she find those experts? She can go to Google. She can go to Amazon and find authors who have written other books in her niche, and she can simply invite them and say, "You know, I have a book that teaches parents how to get their students better grades, and I've got a website, and I wanted to invite you to do an interview for my website and certainly we can promote your book and let the parents of my students know about you." And you just invite them to interview. So they say, yes, because people love talking about themselves, and they want to share their expertise, and this has probably been a part of their life for a long time, and you just start doing interviews on subjects that you're already teaching about, and you offer it to your prospects. You offer it on your website.

You are offering value on the subject that you're positioned as an expert. For the coaches who are doing coaching sessions with their students on how to have better relationships. They can do the same thing. Doing an audio interview is simple. It's not like you're sitting there writing a book. Writing is painful. But coming up with a list of questions and asking an expert about their expertise and how they have helped other couples improve their relationships, it's easy. All you do is get on the phone -- and we'll talk about the mechanics of that shortly on exactly how to do that. But it's so easy. People love talking about themselves. Most people are never asked in detail about their profession. It's a pleasure for an expert to share his knowledge and his expertise that he's been doing all these years. I see in other recordings their wife or husband never evens asks them about what they're doing. They're more than happy to share freely what they know because it's their passion. All you've got to do is ask. And let's go back to this example. Michael, how is it that we're doing this interview right now?

Michael E.: I think we just exchanged E-mails. Just checking in to see how we were doing and then I thought, wow, let's get an interview together.

Michael S.: And you simply asked me, and I said, yes, I would be glad to. It's not any more complicated than that. Any one of your students all he has to do is ask. Is he going to get a no? Is she going to get a no? Absolutely she's going to get a no. But keep asking and you'll get yeses. I mean, maybe for every 15 or 20 people I ask for an interview would you believe it that probably 14 of them say no. Because not everyone is going to say yes. But you're not interested in the nos. You're only interested in the yeses. It doesn't take much to ask. It can be a simple E-mail or a letter. So you're only interested in the yeses, but there are many, many experts doing the same thing you're doing that have more knowledge than you have. Not that it's any better. But you can add value for your customers and your prospects by giving them more of what they want, and audio interviews are a very simple, easy, low cost way of doing that, and that's only part of it just by adding value.

Michael E.: There's another thing that I have noticed in the last couple of years. That is a great ice breaker as well through a certain circle that you're trying to get in. If you would like to interview somebody that perhaps wanted to be exposed to more people that are in that market or readers of that publication, you can do an interview with that person. And if the interview does well for the person you're interviewing on your site and your promotion, that's going to grease the skids or pave the way for another potential joint venture at that point. It's a steppingstone.

Michael S.: It is absolutely a steppingstone. It's just good marketing. When you look at my site, you see all the names of the people I've interviewed. The average person will look at all of those names and think: Oh, Michael Senoff, man, he's buddies with Tom Hopkins and this guy and that guy. But you've got to think you're looking at years of interviews all in one place, but I only interviewed that guy for an hour or an hour and a half. You know, many times I never talk to him again. Do I have the opportunity to go back to him and ask for another interview? Absolutely. Doing that interview gives me a license to contact them. I do have some rapport. I interview them. We have something in common. They shared stuff with my listeners. So it does give me a license and a reason to contact them. But doing that first interview offers a lot of benefits for potential business from that person in the future.

Michael E.: Well, let's get into a little bit of the mechanics before we get into production of actually how it's produced. There are going to be some people just like you were in the beginning. A little maybe apprehensive or not sure of yourself. Maybe they don't have as much of a take charge attitude and kind of fearless attitude. What would you say to somebody that was nervous about doing the interview? How do you kind of break through some of these blocks of actually getting on the phone, getting in front of that person. Maybe you can also share with our listeners how you put together a list of questions. Do you have any resources? So there are two questions. How do we break through that fear of the nervousness, and how do we prepare questions for interviewing?

Michael S.: Well, the nervousness is only natural. And I have to tell you the very first teleseminar I did one with a guy named Vanish Patel. He says, "Michael, let's do a teleseminar for my customers." I was like, "Vanish, I just don't want to do it." The reason I was nervous it was live. Now, all of my stuff isn't live. So if you look at my website, none of my interviews are live interviews. There may be one or two when I've be interviewed, but I have complete control over the interview process. So people's number one fear is public speaking in front of people. But we're not speaking in front of a group of people. It's just one-on-one, two people having a conversation. Now, yes, you're going to be nervous on your first couple of interviews, and there is no way around it. But understand that it's just you talking about what someone loves.

There's nothing to be really nervous about, and you're just going to have to work through that fear. There's just no way around it. But there are ways that you can eliminate that fear. Even ask yourself, what am I nervous about? So if you really break it down, you may be nervous about, well, I don't know what to ask that person. Well, I'm going to show you how to solve that problem right now. Let's go back to the example of the coaches who coach couples in how to have a better relationship.

Let's say you find an expert who has been coaching couples on improving their relationship for 20 years, and you don't know what to ask them. Well, do you think you're the first person who's looked for information on this? Go to Amazon.com, type in "couples therapy" or "better relationships" and look for the books on Amazon.com that have to do with this subject. Now, each one of those books had to be thought out, compiled. There had to be a table of contents. There had to be an index put together. With Amazon.com they allow you to look inside of the books.

So you can look at how that entire book is laid out. You can look at there table of contents, and you can gain your ideas and create your questions just through the table of contents. Because if you're looking at a book on improving relationships, you've got the author who has taken time to put that book together, and you have an outline for your entire interview right there. So if you see the first chapter of the book has to do with the improving communication and it's broken down into five different sections on when to talk, how to talk, where to talk, how to talk openly, you can create questions from that outline.

You can say, "Mr. Expert, can we talk about some ideas on how couples can improve their communication?" And then because they're the expert, they're going to have lots of thoughts on it. They're going to talk about different stories, maybe examples of couples that they have counseled that would relate specifically on how they improved their communication. Then you see in the Amazon book that the next section is "Where is it best to talk and open communication." So you can say, "Mr. Expert, can you tell me where is it best to have intimate talks with your partner?" And then you just create the entire outline. You borrow it. Because someone has already done it before. Now, you can look at 5 to 10 books on improving relationships, write down all the outlines and pick and choose the topics that you are most interested in as well.

Once you have your master list -- let's say you wanted to interview 10 different other experts, you can just use the same list of questions and ask them all the same questions. So what's there to be nervous about? You've invited them to do the interview. They said yes. You set a time. You have every question in front of you. You're just asking the questions. You're not on the spot. They're the person on the spot. So there's really little to be nervous about.

Michael E.: That's a huge resource. And I imagine that on top of that if you are looking at a number of books, and you're compiling the table of contents from each book, you can also look at which books are selling really well. So you know that those are very hot topics at the time, or those books the way they were put together, were put together very well and the public responded well to them. You can also see not only which questions to ask but what are those hot questions based on the sales of the book. That's a great resource, and that's without having to go down to the library and finding all of those books and combing through the table of contents or photocopy them, or you can you just go click on-line and basically see the inside cover in seconds. That's great.

Michael S.: It's all right there. You do bring up something very important. You need to have a little bit of a strategy before you put these interviews together. Because remember who are we servicing? It always comes back to your customer. We're doing this for your customer. We're doing it to make their life better, more enriched. We want to bring them more valuable information. You're saving them time because they probably have all of these questions in their mind, but you're doing it for them. That's the real value, and you're giving it to them in a format, an audio interview which people are accustomed to learning from.

I mean, look at Oprah. Look at some of the most well-known celebrities of our day. They are people who interview people. Barbara Walters, Oprah, Phil Donahue, Geraldo. All of the big news anchors. Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Larry King. So you want to find out what is it your customers want to know. If you're providing the real information that they want to know about, you're even providing them more value, and they're going to respect you and like you even more. And when it's time to offer your coaching services or you’re speaking services or another book, you have already got credibility because you've demonstrated it through this very valuable service by providing them great content ahead of time.

Now, Amazon.com is just one way to find out interview questions that you want to pull out of your interview subjects, but certainly search on Google. Go to Google news. Find what the newspapers are writing about. Go to Reader's Digest.com. See what's on the cover pages. Look for articles and magazines. It's all been talked about before.

Anyone who writes a feature article on better relationships in Reader's Digest, you better believe they spent months and months researching this. Leverage off of that time and those resources and use the ideas that they talk about in their article and use these for questions that you're asking your experts so you don't have to do all of the hard work. It's all been done before, and you just ask the questions to your expert. Let them do the hard work.

Michael E.: Is there a particular interview in your vast collection now over the years that you've kind of turned back to as -- or look on as, "That was my best interview" or "That was the turning point" or "That was a real gem." Is there something that comes to mind?

Michael S.: I like the ones of the stuff that I'm interested in. And that also goes back to your students. Do they love coaching? Do they love doing counseling on relationships? Do they love helping parents increase their grade -- schoolchildren's grades? You've got to go back to what are you doing. Do you love what you're doing, or is it boring? Do you hate it? If you hate it and it's boring, I would say do interviews on something you're really passionate about. Because I'm still passionate about marketing and advertising. So when I'm asking these questions in the interviews, I'm really doing them for myself. I want to know for myself.

But there are other people who are passionate as well, and they probably have the same questions I have. I'm just providing the service because I'm asking them and recording them and letting them listen in as a voyeur. There is one interview it was an interview on negotiation with a guy named Jim Camp. If you go to my site Hardtofindseminars.com, all the links on the front in the middle row there's a link that's called "Negotiating for Beginners." And it has a very in depth interview. It's probably one of the most listened to interviews on my website. I remember listening to that interview after I did it. I listened to it four or five times. When I'm doing the interviews, I'm really paying attention to the mechanics of the interview. I'm trying to think hard about how I can provide value to your listeners, but I like to relisten to the interviews just for my own benefit as anyone who comes to my site does. That negotiating one is good.

Michael E.: That being said do you have interviews lined up in advance like a list of people that you're trying to contact, or do you run it in a short term, or do you have -- kind of have a long term vision on who you would like to interview over the course of year?

Michael S.: I do it in the short term. It doesn't take long. If I wanted to spend the next two or three hours lining up interviews on any particular subject, I can do it very easily by using the search engines of Google. Let's say I wanted to interview another negotiating expert. I would go to Google, and I would type in "negotiating expert." I would find other experts on the negotiating on Google. I would look on Amazon. I would look on Barnes & Noble and then I would find their website addresses, their E-mails, and I would E-mail them a letter. And I would explain who I am. What I do. I have a letter that I send out -- an E-mail letter that invites them to an interview and gives them a reason why, and it wouldn't take long to lineup another one on negotiation.

Michael E.: E-mail is your number one method of getting in touch, or do you sometimes pick up the phone as well?

Michael S.: E-mail is my number one. The phone may be more effective. E-mail is easier. I have been using E-mail in the past.

Michael E.: And it's working for you?

Michael S.: It works for me, yes, E-mail to get the agreement. Then after they say, yes, you'll make contact by phone. Maybe once even before the interview where you can introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what we're going to do. Then you set a time and then can you do the interview.

Michael E.: Okay. All right. Just a couple of things on production because we talk about production in our workshop a lot, and the quality of production. And we strongly feel that the quality of the production in this website and creation and design in the copy in the audio is a different maker because there's so much run of the mill copy, design, and production value out there. Your edge could be the content, but it can also be the presentation.

Major corporations spend millions of dollars on positioning and presentation because they know if you see the two together -- and many things being equal -- you're going to pick the one that establishes trust and looks professional. And the higher the perceived value, the greater trust you're going to have. That's something we talk a lot about in the workshop. And what I want to bring up as I mentioned in the beginning is that your audio, albeit is over the telephone, so the quality is a little bit lower, people know what they're getting when they hear it, but the quality of the editing is really nice. It's really nicely done. I want to ask you first, Michael, why do you take so much time to actually edit the audio? And maybe you can explain for our listeners how much time you actually do take to edit one piece?

Michael S.: Well, let me go back to what I said earlier. Today's currency is time. And you've got to look back to that listener, that person on the other end of your website downloading your interview. You've got to do him a favor and save him time. You've got to give him the valuable information that you've promised in a no frills way without wasting his time and you've got to give him quality.

You don't want to give him an unedited interview where he's hearing beeps coming in from the other phone line. He doesn't want to hear chitter chatter talk or jokes and laughing and giggling and all of the stuff that could be edited out. It all goes back to that customer. Give him something that you would like to listen to. You want to make that listening experience as easy as possible for him. And if you're doing one of those interviews, especially one that I've talked about where you have a financial interest where you're selling something at the end, you have got to keep that listener listening to the interview to the very end.

And by editing and cleaning up your interviews and giving them the information that he wants in a very no frills, high quality way, without any sloppiness, you have a better chance of building that trust and rapport with your prospect so you can sell him something later. I think that's what it comes down to. If you turn him off early in the interview, he's going to just stop the play button, and the next time your E-mail comes to him or the next time an invitation comes to him for another interview with another expert, he's going to remember that first one was terrible, and he's not going to want to take his valuable time to listen to this nonsense. You only have one chance to make a first impression. We all know how important first impressions are. And if you make that first good impression, you've got to keep delivering on that because that's what they're going to expect.

Michael E.: I totally agree with that. And I also noticed that in certain interviews if the tone is not set in the first few seconds, you can kind of anticipate the response that you're going to get. What I mean by that is if you start to hear some flaws in the first five seconds, you're going to imagine that the entire interview is going to be like that. So you can be turned off instantly. If the front end of the interview is done very nicely and polished and well done and you continue it all the way through, obviously you has engaged the listener. But you have to set that expectation in the front part. I want to talk to you a little bit about production, and I know it's not rocket science, but if you take it seriously, it can be an art form editing these audio pieces. What kind of tools are using these days?

Michael S.: First, any of your listeners who want to do a digital audio recording -- I'm just going to tell you how I've done it and what you're hearing from my website, but I use a Sony IC recorder, and the model number is ICD-ST1 0 stereo. It's a little tiny digital recorder by Sony. You're going to need disks to capture your digital audio.

Now, to record the call through the phone, you're going to need to go to Radio Shack. You walk into any Radio Shack or go to RadioShack.com and type in "recording phone calls," and there's a little black box that has a switch on it, and there's a plug that plugs into your microphone port on your little Sony digital recording and then there's a plug that plugs into the back of your phone. Now, this device allows you to capture the audio from the person you're interviewing. And so when you're ready to do your interview, you say, "Ready." You press the little record button on your Sony, and you do the interview. When you're finished, you depress the record. You stop and with your Sony digital recorder they give you some software that you put it to your computer and then you plug this plug that comes with your recorder into this little kind of USB port into your Sony recorder and then there's a little USB port plug that plugs into your computer, and this allows you to extract the audio interview content that's on your Sony recorder onto your computer hard drive. So you can extract in what is called a WAV file. Then once you have your WAV file on your computer, I use some audio editing software, and there are lots of different kinds out there. I still use the software that I learned on which I'm most comfortable on, and I can do my editing the fastest on. I just can't get used to the newer versions so I use what is called Gold Wave. If you go to goldwave.com.

There's an old version that I use. I don't think it's compatible with Windows Vista. I still have Windows XP. It's a 4.7 version, and the software costs about $50, and it allows you to edit your audio. Editing audio is not that hard. It's almost like editing a Word document. You're basically deleting stuff. You're deleting the "ums," the "ahs", the coughs, the beeps, the kids talking in the background. You're cleaning it up just as if you wrote a rough draft for a letter.

When you do your editing, what are you mostly doing? You're taking out words that you don't need, paragraphs that aren't necessary. You may move a paragraph from one part of your website letter up to the top. Well, you can do the same thing with audio. Just look at every word on your audio recording the same as every word on your website or on a Word document. Editing is editing. You're just editing it in a different realm. You're editing it through an audio file rather than words on a page. Does that make sense?

Michael E.: Yeah, absolutely. I can see that you have explained this before because I can visualize each step as you were going through it. You know, there's probably a fear factor for people that haven't opened that program up or a program like it and gone in there and actually cut a part of the audio, but I've done it myself, and I do it a lot, and it's very, very easy to do it and get in there and play with it. Just like you mentioned in Microsoft using a Word document. The better you get at typing up the pieces and the errors and the mistakes. You won't have a staff that helps you do some of the audio editing.

Michael S.: I have a wonderful assistant named Diane, who is my main audio editor, and I use the analogy like when you go to the dentist, and you get your teeth cleaned. She's like the hygienist who cleans the teeth. She knows to take out the "ums" and the "ahs," the little clicks, the pops, the hisses. She may spend five hours of cleaning up an hour's audio recording. I mean, meticulously for one hour of audio content. But once that's all cleaned up -- just like when you get your teeth cleaned, then the dentist comes in and he takes a look, and that's what I do. She sends me her cleaned up version of the audio interview. Then I take a look, and I do all of the major surgery. Just like a dentist would if there's a cavity. Where if there's something that needs to be moved, then I preview her work and then I do any major editing or additions or movements. You hear in the beginning of my recordings a little promotional clip just like you see a trailer for a feature film.

As I go through that audio and review her work, I'll listen for a section of an interview that just makes my ears perk up for a headline or a trailer, and I will move that to the front. I will put the music in. I may choose a promotional ending at the end. And, of course, I'll do the recording of the introduction and paste that on there as well. So it is very time consuming the way I do my audio editing. You don't have to do it. It's the way I do it, and it's what makes my interviews stand out and get listened to more than many others because they're easier to listen to because I've taken the time to clean them up and make them easier to listen to.

Michael E.: Now, when you're putting music in there, do you have any resources for people that are looking to buy royalty free music that they can buy and use at their will?

Michael S.: That's a good question. I don't because the only music I use is that same little royalty free blurb that you hear in my interviews. Anyone can just do a search on Google for "royalty free music" and you can find it. Go on eBay, type in "royalty free music." You'll find plenty of stuff that you can get there inexpensively.

Michael E.: You know, one other thing that I'm not sure that we talked about here, but did you mention the type of microphone that you're using?

Michael S.: I don't use a microphone, Michael. This is really important. Actually, it's become much more important over the years. Number one, you want to use a corded phone. Now, it is getting harder and harder to find corded phones because everything is cordless. Everything is going cellular. And when you set up your interview, make sure you tell the person you're interviewing to be on a corded phone. Do not do these interviews on a cell phone unless you absolutely have to. And then when you start to interview and you press your little record button on your recorder, do a little sound test. Maybe record 10 seconds and then just say, "Hold on" and listen to see how it sounds on your recorder. Because the phone lines can be tricky. So you always want to listen for a good quality volume on the other end. So if you and I were talking, Michael, and I could barely hear you, I would say, "We have a problem here." And it's going to make it difficult in the editing if I have to increase the volume on your voice all through the interview.

We can get a little extra hissing. And this is stuff you'll learn as you go along. It's not a big deal. But maybe a remedy to that is, "I'll say, Michael, will you call me back, and let's see if we can get a better line." If that's not better, I'll hang up and I'll say, "Michael, let me call you back, and let's see if that's better." I might say, "Michael, do you have another corded phone in the house or in the office?"

You may have one upstairs, and we'll try that. I was having some static problems with my phone. I've been using this Radio Shack corded phone that I've had for eight years and then I had some static on the line, and I couldn't figure out the problem, and I was looking for some corded phones. I went to Wal-Mart. I went to Radio Shack. I even bought a couple of corded phones, but I couldn't get the same quality audio through these corded phones. And then I went to some garage sales and picked up some old corded phones, and it seemed like the older ones really work the best.

So it's going to be really important if you're going to get into this interviewing to get a corded phone that gives you the ability to do a nice, crisp, good sounding interview. You can go on eBay and find an old one. But test that out for sure. So that is definitely important. Do the interview on a corded phone. Another little tip before you do your interview -- here in San Diego before we started doing this interview, Michael, I press star 70. I have call waiting. That keeps any income calls going directly to my voice mail.

So we don't hear the beeps which just saves time in the editing process that I don't have to edit out beeps that are in the middle of our words. On your digital recorder make sure you've got a fresh set of batteries. I use two triple "A" batteries in mine. You want to make sure your recorder is charged up because you don't want to be interviewing someone really important and your recorder goes "beep" and then you're out of batteries. And you go, "Oh, hold on. Let me go get some batteries." So be prepared to get your recording devices ready to go and that has batteries in it. You want to unplug any phones or other lines in your office or in your home so you're not hearing phones ringing in the background. You want to take the dog out of the house. You want to limit any kind of distractions or background noise when you're preparing for these interviews. Make sure the kids aren't going to be around if you have kids.

Michael E.: Those are great tips.

Michael S.: Yeah, these are just some tips that will help make things go smoother.

Michael E.: Just another thing to add on to that. I'm right with you there. I'm calling from a line calling San Diego. I'm over here in Italy. I've got a hardwire into the phone line as well using a corded phone. I've got a little tiny fan in the background that removes white noise. And in the room I'm in I've got something covering the bottom of the door with a very long pillow because I have children in the house and at certain times two children tend to get noisy. So I find that a little fan blowing on a low setting creates this white noise that covers up any outside interference.

It's a good checklist that you've just provided everyone. Because there is some production time and some preparation time outside of the content that goes into doing the interview and having it done well. Because what you don't want to do and what I get nervous about is -- I do a phone service. So I have to buy these cards that give me good rates to the states. Otherwise I would be paying $200 for a direct line.

So I buy these phone cards. For those that are in Europe sometimes you can use these phone services, but I use these cards, and I have them lined up and if something should happen, I'll just move onto the next card. So don't take this part lightly. I can attest to that, Michael, because you really don't want to have your interviewee having the line drop or having to call back because of something that you missed in the preparation phase.

Michael S.: Absolutely. And also it's really important -- you know, we're doing something usually I don't do. But, you know, if you only have one chance to do this interview and it's a big interview and it's going to provide a lot of value to your listeners that's valuable, you may want to take an extra precaution. For instance, we're using a teleconferencing service that, Michael, you set up that has the ability to record audio. But at the same time I'm backing it up with my digital audio recording here on this end. So it would probably be a good practice for any of your students to do that all the time because you never know when your recorder will end. I've had this happen to me.

I will do an interview, and you play back the recording, and you have all of this white noise in the background, and I've had to totally redo an entire interview. A real important one. It's very frustrating. You won't have to ditch the whole thing. You can explain when you put it up that we had a terrible problem. This is only if you don't have the ability to redo the interview with the prospect. You can get it transcribed and offer the transcripts of the interview, but it's very frustrating. So it's always good to have a backup. I think by using the service -- and you can share with your listeners the service that you use that records the teleconference and having a backup digital recorder you've got an extra copy just in case, and this has saved my butt a couple of times.

Michael E.: Yeah, that's great advice. That is something that, you know, if you really don't want to have to lose that time -- because losing that time with that expert is money lost, time lost, and it's embarrassing as well. I'm using a service right now called Xiosoft. It's X-i-o-s-o-f-t dot com, and that's a conference line that you subscribe to, and they do the recordings.

There's freeconferencing.com. Then there's a bunch of others if you go on Google and check those out. These are a good way of doing it, but I totally stand by what you're talking about and doubling up on the recording capability. So, Michael, you've been really generous with your time here.

I just want to get into a couple of final questions here because you've shared some gems, and I think when people are going through their interviewing process -- so we've talked about how to prepare for an interview. How to find the right content. How to mentally kind of gear up for it. Some of the production techniques that you use. Really actually step by step of how to do it and your background of course. The mindset that you need to be in. Let me jump back to you personally so that we can kind of give our listeners a chance to hear more of you and get to know the great wealth of information that's available on your site. I wanted to ask you a question about one more technology before we get into your audio. What is your perspective on video and You Tube, and things like that?

Michael S.: I think video is great. You know, if you were to compare the selling effectiveness between video and audio only, video would win hands down because you're able to engage more senses of the prospect. The eyes and the ears at the same time. But audio has some value that video doesn't offer. In my interview with Vic Conant. He's the owner of Nightingale Conant. They're the largest information products publisher in the world, and I think most of your listeners should have heard of Nightingale Conant. They produce all of the audio educational seminars with Tony Robbins and Zig Zig lar and Brian Tracy and Dr. Wayne Dyer, and I asked him this question. The thing is audio is something that a listener can take with them, and they can be multitasking. They can be exercising. They can be listening in on the background while doing other stuff. Audio can be listened to and put on a CD in a car while they're driving so you're turning unproductive time into learning time.

Now, you can still do that with video but the eyes have to be engaged on a screen and many times there's a lot of video out there that provides content that really doesn't need to be video. I look at audio as doing my prospects and the visitors to my site a favor. I can have it all video and have the face of the person I'm interviewing sitting up on a screen talking, but why do you need to look at the guy's face talking and have your eyes engaged when you could be down at the bay exercising and listening to the same content. There are definitely benefits to audio that outweigh video but video is great too. There's no secret that video is the number one most powerful medium of selling. Look at television.

Michael E.: So in looking at your overall marketing campaign, it would probably be something to think about in having because audio is so much easier to access in different locations and at various points of your day. Video would be a nice compliment to that if you had a presentation that you wanted to put together that included visual. Because visuals do help a lot. But when you're talking about a conversation and you really want to get the meat of the conversation, you know, audio will do the job and audio books are very popular. It's a medium that people are very familiar with. So I can totally see what you're saying.

Michael S.: You can provide both. I'll tell you. I have done both. I haven't video per se, but I have done interviews with experts where we have offered a PowerPoint presentation. It's an articulate presentation where we've integrated audio and PowerPoint slides. So we're engaging the eyes. That's for people who want to look at the video and listen at the same time. But I will also give the visitor to that segment that audio recording the ability to download just the audio portion as well so they can take it with them. I give them the opportunity if they're a reader to download the PDF transcripts. Each one of my audio recordings on my site have been transcribed into PDF documents word for word where they can print out the PDF and take it with them. Some people can read faster than they can listen to audio. Another technique is something I learned in doing the audio editing is that Gold Wave software that I told you about.

You can download a free trial of it, but it has a little play button that allows you to speed up the audio. When I was doing all of the editing myself before Diane my editor was doing it, I needed ways to get through the editing process faster. When I'm reviewing an hours of worth of audio, I could listen to that audio at warp speed. I could speed it up twice as fast as a normal conversation and still digest the information. It takes little a practice, but anyone who likes listening and wants to listen on-line and get through some of the content, they can download that Gold Wave player and download the MP3 files to their hard drive, open them up in the Gold Wave audio editing program and play them through that editor at twice the speed. So they can listen through an audio in about half the time of normal conversation and still digest the main points of it.

Michael E.: That's another great tip.

Michael S.: So my point was I am now experimenting by offering the PowerPoint presentation where someone can view the content through a PowerPoint presentation with integrated audio. They can download the transcripts and take those with them, or they can download the MP3 as well. Now, any of your students who are going to get into audio interviews, you want to offer your prospects different choices of digesting this information because everyone is different. And you're doing them a favor.

You're appealing to the readers who like to print and read transcripts. You're appealing to the audio only people who like to listen only and you're appealing, if you want to take the time and the extra production value, in creating video PowerPoint presentations. You're appealing to those visual people too. When you can integrate -- like I said, video compared to audio alone will win hands down. Now, these video PowerPoint presentations I've invested the extra time and the resources and the money in doing these because these were particular interviews that offered me some financial interests where I was directing the listener or the viewer to the resource that I was going to make money off of. So it was worth the investment.

Michael E.: You can calculate a measurable return on the investment by adding that extra value.

Michael S.: Yeah.

Michael E.: The third product which is a little bit more than it might be to your premiere product as you say. That's another great tip. Another interesting point that we touched on at the beginning is that you started down a certain path and then by taking some chances it led you into how many people know you now, and how I discovered you and by continuing on that path, educating yourself, interviewing countless experts, you have been exposed to another group of experts or another type of practice should I say which has kind of changed the course of your career as well. Is that right?

Michael S.: Yeah, I would agree. It's never ending. I just keep interviewing experts of things that I'm interested in. Like I said, there's different reasons for different interviews. There's product. There's content creation. There's marquee value and then there's joint venturing and there's just straight content to add volume, add value to whatever you're doing. So there's different reasons. You have to ask yourself what's the reason why I'm doing this interview.

Michael E.: Let me expose the viewers and the subscribers to some of the information that you have right now because I think it's just an amazing collection, and there's also something that if you wanted to get more information then you've gotten tonight on actually how to put together an audio product, you've got something now that I would like to share with them. This is not an endorsed call or anything. This is just delivering pure content, pure value for the listener. Why don't you share with us, Michael, if you would, your audio creation service?

Michael S.: Well, first, I want to say I've had in the past over 17 different products of my own that I market and sell. And when you're doing these interviews, one of the most important things for you to understand are you don't have to be the expert. All these other products that I was marketing and selling I didn't position myself as the expert. I was just the guy doing the interviews and through these interviews and collecting these interviews and packaging these interviews I created different information products that I would sell. But this is the one product that I do have where I've positioned myself as the expert, and it's basically on everything that we've been talking about. It's how I use audio.

It's called "How To Turn A $28 Book Or An Idea In Your Head Into An $3,900 Information Product." And it's an entire course that I've outlined all the different steps. We've touched on some of things that we've talked about today where I teach you exactly how to create an information product. If you're a coach, if you're an author, if you have your own product or idea, this will show you step by step how to take that idea and increase the value of what you're doing and what you have and give you the ability to sell it for three times more, five times more, ten times more, and in some cases maybe 50 times more by using audio interviews.

And there's different sections in this product. One is called "How To Turn a $28 Book Into A $3,900 Information Product." You've got "Seven Fatal Mistakes That Will Kill The Creation Of Your Audio Program Stone Dead." It's a full report and audio download. You've got frontline secrets from the trenches. Break through audio creation report. 17 roadblocks that can stop you from making your information product and how to get around them fast. The fast track audio creation guide. It's 17 insider secrets to planning your audio in the fastest time possible.

And then you also get a one half hour one-on-one audio information product consultation with me personally by phone where if you have any specific questions on your idea or your product after you get the product and you go through the system, we'll arrange a time to talk. And you'll allow me to record the call because what I've also offered in this product is 15 hours of my best consultations.

I used to do one hour consultations, but I don't have the time to do a whole hour, but you have 15 hours of students who have ordered this product who have dreams and ideas in their head and product creation ideas where I've done consultations with them, and I've recorded these calls, and you have the best of the best. 15 hours. That's all included in this product as well. And the best part is you can try the product entirely free for 30 days. I wish we had more time because I'm just looking at my notes. There's so much stuff that we haven't talked about and some of the most important things is why I use audio interviews as a cost effective tool to increase my sales and automate my sales process, and I know that your students are interested in automating so they can buy back that time, leverage their time using audio. And there's so much magic that comes along with these interviews that is just amazing. There's a whole bunch of topics that I talk about to the students in my consultations when it comes to positioning and how to bond with your prospects and why delivery and distribution of your audio is so powerful even today with all of the PDFs and the cell phones and the mobile devices that are able to wirelessly download and play audio even subjects about the real estate value of each one of your audio recordings. If you dissect any one of my audio recordings, you will hear a lot different things in there.

I look at that audio recording as a piece of real estate. In the beginning you have that little teaser, the trailer that is a headline that captures the attention. 10 minutes into the audio you will hear, "You're listening to an audio interview on Michael Senoff's Hardtofindseminars.com." Then you'll hear it 40 minutes in on the interview. At the end of the interview you will hear "Here is another tip from Michael Senoff's Hardtofindseminars.com," which offers and directs the listener to another resource on my site or another tip that could save them time or they'll hear the audio recording version of a sales letter on my website.

For instance, on HMA Marketing System I have a sales letter which you're training and working with your students on how to create a great sales letter and a great website. Every one of your listeners should get a professional to read that sales letter into an audio format and record that as an MP3. At the top of that sales letter it should say, "If you don't have time to read this sales letter now, you can download the audio version of this sales letter and take it with you."

Give your listener the ability to take that information with them on the road because long sales letters a lot of people don't have the time, understand your prospects are busy, give it to them in audio. If you produce a CD that's 70 minutes long, we can fit 70 minutes of audio on a CD. If your interview with your prospect is only 40 minutes, put an extra 30 minutes of bonus material on that CD. Over deliver to your prospect or put a sales letter for your coaching or information about the books you publish or why someone should contact you for more consulting. Use the real estate of that CD. That whole 70 minutes. Because you may have someone driving in the car and they get to the end of your interview, well, that CD will keep playing and you can put stuff that's going to sell that prospect while you've got their one-on-one attention.

So these are some of the ideas we talk about in the consultations with the other people I've interviewed who have ordered the audio marketing secrets, and it's loaded with additional ideas, but there's so much we could talk about, and that's why I would urge anyone to at least take the free trial. They don't have to pay anything up front. Only if they agree that I've delivered on the lessons that I promise to teach in my audio marketing secrets do they pay. So they risk nothing whatsoever.

Michael E.: I can only imagine that the amount of information that we discussed tonight that you so generously laid out so many detailed steps that people would save hours, days, possibly weeks if they had to go and find all his information all by themselves and kind of go through the learning process. If it's anything near what we talked about tonight, I know it's something of great value and just by listening to your recordings and seeing what's on your website hands down everyone would agree that it must be packed with enormous value.

Michael S.: I appreciate it.

Michael E.: I want to thank you for the interview today and thanks for all of the information. If we have any questions, is there a way to reach you?

Michael S.: Yeah, absolutely. Anyone can call me or E-mail me. My direct phone number if someone wanted to call I'm here in the U.S. is area code (858)274-7851. That's area code (858)274-7851. Anyone can reach me by e-mailing me direct to my personal E-mail address

Michael E.: Just based on the tips that you've just given -- those aren't tips that are just picked out of thin air. Those are tested tips that people don't really uncover until they have rolled up their sleeves and gotten in there and experienced the whole process. So it sounds like an enormous time saver. A great return on investment. By creating additional products for yourself and adding more value to those products. So it sounds like a really good deal, Michael. Thank you again for sharing so much information with everyone.

Michael S.: You're very welcome. My pleasure. I really appreciate it.

Michael E.: Thank you everybody and we'll see you soon.