By Michael Stelzner
I was recently speaking to the school of business at San Diego State University about writing white papers and interviewing pros.
One of the students asked a great question: “If interviewing is so important and experts are so busy, how do you get their attention?”
Big smile, “Great question!”
I had been explaining that the best content lives in other people’s heads. Our job as writers is to mine that data.
I explained that knowledge workers spend almost half their time researching and reading. So it makes sense to go to them early in a writing project and pick their big brains.
So, here are a few helpful tips to nail down a person and get the interview:
- Call first: This allows the element of surprise. You can ask him or her to pick a time where he or she can spare 20 minutes or so. Then call back at that time. Emails are easy to ignore. A live person is much harder.
- Come by recommendation: Ask someone you know to pre-email the contact to let him or her know you will be calling.
- Be persistent: Explain the importance of the project and keep calling until you can nail the person down.
- Be prepared: Do not waste any time when someone finally grants you some. Ask good questions and make sure you have some basic understanding of the topic.
- When all else fails, do an email interview: By emailing questions, the person can respond on his or her schedule. However, email does not allow immediate clarification questions that are natural in a live interaction.
How do you land that busy expert? Join the discussion on my blog.
About the author: Michael Stelzner is the author of the book Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged, founder of WhitePaperSource and author of nearly 100 white papers.
