Transcripts
1. Interviewing: A Skill You Must Learn: To really entertain
podcast listeners to keep their attention for an hour
and leave them wanting more. You need to be able to create engaging brain tickling content that they want to listen to. Your starting a podcast, you've researched what
equipment you need and what software
might work best. Maybe you've even considered
a posting schedule. But beyond those
technical details, you really haven't
given much time and consideration into how to create conversations that
people want to listen to. In this class. We're
gonna do just that. My name is Brian Wolf
and I've made a career centered around
asking questions. I was a criminal
attorney who examined witnesses in court every day. I was an FBI agent who interrogated
sophisticated criminals. I was an attorney at a top national law firm
that represented the country's biggest
financial institutions. We're going to take
the skills I've learned over a decade, questioning all types of people, tear filled victims, children, hardened criminals, and
scientific experts. And the tips I've learned, interviewing them in all
types of environments, offices, courtrooms,
jails, and vehicles. We're going to take those skills and we're
going to use them to enhance every episode
of your podcast. We'll go over all
the mechanics of a good interview so
that you can have the knowledge and
confidence to interview any subject about any topic. We'll go over planning
and Preparation will discuss the different
question types and when to use them. And we'll see how Active Listening and
follow-up questions will entice your subject to share more and
enrich their story. If you're ready to start
asking questions that creek focused and
engaging content, I hope you'll meet
me at less than one. Planning and Preparation
2. Learn by Doing: Create an Interview Question List: Let's put pen to pay to start practicing a bit of what
we've learned so far. For your class project,
you're going to create an interview question
list to be used for your first
podcast interview. If you're already underway, you can use this
question list for your next podcast guest. Or if you don't have a
Podcast subject in mind yet, you can use this list for a hypothetical interview of your best friend on any topic. I suggest that you draw out the story of their
greatest accomplishment. Feel free to use the Question
List Template as a base. You're going to
start by identifying your primary objective
for your interview. Next, you're going to break
the interview out into sections to go over different topics with
your interview subject. Remember, the first section is normally used for
background information. That is background
about your subject or background about the topic that you're going
to be discussing. Remember to use all
three question types, open-ended questions, closed-ended questions,
and leading questions. Make sure you include
some follow-ups below each main question. When it makes sense, use a
parenthetical that describes what information it is hoping to draw out
from the subject. So for instance, if you were interviewing Michael Jordan and you are discussing his time
playing basketball in school, you might include in parentheses
that you want to hear about how he did not make
his varsity basketball team. At some point, you might
get a little bit of writer's block and have a hard time coming
up with questions. Remember to refer back to your primary objective for
the interview that should serve as a source
of inspiration to keep you going and coming
up with more questions. Also, the tried-and-true who, what, when, where,
why can be helpful? And while those questions
are a little boring on their own and maybe shouldn't be
used as standalone questions. They can be used to help
illuminate new paths to explore. Who were you with when
this was going on? When did this first happen? Why did you want to do that? Where were you when
this was going on? When did you first think
this could be possible? Who believed in you? Anybody? Hypotheticals are another great tool
in your arsenal. If you could start over today
knowing what you know now, how would you do
things differently if money was not
an issue at all? How would things look? If you weren't in this business? What could you see
yourself doing? And don't forget about
your emotion questions. These are questions that
go beyond the simple facts that we know we have to
draw out in the interview. Your subject was feeling and thinking and what impacted them. Those are the things
that are really going to enrich the conversation. How did that make you feel? Is that what you
expect it to happen? What do you think it is that they were most worried about? For this assignment, aim to have at least five
discussions sections. Your first one is gonna be your background and
foundational information. Then let's shoot for at least
three Substantive sections of conversation. And last, your final
section will be some sort of conclusion
and wrap up section. In each section, try to have at least five main questions, not including
follow-up questions. So that's five sections with five questions
in each section, that'll be 25 main questions. Submit your question list in the Project Gallery for me
to review and give feedback. And of course, ask any
questions that you might have. But most of all, be proud of where you are. You've done a lot
of work and this is a tangible step in
creating your podcast. All the preparation Up until this point was to support
you getting here, coming up with these real
question that you can deliver to go congratulations
3. Planning & Preparation: What to do Before the Interview: This lesson, we're going to talk about planning and Preparation. That is, the work you do leading up to the interview
of your subject. The first thing you're gonna
need to do is identify your primary objective
for the interview. Now, your podcast in general
probably has a purpose, education, entertainment,
Something like that, but that's not enough here. Here what we mean is a specific purpose
for this interview of this subject on this day within the context
of your podcast, let's say you have
a parenting podcast and your overall goal
is to educate parents. Well, that's great for
your overall podcast. We need a specific
primary objective for each episode or interview. So maybe you're interviewing a neurosurgeon who
works with children. And your specific goal is to educate parents so
that they can make informed decisions on current
issues that are coming up, concussions in youth sports, the use of red dye in foods. We're going to talk about things today with this specific person and we're going to form
a primary objective based on those things. Your primary objective
is going to act as a guide to make sure you're accomplishing what it is that you want to accomplish. So something you're
gonna do early on is formed questions. And as you're drafting
these questions, you're going to continually
be asking yourself, are these questions aimed at accomplishing my
primary objective? Some good examples of a
primary objective would be to educate your audience
on a certain topic, to persuade your audience that a certain
position is correct, or maybe to attack
a certain position and explain to your audience
why it has no merit. A general primary objective
can be entertainment, but we should really fine-tune
that a little bit more. Within entertainment is
your primary objective to make your audience laugh? Is it to make your audience cry? Is it maybe to inspire and
motivate and encourage? Let's really be specific again. So when we're crafting
our questions, crafting questions that were aimed back at our
primary objective. After you've identified
a primary objective, the next thing we're gonna do is organize your interview
into sections. Now we haven't crafted any specific questions
yet. Right now. We're just moving
the pieces around, creating big blocks of topics of discussion
that we want to explore. Ordinarily, your first section is gonna be your
background section. And I suggest that
your first section B, this background foundational
type type section. What you're gonna
do in this section is you are going to probably get the background of the subject that
you're interviewing. And you might also get some
background information on the topic that you're going to discuss after that
background section, what I call the
Substantive section. So this is the
meat and potatoes, what it is you really want to
talk to your subject about. And you're going to
organize this and a handful of sections. And last your final section
ordinarily should be some sort of conclusion
or wrap-up type section. This is where you're
going to give your subject the opportunity
to say anything maybe that you didn't ask them or
get the final word and give a little bit of nice tying of a bow and conclusion
to the interview. The next thing we're going
to discuss under planning and Preparation is research. Now, the primary goal of
doing research is gonna be to help you craft your
interview questions. But it's also going to help
you save some embarrassment. You need to get some
background information on your subject and on the topic
they're going to discuss. So you don't ask
stupid questions. For instance, if
you're interviewing a subject and you ask them, Oh, do you spend a lot
of time with your mom? And you didn't do so
much research to even realize that their mom
died two weeks ago. That could be an awkward
part of the interview. Those are the kinds of things
we're wanting to avoid. We're going to start by
researching your Guests. Now, not every interview
subject is going to have a biography available
on bookstore shelves. If you're guest house one
though you should read it. It's perfectly fine to
start with Google and Wikipedia to get some
foundational information. Next, again, leading
into researching the topics that you're
going to discuss. If you're going to talk about youth sports and concussions, let's get up to speed on
what's going on in that topic. Find some current
articles so that you're sensitized
to what's going on. Now, I understand the subject of research could be a
little bit daunting. How much research should you do? Should you spend days, weeks, months for each interview
that you're going to conduct? That would probably be a lot. But here's a good rule
of thumb that I can say suggests for how much
research you should do. You should do enough
so that if something comes up that you did not know, it's perfectly reasonable and acceptable for you to not
know that information. So you're interviewing
our brain surgeon, Dr. And you didn't know
where he went to school, you probably should have done
a little bit more research. If you didn't know that he was a specialist in
concussions amongst youth, probably should have done a
little bit more research. I think most reasonable
people would agree. You look a little silly not knowing that about your
interview subject. Now, if that brain
surgeon, Dr. Sites, some obscure case study from 100 years ago that you didn't
know and you're saying, oh, really, I didn't
hear about it. I think most people would agree. Of course, you didn't
hear about that. That's totally acceptable. It's totally fine
that you're surprised and hearing about it
for the first time. Alright, after research,
we're going to move on to creating our outline. Now remember we've
already broken our interview into sections. Creating an outline
is going to provide just a little bit more detail. Alright, it's going to
help keep us organized. It's gonna be our roadmap
for our later step, which is crafting our
actual questions. So in this outline again, you're going to create a
little bit more detail. You're going to start
with your sections. Now you're going to
add a little bit more, a few more lines
within each section of things that you
want to cover. Think of your outline as a high level view of what you're going to talk to your
interview subject about. We're not getting
granular and we're not creating questions yet. But again, this is
gonna be our roadmap for when we do start
creating those questions. The last phase of
your planning and Preparation is
gonna be practice. Now, I don't want people
to be intimidated by this, but it's important
that I tell you, conducting an interview
is public speaking. And I understand a lot of people have a fear of public speaking, but it's important that
you know that so that we can conquer those fears, that we can really put forth
the best interview possible. And what do all great
public speakers do? They practice? We're going to say our
questions out loud. We're going to record
ourselves in video if we want, or we're going to
record the audio and we're going to really
listen to how we sound. We're going to pay attention to ourselves in a mirror and see, are we moving the
way we want to or mannerisms projecting
what it is that we want to project
are we created me impressions on our
interview subject in our audience that we want to also think about how you want to feel
during the interview. You want to feel relaxed. You want to feel relaxed so that your personality and your charm and your charisma can come out. Not only does your audience
when you hear that, can help your interview
subject being engaged and also be relax and be
more willing to share. Now, how is it that
you get relaxed? What we don't want,
we don't want you so nervous over your
questions that you're looking over them and
fumbling over your notes and wondering about what's
the next, next part. We're not going to
be worried about our questions because
we've practiced them. We're not gonna be worried about where our interview is gonna go because we've practiced it and we know where it's going to go. You go to work on the
things that we've discussed here and
planning and Preparation. And the best of you
is sure to come out. Next. We're gonna move on to
the importance of connection
4. Connection & Environment: Getting Your Subject to Share: This lesson we're going to
talk about the importance of connection and Environment. And there's an idea
that I want you to ingrain in your mind. A comfortable subject is
a productive subject. We're going to talk about four different time
periods that we're going to build connection
with our subject. We're going to
build connection in our preliminary interactions. That is when we first reach
out and we're setting up the, the logistics of the interview. We're going to talk about
building connection. Moments before the
interview starts, you've sat down,
you're in the room, but you haven't quite hit record yet at your last moment to really build connection before
that red light turns on. We're going to talk
about building connection during the interview, you're alive and you're going to keep your subject comfortable and producing good,
engaging conversation. Last, we're going to talk
about building connection. Post interview. How do we keep the conversation and
good vibes going? Let's start with our
preliminary interactions. You're going to start building connection from the very start. That is your introduction, whether your
introduction beat over the phone, text message, email. This is your first chance to start building a connection
with your subject. So far I've only outlined the four time periods
that we're gonna be building connection
and we're going to continue through
those time periods. But I haven't told
you yet what it is that we do to
create connection. Well, the first element of connection and something
that's going to have to come through in your
introduction is competence. Your interview subject wants to know that you're competent, that your professional,
that they can trust you with their information and
trust you with their time. Communicate clearly, demonstrate a little bit
in knowledge or awareness of the topic and a little
knowledge and awareness about your subject. Be timely. These are all things
that you're gonna do in those introductory moments
with your interview subject. The second element of
connection, Empathy. You want to put yourself in the shoes of your
interview subject. You're saying, Brian, how
do I demonstrate empathy in these preliminary
interactions will again put yourself in the shoes of
your interview subject. You're being asked,
Hey, do you want to conduct this interview? You might have some
nerves about submitting yourself to an interview
and it's gonna be recorded. And where's this
going to end up? Let's put some of
those things to rest. Let your interview subject know, hey, this is what I'm
going to use this for. Maybe there are nervous
about what are you going to ask me? Tell them? You're going to have
prepared a question list, and that's something
we're going to talk about in a later lesson. Give them the
questions up front, let them know. Oh, I see. He wants to talk to me about
my work and, you know, brain brain development in pediatrics or
something like that. No one wants to be a victim
of gotcha journalism. And that's not a tactic
that I suggest you employ in interviewing
your Podcast Guests. Another element of connection and is gonna be one
that's gonna be really big and you're gonna
do it through all the phases. Build commonality. Everyone wants to feel like they have something in
common is maybe you're from or visited
the same place. Maybe you have similar
interests in sports or hobbies. It might just seem like small talk or chatter,
but it's not, it's Building a
bond and bonds make people comfortable going to build this relationship
beforehand. And it's going to
create a comfort in your interview subjects so
that they're willing to share. We're moving on from our
preliminary interactions. We're getting closer
to our interview. How do we build connection
moments before the interview? Okay, we're in the
interview room. Let's think about
our environment. We want to make sure that
it's warm and inviting in an environment that
is going to cause your interview subject
to want to share. They're uncomfortable. They're going to want
to get up and leave. So make sure they're sitting in a place
that's comfortable. Of course, the obvious things
check the temperature. I always suggest you
have something to offer your interview subject
that could just be water or a beverage. Give them a chance to ask any questions and prompt that
some people might be shy. They may not come up
with questions or be bold enough to ask them, Hey, you got any questions before you have any questions
for me before we start? You have any concerns.
How about this? Is there anything
that I can do to make you more comfortable or is there anything that I can do to make you feel better
about this interview? We're really excited to
conduct this interview today. Again, we haven't
hit record yet. This is all Building connection
so that your interview subject is comfortable and
that they're willing to share. And we're moving along
full speed ahead. How are we going to build connection during the interview? The most important thing
that you're gonna do during the interview to build
connection is listen. I know you've got
a lot going on. You've got a lot of thoughts in your head, but we've practiced. We're going to listen to
our interview subject. This is gonna do a
couple of things. It's going to allow you opportunities for
follow-up questions, but it's going to demonstrate
to your interview subject that you're
interested in, that you care. Going to cause them to
want to share more. No one wants to talk to
someone who's looking down at their notes or
checking their phone, are already thinking
about the next question. They want to know that you're
listening and hearing them. I'll tell you a silly
example of something I saw a lot of times that used
to happen in tribal court. A new attorney would be at talking to a witness
and maybe they say, Oh, could you please introduce
yourself to the jury? And the witness would
say, Oh, I'm Brian Wolf. I worked for The New York
City Police Department. I've worked there for 20 years and the attorney is
not paying attention. They're looking at their
next question and they say, Oh, and where do you work? If you were listening, you
would've heard he just said he worked for The New
York City Police Department, but you are too worried about your next question to hear that he already
answered that question. That is a connection killer. In addition to listening, we're going to be
honest and authentic. No one wants to
be around someone who's faith and certainly
no one wants to continue a conversation
with someone who's being disingenuous or deceptive. So what that means is
you may not agree with every single thing that your subject says.
Here's something else. A little disagreement, again is going to enrich
your conversation. So be honest and authentic. That creates this impression
that you're trustworthy. And trustworthy means
that your subject is going to be more
willing to share. Again, we're going to
talk about competence. We're talking about
during our interview. We want to demonstrate our
competence, our knowledge. Now, there's a fine line here. What we're not trying
to do is impress our subject or show
off to our subject. Again, those are qualities
that people don't enjoy. No one wants to talk
to a know-it-all, but we do want to show
that were professional. We want to show
that we understand. We want to show that
we have awareness for the subject and also the topic. Lastly, during the interview, we're going to pay attention
to nonverbal cues. Is your subject
seeming uncomfortable? Did they chug their
bottle of water in the first minute and maybe they need something more to drink. Do they need to use the
restroom? Are they sweating? Pay attention to these
things and show a level, level of care for your subject. You're gonna do
whatever it takes to help your subject feel comfortable so that
they're willing Share. I've talked about
building connection during our preliminary
interactions. We've talked about building
connection moments before the interview and building connection during the interview. Now we're moving
to post interview. How are we going to
keep the conversation in this good relationship going? Well, of course, I'm going to suggest a good old-fashioned
thank you note. Now that doesn't have
to be handwritten. A simple e-mail saying that you really enjoyed the
conversation and you greatly appreciate them offering their time really
goes along way. You may have this person
on your podcast again, or they may refer other
potential podcast guest to you. People talk and they're
going to want to hear how you treated them. So keep the good vibes going. Post interview. Alright, we've talked
about the importance of building connection
and our last lesson, we talked about planning and Preparation. We're moving ahead. Next, we're going to talk
about the three Question
5. The 3 Question Types: Building Blocks for a Great Interview: Alright, we've talked
about planning and Preparation and the
importance of connection. Now it's time for a little
bit of performance. The part that
everyone's going to see him here. The questions. In this section
we're going to talk about the three question types, open ended, closed ended,
and leading questions. Your questions are the tool you use to get Your Subject to talk. Think about your interview, like a pinball game. In pinball, you get the ball up into scoring territory
bouncing around. That's like your subject telling these great stories that you and your audience want to hear. Sometimes when the
ball's coming back down, you've got to use
the flapper to bump it back up into
scoring territory. That's like your
interview subject finishing the answer
to a question, you got to hit them
with another question and get them back up there talking and talking about things that everyone
wants to hear. Sometimes the ball is starting
to go off to the side, to an area where
there's no points to be had and so you hit it with that side flap or
to kinda bring it back into the
action of the game. That's like your interview
subject getting off track or off topic talking
about some nonsense. Maybe that really wasn't
the question that you are asking you to hit them
with a follow-up question, get them back into
scoring territory. The goal is to get your
interview subjects speaking in that sweet spot, a conversation, keeping
those thoughts, opinions, stories that you and your audience want to hear. Now, you may be
very charming and occasionally you
might have a great story are thought to share. But remember, the
primary focus should be on your interview subject. We want to hear
about their story, their thoughts, their
opinions, their feelings. Keep the focus on your subject. The way you're really
going to shine is not by yammering on about your
own thoughts and opinions. It's about having masterful
questions that draw out great content from your
interview subject. Get those clear,
concise questions out of your mouth and
get your subject going. One more thing before we move on to the three Question Types, we need to differentiate
between main questions and follow-up questions
of a main question as though if it was answered
perfectly by your subject, it would cover everything that you are hoping
that they would cover. A follow-up question supports a main question because
quite often when we ask them main question are
Subject doesn't say every single tidbit
that we are hoping to hear. The main thing that I
want you to know for now is that the three
Question Types we're going to discuss can be used for both main questions and
follow-up questions. Would that out of the
way it Let's talk about the three question types. Open ended, closed ended,
and leading questions. These are your bread and butter, three different pinball flappers to use and all
different kinds of situations and keep your
subject in scoring territory. First, we have
open-ended questions. Open-ended questions require
a narrative response from your interview subject. Not a simple yes or no. Because of that, there normally broad questions
and they're great for introducing a new
topic of discussion. A nice open-ended question is gonna give your interview
subject to chance to hit it out of the park and cover all the material that you are
hoping that they'll cover. Remember, if they miss a thing here too, it's gonna be okay. We're going to hit them
with a follow-up question. Some good phrases to start out, open-ended questions
or things like, tell me about what was it like? What do you think about how these types of questions
we're not going to ask, where did you grow up? We're going to ask, tell
me about growing up. These invite a nice narrative
response from our subject. Second, we're going
to talk about closed ended questions as a
pre-planned main question. A closed ended questions
should be used to draw short, punchy responses that are
gonna be very interesting, even though they're short or
only require a yes or no. Now, it is very helpful to use these types of questions
if you already know what the subjects
answer is going to be some examples of closed ended
questions that are going to have interesting responses
even though they're short, or you only shower once a month. Are you a world record holder? Have you never eaten meat
in your entire life? Did you qualify for
the Boston Marathon? These questions
have short answers, but in contexts they can
be very interesting. They also provide a
little bit of change of rhythm and change of pace. Just like music needs a
little bit of variation. A little variation can go along way to help
your interview. Closed ended questions are also great follow-up questions. Let's say you're rolling
off a nice answer from a very broad,
open-ended question. You asked your subject
about growing up, but they forgot to mention that they didn't graduate
from high-school. You're going to use a closed
ended question to draw out that really interesting
piece of information. Use a follow-up question like, is it true you drop
that a high school, I say, yeah, then
maybe from there, you move back into an
open-ended question. Well, what led to that
decision in this way, your questions are
like combinations of punches that a
boxer might use. We're going to keep
mixing things up. Third, we have
leading questions. Now, you may have
heard you should never use leading questions. That's not true. You should
use leaning questions, but you should use them
intentionally and appropriately. Trial attorneys
in court will use leading questions on
cross-examination. Cross-examination is
when the attorney is questioning the witness
who isn't on their side because they're not on there
his side and they may be reluctant to answer or they might try to weasel
out of questions. Attorneys are allowed to
use leading questions. A leading question is
essentially when you're giving the witness or in your
case, the interview guest, the answer, and you're
simply asking them to agree, you stole from these people. Isn't that you, on the
surveillance video? With a little bit of inflection, these statements become
questions and you're simply asking the
subject to agree. But here's the thing. Leading
questions don't have to be confrontational like an attorney questioning a
criminal defendant. There are certain instances
where it's very beneficial to use leading questions and
it's not at all adversarial. You can use leading
questions for clarification. That is, your interview subject maybe gave
a statement that was vague or their
opinion was unclear. And so you're going to come
in and you're going to tighten up there
question a little bit. You would agree that
the amount of calories in and the amount
of calories burned is all that matters
when it comes to weight loss. That's
a leading question. You're simply asking
your interview subject to agree
with that statement. We can also use
leading questions for increased precision. Maybe you're talking
to your interview subject about a running
race and he says, Yeah, you were in a
four-minute mile. Well, you want to
really hone in on his precise time and add
a little bit of drama. So you might say his time
was 3 min and 43 s, right? That's a leading question. You're getting more
precise and simply having your interview
subject agreed. Here's another great instance. You might use a
leading question. There are times you're
guests might be reluctant or hesitant to give an answer
for really kind reasons. They might be humble or they're nervous about
coming off as arrogant. They don't want to be bragging about their accomplishments. And so you kinda have
to pull these stories, are these facts out of them. You might say something like, you were the youngest winner
of the scripts spelling bee. And they were a little
hesitant to say that at first, but you're going to pin them down and you're going to draw out this great fact
where you might say something like these
people wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you. Someone might be a
little hesitant to gloat about how they were
the hero of a story. And so you're going to
use a leading question to really just pull out
the hard hitting facts, even if they're positive facts. Sometimes we inaccurately
assume that people are boring. In reality, they have
wonderful thoughts, opinions, and stories to share. It just requires masterful
questions to draw them out. Paired the three
Question Types with what we learned in planning
and Preparation. Use all three question
types when drafting your interview question list. We're going to keep
that pinball up in scoring territory and
we're going to draw out great engaging content
from our interview subjects. Next up, we've got
strategies and Delivery
7. Follow Up & Active Listening: How to Respond to Answers: This section we're talking
about follow Up and Active
8. Interviewing: A Skill You've Learned: You're now ready to really
retain your podcast listeners. You're going to keep their
attention for an hour more and leave
them wanting more. You have the tools to conduct
an excellent interview, one that creates a
warm relationship with your interview
subject and entices them to share more of
their rich thoughts, opinions, and stories. In this class, you'll gain
the skills that took me a career to understand
and develop. Let's look back at
what we talked about. We talked about planning
and Preparation, the importance of connection, the three Question Types
and when to use them. We went into specific strategies and ways to deliver
our questions. We talked about how
Active Listening and follow-up questions. We'll keep the
conversation going. You're now ready to start
asking questions that generate focused and
engaging content. And I can't wait to hear
Brian Wolf, Communications and Public Speaking
