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Approaching Experts outside the IM Niche for Interviews?

by Hoodyy
9 replies
I'm unsure on the best way to approach experts to be interviewed for me to create a product.

The Niche isn't IM - however, the experts are still making a lot of money so I don't think they'd be particularly intrigued if I said:

"We'll do an interview together, joint rights so you can share it on your blog / whatever. When the product is complete you can then promote it to your readers for a 50% commission!

Also, a lot of these people perhaps wont have blogs and even if they do it's extremely unlikely they'll have a list (other than the experts selling products on clickbank already).

What would be a good way to go about asking for an interview for high conversions in them agreeing? I do not want to pay them a lump sum for the interview, nor pay any royalties on the product I eventually create incorporating their interview.

Any ideas would be great!

Thanks,

Matt
#approaching #experts #interviews #niche
  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by Hoodyy View Post

    "We'll do an interview together, joint rights so you can do anything you like with it. When the product is complete, I'll send you a free copy, and if you think your audience would like it we'll discuss a commission!
    Marketers want big commissions. Other niches are frequently more than happy with tiny little 5% to 15% commissions. And don't overlook the fact that you're no longer working with a professional marketer, but with someone who is more like relying on you for the marketing message and promotional skills.

    Don't sell yourself short; while a deal like this with a high-end pro marketer should be 50% or better because they're doing all the promotional and positioning work, doing it with a non-marketer means YOU get to do all that work, so your time and effort deserve to be compensated with a higher cut of the sales.

    If you still want to do 50% that's fine, but the first person to say a number loses. I've had non-marketers tell me in no uncertain terms that they are simply not going to do a deal for less than a 3.5% commission, no matter what the industry standards are... while I was sitting on the other side of that bargaining table ready to offer a 30% commission. Let the other guy tell you the number he expects.
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    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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    • Profile picture of the author Hoodyy
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      Marketers want big commissions. Other niches are frequently more than happy with tiny little 5% to 15% commissions. And don't overlook the fact that you're no longer working with a professional marketer, but with someone who is more like relying on you for the marketing message and promotional skills.

      Don't sell yourself short; while a deal like this with a high-end pro marketer should be 50% or better because they're doing all the promotional and positioning work, doing it with a non-marketer means YOU get to do all that work, so your time and effort deserve to be compensated with a higher cut of the sales.

      If you still want to do 50% that's fine, but the first person to say a number loses. I've had non-marketers tell me in no uncertain terms that they are simply not going to do a deal for less than a 3.5% commission, no matter what the industry standards are... while I was sitting on the other side of that bargaining table ready to offer a 30% commission. Let the other guy tell you the number he expects.
      Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely try and get them to tell me the number he expects as commission.

      However, the problem lies in trying to get this expert to agree in doing an interview with me - I'm trying to persuade them. I guess this will just be perfected in the niche I am in with testing.

      Also, how should I implement an affiliate plan? I was going to put the product on clickbank, however if I am only offer 10% or something and then they go onto clickbank to create an account to make a hoplink they'll see all the other products with 50-75% commissions.

      The product I would be selling would probably be maxing out in price at about $37 so the difference between say a 10 and 20% commission isn't too much of a problem.
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by Hoodyy View Post

        However, the problem lies in trying to get this expert to agree in doing an interview with me - I'm trying to persuade them.
        Precisely how much persuasion do you need to talk about yourself and explain what you think about the things that matter to you?

        Persuasion isn't normally an issue.
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        "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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        • Profile picture of the author Exire
          I'm with CDarklock. Most peoples' favorite topic to talk about is themselves. This is even more true when they're a recognized expert in their field. Stroke their ego a little and you shouldn't have any problem getting the interview. It'll be even easier if they're not used to being offered 50% commission for just answering some questions.

          I wouldn't explain the Clickbank affiliate idea to them up front. Just ask if they'd be interested in answering some questions so that you can create the product, give them an idea of what you expect the product to be priced at and offer them a percentage of each sale. Stress that you will be doing all of the work to create the product--all they have to do is agree to the interview. Once they agree, you can explain how they get paid. At this point, I'd switch from the "don't worry, I'll do all the work creating the product" talk to "we're partners in this and you'll have to do some of the promotion on this thing" talk.

          I don't know what field you're going for but if they are actually experts in the field they should have some form of list (email or snail mail) and a website at the very least that they can put the link on. This, of course is where the deal could potentially fall through if they either don't have anything like that or simply aren't interested in promoting the product. However, to make it a bit easier for them to say yes you could register a domain name for them (related to your product idea, of course) and simply do a forward/redirect to their affiliate URL so that all they have to do is give out a .com URL rather than a strange looking (to them) affiliate link. They could easily put the .com on their business card or letter head to give out to whoever it is such an expert meets with. They could also put it in their books--if they're the kind of expert that writes books--or they can mention it when they're doing a speaking engagement and so on. Even someone without a site/list who is an expert will still be able to promote the product.

          If you can find someone interested in the project who has some way to promote it--whatever way that may be--you could easily cash in big depending on what market you're targeting. The key is to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes to the idea. If you take care of everything--the product creation, order processing, website hosting/design and even half of the promotion--then I don't think it would be such a hard sell. All they have to do is answer some questions and mention the product to as many people as possible for a hefty share of the profits.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marvin Johnston
    Originally Posted by Hoodyy View Post

    What would be a good way to go about asking for an interview for high conversions in them agreeing? I do not want to pay them a lump sum for the interview, nor pay any royalties on the product I eventually create incorporating their interview.
    Just ask .

    I'm also in a non-IM niche. I've asked at least a dozen experts so far for interviews, and everyone but one has agreed. And I have no doubt he would have consented as well if I had pushed the point.

    I tend to assume the answer is yes and go from there. That said, I know most of these experts so asking was not a problem .

    A great piece of advice I got on StomperNet was to include the agreement at the beginning of the interview, and keep that original interview as documentation.

    BTW, I sell a couple of products for this niche designed by others. The designers have all allowed me to sell these products with no commission or royalty. Of course except for the design, I'm doing all the work of getting them built and sold. And I do give them credit.

    Marvin
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    • Profile picture of the author Hoodyy
      Originally Posted by Marvin Johnston View Post

      Just ask .

      I'm also in a non-IM niche. I've asked at least a dozen experts so far for interviews, and everyone but one has agreed. And I have no doubt he would have consented as well if I had pushed the point.

      I tend to assume the answer is yes and go from there. That said, I know most of these experts so asking was not a problem .

      A great piece of advice I got on StomperNet was to include the agreement at the beginning of the interview, and keep that original interview as documentation.

      BTW, I sell a couple of products for this niche designed by others. The designers have all allowed me to sell these products with no commission or royalty. Of course except for the design, I'm doing all the work of getting them built and sold. And I do give them credit.

      Marvin
      Interesting. Care to share what the contents of your email looks like?

      I find the product creation extremely interesting. Are they essentially making the product for you, you paying them a lump sump and then selling the product giving them the credit? I'd be interested in the prices you pay people for such content creation. I'm considering creating a 10 video course for example, with 10 1 hour videos and wondered how much that would cost an expert to make.

      Thanks for all your advice thus far,

      Matt
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      • Profile picture of the author Marvin Johnston
        Originally Posted by Hoodyy View Post

        Interesting. Care to share what the contents of your email looks like?

        I find the product creation extremely interesting. Are they essentially making the product for you, you paying them a lump sump and then selling the product giving them the credit? I'd be interested in the prices you pay people for such content creation. I'm considering creating a 10 video course for example, with 10 1 hour videos and wondered how much that would cost an expert to make.
        The interviews are designed to build interest. And since that is also the goal of the experts, they are more than willing to help. If they had a product or service they wanted to advertise, I would certainly make room for their promotion in the interview.

        I don't do email marketing, and the emails I do send out are generally telling people what the product costs. The website is ugly almost to the point of being embarrassing . But it converts.

        Besides the website, the only other way I promote them is to put on workshops to build them.

        So far, I've never paid for product creation. Most of the designers were into this as a hobby, and allowed me to do with them as I like. I generally would get the design built and then send them one to say thanks.

        BTW as a funny aside, I once started a printed circuit shop for building prototypes. At that time, I was also selling at the local swapmeet. So I just laid out one of the circuit boards I had built on the ground, and ended up with a customer that lasted for some 10 years or so. The lifetime value of that customer was probably well over $100K!

        There are all kinds of ways to market things!

        Marvin
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  • Profile picture of the author impact-productions
    One other thing to think about with the interview model - you're really relying on the people you interview to do the lion's share of the promotion for you.

    If they don't have lists/contacts/visitors, then you'll end up with a product, but you'll have to do the promotion yourself. Now, there are some niches where this works really well, of course, but it's definitely much harder than in the IM niche.

    Thom
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  • Profile picture of the author Dave Lianelli
    Matt,

    just start writing the emails to those experts you want to interview. Most will be more than happy to help you out. Normally you don´t even have to ´sell´ them into doing an interview.

    If you find resistance however, you can either ask the person to answer some questions by email; or give something in return for their time. Let them know you're aware their time is valuable.

    Also, be sure to give a free copy of the product to the persons you interviewed. They'd be more inclined to work with you again and - if they like your product - might even promote your product.
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