I do quite a few interviews nowadays, mostly audio. I love doing it. It’s fun. I do them because it pushes my brand out to thousands of new customers, which in case you didn’t realize… helps you get more exposure which equals more sales, leads and publicity.

Here’s my latest with Jim from Personal Brilliance. Part 1 of 4 to come. (Click on the Awareness tab)

I’m kinda everywhere lately doing interviews, which means I get asked quite a bit about how I get so many interviews.

It’s easy to get interviews, and give good ones. Here’s how.

• Make it easy to be contacted. Have a page on your site that let’s someone easily contact you.
• Be entertaining. Nobody wants you to come on and drone away while you bore their listeners. Try to be upbeat and fun.
• Be unexpected. I have put my Ukulele on the lap and begun to sing. Show hosts, in my experience, want someone who will bring this type of unpredictability in to liven up the show. Why? Because 90% of guests are really, really boring.
• Keep your answers to the point, and short “enough”. If you go on for five minutes without letting the show host get a word in, you suck. Nobody wants to hear you that long. Keep your answers short enough and succint.
• Don’t ever sell. Even if you’re allowed a minute to talk about your brand or business. Keep it short, and don’t drop your URL into the conversation 20 times. Lame.
• Put it out to the universe. You have to tell the world you are ready to be interviewed. Announce it on Twitter, put a blog post up about it. If people see that you’re ready, they’ll invite you.
• Know something. Obviously, you’re going to have to know something about what you’re going to talk about. Don’t ever try to do an interview on a topic you’re clueless about. It will fail and you’ll look dumb.

And of course, make sure your pitch doesn’t suck! :)

Zane Savage is a fun guy. He interviewed me for his show and what’s so cool about it is that he recorded it through Skype, but he also recorded it on video. Well, him talking at least. Pretty neat how he did this. Great interview too.

We talk about how to be successful online. I tell his rather young audience to quit playing video games and start working, unless they want to sit in some cubicle all their lives. I’m pretty harsh, but you know what? I wish I had someone telling me that when I was 18 or so.

Here’s part 1 and part 2 below.

Interviews are a very important part of your plan to promote yourself. As an expert in your field, you’re going to want to be interviewed as much as possible because it gets your name/brand exposed out to new markets and new customers.

Gayl Murphy has done over 14,000 interviews in her career in Hollywood. She’s talked to A-list celebrities like Russel Crowe, Wil Smith, Angelina Jolie, and thousands more. So Gayl knows how to conduct a good interview. Gayl also knows how to assist YOU if you’re being interviewed.

I got Gayl on the phone for a bit to talk about her experiences interviewing people, and also to find out how you, the small business owner looking for publicity, or blogger, or whomever you are, can be a better interviewee. Also check out Gayl’s InterviewTactics.com site.