Tips and Tricks for Making Money with Interviews

Deciding what content is worthy of posting on your site can make for tough decisions. People are surprised when I tell them that only about half of the interviews I do for TraderInterviews.com ever see the light of day. One thing I learned early on is that not every interview can be a home run. As much as I’d like to think that I can make gold out of iron with clever editing and intelligent questions, it isn’t always the case. Sometimes, a perfectly articulate person, when they realize the big red “We’re recording” light is on, can turn into a blob of mush. They simply aren’t able to forget about the microphones and have a conversation. Other times, I just feel off my game and never quite “sync” with my interviewee.

Back when it was a free site, I could be more forgiving of which content was posted. If it wasn’t my best, I figured, “Hey it’s free – the listener can forgive a little.” Even then, however, I was never willing to risk my reputation by posting anything that was truly atrocious.

Now that TraderInterviews.com is a paid site, the bar is much higher and I find myself rejecting interviews which don’t live up to my standard of giving the listener at least 3 things they can take away and use immediately in their own trading. Without those solid 3 things, I just can’t bring myself to post it. Sometimes I make the decision before I spend hours editing. Other times, I edit almost the entire interview before deciding to banish the file into the “Never Used” folder. But I don’t consider that interview and editing time a total waste. Each interview I do helps me better define the type of content I want for the site.

I also think that trust with paying members – and free visitors, for that matter – is a fragile thing. We all work so hard to get them to our sites. The last thing we want to do is drive them away forever with something that we knew we should not have posted in the first place. It’s sometimes worth archiving those unused interviews in favor of long-term success for the site.

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