Michael: Any of your listeners. If you want to tackle anything like I've tackled with the amount of audio content and interviews and the way I do it, you are dreaming if you think you can do it all yourself. You have to have a team and you have to have the conviction and the guts and the belief to invest money in that team to build your dream. Hi, I'm Michael Senoff, founder and CEO of for the last five years I've interviewed the world's best business and marketing minds. Along the way I've created a successful publishing business all from home from my two car garage. When my first child was born, he was very sick and it was then that I knew I had to have a business that I could operate from home. Now my challenge is to build the world's largest free resource for online downloadable MP3 audio business interviews. I knew I needed a site that contains strategies, solutions and inside angles to help you live better, to save and make more money, to stay healthier and to get more out of life. I've learned a lot in the last five years and today I'm going to show you the skills you need to survive.

Dixie: Michael, I know audio has been a huge part of your life, but I'd really like to hear from your perspective. What value do you see in audio interviews?

Michael: Everything I've got going now with the website, which is primarily now an audio interview website. I mean my business has kind of morphed from mainly the guy who sells pre owned Jay Abraham marketing seminars to the world's largest digital resource library for downloadable business audio interviews. And that's been a progression over time. But everything, the success of the website and the money I make and the contacts I make and I guess the perceived value of my name as an Internet marketer has all been related to audio interviews. Audio interview has so much value in any of your listeners. The biggest benefit is it's so easy to do. We all learn how to talk and all it is is two people, Dixie, you and I having a conversation and some audios I'll prepare for. I could have notes. It's just you and I talking. I try and keep in mind your listeners and just want to provide them the honest and best answer to your questions. I'm just talking to you and I'm keeping in mind your listeners and I want to just share my experience and that's how two would talk. So yeah, if you've got a friend and you know how to talk and you know how to ask questions and you can answer a question and communicate effectively. You can interview someone. You can do, create, publish and market and sell audio interviews. Does that answer?

Dixie: It certainly does, Michael. Tell me, compared to like an ebook versus an audio interview, perceived value different?

Michael: I think there's a perceived value. I have a CD that I give away for free on my website. It's 61 hours of my best audio interviews. Now I give it away for free. But anyone who orders it has to provide some information. They have to give me their name, their address, phone number, and I ask them a few questions. One of the questions I ask them is, how do you like to learn? A lot of people don't like listening to audio. A lot of people are readers. They'd rather print out and read a transcript. Some like video better than audio. But there are a lot of people who really love audio. Perceived value, in my opinion. With today's world, with people becoming busier and busier, and the responsibilities of work and family and all the other responsibilities of living today here in the United States or anywhere, your time becomes very limited. At least it is for me. Statistically, most people who buy a book, 95% will never get through the first chapter. But with audio, I think the perceived value is more compared to an ebook because you can take it with you on the road. And with an hour's worth of audio, it provides a better service than an E book. People will get an E book, they'll have to print it out. They'll put it in a three ring binder if they ever print it out. And it sits there probably like most other books. But an audio you can download onto your computer, you can download it onto your ipod, you can bring it with you. It's mobile. You can listen to it while you exercise, while you clean the house, while you're driving to and from work, while you're doing errands, going to the grocery store. I believe if you're a publisher and you want to sell something or you want to educate, the audio format is proven. Plus, I mean, we're all sold on the interview format. And I use examples. Look at Oprah Winfrey. We're sold on that whole daytime tv, you know, interview shows like Oprah and Geraldo and Barbara Walters, Hugh Downs, I mean, these are interviewers. If you think about Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, these are interview shows. They throw some other stuff in between, but they have guests on the show and the host interviews the guest. So we're sold on that interview format. So it's not like you have to resell ebook format. I think there's millions and millions of people sold on it, but not everyone sold on it because it's something new to a lot of people. I had a call today from a guy in the UK who had received a promotion for one of my products. It was a business buying course. It was a digital product. Okay. It was a PDF file which would fall into the same category as an e book. But he was hesitant to order because he was, quote, not very good on the computer. He wasn't used to digesting, downloading, and absorbing a PDF download. I had to convince him. I go, do you check email? He says, yes. Can you click on a button? Yes. But he was hesitant because he's not used to a new format like that. So I believe the audio format has lots of advantages over an ebook. Ebooks are gaining in popularity and are very effective. There's some advantages with ebooks that audio doesn't have. Because the limited size of an ebook file, it's smaller than maybe an hour audio mp3 file. An ebook can be more viral than an audio, but audio can be viral as well. They can be burned on CDs, they can be uploaded to a website. If you look at my website in the different formats of how I offer audio, it all starts with an interview. Someone can go to , press the greetings button and play it and listen to it through the speakers on their desktop computer or their laptop. Or they can download the MP3 file and take it with them on the road. Or you can take the audio recording and have it transcribed. And then you can have the printed word for word transcripts in a PDF file or word document that can be downloaded and printed out for the readers. So it starts out as an audio, but the audio can morph into different formats and different products. And because of this, you can increase the value of whatever product you have by using audio and especially interview format. Does that make sense?

Dixie: Oh, it sure does. And I've got lots of questions for you. Well, one of the questions I had for you, suppose, for example, for this audio that I'm recording for my audience, where would you go? Or if they wanted to do it, where would they go to transcribe it?

Michael: Where would they go to transcribe it? My first transcriber I found, I posted a listing up on Elance. Elance is kind of like eBay. EBay, you can get anything you want, any product you want. Elance is where you can get any service provider. There are Freelancers, experts, from web programmers to writers to ghostwriters to administrative to telemarketers all over the world who have raised their hand and say, I'm a service provider. You, as someone who's looking for a service provider, a virtual assistant, help for your website, a writer, anything that you would need to help you kind of stretch your day to save you time where you can farm it out, you can go to Elance and post a job. So when I needed a transcriber, I went to elance.com, it's free to sign up. And I said, I need someone to transcribe an hour's worth of an audio interview. And then these providers will look at your listing, they'll introduce themselves, you have their bio, you have a feedback rating from previous work they've done with other Elance customers. And they'll bid against each other to get your job. And it'll be a bidding war. Instead of the price going up, when you sell an auction, the price goes down. So let's say you set the bidding for 10 days. You'll have people from all over the world who want that job because they know it could lead into more work. And you'll see ranges because I just went through this. I just had to get a new transcriber and I was looking for quotes for transcription work. Here in the United States, I was getting quotes for $180 to transcribe an hour's worth of audio. I was used to paying $60 and I was okay with that. But I was able to find a service provider to do it for $25 per hour of audio. That's one of my main expenses, transcribing audio. And if I can save $35 compared to the $60, I'm going to do it because that's money I can put in my pocket, put to my kids education, go on a vacation. Any money saved is money earned. And even though I'm outsourcing it, it is going outside of the United States. But we're a worldwide market now, especially with services like this. I have a team. When you look at my site, don't even consider that I do all this stuff myself. And I will tell any of your listeners if you want to tackle. I tackle with the amount of audio content and interviews and the way I do it. You are dreaming if you think you can do it all yourself. You have to have a team and you have to have the conviction and the guts and the belief to invest money in that team to build your dream. To go ahead and commit because you are going to have to pay outside providers. You will have to pay money for transcription. I have a writer who helps me write the descriptions. After the audio interview is done, I send it to a writer, she listens to it and she writes a headline and writes the description of the audio. I have an editor who does the editing of the audio interviews. They may spend five hours on one hour of audio, editing it, cleaning it up, polishing it, making it sound the best possible. And we do this all for the listeners because we want to make the listening experience easy on the ears and pleasurable. When Oprah does a show like that, I mean, you know, the show is taped, it's edited meticulously. There's a lot of post production work. If you want to do it the way I'm doing it, anyone can just do a recording. You and I, Dixie, we can do this interview and there will be mistakes in it and maybe interruptions and maybe I say the wrong thing or you say the wrong thing. And we can leave all that stuff in it and we could give it to your subscribers and your members, but you're not doing them a favor. It's sloppy work. You don't want to do that. You only have one time to make a good first impression. So you may as well do it right from the beginning. And I didn't do that. I was lazy in the beginning. I didn't think it was going to turn into this. I used an inferior recording device. I didn't know of a better one. I didn't take the time to research it out. I didn't really edit as much as I did. But until I got serious, I started cleaning up my acting. So elance is the place to go to find your team, to build your team to do everything that you don't have time to do. You should be focusing more on the marketing of your business, not the busy work. Don't fall into that trap because you like to keep busy. Or you're the control type person who wants to control everything. If you try and do that, you will never get off the ground. There's not enough hours in a day. There's no way.

Dixie: That's great advice, Michael. Michael, given that the Internet is evergreen environment, are there interviewing techniques to make an interview timeless in value?

Michael: The techniques are evergreen because a good interview starts with good research, just like a good sales letter or a good marketing piece. And researching what your market wants to know is very important. I mean, you had to come up and design and think of questions for the interview we're doing today. And I can tell by the quality of the questions you did your research. You've probably been listening to your clients and your customers and identifying what is it they want to know. You're listening to an exclusive interview found on Michael Senoff's and you're serving your customers by asking the questions that they want to know. And probably some of the questions you want to know. Because the questions you want to know are probably some of the same questions they want to know. Absolutely. So what's timeless is if you take the time and do the proper research. If you were preparing an interview on how to fly a kite, you may want to go to Amazon.com and type in how to fly a kite and look for some books on kite flying. And you'll look inside the book on Amazon. You can look at the table of contents and you can see all the topics. You can see the topics of small kites, large kites, kites with tails, double winged kites, where to fly. What are the best conditions to fly? Someone's done it before you. I don't care what you're going to be interviewing someone on. There is someone who has come before you and has already done it. It may be in the form of a book on Amazon and you can get that outline and you can take that outline and turn those into interview questions. So what is the best thing to look for when buying a small kite? Are there advantages over kites with tails than kites without tails? What are the best conditions to fly a kite in? When is the wind too strong to fly? Ok? You need idea generators to take content and create questions from it to create your interview. And you can bet not all the time. You can look for the best selling books and you can kind of gauge which books have been put together well, and you can borrow what's already been done before. You can search newspaper articles on kite flying. You can search magazine articles on kite flying. The writers who put these articles together had to do the research, right?

Dixie: Right.

Michael: A magazine editor had to do their job and research that before they put that article. So leverage the time and bor on the research that they've already done and jot down topics and mold questions for an interview that you can put together. And you can always reformat the questions. It's not like you're stealing anything. You're borrowing information and you're leveraging time because it's all been done before. So it all goes back to leveraging your time Trying to get more hours out of a day. Why reinvent the wheel? Why do all that grueling personal research yourself when it's been done before and you can borrow and leverage on that.

Dixie: Absolutely. So that goes back to elands and outsourcing and doing the things that you love and that make you money, as opposed to doing the little things and trying to do it all yourself.

Michael: Right. Today's currency is time. You know, everything I'm doing now and over the years, it's been modeled to buy myself my time back, to give myself more hours in the day to do the things I want to do, but to still be able to meet the responsibilities that I have, you know, for myself and for my family.

Dixie: Absolutely. So, Michael, you've interviewed the who's who. As I said in my introduction, I know the listeners would love to hear. What do you do to prepare for an interview?

Michael: What do I do to prepare for an interview? It depends on what kind of interview I'm doing. Let me break it down. Let's say I'm interviewing a big name. Like, for instance, I had an interview with Tom Hopkins. Tom Hopkins is one of the most recognized leaders in sales training worldwide, and I was able to get an interview with him. I knew it was going to be a real feather in my cap. Once you get the interview, you can use your name. My website has an interview with Tom Hopkins. It's good for search engine rankings, and it will bring people to your site and it will increase your credibility because I've got an interview with Tom Hopkins. It's as simple as that. Now, the way I handled this interview, I didn't do any research on this. All I did was I sent out an email to my list, and I said, on Monday, I'll be interviewing sales training giant Tom Hopkins. I'll be asking him questions on your behalf. If you have any questions for Tom, please email them to me. So I went to a marketplace and asked them, what do they want to learn from sales guru Tom Hopkins. The questions came in, and then I organized them. I removed all the doubles. I put all the best ones up at the top because we were limited on time. And all I did was ask Tom Hopkins the questions that came from my students. It was a wonderful interview because it was diverse. I was giving my students from exactly what they wanted to know. And as an interviewer, if you have a list, an email list, or a subscriber database and you're trying to serve them with information to better them, that's a simple way as an interviewer to go, because you don't have to do any preparation. You just ask your list, what do they want to learn? And then you relay that to your interviewee subject and ask them the questions and get it all on a recording and clean it up and you've got a great interview that answers the questions that they want to know. Another example is I had a great interview. It's one of the most popular interviews on my website. It's with the good negotiating expert, and his name is Jim Camp. It's one of my favorite interviews. I love this interview. I've listened to it probably 10 times, and this was going to be a real exciting interview and I wanted to do a really good job. Now, this guy, he's a pretty good marketer, so he had already been in the media doing interviews. So I went to his website, I printed out all his press releases that he made available for free to any media who wanted to do an interview with him. He had about four of them. And I just used the bullets, the topics in his press releases, just like I gave you the example of going to Amazon, and I created my questions from that. So I used his material that he was already giving to the media and I created my own series of questions. Now, that's just part of it, and that will get you the skeleton of an interview, and that alone can be a great interview. And I think, Dixie, you have some other questions that you want to know what can make it even better. But this is so simple. Anyone you're going to interview, if they're at all out there selling a product or service, and they're somewhat credible, they're going to have a website. It may even be a poor brochure website that outlines who they are, what they do, some of the benefits they offer, some of the services they provide, you can go to their website and simply come up with questions to ask them.

Dixie: I agree with you, Michael. You said something that's really interesting. You said, depends on the type of interview that I'm doing. So can you explain that a little bit more?

Michael: Well, the Tom Hopkins example, when I say type, why am I doing this interview, Tom Hopkins, a big name like that? I'm doing this mainly for marquee value, and mainly I'm interested in interviewing. And I had the opportunity. But this is marquee value, big name, Millions of people know the name. Michael Senoff interviews Tom Hopkins elevates my credibility instantly. You know, the law of association. I'm associated with Tom Hopkins. I've interviewed them. Okay, that's one type of interview. Another type of interview, you have a series of teleconferences you're doing, right, Dixie?

Dixie: Yes, I do.

Michael: Are you doing all different topics on product creation?

Dixie: Actually, I'm doing it with another product right now, and it's on Internet marketing. And we're teaching those that come aboard that want to learn about how to market.

Michael: Okay, now, when they come aboard, do they have access to some of these interviews only for members?

Dixie: Absolutely.

Michael: Okay, so a type of interview you may do is a content interview for an existing product. So I have multiple products, joint venture marketing, product, product on barter, how to buy a business where I already have existing audio content, transcripts and downloads, I may need to increase the value of that product. And I'm going to say, hey, you know, I'm going to do another interview on joint ventures, and I'm going to put it for my subscribers who order my product. I'm going to put that in the back there. I'm going to add value to it. This type of interview, you may not take as much time or you may not put the importance on it, even though it's important. But it's an interview that adds value, that adds content to an existing product. The more audio interviews you have, the more value you're offering for your customer or for your purchaser. If I was selling a product on negotiation and I just had one interview, yeah, I may be able to sell that for 30 bucks or 97 bucks. If I had 20 products on negotiation from all the best negotiators in the world, I've increased the value of that maybe 10 times, 20 times. The more you talk, the more you make. You can literally talk yourself rich doing interviews. So we have marquee value. We have an interview to add content to an existing product. One type is the example that I gave you was the question and answer interview. Another type of interview is a promotional interview. It's an audio interview where before I do the interview, I maybe have established a joint venture with the party that I'm interviewing. I'll give you an example. There's an interview on my site with a guy named the Money Man. And this guy shows people how to get unlimited bank financing unsecured by building their corporate credit. Everyone knows what a personal credit score is. I'm thinking of a number. You know that commercial?

Dixie: Yes.

Michael: Okay. That's your personal credit. You know how important your personal credit score is? Well, many businesses, if you're a separate entity and you're not a sole Proprietor and you have a corporation or an llc, there's a whole business side, how to build your business credit where you can get bank financing unsecured. So he had a product and a service that he sells, which I ordered, by the way, because I think it's fascinating and it's good to know. But I also have a joint venture with him, so we produced an audio interview. We've also integrated PowerPoint slides with that interview. But that is designed to sell my listeners on his service. It's designed to educate him, you know, like a lot of my interviews. But I have an ulterior motive and that's to educate you so much, get you so excited and provide so much value that you're going to decide to check this guy out and you may buy his service. And there's something in it for me, an interview like that where there's a financial benefit because it's a joint venture relationship. I'm promoting him, I'm endorsing him, I'm really, really going to take my time with that and really create the best possible interview I can. Some interviews I'll spend more time on than others. I'll give you another example. There's a company called Best Profit Systems, a guy named Doug Huggins, and they're big Internet marketers and they have a membership site where they have all the top gurus and offer training to entrepreneurs and small businesses. And he contacted me and he said, you know, we're going to be sending out a CV to our members and I need a 30 minute interview with you. And he had me on there as one of the gurus just because of some of the stuff I do, but really because of the content I have available at my site. So we did a 30 minute interview and I structured the interview with one goal in mind, to give so much value. And it's really quite a promotional interview. For my part, it is an interview style, but I am promoting my site like you wouldn't believe. I am giving that listener probably 150 reasons to go to my website, to enter their email, to enter their name and to log in and just to check it out. And I probably spent four or five hours on this 30 minute interview. I wanted it to be perfect, meticulous, every word, every syllable. I really took extra, extra time in that post production because I knew this interview would be listened to by some big players and possibly by hundreds of thousands of people. So it all depends. It depends what is the interview going to do? Why are we using it? Those can determine the different Types and how much time you want to put into it or how you want to do it. It all depends on what the end result is of what the interview is for. Does that make sense?

Dixie: It surely does. Just a recap for the listeners, Michael, you're talking about an interview type. That would be credibility by association or marquee is what you called it. The second would be like a content interview. Third, just like a question and answer.

Michael: Yep. That's a type of interview. Q and A.

Dixie: And fourth is like a promotional interview where you're like, you talked about really putting your effort out and giving those folks 100 ways to get to you and giving them reasons to sign up with you.

Michael: Correct. And there's that other promotional, the joint venture interview, where you have a financial interest, you're promoting someone else's product. So there's self promotion and then promotion of others.

Dixie: So self promotion and then promotion of others. I personally want to know this, so I'm going to ask it, and I'm sure that the listeners will want to know as well. What tools are you using for your interviewing?

Michael: The number one tool I'm using is a corded telephone. The best tool in the world. Simple telephone. Everyone knows how to use a telephone. That's what I'm using to talk to you, Dixie. The next tool I'm using is a device to capture the audio recording in a digital format. Now I use a simple digital recorder. It's Sony ICD ST10 digital recorder. It's about maybe three times bigger than a stick of gum. It's a digital recorder. You can pick these up at Radio Shack. You can pick them up at Circuit City, Walmart, Target. They're all over the place. You can go on ebay. You don't have to get the one I necessarily have. Mine takes two AA batteries and it has an input jack. So you have the digital recorder to capture the digital audio. And then you also have to get a device that plugs into the back of your phone and then plugs into the microphone port of your Sony Digital Recorder. And this intercepts the audio from your phone and inputs it into the digital recorder. This allows you to capture both sides of the conversation.

Dixie: Cool.

Michael: With the Sony, you get some software. Once we complete the interview, I press the stop button and then I have a USB plug. So it plugs into your USB port onto your computer, and the other end plugs into your Sony Digital Recorder. Your software pops up and you see a Sony file of. Of the audio interview that we just did. And then I can save that to a folder on my desktop. When I save it, I convert it from the Sony file to a WAV file, a WAV file, and I save that to my hard drive. So now I have my audio recording saved digitally. Then you need editing software if you're going to edit your audio. And there's all kinds. I mean, you can just go on to download.com and type in editing software. The one I use, there may be better ones out there, but it's the one I started using from the beginning. I'm used to it. I can edit fastest on it because I couldn't pick up the new ones called Gold Wave G O L D W a v e goldwave.com and I use the old 4.5 version. It will not work on the new Vista. I don't have Windows Vista. It'll work on your xp, anything before Vista, and you can download that. And I think it's $34 for the software. And then you can edit your audio recording. And then once you edit it, you can save it as an MP3 file. And there you have your edited MP3 audio ready to uplo and to publish onto your website or to put onto a cd.

Dixie: Now, Michael, I think I missed a piece because you said that from the Sony ICD that you had something that attached to the phone. What is that?

Michael: I don't know what you call it, but you can get them at RadioShack. So if you go to Radio Shack or go to Radio Shack online and say, I need that little black device that allows you to record telephone conversations. And there's three different ones. There's one that has this little suction cup that sticks on the handset of the phone. You don't want that. But there's another. Another one is this little tiny black box, and it's got a phone cord that plugs into the back of your phone. And then you take the phone line and plug into the box of this little Radio Shack device, it's kind of confusing, but the instructions are all there. Anyone can get it at Radio Shack, or they can search on RadioShack.com or you may be able to find it other places. It just allows you to record a telephone conversation.

Dixie: So once you've got the waves down and use your editing software, the Gold Wave that you talked about, then with the Gold Wave editing software, then you can create whatever format you want it in.

Michael: Yeah, you can save it as a WAV file, you can save it as an MP3 file. It allows you to save it at different bit rates. I Don't want to confuse the listeners. It really isn't that confusing. But there are some specifics that you probably need to know. I do have an audio interview. It's with one of my products. It's a product I offer called Audio Marketing Secrets. If you wanted to let the listeners know about that, have a whole course on exactly how to do this from all the details of the megahertz and step by step on how to do this.

Dixie: Okay, so perhaps Mike, would you give me the link so that I can include it for the folks?

Michael: It's called Audio Marketing Secrets and it's basically everything I know about producing audio interviews. Some of the stuff we're talking about, but in more detail. It's a risk free offer. You can try it before you even pay a dime. It's at audio audiomarketing secrets htm and in between audio and marketing is an underscore, so it's https://www.hardtofindseminars.com/AMS.html. And I can send you a link. Dixie.

Dixie: Oh fantastic. Well, I'm going to take advantage of you because I want your expertise. I'm finding there's so much information you have that I think there's going to be value for the listeners today as well. So Michael, how is it that gets all these fancy music intros and endings added to those audios? Do they have a band that they hire? How do they do that?

Michael: You can go online and search for royalty free music and you can find CDs or downloads, loads of different music that audio people can use for introductions. And it's royalty free, copyright free, meaning whoever you buy it from owns the rights to it. And maybe musicians made it and you just download it. So it's Nothing but an MP3 file that you'll paste. Just like you copy and paste on a Word document, you'll paste it into your audio file at the beginning. I only use one small little piece of music. It's like an orchestra type thing that you hear at the beginning of my audios, but I don't have any other fancy music. And I also don't recommend doing audio and starting the audio out with 10 seconds of music or 15 seconds of music because in my opinion it's a waste of time. I know it may sound fancy and sound nice to you and kind of seems like a nice Professional TV show with the music intro and everything. But you've got to keep in mind your listeners, they want the information. They want it fast. Don't waste my time with music. My little music clip is literally three seconds and it's not at the beginning. It's right after my introduction. That kind of gets them going before the interview starts. So I personally would not recommend music in the beginning and I wouldn't recommend it at the end. I know it kind of makes it a little fancy, but just give your clients, give your people the information fast. They don't have time to waste. If they wanted to listen to music, they'd be tuning into the radio.

Dixie: That's great advice, but I know that they'll want to know at least how to do it.

Michael: Yeah, that's how you do it. You can search on Google Royalty free music. You'll find all the free music you want. For more exclusive interviews on business, marketing, advertising and copywriting, go to Michael Senoff’s HardToFindSeminars.com.

Dixie: One of the things I wanted to educate the audience about is file format. I've got lots of questions in this area. Is there a different file format for podcasting as opposed to MP3 players?

Michael: We'll talk about three different file formats in my interview process. One is my Sony Digital Recorder, or whatever recorder you're using may operate on a certain file when it's recording the actual audio. My Sony uses a Sony file format, so on the Sony Digital Recorder, it's recording in a Sony format. When I plug in the Sony recorder, I see the Sony format, but I want to save it into a WAV file. Wav. Before you buy your digital recorder, make sure that you have the ability to save it as a WAV file. You want to edit in a WAV file. And here's why. When you're editing your record as you're editing, you always want to keep saving your work. So you'll go to your file. Let's say you edit 10 or 15 things out. And what I do as a practice is I'll save the file. I'll save as. So you do some work. You save the file because you know with your computer it could freeze up. Sometimes the software I may be editing and I've done maybe 10 or 15 minutes of meticulous editing and I save it and it'll get stuck. This does happen sometimes, and then I have to go back and start over. So you want to continually save your work as you're doing the editing. When I'm operating as a WAV file. When I save it, it saves it very fast. If I'm editing as an MP3 file, it may take a whole minute to save the file. So you want to get through your editing process very quickly. So I would recommend when you do your editing, edit in a WAV format. Now, the WAV format is a pretty large file. You're not going to be able to manage a file that large up on the Internet. Therefore, we have to save the file into a manageable size. And the universal audio format most popular is in MP3. Okay? That's what iTunes is all about. MP3 recordings. I don't know what it stands for, but when you save your File as an MP3, that file has access into any IP, any cell phone, any digital PDA. That is one of the most universal formats for having your audio be viral, being downloaded, taken on the road. So that's real important. So you save your file as an MP3. Now you can save it as different MP3 megahertz and bit rates. And I don't want to confuse you, but when you get your Gold Wave software, you have the options of saving it at 44,100 Hz, you can save it at 32,000 Hz, you can save it at. You can save it as stereo or you can save it as mono. Now, you've got to keep in mind your file has to be manageable. When someone goes to a website and downloads that file, they don't have time to sit there for an hour to download your file. If you uploaded that file as a WAV file and you said, here it is, go right click on it and download it, and it's an hour audio recording. That file could take 30 minutes for someone to download. And they're going to get frustrated and they're going to abandon your site because you're not being respectful of them. So you've got to have the file. And I'm going to give you the magic number. When I convert it From WAV to MP3, I save it at 22050 MHz mono, 24 kilobytes, 22015 MHz mono, 24 kilobytes. If I saved all my files as stereo because you have two tracks, it would be twice the size. It's too big and unmanageable. And at least now with the bit rates and speed, maybe in a year or two, we'll be able to handle that type of data faster as technology increases. So you've got your Sony format convert to wave. After you've done your editing and you're ready to publish to your website. You save as an MP3 file. And there's also a tool I use called instantaudio.com and it's a service that any of your listeners can subscribe to. I can send you a link to it. And they have a tool where you can upload your MP3 file into their server and it will convert it into one of those players, you know, where you have the buttons, the fast forward, the read, and so it's really easy. Now, some of my recordings at hard to find seminars have that player. I mainly create my own player with my webmaster, but I still use that service all the time. And it's a real brainless, easy way to take your MP3 file and convert it into one of those buttons where you can copy and paste the code onto your website. It's real simple. And then when someone goes to your website, they'll have that little player button. Also, keep in mind, you want to be able to give your viewers or your visitors to your site the ability to download that MP3 file. The big mistake I see most marketers make is maybe they haven't taken the time to learn how to upload their MP3 file or to link to it, to offer it to their visitors of their site. They'll have a button up there where people can play it, but that makes people stuck to the computer. You know, having the ability to download it is where the real value is. And it can get passed along and it becomes viral. And you're really doing your listener or your viewer, your website visitor, a favor by allowing them to take it with them on the road. And that's what separates my audio interview site from almost all the other ones out there. Maybe they just haven't figured out how to do it.

Dixie: Michael, that was going to be my very next question. You know, a lot of people have it downloadable as opposed to streaming audio. And you're telling me perceived value is better to have it. Is it downloadable?

Michael: Absolutely. You know, it's like these teleconferences. You know, when you get an email. We're going to have a teleconference on Tuesday night at 6:00. The only way you can listen to it is to come on board or to sign up. I mean, you know how busy people are. Let's say I did an interview on the subject of flying kites. And then we sent it out to my list and I said, I've just done an interview with an expert on how to fly kites. You can go to my website and listen to it now or you can download it or you can print the transcript right now, whenever you want. It's up there, there it is. Or you send something out to your list and say we're going to be interviewing expert on a teleconference on how to fly kites. The Teleconference is at 8:00 on Tuesday night or 6:00 on Tuesday night. All you need to do is go here to register, enter your name, your email address and it's a limited space on the calls and here's how you can access it. Whose interview is going to get listened to more, do you think?

Dixie: Oh, the one that you can download?

Michael: Most definitely, Absolutely. People are busy at 6:00. I mean a mother or father or a professional. You know when you're telling someone when to show up for an interview, interview, you may get a few of those people, you may get some of the real hardcore kite flyers. But most of those people are going to have engagements. They got to put dinner on the table, they may have dinner plans, they may have karate lessons. You know, there's a hundred things that may come before that date of that kite flying teleconference. I'm doing my visitors a favor by saying, here's the interview. I'm not going to tell you when you have to get it. It's going to be here for you when you want to get it. I'm not going to make you sit online and be stuck to the computer and listen to it. I'll let you take it with you on the road. I'm not going to only give it to you as a flash playable format. I'm going to give it to you in PDF transcripts where you can read or you can listen online and read at the same time. I offer most of my interviews as HTML so you can click to a page, you can play the audio and listen and read at the same time for those real hardcore learners because you can really absorb it when you're reading and hearing it with two different senses at the same time. Time. And I'm going to give you the ability to take it with you. And so you're providing the mobility and you're providing choices. Any one of the people who receive my email knows that it's not a one time thing. They can go back anytime and get it. So they may go later, they may go on the weekend, they may go late at night when they have time. And so I'm not burning any bridges like your list. You may be sending it out, and there may be a lot of seriously interested people who want to hear that teleconference, but they just couldn't make it. There were other things more important in their life than when you were scheduling it. Does that make sense?

Dixie: Yes, it sure does. So have you used anyone to do voiceovers?

Michael: In 99% of the cases I haven't. There is one production that I did. There was a famous copywriter, a guy named Eugene Schwartz, and he's dead now, but there was a speech that he had done years ago, and I had the transcripts to it and it was brilliant. And I hired an actor in San Diego and we staged an interview because Eugene Schwartz was dead and he had heard the voice and he sounded like him. And so I hired an actor to play Eugene Schwartz. Actually, it wasn't really an interview. I hired him to do an audio e book, I guess a monologue. He read the transcripts being Eugene Schwartz. So I did do that once.

Dixie: How about using audios as a marketing tool?

Michael: Absolutely. I mean, there's all kinds of audios on my site that are used as marketing tools. And if they're introducing a subject or product or service to the listener and they haven't heard of the product or service, it's pre launch. If someone comes to my site for the first time and they want to learn how to get corporate credit and they watch my presentation like we used that example before, that's prelaunch promotional audio. No doubt. A lot of the interviews I do on my site are me consulting with other people or me giving my advice. That's pre launch audio promotion. Selling Michael Senoff, selling my expertise, directing them to products and services that I offer. In a way, no matter what audio you're doing or what subject or what topic you, the interviewer, you're always selling yourself and you're selling other products very intentionally. And that's real important to ask yourself, what's the purpose of this audio? And to get all the value you can out of that interview. You want to think strategically correct.

Dixie: So the length of like a promotional audio would be less than what you were doing for, say a content interview.

Michael: You know, there are no rules, you know, in copywriting. It's been proven as long as it's interesting and effective. The two page sales letter outsells the one page. The four page outsells the two page to eight page outsells. The four page has been tested over and over again. The more you tell, the more you sell. As long as you're not boring your listener. And you're talking about something that's interesting to them. The more you talk, the more you make. I have products that I've been selling for years where it started out as just one interview. There's one product with an expert named Arthur Hamil. He was in the 80s, one of the most popular guys in the seminar business. He put 100,000 people through a seminar on how to buy business. I started out selling his product with just one interview interview. Over the years, it became two interviews, three interviews, four interviews, five interviews, six interviews, seven, eight, nine. I must have 10 or 11. All free interviews. With Art Hamil, this business buying expert strategy to give so much value to the listener, but ultimate strategy to sell his course. And over the years, that course started out as $297, went up to 497, 597, 697. I think we had it 997 up to $1,500. The more audio content I provided, the more training, the more lessons, the more I had a chance to sell that prospect. And I was able to increase the price over those years. Does that help? Absolutely.

Dixie: That's fantastic.

Michael: If your market is interested in something and they're ravenous about it, they'll listen to everything you got. People come to my site and they say, mike, I've listened to every single one of your audio recordings. Every single, everyone over 100 and probably 50 hours now of audio. When you're listening to audio and you give your listener the chance to take it with them, they're going to absorb more content because they can take it with them in the car, on the road. They're turning their dead time into productive listening time. And that's how I can get someone to listen to 150 hours of audio. But if it was poor content and it wasn't interesting to them, they wouldn't listen to anything, any of it. But if it's good content and you give them the ability to take it with them and you're adding value and you're teaching them something, they'll digest it and digest it and keep listening and listening. You can really go through a lot of audio content. The last year I've been running, I'm trying to run three, four, five, six days out of the week. And I've got an ipod shuffle, and I go through a lot of content myself. You know, if I'm running for an hour, I've got a whole hour to listen to audio. And it surprises me how much stuff I'm able to go through. I'm always looking for more. And all that time they're listening to your stuff, you're selling them, they're being sold on you. The more value you provide, the more they're sold on you as a conduit for that information. They get to know you and they feel like your friend. They feel like they know you. It's really interesting as they hear your voice asking the questions on their behalf, you're bonding with them. And that's another thing. You're doing something that they're afraid to do. The service you're providing as an interviewer is you're providing a voice that they have, but you're doing it for them. A good interviewer will ask questions that they would ask themselves, but maybe didn't have access to that person, didn't have the courage to call them, you're doing it for them. Does that make sense?

Dixie: Oh, it sure does. And you're right. I crafted my question to things that I not only wanted to do, but that I also felt was pertinent to what my listeners would want to learn.

Michael: Yeah. Now, as an interviewer, isn't it great to be able to pick my brain and learn for yourself? You're getting a lot of value out of it for yourself, number one. But at the same time time, you've got stuff for your students too, so you're not wasting your time. You would probably ask me these questions even if it wasn't for your students, because you want to know the answer to them.

Dixie: Correct.

Michael: And that's the same thing with me on many of my interviews. A lot of the subjects I interview people about is stuff I want to know, so I'm never wasting my time.

Dixie: Well, speaking of questions, video is extremely hot. Video marketing is going around the Internet like fire spreading. It's just amazing. How can audio compete with video in social sites?

Michael: Well, I don't know about social sites. I know video is huge. And the convergence of this technology and there's software that makes it easy to do video. And you have YouTube. If you had two sales messages and you could get the prospect to watch or to listen each one of the sales messages and one was on video. So you have video and audio component, and then you had one just on audio. The video is going to help sell the audio hands down. The video format is the most powerful selling format there is. Look at television. I don't argue with that. And there is definitely a place for video. I mean, I would encourage anyone to explore it, but for what I am trying to do, the real value audio has is it's mobile. You can't drive in your car and watch TV or watch a video. Much video is produced where you just have talking heads. So if I was to watch a video video of a guy doing a monologue and I see his face, or I see an interviewer and an interviewee, and I'm listening, but I'm watching at the same time, you know, for the stuff that we're producing, much of the video out there is overkill. You don't need the video. If you just strip the audio out of it and gave the viewer the ability to take that with them and to listen and digest on their own terms and their own time or in a transcript form, they'd still get just as much out of it. And you as a marketer, I believe you have a better chance of getting your sales message in your prospect's head with audio. With video, you're saying you have to be looking at a screen. You have to be looking at your computer, or if it's a dvd, you have to put the DVD in, you have to watch it on your tv. It doesn't allow you to be mobile. Now, I know you have laptops and I know the Apple phones can play YouTube video. That truly is mobile video. But you're limited. The file size on YouTube is minimal. In most cases, you watch a short clip. My opinion is because audio can be downloaded and taken with you on the road, you have a better chance of getting your sales message into the head of your prospect. And I use this example in another interview. I interviewed Vic Conant of Nightingale Conant, world's largest publisher of audio information products. And they are basically 95%, maybe more of an audio format. And he talks about it in the interview because it's so forgiving, people can take it with them. They can replay it over and over again. They can listen to it and absorb it during times that otherwise they'd be wasting time. So with audio, because of its mobility and transferability, you have a better chance of getting that message heard compared to video. That's my opinion. I could be wrong.

Dixie: Well, I agree with you. I am very partial to audio. I can ride my bike and play my audio, do my laundry. It just allows me an opportunity to multitask and still learn at the same time, which I really enjoy. Can you talk about the concept of taking perhaps an audio product at low end price range to a higher price range?

Michael: Sure. I gave you the example with the Art Hamil. It started out as a product. There was no sales letter. I did one interview with Art Hamill. When I first met him, he was selling his old seminars from the 1980s. He had them down in his basement. They were cassette tapes. They were all shrink wrapped, still in great condition. This is what he was selling on ebay. And when I contacted him, I was able to do an interview with him. And it was the first time I talked to him. And that interview is up on my site. And that's how it all started. So it started out I was able to buy his old sets for 25 bucks a pop. And then I took that interview. And any of your listeners who have an ebook or who have an idea or a concept, they can be interviewed. They could take the outline of their ebook or create an outline for their concept. And they can be interviewed one time. You've got to start with one. And they can get that interview up on their website or on a CD or as a downloadable MP3 or transcripts or all of the above. And then they have a starting point, they have an audio interview, which the interview itself will act as promotional sales tool. That interview, as long as you're educating and providing value and you're discussing content and topics that are interesting to your prospect, that becomes your sales piece. Now for any of your students who are copywriters, myself and a copywriter associate of mine named Ben Settle, we have a little system and he's written a lot of copy for me, but his research always starts with my interview. My research starts with other research, but I provide him an audio interview of something. But he can create a whole entire sales letter based on just one interview. And there's a lot of value to that. So any of your students who are creating their own products or concepts or ideas, they do their interview. Then they have that interview transcribed. Now, you can put the transcripts of that interview up on your website or in a printable form, or send it out just as transcripts as is. That can be effective enough as a sales letter if you have a call to action at the end of it, you know when you say for more information or if you'd like to order, you got to make an offer, you got to have a call to action if you're selling something. So you start there. Now, the way you increase the value of that product, you may sell that for $39 like an ebook. $49 59, 79. But the way you start increasing the value of that is you start doing more interviews on the subject. I may find other experts will use our same example about Flying kites. I may go to the Kite association online and kind of look around there and look for authors or experts on kite flying. I may go to Amazon and find other publishers of kite flying books, and I may invite them to do an interview and explain to them I'll be creating a product that teaches rabid kite flyers how to fly their kite better. Would you be willing to be interviewed? How did you get this interview with me, Dixie?

Dixie: I emailed you.

Michael: And what did you say in the email?

Dixie: I remember exactly what I said, but I told you a little bit about what I was doing and how I thought that what you did would be an excellent complement to it. And I asked if you would honor me with an interview.

Michael: You asked. You just asked all your listeners. All they have to do is ask. That's it. Some are going to say no. Most of them are going to say no. I'll tell you right now, most of the people you ask are going to ignore or they're going to flat out say no. But are you interested in those people? How many experts are there out there on kites? If you want 10 experts, you can ask 100 people and get your 10 interviews. One out of 10. Let's be realistic. Let's say you're going to have to ask 10 for an interview to get one. You may do better than that, you may do worse, but I'm going to give you that's a realistic expectation. You most likely will beat that expectation. But if you're willing to ask, you'll get everything you want. You will get that interview. And I said yes, and we are doing the interview now. It is as simple as that. You are listening to an interview On Michael Senoff's For more interviews like this, go to Another real advantage, Dixie, over doing interviews where we are not live and it is not a telephone conference is that you have the luxury of editing it. If you're a copywriter and you're writing a sales letter, are you going to put your rough draft up on the World Wide Web to sell your product? And I use an example. When Bruce Springsteen comes out with a new album, 10 songs, they may work on that album for a whole year. When you're doing a live teleconference, there's too many variables that could screw it up. You may be nervous. There's hundreds of people on the call. It's not nerve wracking. I don't like doing teleconferences. I don't want to screw up live. But with this, with the editing, you know, I stutter. You can hear me stutter. And I start off and my mind wanders. You heard me forget I'm human just like everyone else. But I get to be superhuman after I edit it. When you hear the edited version, you won't hear many mistakes, if any.

Dixie: That's amazing. I may go out and buy that software that you're talking about now.

Michael: You just go online, gold wave. It's real easy to pick up some other advice. There's interviews out there. I've listened to interviews, but they're terrible interviews. They don't have the guts to ask the good questions. You got to ask the questions that your listeners don't have the guts to ask. Ask questions that people want to know that no one would have the guts to ask. And that will also make for a good interview, too. So you want to start adding more audio content, more interviews to your product. And the more experts you have, the more value you're offering to that buyer and the more you can charge for it. You should take each one of those interviews and have them transcribed. You should have them available as MP3 downloads. As you get students who have maybe purchased your product and have had success, you'll hear about it in many cases, and you can ask them if they'd be willing to do an interview. There's a training that, that I sell on how to be a marketing consultant on my website, and there must be about 20 hours of free audio interviews. About half of those audio interviews are case studies with students who have bought my training. So as I hear someone have a success, they'll email me and say, mike, my luck has turned around. I just got a client and they're excited, and I say, well, can we do an interview on it? So I'll call him and I'll go, okay. Guy named Robert Newhart. We've done two interviews so far. All right, Robert, tell me what's going on. We're recording. And he's like, where am I? I went out and I saw this client, and I took him through the opportunity analysis, and then I did the close, and he said, yes. I go, well, all right. Well, I go, how long? Did it take? And was there any objections? And I'll interview him about his story. I'll get his case story, his case study. And these are very valuable to be used as promotional material, but also content on the back end of your site. Now, a lot of people may not realize this. You can use the Same interview for both. I have stuff that's available for free on my website in some of my content, product for paid members. And even though it's free on my website, and then some people are paying for the same content, what they're paying for is other content that is exclusive. But I'll still package some of the free stuff with the paid stuff because I make it more accessible, it's more organized, and there's value in that. So one interview can be used in a whole bunch of different ways. It can be used as a promotional audio interview for your product. It can be used as actual content to add value to your existing product. If the guy you're interviewing has something to sell, could be used as a joint venture promotional tool to sell someone on their product or service. So the more content you have, the more valuable and good content that fits your market, the more you can charge for your product. So the more you talk, the more you make. It’s as simple as that.

Dixie: Tell me, Michael, is there any last minute things that you would like to share with those that are in listening today about doing audio interviews that might be helpful to them?

Michael: Yeah, I think one of the most important things in doing audio interviews is to be a good listener. When I first started, it kind of takes some training. And I must compliment you, Dixie. You've done a wonderful interview. You have an interaction, interrupted me. You haven't talked too much. I could look back on interviews where, you know, my ego got in the way and I wanted to be the star. The interviewer is not the star. Your listeners really don't care about you. They could care less. They're using you. They're using you to get the information that you're getting for them by doing the interview. I know they may care about you, Dixie, but really when it comes to down to it, they want to hear what I have to say, at least the ones listening. And it's the same thing with my students at they don't care about me. They want to hear what the guy I interviewed has to say. So by me interjecting my two cents and me talking more than I have to, it irritates people. It takes away from the interview. You as an interviewee should just ask a question question simply and straightforward and shut up and just listen. And if you're a good listener in this interview is a perfect example. You were able to pick up on things and ask another question related on what I'm saying so you can dig deeper and deeper like a child. When someone Answers a question. You can say, well, tell me more about that. Why? Or that's really interesting. Can you explain that? Or how did you do that and when did that happen? Oh, and how did that make you feel? Can you tell me any more stories when your people are doing interviews? Stories are really important. Stories are powerful and they sell. When I'm interviewing the expert, even before, when I prepare for the interview, I say, jot down some memorable case studies. I want to hear lots of stories. So you'll hear a lot of my interviews. I'll say, can you tell me a story about how one of your clients did this? And I'll ask for three or four or five stories. You know, when we're children, we're red stories. That sticks with you. People like to hear stories. They like to learn from stories. And stories are easy to listen to. So big advice, you know, you've heard this. God gave you two ears and one mouth, so you'd listen twice as much as you talk. Be a good listener. Don't butt in. Talk as little as possible on these interviews. Just be a good listener and ask the questions that your students need to know or want to know. Do your listeners a favor and edit your audio. Clean them up, save them time, and just do everything for your listener. You got to look at each interview. Once the production is done, you're done. You do it one time and you do it right, and it's a powerful sales message. And once it's up online, that thing could be viral. You just have no idea where it's going to go. You have no idea who's going to share it with who or who's going to listen to it or when they're going to listen to it, or if it gets in the hand of a big promoter. Once it's out there, it's kind of like going to Vegas. You just never know when you're going to hit the jackpot because that thing is traveling around and is out there to the world, and you can't get it back. So you have one time to do it right from the beginning. So really take the time in that production. Do it right, and that one interview can pay you over and over and over again in all different ways, from increasing your credibility to making you more money to getting you more content contacts for joint ventures, for product sales. One little audio interview.

Dixie: Michael, I've used so much of your time. Thank you so much for participating in the call and being gracious to share your experience with audio. And I'm sure the audience will learn a tremendous amount from it. Thank you again for being here.

Michael: You're very welcome. I really appreciate it. You did a great job interviewing me. You asked some great questions. And the people you interview will appreciate the good questions. They'll appreciate the time of a good interview. And a good interview like this opens the door for another interview, too, down the road. So I really appreciate it, and it's been my pleasure, and I hope I provided some value for your listeners.