Why I Trash Half My Interviews

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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.

Tim creating content creating quality content

Tim Bourquin

It's a good question, Andrew. There are a couple of things I do that have worked.

First, I've found that most people are pretty understanding when I tell them the reasons I'm not able to use the interview. The majority of the time they realize that they didn't do a good job and understand my concerns. They don't want to look bad anymore than I want to post something that makes either of us look less than stellar.

I then do one of two things. If they are willing to do another interview and I have the time to do it, I re-record it with them. Sometimes they do much better because they've had a "trial run."

If it still doesn't turn out any better, I ask if I can run an edited text version instead. A text interview can be just as valuable to me as a piece of content (especially because the search engines love text, which is why I send all my interviews out for transcription). But also if the interviewee allows me to edit, I can turn sentences that made little sense, full of "ums", "ahs" and "you knows", into something that does make sense when I write it in a way that I know will get the point across they were trying to make verbally, but just couldn't.

Yes these edited text interviews can sometimes look very little like the audio, but ideas we both wanted to express come through much better and both the interviewee and I are happy with the end result.

I've only had one interviewee turn me down for both a re-record and an edited text version. That interviewee felt he had to pitch his product the entire interview, making it a cheesy infomercial instead of valuable content. I never was able to convince him that by doing a non-commercial interview, more people would find their way to his product than any commercial he could do. But in the end, I just never was able to make my point. I said thanks politely and tried to keep things amicable. That's really all I could do.

So there are choices to make, but I acknowledge that the initial conversation and be a little awkward. But I've never had it ruin a relationship because of it, which is probably the most important point.

Andrew Warner

That's a hard decision to make, but it must be even harder to tell someone who gave you their time that you can't use their interview. How do you break it to the interviewee?