My Biggest Headache In Doing Mixergy Interviews. And My Next Attempt At Solving It.

The hardest and least satisfying part of doing these (otherwise very intellectually stimulating interviews) is all the work it takes me to create those little video trailers that I make for each interview.

What are the trailers?

They’re the short, 2-4 minute clips from my interviews. I spend 1/2 a minute setting them up and another minute telling you why you might want to watch the full program after seeing the short clip.

They sometimes take me 1 – 2 hours to do. And unlike the research that goes into my interviews, doing these trailers doesn’t make me any smarter.

Why I make the trailers

So people who don’t have time to watch the full interviews can learn something from the interviewee.
To tell people why they should watch/listen to the full interviews.
Because videos will help you connect with interviewees more than text will.
Because everyone else does text. Video is what makes Mixergy stand out.
Because it’s more powerful for me to show you what someone like Seth Godin said, than to tell you.

Why they’re a headache

It takes me forever to find a clip that’s both short AND will teach you something valuable.
It takes a long time to write an intro that does all this quickly: sets up the clip, tells you who the interviewee is, and gives you a reason to care about what’s being said.
Sometimes I over-think what I need to say before and after the clip, so my intro + outro can take me an hour to record.
Editing video takes a long time. (Though at least this part is mechanical, so it’s not nearly as big an issue as people think.)

My next attempt at solving this headache

Mixergy viewer Chris Overcash (AKA @overcash) — who has a passion for online video — got on the phone with me today to help me brainstorm a solution`.

We decided that — instead of searching for a soundbite within the interviews — when each interview is over, I’ll ask this question and use the answer as the trailer:

“If you could give people one piece of advice based on everything you told us today, what would it be?”

Why am I telling you this?

Because I sometimes like to see what goes on behind the scenes of sites I like — and I thought you might too.

And because every time I talk about the issues I’m going through on Mixergy, someone smarter than me comes up with a solution I never thought of.