Lauren is launching her book today, a book that she didn’t even write. Instead, she got her mentors to do it for her. I’ve had a chance to read threw the book and it was a lot of fun. It’s a quick read and shows powerful comparisons between founders. As you read through the interviews you begin to see patterns. There are some areas where almost all entrepreneurs think alike and (more interestingly) there are plenty of areas in which entrepreneurs think exactly opposite.

Lauren approached Will and I wanting to write a guest post. We told her our audience expects amazingly useful content. I would say she delivered. What do you think?

-Kyle

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Are you watching your favorite mentors being interviewed and thinking why can’t I interview them?

Have you thought of writing an ebook but aren’t an experienced writer?

Well, the time has come.

It is possible for you to speak with your favorite founders, interview them and have them write your ebook for you!

This step by step guide will help you get to where you want to be.

What you’ll learn:

How to take a risk in business
Validating your idea
Ways to make your site look legitimate
Proper ways to stay organized and collect information properly
The best way to get contact information for successful people
How to write an email that will get you a response
The best ways to follow up

At the end of this article you will have the confidence to reach out to anyone, whether it be to conduct an interview for your own ebook or just to get business advice.

Take the Risk

When I first started Spills the Beans, I wanted to interview the successful and accomplished entrepreneurs that I looked up to and gain insight into their journey. But, I was unsure of where to start. How would I contact them? Would they actually talk to me? I have no experience interviewing people, but I figured I’d take a shot. What is the worst that can happen? No response? Rejection? It was a risk worth taking. This is how I did it.

Validate the Idea

I decided that I wanted to ask everyone the same 10 questions. I would start with a website and if I could get enough people on board, then I could transition it into an ebook.

10 questions I asked:

What time of the day do you work best? Morning? Evening?
Do you spend more time in the office or on the go?
What do you love most about what you do?
Is there anything you dislike about what you do or about your industry?
Do you work in silence? Listen to music?
Under what conditions do you best generate ideas?
Are business decisions for love or for money?
Is the customer/client always right?
Who do you look up to?
If you could say one thing to the younger you, what would it be?

My husband told me that if I could get 5 interviews then he’d build the site for me. I sent emails to about 8 people and 5 of them got back to me and agreed to answer my questions via email. My husband got the site up and I launched their interviews.

In this case I successfully validated that I was able to interview the people on my list.

Look Legitimate

Once you look legitimate and have well respected names on your site it becomes easier to get others. The first round of interviews included Tony Hsieh and Derek Sivers. Once I had them on board and their interviews up on the site, it became easier to attract new people. The more interviews I had, the more legitimate it looked, the more eager people were to participate.

Get to Work

I continued approaching people to interview. Once I was able to interview entrepreneurs like Shark Tank’s, Barbara Corcoran and Jason Fried, I knew it was time to get an ebook together. I would conduct a whole new set of interviews for my ebook. I’d compile the interviews I already had that were posted on the site into another ebook and use it as a bonus.

For the ebook I wanted to focus more on startup founders, to me they were more relatable. Don’t get me wrong I respect everyone I interviewed very much, but I thought I’d find startup founders more relatable. So, I compiled a list in a Google docs spreadsheet, with about 60 or so names.

I figured if I could come up with 8 great questions, and ask each entrepreneur these questions, then I could compile all the interviews into my ebook. These are the 8 questions I decided to ask.

Questions for Startup Series ebook

What is your proudest business accomplishment to date?
What is the hardest lesson you’ve learned?
Do you believe in working on multiple startups at once or focusing on one?
Which do you prefer bootstrapping or funding?
Who is someone you look up to?
If you could meet any living person who would it be?
If you were to tell the younger you one thing what would it be?
What is your best advice for young and aspiring entrepreneurs?

Everything Coming Together

So, the journey began. Over 6 months I managed to get 26 interviews with founders of absolutely incredible companies including: reddit, Indiegogo, KISSmetrics, WooThemes and AngelList just to name a few. It was absolutely fantastic speaking with all of these people. I began to put those together into an ebook.

I wanted someone I admired to write the foreword. I left it to the very end because anyone I would approach would want to see the ebook first. In the end, I approached Adii Pienaar, founder of WooThemes and PublicBeta. He has provided guidance to me in the past on my previous business. Adii agreed and wrote an absolutely beautiful forward. The book finally felt complete.

I am sure right now you are saying, but wait, how did she get all of those interviews?

Between reaching out to people for interviews and reaching out for advice on my previous business, I have a pretty good technique down as to the best way to connect with peoples.

I know, that all sounds great, but how did I actually get in contact with these people?

I hope my technique below can allow you to do the same.

Learn How to Make Contact with Anyone

Creating a spreadsheet is a must if you are planning on connecting with multiple people. Here is how I collect all of the information. As you can see I have the basics, name, company, email, but I also include date of the first email being sent, first follow up email, second follow up email and if I’m following them on Twitter.

I also have color coded the spreadsheet just so at a quick glance I can know what is going on. Green is a confirmed and complete interview. Yellow is made contact, which means they responded to my email. Red means they were not interested. If the cell isn’t colored it means I have not heard from them.

Now Start Contacting People

1. Email Address

Finding their email address is usually the hardest step. First, I go to their website and check the contact page for their email. Usually you won’t be so lucky. Check both their company and personal site.

No luck? Then go to google and search “ ‘persons name’ email address”. Searches may come up with slideshare presentations or blog posts with their email address. If still no luck then I look for another employee at their company. People in PR usually post their email address in an article or a press release, so find who is in PR and search for their email. Once you have the format of the company email then go with it.

If you can’t find anything then my best advice is to take a wild guess, here are the options I usually go with.

2. LinkedIn

Check out their LinkedIn profile so they can see in their notifications that you viewed them. Start making your name familiar to them.

3. Twitter

Are you following them on Twitter? If not, then start and mark it off on your spreadsheet. If you have time and are not in a rush to contact them, then interact. Retweet their tweet or comment on something they have tweeted.

The point is to have your name popping up everywhere.

Here I was actually looking to connect with Corbett Barr so I made my name familiar and once I received a response I asked for his email address because I couldn’t find it anywhere.

4. Start Following

Follow on all other networks; Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, GitHub, Dribble, etc. The more familiar your name becomes the more they will recognize it when they see your name in their inbox and the more likely they are to respond.

5. The Email.

Writing the email, undoubtedly one of the hardest parts.

I have 2 different approaches I take.

The first is what I use when I am looking for business advice or an expert opinion.

I like to use the subject line Quick Question when I am looking for advice. I always start off with a warm and friendly comment, “Hope you are doing well.” “Hope you had a nice weekend”.

Then try and relate on some level. “I’m a huge fan and loved your book.” “I love your app, i use it all the time.” Let them know you enjoy their work. Flatter them.

Then let them know you want to send them over a quick question. Once you hear from them make sure to keep your responses short. You are more likely to get a response.

You can also turn this around into asking for an interview. Thank them for their response and and follow up with, “Hey, I am actually writing a book on entrepreneurs, I would love to interview you for it.”

When looking to interview people for Spills the Beans, I took a different approach. I used Spills the Beans as my subject line. I don’t always do this but because the site has a fun name I think it was intriguing to most people.

For these emails I started the same way, friendly hello along with a nice comment about their work. Next, I get into why I am reaching out. Something that worked very well for me was letting them know that they can answer my questions via email. People were more willing to agree and just send back the questions over email. I end the email being extremely grateful for their time.

Don’t forget to record the date you emailed them in the spreadsheet!

Best time to email.

Don’t send the email on the weekend.

Don’t send the email late at night or super early in the morning. You don’t want it to be sitting in their inbox.

I like to send emails from 11am-4pm. Check their timezone.

Know what they are up to and check their latest tweets. I was recently going to email someone and when I checked her feed. She was tweeting about catching a horrible flu, I obviously held off the email for a few days.

6. Tweet

Sometimes I will then tweet at the person @person Hey, just sent an email your way looking forward to chatting. This depends on their activity on Twitter, if they seem active and they are pretty responsive to others then go for it.

7. Schedule in Your Calendar

Once you have sent the email, schedule the follow up in your calendar for 2 weeks from the date the first email was sent. I use my calendar to keep track however there are programs you can use like Contactually that will do this for you.

Then, you wait….

If you get a response, then good job! You can skip the last 3 steps. Try and keep your emails short, and don’t ask for too much. You are most likely contacting extremely busy people and them giving you their time is generous enough. So don’t push it and start asking for favors.

Don’t forget to record your interactions in the spreadsheet. The color coding formula always reminded me of who I had made contact with, confirmed or rejected.

8. Follow Up

If you don’t receive a response, then follow up in 2 weeks when you get your next calendar reminder.

“Hey, hope you are doing well. I just wanted to follow up and see if you had a chance to check out my email below.” A lot of the time i get the response from the follow up. They either forgot about, it slipped through the cracks, went to junk mail or what not. Some people don’t want to follow up because they think they are too good for follow ups. No one is too good for it. Follow ups are a must!

After that email schedule the final follow up in your calendar for 2 weeks later.

9. Final Follow Up

At the 2 week mark, it is time for the final follow up. Configure the email similar to the previous email you sent. Add a “sorry to bother you one last time.” After that, if you do not hear from them, then don’t bother the person anymore. They are clearly not interested. Listen, it happens, don’t dwell on it or be offended.

If you made contact then that’s great! Don’t forget to always be appreciative and never take advantage.

10. Clarity or Concede

If all that fails try using Clarity.fm. There are tons of founders and experts on that site, however you will have to pay to speak to them.

You can do your best and sometimes you just won’t get responses. I have managed to come into contact with a numerous amount of people, but there were also people who never wrote me back. It happens, I just kept on going.

There is no guaranteed way to make contact with people. However, the steps outlined above is your best bet. This way, you can interview them for your website, to compile an ebook, or for advice.

The End Results

My ebook, Startup Series is finally complete. I am thankful to have 26 candid founder interviews and a beautiful forward from a well respected entrepreneur. Though I was successful at having these founders write this book, it took a lot of time. There was a lot of time spent reaching out, following up and putting the actual ebook together. Now it is launch time and I have been putting a lot of preparation into that. We’ll save that for another post.

A Special Promotion for StartupBros Readers

My ebook Startup Series is available now for $12 with the bonus ebook, From The Top. I am giving StartupBros readers a promo code for 50% off, just enter the promo code “startupbros” to get both books for $6. Offer expires March 6 at midnight!

This whole experience of putting my ebook together was so much fun and I met some great people on the way. It is definitely one of my proudest accomplishments to date.

I hope you all go for it and give it a try. Good luck!

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