The past few weeks, I wrote answers to “The Question of the Day” for Yahoo Autos, where questions from the Internet and beyond are answered by experts.
I like to interview at least three experts for every topic without letting them know what the others said. This is a technique I used when I wrote for Investor’s Business Daily. No one knows everything but when you jog the minds of those who really know what’s going on, you get original articles with breaking information.Email interviews don’t work because they usually don’t answer the questions. I have a landline telephone with a headset so that I can write while I talk. I have reams of notebooks filled with notes. When I talk to the interviewees, I talk like they are my friends. When they feel comfortable they tell me things that they don’t tell anyone else.
When an article is totally original, it also gains Google and search engine rankings for exclusive material.
I learned about products that just came to market. I learned about products that will be coming to the market. I learned that cars after model year 2007 are safer in the front seat than the back for adults. I learned that driving on bald tires is even worse than I imagined. I learned that some people hate car dealers and never trust them.
It is really important to let people talk and take excellent notes, eventually they say something brilliant.