Some experts write slowly and talk well. Ask them a question across a table and the answer arrives with an example, a figure and an opinion; hand them a blank page and they stall for an hour.
If that sounds familiar, record the talking. A 30-minute interview with the right questions gives you source material for an article, an email and a short video, in your own phrasing, with the examples already attached.
By the end you'll have a subject, a timed agenda with 8 prompts and a follow-up card for whoever's asking. You'll also have a marked-up transcript and a list of passages matched to formats.
Jump to the free Expert Interview Recording Kit
Build your expert interview content strategy on 1 subject and evidence-led questions
Choose 1 decision your buyers face, then write questions that ask for evidence such as a specific case, numbers, mistakes or disagreement with standard advice. Evidence-led questions produce answers you can publish, because each one comes with its own example. A broad subject like "leadership" yields 30 minutes of opinion with nothing to check.
Pick a subject that passes 3 tests:
- A buyer makes this decision before or while hiring you.
- You've seen it go wrong at least 3 times.
- You hold a view on it that a peer might argue with.
Daniel Reyes is a fictional commercial kitchen designer who works with independent restaurant owners. His subject is what to check in a space before signing a restaurant lease: owners face that decision before they call him, he's seen it go wrong often, and he disagrees with the habit of designing the kitchen after the lease is signed.
If the interviews will feed a video series, planning a YouTube series for consultants maps the episode topics before you record.
The timed agenda
| Time | Block | Prompts |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00 to 2:00 | Setup: confirm consent to record, state the date and subject, check sound | None |
| 2:00 to 7:00 | Context | 1 and 2 |
| 7:00 to 17:00 | Evidence | 3, 4 and 5 |
| 17:00 to 24:00 | Opinion | 6 and 7 |
| 24:00 to 28:00 | Action | 8 |
| 28:00 to 30:00 | Wrap: "What should I have asked you?" | None |
Evidence gets the most time because it produces the passages you'll publish.
The 8 prompts
- Who calls you, and what has usually just happened?
- What decision are they facing that week?
- Walk me through the last time this went wrong. What did it cost in money or weeks?
- What do you check first, and why that?
- What do clients believe about this that turns out to be wrong?
- Where do you disagree with the usual advice in your field?
- What would you tell someone who can't afford to hire you?
- What should someone in this position do this week?
Send the list to the interviewer, and let the expert see it a day ahead so examples have time to surface.
Record the expert interview with follow-up prompts
Record video and audio together, with someone else asking the questions, and run a backup audio recording on a phone. The interviewer's main job is the follow-up: when an answer goes general, they ask for the case, the number or the 1-sentence version before moving to the next prompt. If you'd rather publish the audio alone, the writing and audio workflow builds a whole routine around it.
Set up the room before anyone arrives. The room and sound checklist in planning your first 5 recordings works here too, with a mic for each speaker if you have 2.
A colleague, a curious friend or an assistant can ask the questions, and reading straight from the agenda is fine. Give them these follow-up prompts on a card:
- "What happened next?"
- "Can you put a number on that?"
- "Say that again in 1 sentence."
- "Who would disagree with you?"
- "What did that look like on the day?"
- "How do you know?"
3 habits keep the 30 minutes productive:
- Ask 1 question at a time, then let 3 seconds of silence pass before the next. The second half of an answer is often the better half.
- Note the clock time whenever the expert tells a story or gives a number, which speeds up the transcript review.
- Guard the agenda. If the evidence block runs long, drop prompt 7 and keep prompt 8, because the action answer is the one readers use.
After the call, run the recording through a transcription tool that keeps timestamps, and save the transcript next to the agenda.
Identify the passages worth turning into content
Read the transcript once with 3 marks: CLAIM for any statement you'd publish as advice or fact, EXAMPLE for a specific case, and CHECK for anything that needs a source, a client's permission or a confirmed number. Passages with no open CHECK are ready first; the rest wait for research.
| Mark | Means | Before publishing |
|---|---|---|
| CLAIM | Advice or a statement of fact | Label it as opinion, or find a source |
| EXAMPLE | A specific case with detail | Remove identifying details, or get permission |
| CHECK | Needs research or confirmation | Confirm it, soften it or cut it |
Worked example: Daniel's annotated transcript (fictional)
The excerpts below come from the evidence block (9:10 to 11:33) and the action block (24:10), with the marks in brackets after each answer.
Interviewer, 9:10: Walk me through the last time this went wrong.
Daniel, 9:14: A couple signed a 10-year lease on an old shoe store, a lovely corner with plenty of foot traffic. They called me 3 weeks after signing, and the gas service turned out to be sized for a water heater. Upgrading it, plus roof work for the hood exhaust, added about $40,000 and 8 weeks before they could open. [EXAMPLE] [CHECK: confirm both figures in the project file and remove anything that identifies the couple or the street]
Interviewer, 10:02: Can you put a number on how often that happens?
Daniel, 10:05: In my projects, I'd guess 1 in 3 retail-to-restaurant conversions need a gas or electrical upgrade. [CLAIM] [CHECK: count it from his last 30 project files and publish it as his count, with the sample size]
Interviewer, 11:30: What do you check first when you walk into a space?
Daniel, 11:33: Where the hood can vent. If exhaust can't go up through the roof or out a wall the landlord will approve, the menu has to change, and owners hate hearing that after they've signed. [CLAIM] [CHECK: venting rules vary by city, so frame it as a question for the local building department]
Interviewer, 24:10: What should someone do this week if they're looking at a space?
Daniel, 24:14: Before you sign, pay a kitchen designer or a mechanical engineer for a 1-hour walk-through. It's the cheapest hour in the whole project. [CLAIM: his advice, so label it as opinion and pair it with the 9:14 story]
The 10:05 passage is the one to hold back. "1 in 3" sounds like data, and until Daniel counts his files it's a guess, so it stays out of everything for now.
Matching passages to formats
| Format | Passage | Why this passage | Work needed first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Article | 9:14 and 11:33, plus 24:14 | A full argument: story, first check, action | Confirm the figures and add a pre-lease checklist |
| 24:14 | 1 action a reader can take this week | Label it as Daniel's opinion and link to the article | |
| Short video | 11:33 | 1 vivid point that fits in 60 seconds | Reword the venting point as a question for the building department |
Working titles follow from the passages. The article is "What to Check Before You Sign a Restaurant Lease," the email subject is "The cheapest hour before you sign," and the short video opens on "Before you sign a restaurant lease, find out where the hood can vent."
In the Sparklers and Bonfires model, the article is the Bonfire and the short video is a Sparkler that points back to it. Once the passages are marked, turning 1 interview into 5 content pieces with AI covers drafting them faster while you keep the editing.
The Expert Interview Recording Kit has Daniel's marked-up transcript and blank versions of the agenda, prompts and selection table.
Pick your subject today and send the 8 prompts to whoever will ask them. Book 30 minutes this week, transcribe the recording the same day, and mark it up before you write a word of the article.