Tips for Pre-interviewing

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• Most people aren’t familiar with pre-interviews, so explain what you’re going to do and why. This is especially important if you’re doing the pre-interview yourself. You don’t want your guest to confuse it with the actual interview.

• Focus on the key parts of the interview. This isn’t a dry run of the interview—it’s information gathering, or as I like to call it, story gathering.

• If you’re doing the pre-interview yourself, always interrupt good stories and explain that you want your guest to sound unrehearsed and fresh in the interview.

• The output of a successful pre-interview is a list of stories your guest tells well and maybe a few that you should stay away from.