While I was in Austin for SXSW I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Ben Smithee of Spych Research. Since somehow it’s the middle of April already and south by was a month ago (crazy!) I forgot that I hadn’t seen the end results. That was … until I got a text message last night that said “Hey, just watched your sxsw interview on youtube. You are amazing!”. My first reaction to this text was “umm why is this guy stalking me on youtube?” that thought lasted for about .57 seconds before I went to the tube to watch it.

This morning I decided to watch a few of the other videos that Spych Research posted. The commonality I saw in the videos is that Ben asks some great questions. While I was being interviewed I felt like we were just two friends hangin’ out having a conversation. I think that’s what’s great about Ben’s interview style. He is casual and comfortable yet he obviously knows how to move the conversation along to have quality content in a short amount of time. So without further adu here are the videos:

My interview

Shama Hyder | Shama.tv

Ryan Paugh | Brazen Careerist

The questions that Ben asked that you can steal:

• Tell us a little bit about yourself …
• Tell me a little bit about the new product/company/idea you just launched …
• Where do you see _____ going/evolving into?
• What advice would you give beginners?
• Your top 5 ____?
• What’s your experience been …
• What do you love about what you do?
• When you first started, what was the vision for your company?
• When was the point that you realized “now we have something”?
• Tell me about your mentor …
• What’s new and next for your future?

I feel like if I could ask just these questions to every person I meet that I’d feel like we were long time friends. In social media and in the working world it’s all about building relationships. The first step to building relationships is asking the right questions. Thanks Ben for some great relationship building questions.

sidenote: Ben & I are speaking together at the end of May at Big D Conference on Video and Social Media for Youth Markets (Gen Y and Millennials)