Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?

Turns out, Eminem’s aspiring rap career and collecting subject matter information from technical experts for marketing content have more in common than we thought.

If you’re going to create content that directly addresses pains, goals or questions in your target audience, the best source material you can get will come from subject matter experts.

But as Senior Strategist Grace Wright and Content Director Toby Wall explain, the quality of the information you get in a subject matter interview is directly tied to how much (or how little) your interview subject trusts you.

That first call is make-or-break. You only get one shot.

What it takes to build trust

It’s not enough to sound good on the phone. Grace says that building trust with these key sources of information requires doing the legwork necessary to speak their language and understand their world.

It’s an exercise in empathy you must undertake long before the interview is scheduled.

Toby’s advice: Put yourself in your interview subject’s shoes and consider the ways they are vulnerable.

When they feel secure, they give you the goods.

And when you’ve got the goods, your content will shine.