Thank you for agreeing to be on the Clever Tykes podcast!
We want to make the best use of your time and ensure that we have an enjoyable and interesting conversation. Below are some recommendations to get you ready for your interview.
Help us prepare the show notes for your episode by providing us with the following:
- Your bio. Please send us a copy of your bio, which doesn’t need to be perfectly written.
- A landscape photo of yourself. This doesn’t have to be a professional headshot, we just need to be able to clearly see your face. Please send us the largest and highest resolution file you have.
Interview guidance:
If you have been interviewed before you’ll know that there are a variety of tech glitches that can affect your audio quality. Here are some recommendations to sound your best on the day:
- Interviews are conducted using Skype. Please consider downloading the latest version of Skype for the best audio quality. If possible, please use Skype on a laptop or tablet rather than your phone for the best audio.
- If you have a microphone, please use it. You will sound far better than the built-in speakers on your laptop. At the very least, I recommend using your earbuds.
- Find a quiet place. Noisy coffee shops don’t make a good location for podcast interviews (and often don’t have the fastest internet connections).
- Turn off all notification sounds on your computer and phone. The sound of “bing, bing” going off during our interview might not seem like a big deal, but you’d be surprised how annoying listeners find it!
- Close down all other programs. To help Skype function more efficiently I recommend shutting down all of your other programs and apps. Temporarily pausing Dropbox syncing will make a huge difference in improving call performance.
- Editing. After the interview the files will go to an editor for preparing and uploading. At any point during or after the interview if you don’t want anything you have said to be included, just let us know and we’ll make sure it isn’t. Similarly, if there are any topics you don’t want us to ask you about just let us know beforehand. It’s important to us that you are proud of your episode 🙂
Interview format and questions
Your interview will be approximately 50 minutes in length.
We believe the best interviews are those that are great conversations. We’ll be led by you and the natural flow of the conversation and won’t necessarily stick to a fixed structure. Below are some examples of the questions that we may include if the discussion warrants it.
Questions might include:
Education
- Which of your teachers had the most influence on you?
- What was your experience of school/college/university?
- Did your school have ability sets?
- Would you have done anything differently?
Personality and mindset
- Have you ever experienced an epiphany about something in your life or work?
- Do you have any personal mantras that you live by?
- Where does your confidence come from?
- How do you define success?
- Do you practice a particular faith, philosophy or lifestyle?
- What role does fate play in your life? How do you deal with things outside of your control?
- Whose footsteps do you aspire to follow, either professionally or personally?
- Do you have children? Which lessons are you passing on? Anything you are consciously doing differently?
Upbringing
- Is there anything your parents/guardians said to you that you think about on a regular basis?
- Who did you look up to?
- Did you have any setbacks?
- What were your favourite toys or games?
- What was your impression of work?
- What did your parents do when you were growing up?
- What did you discuss around the dinner table?
Business
- What does success mean to you?
- What is your approach to risk?
- Is there anyone you channel when things get tough?
- What commitments did you have when you started out?
- How do you prepare for big events or public speaking?
- Do you find it easy to relinquish control and delegate?
- How intertwined are you and your brand?
- Is there a moment in your working life that you are especially proud of?
- What is the most recent thing you learnt?
- What are you especially good at?
- What (if anything!) are you especially bad at?
Thank you for your time and we look forward to your interview.
I am a huge advocate of the entrepreneurial messages and characteristics that you are driving. I think it is a fantastic idea to instil the idea of entrepreneurship into children from a young age. This is a great way to open children up to the idea of not always following conventional paths and giving them the belief and confidence to pursue their own creative business ideas.
The Clever Tykes series are such a wonderful way to introduce ‘enterprise’ to children from a young age – I can’t recommend them highly enough, and strongly urge parents to read along with their child as there is no doubt the stories will stimulate lots of questions and interest!
I found Walk-it Willow easy to read and full of lovely messages that children can take from it. It touched on taking responsibility, problem solving, admitting mistakes and also the work it takes to run a small business. Willow is entertaining but very human. A lovely story.
