What Should We Be Looking for From You?

If you get interviewed enough times you get plenty of reps to where you’ve got answers prepared for just about anything that gets thrown your way.  More importantly, though, are the questions you’ve not gotten yet and/or those that you weren’t expecting.  How you handle those will say a lot – on different levels.

I’ve often said that I don’t know why people get so nervous in job interviews.  After all, the potential employer is asking you questions about yourself, right?  So, who knows you better than you?!

Regardless of whether you’re a musician, an author, or an entrepreneur, who knows your music, your book, your business better than you?  You’re the creator, so you should know the subject matter inside out.  But since it is a business, you should not only know the brand like the back of your hand, but you are the owner, so you should know what the business plan is.  Whether it’s on a napkin, a Post-It note, handwritten on a legal pad, or a formal, extensive document that you keep on your computer, you should know what the plan is.

Yesterday I was being interviewed (yes, on a Sunday – you don’t tell someone who wants to give you exposure that “it’s the weekend, though”) and I was getting decent questions.  Granted, in full disclosure, I had provided a handful of them on the form that guests are asked to fill out while being booked on that show.  To his credit, the host came up with a couple others that were good, albeit unplanned, questions.

And then came the big one.  “So, where is all this going, Bruce?”

It sounds like something your parents ask you when you’re still living with them and swear that you’re on the verge of something big – as you, of course, try to get more time under their roof while you try to get more income to spring you to a place of your own.

I had an answer for him, but it made me wonder how many people are caught off guard by that question.  Mind you, this isn’t your ‘Why’ – a way overused buzzword that I wish would go away.  It’s as if the host had said, “What’s your plan here?”  Imagine stammering to get an answer out, which would make it look like, “Do you even have a plan” would be a more appropriate question.

Every week on “Now Hear This Entertainment” as well as in this blog, I aim to deliver meaningful content that is helpful (and entertaining) to you.  The plan there is to educate listeners and readers so they see that they can learn from listening to the podcast every week and coming here to read the blog each Monday.  However, this is one time where the best I can tell you is the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared.”  In other words, I can’t tell you what the answer is.

When I do speaking engagements I often times will challenge audience members to “do a self-audit.”  Today with this blog I’m strongly recommending that you look in the mirror and ask, “Where is all this going.”  The good news is that if you look at your reflection and freeze up and say, “I’m not really sure,” at least it’s not happening on the air somewhere.  The bad news is, you better stop everything else you’re doing and find out fast.  Otherwise, why are you doing it?

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