Content interview questions for experts: 48 questions to answer aloud

Most experts do not have a writing problem. They have a starting problem. Ask a therapist, consultant or coach what they think about their field and they will talk for twenty minutes. Ask them to write a LinkedIn post about it and nothing happens.

A content interview fixes that by changing the task. Instead of writing, you answer a question aloud. This page gives you 48 questions, grouped by what you want the content to do, plus a method for turning the answers into posts without inventing anything you did not say.

How to use this list

1. Pick one question. Not five.
2. Record yourself answering for three to four minutes. A voice memo is enough.
3. Speak to one person in your audience, not to “everyone.”
4. Do not stop to fix phrasing. Repeats and false starts are cut later.
5. Turn the recording into text, and keep the recording. You will want to check later that nothing in the post is missing from it. Our guide on checking that AI did not invent your quotes explains how.

Tip: if a question feels flat, add “last week” or “last client” to the front. Specific answers beat general ones, and a recent memory is more specific than a lifetime.

Questions that surface your stories

Stories are the hardest content to fake and the easiest to remember. Use these when you want a post that feels like a person.

1. What is the most memorable moment of your working week so far, and why did it stick?
2. Tell me about a time you were completely wrong about something in your field.
3. What was the moment you decided to do this work?
4. Describe a day when you nearly quit. What kept you in?
5. What is a small, specific thing a client or customer said that you still think about? (Change any detail that could identify them.)
6. When did a case or project go much better than you expected, and what did you do differently?
7. What is the strangest question anyone has asked you at work?
8. Who taught you something important early on, and what exactly did they say?

Questions that reveal what you believe

Opinions give a reader a reason to follow you rather than a thousand other people in the same field.

9. What do you believe about your field that most of your peers would argue with?
10. What advice do you give constantly that nobody follows?
11. What is overrated in your industry right now?
12. What is underrated, and why do people overlook it?
13. If you could change one habit in how your field works, what would it be?
14. What would you tell a beginner to ignore completely?
15. What is a rule you break on purpose, and when is that okay?
16. What do you refuse to do, even when it would be profitable?

Questions about how you actually work

Process answers show competence without bragging.

17. Walk me through the first fifteen minutes of a typical session, meeting or project.
18. What do you check first when something is not working?
19. What is the one question you always ask at the start?
20. What does your work look like in week one compared with month six?
21. What do you do when you do not know the answer?
22. What tool, habit or ritual do you rely on that people would not expect?
23. How do you decide when something is finished?
24. What does a good result look like to you, in plain words?

Questions that bust myths

Myth-and-fact posts are easy to follow and easy to share. They also carry the most risk of invented detail, so they are the best place to keep every claim in your own words.

25. What is the most common myth about your work that you hear from newcomers?
26. What do people expect from you that you cannot deliver?
27. What do people misunderstand about how long things take?
28. What is the difference between what people ask for and what they need?
29. What is a popular piece of advice in your field that is only half right?
30. What do people blame themselves for that is not actually their fault?

Questions about your audience

These keep the content aimed at a person instead of at the algorithm.

31. Who is the person you are really talking to when you post? Describe them in three sentences.
32. What does that person do at 11 p.m. on a bad day?
33. What do they Google before they find you?
34. What do they say when they first contact you?
35. What are they afraid you will think of them?
36. What would they be surprised to learn about how you work?

Questions that explain what you offer

Use these gently. They work better as honest explanation than as a pitch.

37. Who is your work not for?
38. What should someone try before they pay for help from you?
39. What happens in the first session, call or week of working with you?
40. What would make you say “this is not a good fit”?
41. What do your most satisfied clients have in common?
42. What would you say to someone who is unsure whether they need help at all?

Questions for reflection and timing

These are good for the end of the week, the end of the year, or a slow day.

43. What did you learn this month that changed how you work?
44. What are you still figuring out?
45. What is one thing you would do differently if you started again?
46. What did you stop doing this year, and why?
47. What are you curious about that is slightly outside your field?
48. What do you want people to remember about your work in five years?

From recording to post, without adding anything

The risk after a good interview is that the writing step introduces new material. A tool or an editor smooths the draft and a statistic, a quote or an example appears that you never mentioned. Keep a simple rule: nothing goes into the post that is not in the recording, unless you add it yourself on purpose.

Here is a quick pass you can do by hand:

• Transcribe the answer.
• Highlight the two or three sentences that sound most like you.
• Build the post around those sentences, cutting repeats and fillers.
• Add nothing you would not say out loud.

Frazo does this pass for you. You answer by voice, on the web or in Telegram, and the draft is assembled from your sentences, and a per-sentence source check with a flag on anything outside the recording is coming to English drafts; it is not available for them yet. English drafts are in early access, so we are still improving them. Try Frazo.

A one-week plan using this list

• Monday: one story question (1 to 8).
• Tuesday: one belief question (9 to 16).
• Wednesday: one process question (17 to 24).
• Thursday: one myth question (25 to 30).
• Friday: one audience question (31 to 36), or one reflection question (43 to 48).

That is five short recordings, around twenty minutes of talking in total. Not every answer will become a post, and that is normal. The point of the recording is to have more material than you need.

Choosing questions for your field

Some fields need extra care when they answer. If you work with clients in a confidential setting, such as therapy or coaching, read our field notes for therapists and coaches, which cover how to talk about your work without identifying anyone.

For a comparison of tools that can run an interview for you, see our Pressmaster alternative page.

Start with one question. Say the answer out loud. That is the whole technique.