If you hope to not only idolize someone famous from afar, but actually want to both meet them and arrange to interview them, then you need a plan of action.
Exactly what this plan needs to be will depend on the particular celebrity you want to meet, but it always begins with the fact that value attracts value. In practice, this means that no celebrity will agree to an interview simply because you are a fan and would really like to meet them and ask them questions.
There has to be something in it for them.
Fortunately this “something” doesn’t have to be in the form of money. Though if you happen to be rich, or have just won the lottery, then the absolute easiest way to get an interview with a celebrity is simply to pay them.
If you don’t have money to spend though you first of all need to be aware that the exact same value principal applies, but you will simply have to be able to deliver value to that celebrity in a non-monetary way.
A great way of delivering value is through finding out which charities the celebrity you want to interview is particularly active in and then contact the charity, rather than the celebrity about securing an interview.
A good website to look at is LookToTheStars.org which bills itself as “The World of Celebrity Giving”, and which lists the charitable events that many celebrities are actively involved in, and which has a search engine for thousands more.
A search for Elton John, for example, reveals that he is actively involved with 54 different charities.
http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/62-elton-john
There are two different aspects to assessing this list if you wanted to interview Elton John (or someone famous like him). First you get to see the particular charities that he is involved with, so you get useful information as to how to pitch an interview to him and his agent.
Naturally, you would tailor your “pitch” to what the celebrity is already passionate about. The “payoff” for them can be had from the psychological benefits they feel from getting the word out about causes that they are passionate about.
Second, and generally more fertile ground, you can contact the charities directly and pitch them on why you should interview Elton John. In all likelihood if you can get them to contact a celebrity on your behalf, then they are likely to have greater levels of leverage over the celebrity to get them to do it.
Again, this needs to be a win-win relationship, so the charity will only help you if you can find some way to help them. But your chances immediately increase over contacting the celebrity first, because charities are always looking for extra coverage, awareness of their cause and money, and if you can offer assistance in providing any of these then they will always be prepared to listen.
So, if you are a maestro on Twitter or Facebook or know someone who is, then now would be the time to mention it.
The money aspect can actually be your friend here, even if you are broke! Because fundraising for charities doesn’t require you to have any money, it simply demands that you are able to persuade other people to sponsor you and part with their money.
You see this all the time on shows like Celebrity Apprentice where the phrase “It’s for charity” opens doors that would otherwise have been firmly closed.
It is quite likely that if a famous person is listed as supporting a particular charity that they will in any case be appearing at fundraising dinners or events for the charity, and so the question of where you could carry out the interview is already taken care of. All that remains is for you to negotiate with the charity as to the basis on which they would allow you to interview the famous person at the event.
They may allow you to do this, for example, if you can guarantee the event a certain amount of coverage in a newspaper or online media, or if you raise a certain amount of money.
Fame is a game that is played out in the media and to a large extent you have to realize that the calls on the time of most famous people are considerably greater than they can ever meet. If you are going to secure an interview then you have to be offering something of value, or you are relying on the goodwill of the celebrity, and that is virtually always going to be a losing play for you.
Unless the famous person is particularly egocentric, they will get too many requests for interviews to ever perform all of them. So you must focus on making them WANT to be interviewed because there is a greater good that they can be a part of, as a result of agreeing.
If you do that than acquiring an interview with a famous person simply becomes a factor of thinking creatively about which of the famous persons charities you are best able to help, and then being persistent in contacting them.
As with most things in life relying on luck and other people’s goodwill will only get you so far.
Actively contacting 54 charities with fun ways that you can help them will get you much further!
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