How we structure a case study interview so people actually tell us the truth

The biggest risk in a case study interview is not a boring subject; it is a subject who has already decided what the "safe" answer is and gives it to every question, including the ones that would make the piece actually useful. The structure below is designed to get past that.

We never open with the result

Asking "what results did you see" first invites a rehearsed, PR-approved answer. We open instead with: "walk me through the week before you started looking for a solution." This gets people describing a specific, textured problem instead of a marketing summary, and that problem is usually more compelling than any number that comes later.

We ask what almost did not work

"What was the hardest part of getting this live" produces the most useful material in almost every interview we have run. It is also the question subjects are least prepared for, which means the answer is unrehearsed and specific.

We ask for the number they actually track, not the one that sounds best

"What's the number you personally look at every week now" gets a different, more honest answer than "what results did you achieve." The metric someone actually monitors is almost always more credible than the headline number in a press release.

• Record everything, transcribe it fully, and quote directly rather than paraphrasing — specific phrasing reads as more credible.

• Send the draft back to the subject for factual approval, but push back gently if they try to sand off every specific detail.

• If a subject cannot name a single thing that was hard, the interview is not ready to write from yet — go back and ask again.