Ready to Live Your Dreams? Betsy Talbot can show you how. Listen now at http://ping.fm/Kbtup
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February 2010
Turning Dreams into Reality Interview
A few years ago, Betsy Talbot and her husband Warren defined what living the "good life" meant to them and decided to go for it. The exciting results are chronicled on their blog Married with Luggage.
In this interview, Betsy talks about the lifestyle changes they've made, how media publicity plays a role in their plans and offers tips to help you get started creating a life you'll love.
Why Personal Scandals Make News
As the whole planet knows, last Friday Professional Golfer Tiger Woods made his first public comments since his November 27 car crash and resulting fall from grace amid lurid tabloid tales about his personal life.
I was in a business office and it was funny to see how many people, who have probably never seen Tiger play a round of golf, stopped working to jockey around and make sure they didn't miss his TV announcement.
To be fair, they're media people so they wanted to see if he would make news, but it's also true a lot of regular people are celebrity-obsessed and can't get enough of the
scandal du jour.
Why does gossip makes news? I'm sure there are many explanations, but one is that part of human nature takes delight in another person's misfortunes. The Germans even have a word for it "Schadenfreude." And it's especially enjoyable when the other person is better looking, richer or more powerful than you are.
Author Henry Scott talked about that during a public radio interview about his new book on the rise of the 1950's Hollywood gossip magazine Confidential. Here's a link to his interview
Confidential magazine was one of the first publications to pierce the golden bubble of the movie star's perfect world. It's mostly accurate reporting exposed the reality of famous names' lives, which were often at odds with the public persona so carefully crafted by the studios star-making machine.
Tiger's stellar image disappeared practically overnight last November and pundits gave his long-delayed "mea culpa" mixed reviews. It will be interesting to watch what actions he takes now to rehabilitate his reputation and resurrect his billion dollar brand.
Photo credit: stock.xchng/gorillablu
Entrepreneur Amber Singleton Riviere Interview
Amber Singleton Riviere recently launched the new Internet Radio Show, Rock Your Genius. She is an entrepreneur dedicated to helping other entrepreneurs and small business owners and has carved out online success as a writer, web designer, coach/consultant, podcaster and much more.
Amber has a lot going on and she shares her expertise and inspiring entrepreneurial story, as you'll hear in this interview.
Find out more about all of Amber's work at ambersingleton.com
Let's Hear It for the Coaches
Are you watching the Olympics on TV? So many of the personal stories of these world class athletes are wrapped around the power of working with an expert coach.
Last night NBC featured an interview with Canadian Figure Skater Patrick Chan in which he talked about the lasting impact his late coach Osborne Colson had on him. Chan said Colson taught him as much about life as about skating, down to what fork to use at the dinner table. These life lessons along with the skating skills helped the young athlete mature in a way he might not have on his own and led him to some outstanding achievements.
We hear the term "coach" beyond athletics a lot these days, sometimes as the punchline of a joke. To be sure, it's hard to understand the value of coaching if you've never been involved with it. I wanted to take this Olympic moment to suggest if you want to "Go for the Gold" in some aspect of your life, consider hiring a coach.
I've benefited in so many ways from my relationships with amazing coaches over the years. I've worked with a voice coach, fitness coach, media coach, speech coach, business coach and more. They've helped me take the steps to achieve more, faster and at a higher level than I sometimes thought was possible for me. Like the skater, my first voice coach, who taught me from age six until I went to college, had a profound effect on more than my singing voice.
Here's my plug for working with a media coach. Most people are not natural performers when it comes to interacting with the media but media skills are easy to learn. if you want to add media and publicity to your business marketing toolbox, you can save yourself trial and error time and perhaps a few embarrassing moments by getting media trained and practicing with a professional coach.
The process of working with an outside party committed to your success can do wonders for your performance and for your life. It's a valuable investment in yourself. Just ask an Olympic athlete.
Photo credit: stock.xchng/Ale_Paiva
Make the Most of Your Moment
I found this article by Lisa Braithwaite on buzzle.com. (and of course, I couldn't resist the title.)
It's good advice for effectively getting your message across with print journalists. (and would also mostly apply to telephone interviews with radio reporters).
Your Media Moment: Give a Successful InterviewPrepare your key points in advance and never waver from your main message, and you will always be ready for media interviews.
The phone rings. It's a journalist who wants to ask you a few questions
for a story she's writing. You, flattered, take the call and flub your
way through the interview, because off the top of your head, you can't
remember your elevator pitch or a single talking point about your
business or product. Oops!
Many of us will be called upon by the media for a quote or more, and knowing how to prepare will eliminate much of your anxiety as well as set the stage for an article you can be proud of.
Pointer 1: You can't control what the reporter writes
You hope that, if you prepare an answer to every possible question and give as much detail as possible in your responses, your interview will be published verbatim with brilliant and accurate quotes, and everything in the article will be exactly as you want it.
Wrong.
No matter what you say or how you say it, the reporter always gets the final word. Literally. Your quotes will be taken out of context. Your key points will be edited, condensed and paraphrased. The reporter will decide which points are most important to write about - especially if you have given so much information that the reporter can't tell which ones are your key points.
This is not to say that the reporter is out to get you, or deliberately trying to undermine you. It's your responsibility to know exactly what your main points are and to stick to those points. If you only have three points, and you keep coming back to them, it's going to be hard for the reporter to write about anything else.
Rather than anticipating every question you might be asked, focus your preparation on your most critical points, and practice answering any question by coming back to those points. You can only control your own words, so make sure your message is clear, concise, and easily delivered.
Pointer 2: Take the call when you're ready
It's tempting when a reporter calls to jump right into the interview. You don't want to keep her waiting, and you're afraid that if you don't take the call, you'll miss your "big chance."
Resist the temptation and take a few minutes to get ready. Ask the reporter what the topic is and when her deadline is. Let the reporter know that you can't talk at the moment, but you will call back in a few minutes, or before the deadline. You can try asking the reporter to e-mail or fax you the interview questions, and sometimes the whole interview can be conducted by e-mail, but be prepared for the reporter to decline.
Now that you've got some time to prepare, sit down at the computer or open your file drawer and pull up your marketing documents, your bio, your website, your blog, and anything else you can think of to have the information you need at your fingertips.
Determine and clarify the main points you want to cover - no more than three. Look at your mission statement, go over your elevator pitch, and take a couple of deep breaths.
Now, when you call the journalist back, you are ready to give an interview!
Pointer 3: Don't take mistakes personally
Even with excellent preparation, you may be misquoted or find a factual error in the article. In fact, it's very likely.
When a journalist is taking notes over the phone, it's difficult to write everything down exactly as you said it. Even when interviewing in person and using a recorder, it's not easy to get everything right. And everyone has personal filters through which information is fed, meaning that the reporter's interpretation and perception of what was said may be different than yours. Again, the reporter is not out to get you. Her sole purpose is to write a good, accurate story that informs her readers.
If the factual errors are minor (your business was founded in 1997, but the article says 1998) and readers will never know the difference, then let it go. If you're slightly misquoted but you don't sound like a murderer or a racist, then let it go.
If the mistake is more damaging, like a misspelled web address or, say, the wrong person credited for an important invention, then by all means ask for a correction to be printed. The beauty of web-based media is that it can be corrected at any time, unlike print media.
If you think you can head off errors by asking to see the article before it's published, don't bother. A journalist doesn't need your permission or approval to publish the piece - it's not an advertisement that you've paid for and can control. Journalists cannot be influenced by their sources to change their stories - their job is to remain objective and credible by telling a story based on their own research and interpretation of the facts.
If you're lucky, the writer will send you your quotes or any complex data for fact-checking, and that is a wonderful courtesy. But asking to see the piece before it's published is generally considered poor etiquette and will not endear you to the reporter.
Remember, you have total control over the words that come out of your mouth. This is the one opportunity you have in an interview to get your message out there in a way that is unambiguous to the reporter and to the readers. Take the time to prepare your key points in advance and never waver from your main message, and you will always be ready for your media moment.
Many of us will be called upon by the media for a quote or more, and knowing how to prepare will eliminate much of your anxiety as well as set the stage for an article you can be proud of.
Pointer 1: You can't control what the reporter writes
You hope that, if you prepare an answer to every possible question and give as much detail as possible in your responses, your interview will be published verbatim with brilliant and accurate quotes, and everything in the article will be exactly as you want it.
Wrong.
No matter what you say or how you say it, the reporter always gets the final word. Literally. Your quotes will be taken out of context. Your key points will be edited, condensed and paraphrased. The reporter will decide which points are most important to write about - especially if you have given so much information that the reporter can't tell which ones are your key points.
This is not to say that the reporter is out to get you, or deliberately trying to undermine you. It's your responsibility to know exactly what your main points are and to stick to those points. If you only have three points, and you keep coming back to them, it's going to be hard for the reporter to write about anything else.
Rather than anticipating every question you might be asked, focus your preparation on your most critical points, and practice answering any question by coming back to those points. You can only control your own words, so make sure your message is clear, concise, and easily delivered.
Pointer 2: Take the call when you're ready
It's tempting when a reporter calls to jump right into the interview. You don't want to keep her waiting, and you're afraid that if you don't take the call, you'll miss your "big chance."
Resist the temptation and take a few minutes to get ready. Ask the reporter what the topic is and when her deadline is. Let the reporter know that you can't talk at the moment, but you will call back in a few minutes, or before the deadline. You can try asking the reporter to e-mail or fax you the interview questions, and sometimes the whole interview can be conducted by e-mail, but be prepared for the reporter to decline.
Now that you've got some time to prepare, sit down at the computer or open your file drawer and pull up your marketing documents, your bio, your website, your blog, and anything else you can think of to have the information you need at your fingertips.
Determine and clarify the main points you want to cover - no more than three. Look at your mission statement, go over your elevator pitch, and take a couple of deep breaths.
Now, when you call the journalist back, you are ready to give an interview!
Pointer 3: Don't take mistakes personally
Even with excellent preparation, you may be misquoted or find a factual error in the article. In fact, it's very likely.
When a journalist is taking notes over the phone, it's difficult to write everything down exactly as you said it. Even when interviewing in person and using a recorder, it's not easy to get everything right. And everyone has personal filters through which information is fed, meaning that the reporter's interpretation and perception of what was said may be different than yours. Again, the reporter is not out to get you. Her sole purpose is to write a good, accurate story that informs her readers.
If the factual errors are minor (your business was founded in 1997, but the article says 1998) and readers will never know the difference, then let it go. If you're slightly misquoted but you don't sound like a murderer or a racist, then let it go.
If the mistake is more damaging, like a misspelled web address or, say, the wrong person credited for an important invention, then by all means ask for a correction to be printed. The beauty of web-based media is that it can be corrected at any time, unlike print media.
If you think you can head off errors by asking to see the article before it's published, don't bother. A journalist doesn't need your permission or approval to publish the piece - it's not an advertisement that you've paid for and can control. Journalists cannot be influenced by their sources to change their stories - their job is to remain objective and credible by telling a story based on their own research and interpretation of the facts.
If you're lucky, the writer will send you your quotes or any complex data for fact-checking, and that is a wonderful courtesy. But asking to see the piece before it's published is generally considered poor etiquette and will not endear you to the reporter.
Remember, you have total control over the words that come out of your mouth. This is the one opportunity you have in an interview to get your message out there in a way that is unambiguous to the reporter and to the readers. Take the time to prepare your key points in advance and never waver from your main message, and you will always be ready for your media moment.
 | By Lisa Braithwaite Published: 9/21/2007 |
Notes
- Audio Tips for Your Media Moment & Beyond
- Start Blogging!
- Are You Oprah Ready?
- Promote Yourself with Online Video
- Get Radio On-Air Publicity
- Create Your Online Newsroom
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