Posted By susanharrow on January 16, 2008

Amy Fisher has made a lot of mistakes. Most recently, Amy Fisher and her estranged husband, Lou Bellera, made a porn video which he sold to Red Light District Video (the company also distributed the 1 NIGHT IN PARIS DVD starring Paris Hilton). The Fisher and Bellera video is already available on the Internet, much to Fisher’s dismay.

Fisher made her first big media mistake in 1992 at age 17 when she slept with Joey Buttafuoco, age 35, then shot his wife. The affair earned her the title of the Long Island Lolita in the national news. Although most of us have not shot anyone, or made a porn video, we’ve all done things we’d rather not have anyone know about, particularly the media.

It’s a sad fact that once you make a mistake in print or on live radio or TV, it’s forever etched in the national consciousness, and preserved in print in the LexisNexis and/or the Dow Jones systems, two services that house just about every article ever printed.

These two sources are the prime places that journalists and producers use to research potential experts and guests for their shows and publications. Worst case scenario is that you say and/or do something shameful, embarrassing, silly, stupid, or wrong. The sad fact is you can never take it back. What’s done is done. And anyone can find it with a little bit of research.

Most people looking for publicity focus on the press release or pitch letter they send to the media and quickly lose sight of the importance of their soundbites once the media calls. While your first contact with the media through the written word is important, your spoken word is just as important. It’s the next step. The media interviews you and you either pass or fail. Often, there is no second chance.

If you pass, you get to have your say–in 15-30 seconds, for typically 2 to 20 minutes total. I’ve discovered that most people’s Achilles’ heel is in the actual appearance or interview itself. Because even if you make it onto a show, that appearance can have little result. Bottom line, it’s because of you.

In the big picture, you are the representative of your brand. Your words, tone, body and facial language need to match “everything” you do, say and are, including the product, service or cause you’re promoting. If they don’t, the audience perceives the disconnect and doesn’t buy into what you’re saying or selling.

From my experience, people don’t want to believe this. Whether it’s out of fear or the lack of it, the result is the same. Disappointment. I became a media coach because as a publicist I realized that even though I got my clients prime placements for everything from the New York Times to Larry King Live, those appearances often didn’t produce the results they had hoped.

When I read, heard or saw my client’s interviews, I knew why. They rambled, they dithered, they got off track, they were dull or negative or boring or said just the opposite of what they intended. I had done my job by getting them the placements, but they hadn’t done theirs by being a great interview subject. One client even told me she felt “raped” by the media. Pretty strong language for a chat between two people that happened to be aired on radio.

What she said was that she felt cornered into saying things that were too private to be uttered. While she didn’t come to the realization that she was angry at herself, she did come to understand that there is only one person who could control her words and actions…her. Although this may not be an easy pill to swallow, once accepted, it is the ultimate elixir.

Little by little, I began media coaching my own clients early in my career and liked it so much I changed my whole focus to developing media strategies and angles and then media trained my clients to those angles. I found that the media training was the missing link in the evolution of the PR process. And my clients began to have the results they so dearly wanted.

I’d like you to have those results too.

Whether you are the person who has been afraid to work on your soundbites, the person who is eager to learn, the one who has been “burned” by the media, or the one who has had disappointing results, you’re all welcome to attend the free teleclass called How to Create Soundbites that Get You on Oprah and Other National TV Talk Shows.

I encourage you to make this the year of the soundbite where you say what you want in the way you want to say it so people will respond to what you have to give.

Category: Publicity
Tags: Sound Bites, Videos