How to Be A Sound Bite Genius

With Kris Gilbertson

Susan Harrow began her career in the PR world, working for big-name companies like Title Nine sportswear. Through her work, Susan began booking her clients on TV shows and realized they were totally unprepared.

“The issue was them and not knowing what to say in order to engage the audience and engage the media and encourage people,” she says. “You have to get them connected so they’ll buy.”

Susan started working in the media training industry and came up with key questions to help her clients better understand and better market their businesses. Sound bites are key to Susan’s media plan and she spends a lot of her time with clients making sure they have those key phrases completely memorized so they’ll be able to deliver them even under pressure.

“You need to prep your sound bites because people will size you up in three seconds, Susan says. “Those three seconds are when you are going to convince people to buy from you.” Because connecting with the audience is so important, Susan reminds her clients that they need to adapt and personalize their message for every audience, while still maintaining the core of their business pitch and sticking to their rehearsed sound bites.

In this episode you’ll find:

• The three questions everyone needs to know the answers to BEFORE going to the media
• How to optimize your strengths for your business
• How to get your online system in place before media appearances
• The best way to setup your website
• The one thing that will dramatically improve your media presence
• Four quick ways to get the media’s attention
• How to master the pre-interview
• How to establish yourself as an expert in your field

The key to having a successful interaction with the media, Susan says, is having your website and your media training both completed beforehand. Before making a big public appearance, it is essential to have a professional, structurally sound website in place so that people can connect with you and buy your product.

One way Susan recommends you get the media’s attention initially is by putting a demo video on your website to serve as an audition tape for potential TV appearances. By combining various push and pull elements, you can get the media’s attention and grow your business once you have a media-friendly website in place.

At the end of the day, being successful interacting with the media comes down to knowing yourself, which Susan says can be harder than you might think. “The biggest thing is mastering yourself,” she says. “If you master yourself, you master the media. And that takes practice. It takes a lot of practice.” But once you have this down, the rest is easy.

Susan is the author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul and is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and Psychology Today. She has helped her clients land appearances on everything from Fox News to the Food Network to Oprah.