Media coaching to get chosen for a media appearance or commercial

Client Success Story: Mary Sheehan for Giant Eagle Pharmacy

A few years ago (I can hardly believe how much time has passed!) I worked with an extremely talented pharmacist and spokesperson named Mary Sheehan. Mary wanted to build an online presence and train pharmacists on how to help customers more effectively.

She consistently had repeat clients who found her advice and the way she handled their prescriptions helped them get better faster.  (Great going Mary!)

Mary and I worked on developing her essential talking points/ sound bites that she could easily incorporate into her work in order to grow her business.

Together we created a webinar, a course, and downloadable documents (booklets) to help other pharmacists.

By using these booklets and carefully paying attention to not only what she said to her patients and colleagues, but how she said it to her patients and colleagues, Mary was able to create a name for herself. It wasn’t long until the entire staff was using her material, and positive calls were coming in from corporate.

Mary’s shining star took off even more when one day, she received an opportunity to be a spokesperson for her company on a national commercial!

See below for details from Mary on how the shoot went, what she learned, and the result.

“From your media training, I was prepared for the long hours, the criticism and the tedium of the shoot. For instance, my hair wouldn’t stay in place because I moved my head too much, my skirt was riding up and I received feedback that I was too robotic. Normally those comments would cause me to become anxious, but I just reminded myself that it wasn’t personal and to maintain a calm, ‘willingness to please’ demeanor. 

My marketing department was on scene, so I was sure to speak to them in a way that let them know they had made the right decision in choosing me. I thought about talking from my heart to one person I care about and who needed to hear what I had to say. That was something I really took away from our training.

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I did calming mental exercises between takes as well as grounding exercises and breathing. For example, when I was scared, I would close my eyes and feel my feet on the ground. That helped me feel gratitude and reminded me that I was prepared for this.

You’d helped through other TV appearances so I remembered that if I could survive that, I could easily nail these lines and relax and be my confident self. Even though I was facing health battles I had a system in place that I fell back on—knowing what to say and how to say it. All totally in line with who I am and who I wanted to be.

The most nerve-wracking part of the day was that they had another actress on set just in case I left the company or totally bombed. It was very intimidating. She did a take. I did a take. I watched her takes and was complimentary to my marketing team, mentioning how good she was and listening when they told me how they’d like me to do what she did. 

I truly was prepared for the entire experience, and I cannot thank you enough.

The effect of the commercial on business?

Last year our pharmacy gave 346 shots

This year our pharmacy has already given 446

Technically the “flu season” is not over and this already represents a 23 percent increase.

In our entire district last year the pharmacies gave 9,470 and this year we have already done 12,594 shots for a 25% increase and the season is not over yet.

Oh, and I got a promotion.”

SIDE NOTE: Mary and I discussed taking out the fact that she got a promotion. I thought it was important to leave it in because when you truly embody your message it affects every area of your life – family, friends, business, social situations — not just media appearances. That’s the beauty of one of my favorite sayings from Gandhi, “My life is my message.”

Kudos to Mary who is doing just that.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? Do you have a success story from any of our trainings together? I’d love to shine the spotlight on YOU! Just jet me an email at mailto:mgr@prsecretstore.com

To find out more about the sound bite course Mary took go here.

To learn more about one-on-one media coaching go here.

To set up a FREE consult to explore working together go here.

Check out our PR and Media Training Workshop to Jumpstart your Publicity