By Gayl Murphy, Media Expert, Award-Winning Hollywood Correspondent, Speaker, Media & Presentational Coach and the author
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightening bug and the lightening.” – Mark
Twain
Too true, especially when you’re choosing the words that best describe you and your business. If you’re not specific, you’re just not on the radar. In this over-saturated media world, with it’s hundreds of ways of saying, “Can you hear me now?” – we live and die by what we say.
As a business, “you gotta tell it to sell it!” Period. If you can’t tell your own story, who can and who will? And, why would you want them to? Successfully navigating the media today is more critical than ever. It’s as fundamental as having a product to sell!
In 2011, we are our own broadcasters and networks. We’re “message-generators,” and the objective is creating messages that are potent and compelling enough to move themselves forward by themselves. Because they’re interesting, informational and/or entertaining.
What sells in the media is YOU! You are the celebrity spokesperson for you. Whether it’s to millions, or one specific deal-making decision-maker. If you can’t describe who you are and what you’re selling to one person, it’s unlikely you can tell it to a million.
If you want to be heard above the roar, your messages have got to stick with the people who hear them.
Four “Interview Tactics” for creating sticky messages …
1 – Identify your core message. What do you want people to know?
2 – Lead with it.
3 – What problem does your product solve?
4 – Piggyback on what people are already talking about and who they already know. Make it your own.
“Making it your own” is the foundation of why “celebritized” CEO’s like Richard Branson, Oprah and Kim Kardashian are so successful; they’re familiar. We think we know them, so we emotionally invest in them by gifting them with our attention and rewarding the messenger by repeating it.
Gayl Murphy is a Media Expert, award-winning Hollywood Correspondent, Speaker, Media & Presentational Coach and the author of “Interview Tactics! How to Survive the Media without Getting Clobbered! The Insider’s Guide to Giving a Killer Interview!”