“What may be done at any time will be done at no time.” — Scottish Proverb

Okay, don’t ask what the Jewish grandmother from New York is doing with a Scottish proverb. My chief strategist found it for me, and it fit the tone of my message today.

In my time counseling clients, I have found that the two biggest obstacles to a good PR campaign are the two Ps: Procrastination and Perfection. Too many times, companies will procrastinate in getting their campaign started, and tag their campaign launch to something artificial like a product launch (which isn’t news, unless it’s the iPhone 4) or a new initiative. By and large, the media could care less. Your message, combined with something that is hot in the news cycle, is your hook, and if you’re doing it right, waiting is not an option. The second element, perfection, is something that drives many companies to delay their campaign. Executives will debate messages and news angles to the point of diminished return, and wind up unnecessarily delaying their PR campaigns.

My point is simply this: you need to start now. Not next week, not next month. Now.

After all, isn’t that when you want your potential customers to act? Many consumer businesses have taken to using the “right now” message in their advertising. A leading brake service provider uses the “now” message in their radio ads, stressing that waiting to take care of a potential brake problem could cause more costly damage to your car’s brake system. Empire, a leading manufacturer and provider of flooring and carpet solutions for consumers, has even changed the name of its company to Empire Today. Their point is that waiting for the “bargain” will cost their customers more money in the long run.

So, if you want your potential customers to act today, that’s exactly when you need to start your PR campaign. Getting ready to get ready never got anyone any additional business. What’s more, the dog days of summer will soon give way to the busy days of Q4, and if you want to have a chance at making an impression during the busiest time of the year, you HAVE to start now.

Here’s why:

The Holidays — Yes, I know that when it’s 90 degrees outside, it seems like a weird time to be thinking of the holiday season, but the media doesn’t think in those terms. Media folks like to take time off for the holidays as well, which means they have to start working on their holiday coverage early. Long lead publications are already working on their October and November issues, and if you want to be included, you need to start communicating with them now. Moreover, short leads start working on their holiday gift guides and reviews in August and September. If you have a consumer product or service that is compatible with the holiday season, this is when you need to start communicating with the media to promote it.

Authors — If your book is a fall release, you’ll be competing with a hundred thousand other authors for the attention of book buyers. If you want your book to rise like cream to the top, you need to make sure that as soon as your book becomes available, you will be on the air and in the news to talk about it. Furthermore, the holiday market beckons for you, as well. The summer reading season is over, so you need to focus on your book as a holiday gift.

Revenue — If you’re like most businesses, the year is going by faster than you’d like, and you are behind on your revenues – either falling short of your projections for 2010, or compared to how you did last year. Either way, the only way to increase the inflow of business is to increase the outflow of marketing. There is no better value in marketing than PR, so why let your campaign languish as your revenues stagnate? If you’re going to have any hope of picking up the pace, PR is your best friend.

At the end of the day, the old Scottish proverb rings true. If you’re comfortable putting off your PR campaign until tomorrow or next week or the week after, what guarantee do you have that you’ll ever launch it? Start today, right now, and you’ll be surprised how fast your campaign can be up and running.

In the past few months, I’ve covered a lot of ground with regard to how to do your own public relations campaign. I’ve explained how to make yourself or your company appealing to the media, how to write pitches and why articles work better than press releases.

But I haven’t yet explained some crucial elements with regard to orchestrating a PR campaign and more specifically with regard to landing TV appearances. Radio and print publicity definitely require attention to details – but the number of logistical issues you have to deal with for TV exposure is far greater.

So let’s discuss some of the elements for putting together a really good TV pitch that can result in valuable media opportunities for you.

The Producer Wants to Shoot “on Location”

It’s not unusual for a producer to be interested in your pitch, but want the interview to be done at a location that illustrates what the story is about. TV, after all, is a visual medium.

A great example that comes to mind is a client who is an expert on how to deal with foreclosure – a timely topic, unfortunately. He was traveling around the country to cities experiencing high percentages of foreclosures and in each city we obtained media coverage for him. But in Phoenix, Arizona, the producer didn’t want just a “talking head” interview. She agreed to do the interview only if it could be at a foreclosure property. And of course it was up to us to locate a suitable site, get permission to shoot the interview there, and ensure the TV crew had access when they arrived. After many, many phone calls to pull all of this together, the location was finalized, permission was obtained and the client’s TV interview was confirmed. In fact, it turned out to be one of the client’s best interviews.

So when planning your pitch for TV it’s a good idea to give some thought about where your story would best be told. You would be smart to research all the details about the location and offer an on-site segment as part of your pitch. For instance, if you are an expert on bridge safety you would want to pitch shows in those cities with older or problematic bridges, and suggest a location on or near the bridge to illustrate your message.

Visuals are a Must

If the three most important words in real estate are “location, location, location,” in television they are “visuals, visuals, visuals.” Even if it’s an in-studio segment, the producer will be more inclined to book you as a guest if you can provide visuals as part of your interview. It can be props that are part of your message, or even graphs to illustrate your message. Two examples come to mind where we had to do a lot of extra work to close the deal with the producer.

One example had to do with a producer for a national TV show who was very interested in a segment we were pitching related to “Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month.” But the producer only wanted our client if she could bring 10 to 15 shelter dogs with her. Talk about logistics! My staff called animal shelters all around NYC, New Jersey and Long Island and finally found one who wanted to work with us. The shelter agreed to find 10 shelter dogs that they knew were compatible with each other and wouldn’t fight on the set, bring them to the studio at the scheduled time, and provide pens for them to be contained in for the time they were there. In the process of our calling around, we also found a second shelter that brought a “pet-mobile” to the studio and parked it outside for the day. It was a huge amount of work for my team, but really paid off for the client. At the end of the segment the host invited people to come down to the studio and adopt a cat or dog on the spot. Many showed up and so it was a huge success for everyone!

Another example has to do with the many cookbook authors we’ve represented over the years. If you’ve written a cookbook and want to promote it, you’d best be ready to do some cooking on-air, particularly if the station has an in-studio kitchen. Be ready to prepare your signature dish or at the very least, to show all the ingredients, measured out, sliced and diced and ready to use, followed by the triumphant presentation of the completed masterpiece. You may even have to arrange for (and pay) a food “stylist” to create the sumptuous spread that the show’s producer may demand, particularly when dealing with the national shows.

That’s a Wrap

What I recommend is that you get creative…watch TV shows for ideas. Before you write your TV pitch, see the segment in your mind – think of what locations, props and actions would be the most interesting for the show’s audience.

What I can promise you is if your story is entertaining and makes for an interesting and informative segment, with clearly planned out details, TV producers will be far more likely to invite you to be a guest. Producers appreciate segments that are fully planned out and if you can’t deliver the goods, they won’t waste a minute before moving onto the next candidate that has his segment “packaged” and camera-ready!

Good luck, and have fun!

You may have heard me say this over and over – but it’s a fact: Talk radio is a great avenue for getting your message in front of a wide audience. With such an abundance of shows airing on terrestrial stations, online stations and satellite radio, and covering such a wide range of topics, you’re sure to find many that will be a good match for your message.

So how do you get on the air? Here are six tips designed to get you talking:

1. Tie Your Message to Current Hot News. You’ve heard me say this before as well – but it’s the foundation for any good publicity campaign: First and foremost, you need to follow the news. What are people talking about? What is the media saying? What’s the buzz? Keeping up with the news is important because talk radio is all about current events. When you know what’s current, you can package your message to fit the news…making you an attractive guest for a talk show. Your job is to scan the network and cable news channels, the newspapers, look at news websites, and, most importantly, monitor the talk radio landscape. As you follow the hottest stories in the news, think of ways you can relate your product or service to them. Look for controversy or big names, big money or even relationship issues…these are always tantalizing topics for talk show hosts (and their listeners).
2. Never Pitch Yourself or Your Product. The pitch letter to radio hosts and producers should focus on the issue about which you are an expert, or the problem which your product addresses. Radio hosts are interested in what you can do to inform and entertain their listeners, not what the host can do for you. Your credibility and expertise in your field is important, but it’s secondary to the topic you’ll be discussing. Pitch the segment, not yourself, and you’ll be on the same page as the host.
3. Write a Kick-Ass Pitch. The quality of your pitch will have everything to do with your success in getting booked as a talk radio guest. You want to make sure your headline is enticing – it’s got to grab the media’s attention. The text of your release should elaborate on the subject matter and what the “on-air” conversation will be about. It’s always good to include 5 to 10 questions you’d like the host to ask you and a short, but impressive bio.
4. Find Contact Info for Shows. These days most stations have websites listing all their shows. Look for a “Contact Us” page – in many cases the email address and phone number for the show producers will be right on that page. If that doesn’t produce results, find the station’s phone number on their website and call them, explaining that you would like to contact the show’s producer to suggest a segment. Ask them for his email address and the best phone number for following up – they will give this to you since this is how producers find guests and content for shows.
5. Personalize and Send Your Pitch. Do not send your pitch as an attachment to your email message – copy the pitch right into the body of the email instead. At the top, add a very brief note to the producer or host (sometimes they are one and the same) to introduce your pitch. Your introduction should tell the producer why you think your topic would be a great fit for his show or why you think his audience would be interested in what you have to say. The producer is far more likely to respond favorably to your proposal when he can readily see that you’ve done your homework.
6. Follow Up After You Send Your Pitch. After you email your pitch, call the producer to ask if he received it, or has any questions. If you get him on the phone, this is your opportunity to expand on your pitch and really sell him on what a great show it would be and how much it would interest his audience.

I know I’ve given you a lot to chew on, but if you truly do each of these steps it will get you and your message on the air!

Over the years, I’ve always advised my clients that if you want to get in the news, you have to watch and read the news. I know it sounds a little like “bumper sticker” advice, but it’s really not meant as a sound bite. In fact, we use a practical application of that advice every single morning at our agency.

It’s actually a very simple list of easy steps that anyone can do, and it can get blockbuster results.

• Read the Feed (or watch the news) – A daily routine of following breaking news and popular stories is the first and most essential step in my formula for how you can get interviewed by the media. If you are Internet savvy and prefer to get your news digitally, tracking news trends will be a breeze. There are many online news outlets, such as Yahoo, MSN, CNN and AOL, that prominently feature on their sites the most searched and significant news events each day. There are also other online services, such as Google Alerts, Digg, and others, that allow users to stay on top of the hot topics. If your preference – like me – is to watch the news on TV and/or read daily newspapers, those are also effective methods for keeping up with the news cycles. Whether you prefer traditional or digital news, the key thing is to establish a news-tracking routine and stick to it. It will orient you as to which news topics are getting the most attention, and will be a strong predictor of which stories are most likely to have a longer cycle on TV news outlets.
• Identify a Hook – As you follow the news each day, think creatively about how your company or your expertise could be applied to comment on news events of the day. I’ll relate something that happened this past month, and how we applied it. We have a client who is a world-class financial advisor. He is a former Wall Street player who made himself very comfortable through that life, but felt another calling for himself. Now he works as a financial planner for families in trouble, and he’s extremely passionate about it. We were looking for news hooks other than the typical “Tips for the Rough Times” pitch that has been making the rounds since 2008. As we were doing that, it hit the wire that the IRS was going to be taxing the claims being collected from BP Oil by the workers displaced by the disaster. At the same time, we had just finished watching a clip of Anderson Cooper of CNN on the ground in Louisiana, covering the crisis. At that point, it rang like a bell – we’d send our client to the Gulf Coast to help those hardest hit by the disaster. So, in a matter of minutes, our team went from, “This is a great hook,” to implementation.
• Develop your Angle – Taking my client example from above, we developed an angle for him using the BP oil story as a launching pad. We emailed him to see if he had any specific tips for the Gulf Coasters, and he came through beautifully. We cobbled his tips into the pitch, and it flowed like this:
  
   

  A Guide for Gulf Coast Victims of the BP Oil Spill

  Financial Expert Offers Tips on Getting Through the Worst
  Gulf Coast workers displaced by the BP oil spill have had to deal with losing their jobs, losing their businesses and many are losing their homes. But there are ways that they can protect themselves right now from further damage. Money expert (name deleted, because we’re still pitching him and we don’t want to jinx anything!), has a slew of creative and practical tips for those affected by the disaster.

  He says that uncertainty on when the spill will be stopped leads to the uncertainty about long-term economic activity and its effects on employment, consumer spending and housing prices. So, he is advising people to do the following things:

  • Be Prepared. Prepare for the worst case scenario. Build up a cash position equal to 3-6 months living expenses. Keep a significant amount of cash in your house in case you may be forced to evacuate due to a storm or adverse environmental conditions. Keep enough gasoline on hand to be able to fill your vehicle.
  • Stock Up. Build up a supply of food and water in case a sudden evacuation is ordered or if city water sources are deemed undrinkable.
  • Get Trained. If your livelihood is based on fishing or tourism, consider getting training in industries not dependent on the fishing or hospitality industries. If worse case scenarios develop, jobs lost in these areas will not come back for many years.
  • Fill Out the Forms. Apply for all aid and compensation available from both BP and state and Federal government. If income has stopped or decreased significantly, apply for food stamps and other social assistance.
  • Watch the Real Estate Market. Be prepared for lower real estate values for some time to come. Even if the spill stopped tomorrow, the ecological effects will be felt for years. Gulf Coast real estate, both commercial and residential, is falling dramatically and will not rebound anytime soon.
  • Stay Well. Monitor your family’s health as there have been reports of mysterious sicknesses in Gulf residents and cleanup workers.
  • Read the News. Stay informed as best you can. In addition to traditional news sources, read blogs, where you may find reports that are not widely available to the public. BP and the federal government have not been fully forthcoming in informing the public of the extent of the disaster.

  Thanks for your consideration – let me know if you’re interested.

• Blast it Out – Once you’ve read the news, identified a hook and written up your angle, it is time to launch your effort. When you pitch something that is hot in the news, you also need to call producers individually to follow up, ensuring they received and read your email. Many national producers won’t take phone calls, so at the very least, send your emails with a return receipt so you can track that they opened it.

To follow through with the effort we began earlier this month, we have booked two national TV interviews and six local TV interviews across the Gulf Coast, with the campaign continuing all through the month. So the bottom line here is that by doing this daily exercise, you will enable yourself to take advantage of these kinds of headlines. And who knows? You might even be able to fold yourself into the national news cycle.

Ever since the days when every TV set was a massive 12 inches, and millions of Americans tuned in to watch I Love Lucy in glorious black and white, television has been in the center of our living rooms.

Today, the screens are larger, the picture is in high-definition color and the programming choices are near infinite. Also, in addition to shows of general interest, there are now literally hundreds of cable network shows that cater to specialized niche markets. Plus, millions are now watching TV shows on their cell phones and computers. All in all, TV viewership continues to soar.

So, whether you are promoting a book, your business, product, or service, if you want to reach the greatest number of potential customers in your target markets, your aim should be to get on the air.

I’ve written dozens of articles with tips on how to get on the air, but what happens once you get the nod? It’s not enough to just get on the air – you have to make the most of the time you have. In most guest-driven news and talk shows, the average segment length is in the 3½ to 5 minute range, so it’s important to make every minute count.

Here are some tips that will help you make the most of that interview:

• Prepare, but not too much. Of course you don’t want to go on the air blind, but you don’t want to over-prepare either. If you’re any kind of businessperson, you know your stuff inside and out, and can speak convincingly on just about any topic related to your industry. However, 3½ minutes is not enough time to get everything in, so you need to organize your messages and stay focused on them. Don’t try to come up with sound bites or cute slogans. Just be yourself and make your points. If it sounds too rehearsed, you’ll come off as a fake, and if it sounds like you are fumbling for what to say, you’ll come off as inarticulate. You want to walk that tightrope somewhere in-between.
• Don’t be too commercial. Television is the medium, but there is a difference between advertising time and show time. Consumers are used to commercials being, well, commercial. They know that in those 3 minutes of ad time, in-between show segments, companies are going to try to sell them stuff. Consumers generally dislike commercials, and when they sit down to play their favorite shows that they previously recorded on their DVRs, they usually fast-forward past the commercials. So, when you’re on the air in-between the commercials, don’t try to sell. If you do, consumers will either fast forward through your segment, or simply switch to a different show. Most likely, the producer of the show has booked you as an expert commentator on a specific topic. Stick to the topic, answer direct questions with direct answers, and give an informative and entertaining interview. If you do that, the hosts will generally make sure to mention the name of your company, your book or your product, because those are the elements that helped establish your credibility to be on the air in the first place! Just don’t be a carnival barker or an infomercial host. It will backfire, and very likely limit your chances of being booked on that or any other show ever again.
• Be yourself. When you’re watching TV, a lot of the on-air personalities make it look easy to be on TV. That’s their job – they go to school and are trained to make it look easy. When you arrive at the studio, it’s easy to be intimidated by the cameras, the set and the general sensibility of knowing you are going to be in front of thousands and thousands of people. Try not to let that get in your head. Don’t think of it as being on TV. Think of it as being invited into someone’s home to chat with them, because, in essence, that’s exactly what’s happening. You’re appearing in someone’s living room, so treat your interview as if you were out having coffee with a friend. You should still be passionate about your message and articulate about your ideas, but treat it like a one-on-one conversation. Engage the host, look at them when you talk to them, and just have an intelligent conversation.
• Post it online. In many cases, you can get a digital copy of your interview to post on your Web site, giving your interview a life of its own long after it has aired. After you post it on your Web site, make sure you email all your contacts and let them know about your interview and where they can see the clip. If you are involved on social networking sites, like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, use those forums to spread the news even further. Maybe even post it on YouTube and other video sharing sites. It’s not enough to just get in the media – you have to promote the fact you were there, and let the good job you did on the air speak for you and your company.

If you can stick to your message, be yourself and let your intelligence and wisdom do the selling for you, your TV interview will do wonders for your image and your business.

Do you know what the media would consider newsworthy about you or your company?

Many new clients come to us with a strong opinion about what their “pitch” should be, but often miss the mark, in terms of knowing what will get the media to sit up and pay attention to their message. But it’s very understandable that this could occur, if you’re not working with the media the way we do, day in and day out, developing story angles intended to grab their interest.

For those who are new to PR, my message is this – think outside of the box! As normal as it is to be focused on your own company and industry or field of interest, there is a lot going on in the world, and your expertise might be news in ways that you’ve not previously envisioned.

I always recommend to my clients that they try to view their companies from the outside looking in, particularly, from the perspective of the media. The best way for you to garner the media’s interest is to understand what it is about you and your company that might be interesting to them. The process is actually quite simple.

1. Read the News – If you want to be featured in the news, you should read the news. Be general in your approach. Read the top headlines in all the categories, even if your company is in a niche industry, because you never know what is going to happen. For instance, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has focused a spotlight on oil rigs and the people who work on them. Journalists are looking at the companies who own oil rigs, drilling rights, and other oil company service firms. Analysts in that small business niche are being quoted in top tier media outlets, after existing for decades completely outside the reach of the media’s radar. So, go broad with the topics that you track, and don’t be afraid to become a little bit of a news geek. Being better informed about the world around you isn’t a bad thing, and the by-product is that you’ll be far more media savvy.
2. Track it Back – Now, as you absorb the headlines and the stories of the day, think about how one or more of them could track back to you, your company and your key messages. A good example comes from one of our clients, a maker of natural health supplements. Their primary product line uses a natural ingredient called Resveratrol. Clinical research has uncovered that Resveratrol can be helpful in reducing fatigue, restoring energy and safeguarding your immune system. Now, earlier this month, Reuters reported that doctors who performed an 11-year study of British civil servants discovered a direct link between heart disease and working 11 hours or more each day. Another story quoted U.S. Department of Labor statistics that more than 7 million Americans work at least two jobs. We combined those two pieces to demonstrate that millions of Americans are working way more than 11 hours, and are at risk for everything from chronic fatigue to heart disease. From there, it wasn’t too difficult to beat a path back to the client’s physician spokesperson who recommended a series of tips to prevent those outcomes, including a short tip about how some natural supplements can be helpful. At first blush, you wouldn’t imagine that labor stats and a medical study in Great Britain would have any relationship with a natural health supplement, but by thinking creatively, we were able to make the connection and develop a strong radio pitch for that client.
3. Be Opportunistic – The news happens fast, so be prepared to think just as fast. Recently we took on a client named Jane Heimlich, who has a dual claim to fame. She is the daughter of dance hall king Arthur Murray, who established the largest chain of dance instruction centers in the country. She is also the wife of chest surgeon Dr. Hank Heimlich, the creator of the life-saving, anti-choking first aid technique called the Heimlich Maneuver. She had just written her memoir, and was looking to promote it via media interviews. When we brought her on board, the new season for the network TV show Dancing with the Stars was about to begin. In reading her book, we discovered that her father’s TV show, The Arthur Murray Party, was the first network TV dance contest – and it involved the big stars of the day. So, we put together a radio pitch with the headline “Remembering the Original Dancing with the Stars.” We booked 15 radio interviews and a full print campaign with that angle, and we just refreshed the angle with the CBS announcement that they are giving Paula Abdul her own TV dance competition.

At the end of the day, recognize that your expertise can be stretched beyond what you have in your marketing plan, and you’ll be able to make you and your company more relevant to the press in a lot of creative ways.

Public relations is the hot potato of the marketing budget.

Chief Financial Officers hate it, while salespeople and business development executives love it. Every year, when the budget is drawn, this is typically how the conversation goes:

CFO: What’s the return on the PR budget?

Marketing Director: I don’t know.

CFO: Well, how much revenue does it bring in?

Sales Manager: I don’t know.

CFO: How many sales does it account for?

Sales Manager: I don’t know.

CFO: Well, I need to make some cuts, so I’m going to recommend we cut the PR budget next year.

Marketing Director and Sales Manager: NOOOOOO!!!! You can’t do that, sales will crash!

Describing the relationship between PR and sales reminds me of a line taken from Joni Mitchell’s hit song in 1970, “Big Yellow Taxi”:

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone

The truth is, the ROI of PR is very different than the ROI of advertising and no less valuable.

But, because of the differences, it requires an altogether different yardstick than advertising’s traditional cost-benefit analysis.

When I speak to clients about the ROI of PR, I explain that it’s really twofold: first is the immense power of the implicit endorsement you receive when you appear as a guest on a radio or TV show, or when journalists write about you in their newspapers and magazines.

Second is what you do with the publicity you’ve gained. It’s great to have coverage in The New York Times, but that story or quote is here today and gone tomorrow. To get the maximum benefit from media exposure you’ve gained requires that you incorporate the coverage in all your marketing materials and advertising campaigns to ensure that the positive press gets seen by your customers and anyone with an interest in your company or products.

Salespeople love public relations because it gives them an on-the-record, tacit endorsement of the product or service from someone unconnected to the company and more importantly, someone from the media. The effectiveness of salespeople is greatly increased when they can demonstrate the quality of what they’re selling by pointing out that their company and its products or services are making news.

We see these examples in our daily lives, one of the most common of which is movie advertisements. In many cases, movie ads are sprinkled with positive reviews from popular film critics. The positive reviews from well-known movie critics can help make a film a box-office hit.

So, how do you apply this concept to your business? Simply put, when you get good press, you need to make sure your marketing and sales team is armed with the information. Consumers and corporate decision makers recognize the power of that third-party validation – it increases the respect with which your company and products or services are viewed and that is a key ingredient in making sales.

Is it possible to boil down that impact into some numeric formula for your CFO? Not so much. But like the song says, your marketing and sales people will absolutely miss it when it’s gone.

Emmy-Winning Client Proves Passion and Drive Can Overcome ANY Obstacle

I spend much of my time doling out practical marketing and PR advice based on the harsh realities of today’s new economy. People ask me constantly for ways they can market themselves affordably and more reliably, so I try to make sure most of my tips are grounded and instantly useful.

But there is one particular element I discuss quite a bit in my book, Celebritize Yourself – I also refer to it so often when speaking to clients and potential clients that I sometimes feel I run the risk of it losing its meaning.  The element I talk about copiously is following your passion, and because I hate the thought of sounding like a broken record, it’s refreshing when something happens that re-emphasizes the meaning of my words.

One of my clients, who has turned into a dear friend, recently came full circle on a dream of hers, and it was a dream driven by her passion. At critical times in her journey she had turned to me, unsure of whether she should bother pursuing certain projects, because she was torn between the harsh realities of the day and the vision that was burning in her mind and her heart.

Aurea McGarry began her relationship with us as a client promoting her book Live Your Legacy, where she advises readers on how to follow their passions to success. After a successful campaign, she asked for my thoughts about starting her own TV interview and documentary show, titled from her book, in which she would feature people who were doing good works through not-for-profit organizations.

If you knew Aurea and her story of all that she overcame – things like her father being brutally murdered, spousal abuse, losing her mother to cancer and being diagnosed with cancer herself – you would know that there isn’t a mountain this woman couldn’t climb. 

But beyond that, Aurea had a burning passion to spread her message of not just surviving, but thriving and helping other people overcome obstacles in their life. 

Given her amazing story and her very strong passion, my advice to Aurea was to go for it.  With her own conviction in place and the wonderful support she had from family and friends, Aurea moved forward with her plans to have her own television show.  She called it Living Your Legacy and in the summer of 2008, the first episode appeared on her local Atlanta PBS station.  It has been on the air ever since, but that’s not why I’m talking about Aurea’s journey today.

In a grand gesture of life imitating art, Living Your Legacy was nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Interview/Discussion category in the Southeast Region. Her homegrown show was competing for the honor against programs from Fox, CBS, NBC and Turner Broadcasting. Over the past weekend, the awards ceremony was held in Atlanta, and her little engine beat the competition and took home the Emmy!

“I already felt like a winner, because this show – which was nothing more than a dream of mine a couple of years ago – has achieved recognition in the same breath as programs produced, financed and broadcast by the large networks,” McGarry said. “We’ve already made our point: You don’t have to be seen on network television to inspire people, to tell great stories and to produce a television show that has the power to change lives. But now that we’ve won the Emmy, it helps to validate that point.”

And it also serves to validate mine. There is no price tag you can place on passion, and its power can overcome any practical concerns, any business realities and any self-doubt you may have over the course you’ve chosen. Passion is the ball game. Always has been, and as Aurea has proven resoundingly, it always will be at the center of your success.

One of the things I love about my job is solving problems.

Sure, it’s great to have a client walk in the door who has a unique product or service, solid credentials and a compelling angle. It makes the work easier, certainly, but it sometimes is more satisfying to solve what a client thinks is an unsolvable problem in a creative way.

One such client was (and still is, by the way) Darlene Quinn, author of the novel Webs of Power. She had been handled by another PR agency previously and spent quite a bit of money to get very limited coverage. She came to us needing new representation, but very skeptical about how we would handle her pitch. Our method, as many regular readers know, is to approach the client as an expert in their field, and then promote their expertise as a way of getting media interest for them and their message.

In Darlene’s case, her novel was a marriage of Dynasty and Macy’s, a story of power and intrigue at the highest echelons of the retail fashion industry. When we asked her what inspired her to write it, she revealed she had been a top executive at the Bullocks Wilshire department store chain. Furthermore, she was friends with other top executives at some very upscale department stores, and had enough knowledge about the inside of the business that she could tell a few good stories (with the names changed to protect the guilty and the innocent, of course).

And that’s when we knew we had it. We knew that promoting her simply as a new author of a racy novel that reeked of money and power wasn’t going to get us very far. There are more than 370,000 new books published every year, and casting her as one of those numbers just meant that she’d be regarded as another can of beans on the shelf.

However, how many experts on the high-end retail industry are there in the media? Not many, because many top executives don’t want to offend anyone else in the business, even if it’s a competitor. They never know when they might have to ask them for a job. Not a problem for Darlene, however, who had made a commitment to being an author for the rest of her working days. While she would never overtly say anything to offend anyone — that’s just not her way — she did have the freedom to tell the truth about the retail business.

Soon, she was being booked on radio and television to talk about the retail industry and its struggles to get through the recession, which was just starting around that point in time. With tons of coverage in the print media, more than 120 radio interviews and several national TV interviews, Darlene is now the undisputed expert in the media on retail matters. In addition, she was able to expose her book to millions of readers, listeners and viewers. Coming full circle, we’re looking forward to her new campaign in the fall to promote her new book, Twisted Webs, the sequel to Webs of Power.

More than that, Darlene is branching out and becoming a commentator on the retail industry as a whole. Watch the Internet for her next interview, which is about how retail giant Wal-Mart is trying to fix a serious mistake which cost them many thousands of customers late last year. I’d tell you about it, but Darlene is really the expert on that!

There’s a lesson here that can be learned and applied by anyone with a consumer message, regardless of whether you are selling a book, a product or a service. The lesson is that if you’re interested in being in the news, or interviewed on radio and TV, there is a precise formula you must follow.

1. Follow the news and look for news items that are relevant to your topic and that you can comment on as an expert.
2. Develop your message around those news items that will provide valuable information to the public.
3. Identify the local or national media you feel is a good match. Read their column, watch their show on TV, or listen to their radio show. Before you approach them, know the format of their shows and types of topics that would interest them.
4. When contacting them, never, ever pitch your company, your product or service. Only pitch yourself as an expert with solutions to problems their audience is concerned about.
5. Understand who their audience is so you can engage the editor or host with your pitch and, make sure to give them all the information they need to make an immediate decision to interview you.

Of course, if you need some help, let us know…it’s what we do, day in and day out. And, we may be able to do it for you!

You might see yourself as only one of a million people who are knowledgeable in a particular area, but your friends, family and colleagues may see you as the reigning expert on the subject, the go-to guy or gal with the answers.

It all comes down to knowing who you are and what you have to offer others…what is that “unique something” that makes you and your message stand out? If you really are an expert in your field, it may be time to take it to the next level and become well-known as an expert celebrity.

The 17th century French philosopher Descartes summed it up with his immortal words, “I think, therefore I am,” and that is the viewpoint you need to adopt. It requires some soul searching to gain insight about your strengths and weaknesses, plus a strategy so that you can position yourself correctly as an expert, and finally, a willingness to embark on the journey.

The contestants on American Idol are a terrific example. The show starts out with a cattle call. Anyone and everyone who believes they have talent shows up to audition. As the weeks go on, the participants are given a chance to showcase, not just their talent, but themselves. They learn how to package themselves; they have to figure out how to stand out in the crowd.

The competitors who successfully navigate the first few weeks quickly learn how to use their strengths and minimize their weaknesses – they know the judges will expose those weaknesses and it won’t be pretty. They know they must work extra hard to strengthen any vulnerable areas before the next show or they are done for.

It takes some intestinal fortitude to admit what your weaknesses are and a lot of hard work to overcome them. That is where passion and drive come in. These contestants are passionate about their craft and driven to win the final prize – success, fortune and the celebrity that is their due.

Being an expert celebrity is not something that just happens. It takes courage, passion, sweat, drive and maybe even some tears. If you are sure of yourself, who you are, what you want and what it is going to take, you can make it to the top of your field, regardless of whether you are America’s next pop star or the next celebrity home renovation expert.

Time to do some soul searching.