Inside Scoop: External Communication Skills for Leaders

Hey there, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. Today we're going to talk all about a course that is near and dear to my heart. It's all about media training. It's one that I created for LinkedIn Learning. It's one of the many courses that I've created for LinkedIn Learning, and we're going to dive into it a little bit. And I, I love the idea of talking about media training because as a media trainer, of course, I help lots of authors and executives speak about what they do in the media and on video, but I also do it for myself. I was a TV producer for a very, very long time, but I'm also an author as well. I have two books about productivity, Listful Thinking and Listful Living. I know from both sides of this what it's like to be the person who is being both interviewed or interviewing someone else. And I try to bring that to all of the things that, that I do, all the teachings that I have. And, you know, that includes the course that I'm talking about today, which is called External Community— external communication skills for leaders. Do you see? Even I need to practice talking on camera. It's on LinkedIn Learning. And if you go to that QR code right there, you can check it out. And I wanted to dive into this a little bit because I teach a lot of this, you know, throughout when I'm on my, you know, blog or, or, you know, whatever it is that I'm talking about. And I thought, you know what, let's dive into the little nitty-gritty pieces here and there so I can give you kind of a preview. And then if you're interested, you take the whole course yourself on LinkedIn Learning. And if you think this would be interesting to someone that you know, please tag them below. I'd love to hear from anybody who's interested in speaking in the media, Maybe you're an author, maybe you're an executive. And if you have questions, you can leave those in the chat boxes below as well. And I will be sure to get back to them, even if you are watching on the replay. I'm sure to go back and answer those questions for you. OK, so before I get into the course, I have a little freebie for you, which, by the way, the course is free if you're a LinkedIn Premium member. But if you go to Paula Rizzo's PaulaRizzo.com/checklist, I will give you my checklist to become a go-to media expert. Now, this is all of the ins and outs, little nitty-gritty things that I learned from being a television producer for nearly 20 years. And you'll get that all if you go to PaulaRizzo.com/checklist. Okay. So let's dive into the course. I've broken it up into sort of, you know, what the media is looking for, how to create some content that they're interested in. Then how do you How do you speak in soundbites? How do you get all of your information out there in a really compelling way? We'll go through all of it. So first, where does the media find its experts? Now, this I find to be one of the biggest questions that people have. A lot of times experts will say, well, I'll just wait for the media to find me. Well, they're not going to know to find you unless you tell them. A lot of times media, television producers, editors, newspaper writers, They're looking for great stories, which is good, but they won't know unless you tell them that you're out there. So what they need from you is someone who is interesting, somebody who has something to say, someone who is there to be found. Now, how do you get found? That's the inside of the course right there. Part of this is creating compelling content. So it's not enough to just be an expert in something. You have to have evidence out into the world that you actually do this. So for instance, Years ago, my gosh, about 10+ years ago, I started a blog, listproducer.com, where I created all kinds of content about to-do lists, right? And I thought, you know what? If I start putting that content out into the world, people will start to notice it. I will be able to use that content to then pitch media. Rather than just waiting to say, I hope a producer finds me, I hope a producer finds my blog, you need to really be proactive about this and put the information out there. And the great thing about this too is that as you're creating your own content, you start to get more savvy about what your talking points are, what you like to talk about, what you're most excited about, what other people get excited about. This is all very important when it comes to doing media because you want to have practiced this before they come to you and before they say, hey, we want to book you, or hey, we want you to write for us, or hey, whatever. You want to have that practice behind you, right? You don't want to just, you know, start with the Today Show. So you want to make sure that you do that. So you need to develop your, your voice. If you take the course here on LinkedIn Learning, you'll also learn all about best practices when being interviewed. Okay, so you have this great compelling information to give people, but how do you get it out there in a way that really, really works? Um, part of that too is that, you know, you've been booked, so now what? Now you get booked. Let's say hopefully they find you or you pitch media and someone says that you are, uh, you know, you're going to be on the show, or you're going to be, uh, interviewed on their podcast or whatever it is. So then what do you do? A lot of this course is about the thing that I teach the most to all of my clients, which is the accordion method— having a short, a medium, and a long answer for anything that you're going to give. And the reason you do that is because you just never know how much time you'll actually have. In television news, it goes like that. It's super fast. And you don't have time to tell this story and then that story and get to this other example. So you really want to have all of that ready to go, and having that information ahead of time, practicing it, will really best serve you. Another problem people have are filler words— um, like, uh, I mean, I do it too, you know, that's a big one for me. But understanding and knowing that you do it really does help. So the way to eliminate it is to really See that you're doing it and then take a pause. It takes some training. It takes some time to do, but it's absolutely something that you can learn to do. And the course goes into that quite a bit more. Also preparing for controversial topics. Look, not everything is going to be all rosy and sunny and happy. For the most part, for me, thankfully, it usually is because, you know, I talk about lists and to-dos and productivity. So it's fine. But I've gotten pushback in the media too. You know, I've had an anchor one time who just didn't love my ideas about the 4-day workweek. He thought it was never going to be a thing in his industry. And so he really pushed back on me and I was not really prepared. So I don't want that to happen to you. I want to make sure that you are prepared for any topic and look at it from all different angles because it's very important. Also knowing what do you do if something goes wrong? That's in the course because it happens, you know, working in TV news for 20 years, I've seen it all. Flies coming onto the set, lights blowing out, losing power. It happens. Okay, so what do you do? You also want to be very, very aware of yourself and how you present physically. Right. So how do you look? How's your hair? How's your makeup? What outfits are you wearing? What are your best colors? You will always notice if you watch my videos, I wear bright colors. I love jewel tones. I know they're not for everyone, but they look really good on camera. I do have to say for myself, but it does help the camera find you. Right. Like even in my background here, there's a lot of like muted colors. I pop because I have this color on. So you don't want to wear anything that's too flashy, anything that has too many patterns or is distracting. But you do want to wear something that makes you stand out, right? We want to, we want to showcase you. You're the expert. We want to make sure that you're the most important thing on the screen. Uh, I, I learned a bit about hair and makeup during the pandemic because I had to produce two— no, how many of them did we do? Oh my gosh, we did about four of them at home, my LinkedIn Learning courses. Uh, we had to do it because it was during COVID and so I had to do my own hair and makeup. So I went to a friend, uh, who I had worked with in TV news for many years, and I said, how do I do this? I don't know how to do makeup for video, help me out here. And she did, and we actually put together a makeup lesson where she walks you through step by step how to do your makeup for video and for TV. And so it is a little bit different than doing your regular everyday makeup, and we also have a little bit in there for guys too. Because everyone should wear makeup on camera, not just women. It does make everyone look much better, more polished, not shiny. You want to look your best, your best self. So if you go to paularizzo.com/courses or you check out that QR code that we just had up, you can absolutely check out that course. And I think it would be worthwhile. But there is some dos and don'ts and tricks and things that you should try. You should try it out before you're recording your own videos. And also there are tips in the LinkedIn Learning course about your home office, about your office office, however you're going to set up your studio. If you're going to do interviews at home, I prefer doing interviews at home now. I actually don't love going into the studio anymore because it's a pain. But if it's the first couple of times you're doing it, it's very exciting. I have to say, as someone who spent her career in studios, it's not that exciting for me anymore, but I understand that it is exciting. So if you get the chance to be in a real studio, you should definitely do that. And I have some tips in the course. On what to do in those instances. Now you've gotten the interview, that's exciting. So what do you do afterwards? How do you keep the conversation going? There's a lot in this course about that as well, because you want to make sure that you maintain the, um, you know, the relationship, because it is a relationship. This should not just be a one-off, hopefully, right? You should be able to take this and leverage it into many other appearances, hopefully, if that's what you want to do. So how do you do that? How do you engage with the producer or the editor, whoever it is that booked you? And also then what do you do? How do you repurpose those interviews so that you have more content to share? Not everyone will see the interview, I promise you. So if you feel like, oh my gosh, am I going to really share this again? Go ahead and share it again because you know what? Nobody else saw it. They were busy doing something else on Facebook. And so they missed your exciting experience. Go ahead and send it out to your email list. Oh, if you don't have an email list, you need to get an email list. That was one of the best pieces of advice that I ever was given. And at the time, I had no plans of being an author. I had no plans of starting my own business. I was a TV producer. And a friend of mine said, "You know what? You should really start an email list. Just start gathering email addresses." Best advice ever, because the world changes, you change. So definitely have that email list to be able to keep in touch with people. And then in the course as well, I talk a little bit about handling trolls because it happens, right? There's going to be people who are not that excited about that you got these opportunities ahead of someone else, but you've been dealing with this probably your whole career if you're one of those types of people who, uh, you know, is— has sifted to the top and, and been, um, you know, promoted and has these opportunities in front of you as an executive. So I, I think that it's important to handle that, right? It's a mindset switch. And that's just some of the stuff that's in the course. But I'd love for you to check it out. Again, it's on LinkedIn Learning and it's called External Communication Skills for Leaders. You can check it out if you go to paularizzo.com/linkedin. You can check out all of my LinkedIn courses because I have several on productivity and, you know, boundary setting and all of that, list making. But this one in particular is great if you're looking to be out in the world as an expert talking about what you do in a big way. And before I go, I just want to give you that freebie one more time for my checklist to become a go-to media expert at paularizzo.com/checklist. I hope you found this helpful. If you have questions, please leave them below and I will see you next time.