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Do you dream of landing local media interviews but are not sure how?
If so, you're going to enjoy today's conversation with Betsy Fitzpatrick, MFTI.
Before Betsy decided to become a marriage and family therapist, she spent several decades as a radio broadcaster and as the owner of a public relations firm where she helped physicians land media interviews.
I wanted to have Betsy on the podcast because landing media interviews is a great way to build get your name out and to build authority.
In this session, you’ll learn:
- Ways to find contact information for local media.
- How to reach out when you find this information.
- Best ways to prepare for an interview.
- Websites to find “evergreen” topics to talk about.
- Best practices on interview day.
LINKS AND RESOURCE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
- The Mental Health Foundation (Stamp Out Stigma)
- Help a Reporter Out
THANKS FOR LISTENING!
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Betsy Fitzpatrick about how mental health providers can land local media interviews.
I would be grateful if could:
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- Please Subscribe and leave a honest Rating and Review for the Selling the Couch podcast on iTunes.
My dream is that this podcast reaches every new, current, and aspiring mental health private practitioner, and subscriptions and 5 star ratings and positive reviews help to make that dream a reality.
Betsy, thank you again for joining me. You have so much knowledge in this area. I feel like we could have talked for another hour!
Until next time!
HERE'S THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE
Intro: Welcome to the Selling the Couch podcast where our goal is to help you achieve your counseling private practice dreams, and now the man who doesn't mind waking up to catch a great sunrise, psychologist, and podcaster Melvin Varghese.
Melvin: Hey, what's up everyone, hope you are having a great week, thank you so much for joining me for today's session of the Selling the Couch Podcast. So today's topic is really good, so I'll get kind of right to the point. So we are going to be talking about some tips and strategies to land local media interviews with our guest today, Betsy Fitzpatrick. So Betsy is a marriage and family registered intern out of WAVE counseling in Carlsbad California, but before Betsy entered the mental health field she was actually a radio broadcaster, and she also had her own public relations company where she worked with physicians who were wanting to do local media interviews.
So Betsy has a lot of really-really good experience about what do and what works and what doesn't work, and I think you are really going to enjoy this conversation. By the end of our time today you are going to learn a couple of things including where to actually find opportunities for these media interviews and some of the real practical things to do in terms of how to reach out to folks, what to say, what not to say, what is sort of the best etiquette, and then once you actually land an interview some of the real practically free interview and during interview tips that you can take away.
I think you are going to really enjoy this conversation especially if you anticipate that you are ever going to be on any sort of media, whether that is a podcast, some sort of radio broadcast or on TV ever. It's just a wonderful way I think to get the word out about what we do. So here is my conversation with Betsy Fitzpatrick, hey Betsy, welcome to Selling the Couch.
Betsy: Thanks Melvin and thanks for having me today.
Melvin: Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation, I feel like this is a topic that we don’t often talk about, how to use local media and just media in general to be able to get the word out about services.
Betsy: It's so true, it's kind of looked at as advertising or promoting yourself or self promoting, but I think we are learning in this day and age, we are our best own advocates for our practices.
Melvin: Yeah, and especially I think in this day and age there are so many opportunities to be able to do that to get the word out especially over media.
Betsy: Unbelievable opportunities and it goes from everything from everything from your local TV shows to radio, to newspapers to blogs, and then to Podcast like yours.
Melvin: We were talking about that like right before we started, and so I thought we would start out by asking kind of at a big level, what do you see are the main benefits of doing media interviews for someone that's in private practice?
Betsy: Well it can be a multiply-ful [phonetic] benefit for people and what basically is you can use it to either promote a seminar that is coming up or a service that you have or a book, or you can use it just to become the expert in your field, and by that you establish contacts in your local area. You may be speaking on everything from just general psychology issues and mental health issues to very specifically what you specialize in like EMDR or teenagers or couples. And by doing that people learn more not just about our field and a specific topic that they may have been looking for in a really plain English language way of understanding it, and not in like a lot of website that are so confusing, but it also then eventually promotes your own practice. People start looking up your website, looking at you and looking at you as one of the experts in the field.
Melvin: What is hear you say is it really depends on how you want to kind of want to orient it, right? You can either come from the perspective of being seen as an expert in a certain niche, or you can do it if you have any sort of a product that's coming up or down the pipeline.
Betsy: Absolutely, and as you and I kind of briefly talked about is there are a lot of different media avenues and you have to find where you are comfortable. Today mostly I'm going to talk about what is one of the easiest thing for a public relations person, and now I'm going to teach therapist how to get on your local news shows that do these talk show segments. However, some people just are not comfortable with being on camera, talking in public, so you have to know what your comfort zone is more that anything because if it's not what you are good at or what you like to do, then it won't come across well and it won't help either the public or you in your business.
Melvin: Right, so you really have to find what's comfortable for you. What have you noticed are kind of the most powerful media options that are out there like in this day and age?
Betsy: Well it really depends on where you live in the country. So if you live in New York city for example, you are going to have a lot harder time getting on local shows versus if you live in San Diego where I live, or if you live in a smaller town because they are hungry for different topics. So first you have to kind of know your area, know what's out there and available. So almost in every town as you know what's become very big are local morning news shows. So the affiliates and all of– even the big networks for the first couple of hours before today's show starts or Good Morning America, they have their local version of those, and that's where you find that they do lot of little two to three minutes segments with experts in all sorts of fields.
Melvin: Okay, so let me take a step back. So what you are saying is for these larger cities it might be hard to do a television one, but a good– a wise strategy might be to focus more on like the local television affiliates. Is that right?
Betsy: Correct, it might, if you live in a larger city you are going to want to look at the more independent affiliates if you want to do television, but you also want to look at newspapers all over your area as far as they may be college newspapers or smaller town better surrounding your bigger city there may be a national blog or website that for example I have done before with a big mothers website on teenagers. On what to expect from your teen when they are first going into high school. So it doesn't have to just be electronic media, you need to look at the whole spectrum and kind of think where do you go for your media information or your resource. How do you get something that you know nothing about?
Melvin: Yeah, so you really have to start thinking from the perspective of a potential listener or reader.
Betsy: Absolutely because you are going to come down to whatever level that is when we are talking, like for your Selling The Couch, you are talking to a specific audience, and so when you have your guests they know that they are not addressing someone that's in the legal field or somebody else you see, you are going for a particular audience. So your guest needs to know who are they speaking to, and what do they want to accomplish.
For me truthfully I want to just help therapist use all these years of public relations and media experience that I've had, and transfer to help therapist become their own business people and their own public relations people, because it's very really expensive really to hire your own PR person and it's just not feasible for most of us. So I kind of want to do a do it yourself, learn how to get to know the producers and get on yourself, and become the very best media expert you can be.
Melvin: Yeah, yeah, it's a great resource that you are putting together and I'm excited about how it's really going to help our profession. So I'm kind of thinking hypothetically right, so what if the majority of folks that are listening are either thinking about being in private practice one day, or are in private practice, if you were to put yourself in those shoes, what would be the first logical step that you would take if you know, you wanted to be on a local media show?
Betsy: Okay, so that's exactly what I did, I'm in private practice myself with a group, and so I kind of stepped into that role and then put myself back in my PR shoes of 25 years and thought if I got called in by any private practitioner and what would I first tell them? And the first thing I would say is what is it that you want to communicate? So what is your message? What do you specialize in, or what do you most comfortable with, and what audience do you want to reach?
You certainly don’t want to pick a behavioral childhood topic if really what you do is see couples. So you have to know your own practice very well, and I think that's kind of what you are teaching people too is know your business, know what you want to do, and then we can come up with a plan. So the first thing is what do you do and what do you specialize in and what makes you different than anybody else?
Melvin: In a way I think you have to identify what it is, that thing that you are passionate about because if you are passionate about something and you are specializing in that thing, it's going to be very apparent when you are actually on these media interviews.
Betsy: That's absolutely true and then once you know what it is, and a lot of time that's what I– first thing is that maybe what it is that you have a workshop coming up or you are running a group, or you have written a book, or you have kept sheets that you offered to local parents that want to know how to get their children to change a certain behavior. So whatever it is that you might have that sometimes is a good way to start, and then you can't do anything without establishing contacts, so that's before any– before I could get to telling you what happens when those lights, camera, and actions roll, you need to make those contacts, and it goes back to really basic what we used to do 25 years ago is get to know the local producers.
Melvin: How do you establish some of those connections with the contacts? I mean is it over email, telephone, you know social media? How does it generally work?
Betsy: Excellent question and I think this is like extremely key for people to know, first is do your research. Like I told you before I came on your podcast, I made sure I listened to your podcast. I made sure that I researched what you do and what you were trying to do and what it sounded like, because how did I fit? And remember if you remember how you and I got together is you were speaking about your new Selling the Couch on Therapist and Private Practice, and then I wrote you a private message pitching this idea.
So exactly what I did to you is what I'm going to tell people to do to produce the television stations or on talk shows. So first watch everything you can and see who they are putting on. If some news programs don’t ever do these live interviews, then you know that's not the station for you, but also remember to watch on the weekends because Saturdays and Sundays are where they are hungry for guests. So you kind of find what do they need, because the whole goal is while we are trying to meet a need for the public, and we are trying to help our own businesses, you have to meet the need for the producer and for their audience and their stations, or it doesn't work.
Melvin: You bought up a great point, you said one of the first points of contact should be the producer of that show, how do you even get in touch with someone like that?
Betsy: Very-very easily actually. You can do it as simply as watching the credits at the end of the news program and see who is the producer of the morning show, who is the segment producer and looking that way, but the really easiest way is pick up your telephone and call that station and say, I was watching your morning show this morning and I thought that you had such and such segment, and I'm wondering who would I contact if I had a story that I wanted to pitch to a producer and they are happy to give you that information, and then go to their website as well.
Melvin: Oh, wow, those are such great ideas, I mean I love the, just even listen or watching at the end just to see it's just things that you don’t even think about, so thank you so much for that.
Betsy: Yeah, you don’t think about those things, but it's kind of the more knowledgeable you are when you first talk to a producer and show them that you know what they are doing and who their audience is and who their talent is, that conducts the interviews, you are making yourself a media expert right there.
Melvin: Fast forwarding a little bit, once you've touched base with the producer and they are interested in what you have to say, what is that kind of next process look like?
Betsy: Okay, well basically when you first make that contact you just introduce yourself, ask them how they want to be contacted, what's the best way they want to be contacted. They'll either give you their email or their mailing address, and ask them if you could send them some ideas of some pitch stories of what they could use. And by that it's what we do on public relations is we put together as you've probably seen many times.
And so for our listeners, our press kits and that may sound so elaborate for us as therapists to have a press kit about ourselves, but this is how easy it is, you go to an office supply store, you get really nice folders, you print up a small bio about you and what you do and have a picture of yourself, and then you give ideas of stories that they can do, some that are ever green, and by that I mean any day, any time of the year they work such as anxiety and depression. Five steps that you can do to quickly bring down anxiety or relax yourself, what you can do to improve your marriage or your partnership in six easy steps, and those sound like little pitch lines, but that's how you do it. Make it short, catchy, and something that would connect with the audience.
Melvin: Yeah, right, something that resonates for, not only picks the interest of the stations, but also their potential audience?
Betsy: Correct, because if they have somebody on that isn’t making their phones ring or your website get hit, then it's not– you can be as great at interviews as you– a great speaker, you can look great, but it has to be something that's information that's valuable, and in our field there are so many misconceptions about why do you go to a therapist? What do you do when you go to a therapist? You need to be sick to go to a therapist and that is so not true, and we can change those misconceptions.
Melvin: Yeah, absolutely, just shifting a little bit. What are some common mistakes that you've noticed that folks usually make when they approach media sources?
Betsy: Well, and as a PR person, if you have a PR person, they are trained as the buffer between you and the media person. So when I did this for 25 years for positions, positions honestly tend to be the worst media interviews that you can imagine until they are trained and they learn how to speak in really simple language. And arrogance honestly is what usually ruins an interview is that you can be the expert, but you also want to be as down to earth as you possibly can be because we want to relate to everybody. We want whatever person is tuning in, whether it’s a mom, a business person, a high school student; we want them to feel like we are talking to them.
Melvin: So it has to be personable, right?
Betsy: Personable, authentic, real, everything that we try to do in our session as therapists, think about that as you are doing media because a lot of times people get very nervous and think they are performing when they go on a talk show, and you are not, you are really having a conversation.
Melvin: Yeah, I mean I feel like in many ways our training really equips us to be able to be great in front of the media.
Betsy: In more ways that you know, I mean this is kind of what we are groomed to do. We do it everyday in our practice, we listen really carefully to questions, or to topics and then we answer back and the key in the media is that when you are ready I'll give you a few tips. Do you want to talk about what happens if you actually get the interview, or do you want me to tell you a little bit more on how to get the interview?
Melvin: Oh, yeah I mean I know that we've got just a few minutes left. So yeah, let's go right to the tips, that sounds great.
Betsy: Okay, so let's say you've given your pitch package, you've kept in contact with that producer, and then here comes the call that you've been waiting for, they want you to come on because in May it's actually national anxiety and depression awareness week. And I would really encourage you to go to sites like NAMI or Stamp Out Stigma and look at every month and see what– like in June it's PTS day awareness month. So tie things in, that would be a perfect time for someone that does EMDR, so try to tie it in with telling the producer this is national whatever it is, and here are the topics. So you get the call, you are really excited, now what do you do?
So the three Ps that I always say to my clients is we are going to plan, we are going to prepare and then we are going to practice, practice, practice. So the plan is first, what do you want to communicate? And like you and I talked at the beginning of this, it’s a two to three minutes segment you going to get, and if you think that sounds like a lot, it goes by in a flash, yours are 20 minutes, and they go by in a flash. So pick two to three points you really want to get across and stick to those, and then prepare them such that they will be good for your audience whatever way that is. If it's about depression, make sure that it applies generally to people and have simple things they can do to lower their depression, understand depression, and speak as if you are speaking really like at six grade level without speaking down to people, and then practice.
Melvin: Right, I mean it's this whole idea of like keeping it simple.
Betsy: Absolutely simple and if you can bring visual, if you are in TV show what's worse that looking at somebody that's just a head shot. So if you are doing EMDR bring the [Inaudible] [00:19:40] bring something that you can show without having to actually demonstrate them or sometime the anchor person will want you to demonstrate them, but show what– if you can bring any kind of equipment and use statistics to bring it more globally, it always helps. And then the other thing that is probably the most important is once those cameras start rolling, is never look at the camera, and how you do so nicely is turn off facing on your podcast, but when the camera is on it will stop– it will always find you, you don’t have to find the camera. You are talking and having a conversation with the reporter or the anchor person.
Melvin: Yeah, it's a wonderful point because I feel like when you are looking at the eyes of someone that you are talking to right, it's going to be much more authentic as opposed to looking straight at a camera.
Betsy: Well they, that's the– that will actually help you to not getting you invited back because nothing looks worse than somebody staring into the camera. You kind of look like a deer caught in the headlights.
Melvin: All such great points, Betsy thank you so much for coming on the podcast, you know like I had not even thought of some of these opportunities that we have as mental health professionals, and I feel like you have such. I'm just grateful that you have so much experience and that you are willing to come on.
Betsy: That's great and thank you so much and I hope that everybody will just kind of look at their own area and look at the time of the year and think, I have a lot of stories and a lot of things I could be offering to the public, and if they want more help I am more than happy to help them do their first media pitches.
Melvin: Yeah, speaking of which what is the best way for someone to touch base with you if they are interested in doing some of these local media interviews?
Betsy: They can reach me through the group that I work for which is WAVE counseling, and it's Carlsbad which is C-A-R-L-S-B-A-D-counseling.com.
Melvin: Okay, great and I'll put that in the show notes for today's episode. Betsy thank you so much for doing this, I really enjoyed our conversation.
Betsy: Thanks Melvin and I'm really happy that you are dong this to help all of us.
Melvin: Hey, what's up everyone, hope you enjoyed that conversation with Betsy Fitzpatrick. So you know to be honest like this– all the local media stuff, it' just stuff that I'm not really familiar with and it was really neat to be able to hear from Betsy and how she breaks it down and puts it in a language that’s really easy to understand, and I mean if you think about it like we really live in a time where there are so many opportunities to leverage our education and our training. And as Betsy alluded to in many ways our training as mental health providers and professionals, helps us in more ways that we know, right?
Like it really helps us to be able to stand out and to conduct these interviews really well, because often we are such great listeners and great interviewers. And so one of the resources that actually came up after our conversation that I wanted to share with you is a website called helpareporter.com, and that's also a free website where you can plug any areas of expertise that you have and if somebody is doing a story usually, some sort of a written story they'll reach out to you and you may even end up being quoted in a news story, so that's a free verse for us right there.
So as we end our session today, I guess one of the things that I'll be thinking about is what are some of the ways that I can use my local media sources and– it just doesn't even have to be TV, right? Like even blogs and radio, whatever it is and how can I use that to sort of leverage my own brand. And it's something that I want you or sort of think about no mater where you are in your private practice journey. I think there is something very powerful about being seen as an expert in a certain area, and I think there are just a lot of opportunities out there.
For all of the links to today's episode that Betsy mentioned, all of the resources as well as ways to connect with Betsy, you can find all of that information at sellingthecouch.Com/session and the number ten– one zero. Have a great week everyone and take good care, bye.
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