Listen Up! Tips for Giving Great Radio Interviews

(This article was written by Mike Dacri and was published in Consulting Magazine, February 2013 issue)

Radio interviews are a great tool to position yourself as an expert, gain visibility, leverage your services, promote your book, and sell your products. But there are good radio interviews and there are bad interviews—you never want to give one of the bad ones.

Think of a radio interview like a dance: you may have asked her to dance and received a “yes,” but you still have to go out on the floor and impress her. Remember, you are on a mission. You are selling your services as well as yourself.

Here are few tips I have learned over the years as a publicist to help you give great interviews and just maybe earn some business so you can sell your products as well!

1. Don’t Put Everyone to Sleep: The perfect guest has energy and passion, but when you lack energy and speak like you just rolled out of bed, you lose your audience fast! Kick it up a notch without going over the top. Remember, most radio interviews take place during the morning drive!
2. Get to The Point: It’s a radio interview, not a Sunday ride in the country. In your first sentence or two, you must grab your audience and convey your message. Otherwise, everyone will turn their radio dials.

Marissa Mayer Didn’t Break Glass Ceiling

Marissa Mayer was named CEO of Yahoo. That’s exciting news. There are only a handful of female CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies today. The chatter in and outside the business world is not only that a woman was hired, but that they hired a young woman (she’s 37 and curiously, there has been little mention of the age of the “kids” who lead other technology firms—think Facebook) and a pregnant woman to boot. And why wouldn’t they hire Marissa Mayer? She’s bright, highly educated, successful, and was a superstar at Google.

But before you start thinking that the glass ceiling is finally broken, we also now learn that woman are lagging far behind men in getting new jobs in this so called post recession period. Since June 2009, men have landed 80% of the 2.6 million net jobs created in the U.S., including 61% this last year. The juxtaposition of these two headlines, Mayer’s hiring while women in general fall behind, gives us pause.

Marissa Mayer’s hiring is reason to celebrate. It is a significant personal and professional accomplishment for her and a major step for professional women. But the unevenness of our economic recovery points to the fact that a lot more work needs to be done before we can actually reach economic parity.

Thought Leadership: Positioning Yourself as The Industry Guru

Thought Leaders are sought out, listened to, respected and needed. Organizations depend on them and believe they cannot function without them. While it may be good to simply perform well in your job or business, in this highly competitive world, being good is not good enough. And that’s why you want to establish yourself as a legitimate thought leader.

So what is a Thought Leader and how do you position yourself as one?

To begin, you simply can’t declare your arrival. Legitimate expertise is still required. Yet, at the same time, you have to develop a recognized reputation as an expert. Being the industry’s best-kept secret will not get you entrance to the club. Recognition brings with it tremendous benefits including job promotions and security; increased business; attention from the media, colleagues and industry groups; along with fame and often fortune.

To position yourself as the industry guru, follow these eight strategies:

1. Find your voice:

It is not enough to simply have expertise. It has to be known and that requires taking positions, being contrarian and even controversial; and remaining in the public’s eye. Thought leaders have to be “out there. ” and they must express their ideas with passion and conviction. Remember, if you don’t believe, no one else will. Writing Op Eds or commentaries are ideal ways to convey your expertise. Finally, you must be always developing new ideas and concepts; having different perspectives; and creating new intellectual capital. Thought leaders cannot simply be perceived as recycling more of the same. Within your company, position yourself as the go-to person in your area of expertise. Share your ideas, volunteer for projects, mentor colleagues and “up and comers,” assist customers, and contribute to your company’s newsletter and blog. Your position as an internal Thought leader elevates both you and your company in the eyes of your boss, customers, competitors, vendors and the industry as a whole. Establish both and internal and external presence.

2. Keep the company of other Thought Leaders:

Surround yourself with other smart people—people who have varied ideas and perspectives; people who will challenge your thinking; and people who will elevate you to a higher level. Identify these Thought Leaders, study their work, and reach out to them. Create with them a community of thinkers. Thought leaders freely share their thoughts from which new bodies of work emerge.

3. Develop a body of work: Your ideas, opinions and insights position you as a thought leader, but it also requires developing multiple ways to communicate it—and it must be an ongoing process. Thought Leaders, by definition, continuously think about things, analyze them, challenge accepted ideas, debate issues, and develop new concepts. Thought leaders look at the world differently, and through their work, persuade others.
4. Write: Article writing and getting them published in professional and industry specific publications can be the foundation from which to build your reputation as an expert. It can be both the feeder system for your Thought Leader brand and the incubator for your intellectual capital.
5. Give speeches and presentations: Professional groups flock to hear experts speak. Whether before your local Chamber of Commerce, a chapter of a professional association, or at a national conference, speaking provides you a perfect platform to showcase your expertise. And by videotaping it and posting it to your website and YouTube, you gain world wide exposure.
6. Maintain an online presence: Develop a compelling online presence using blogs and social media. More people turn to social media to get their news and obtain new knowledge. YouTube has become the number two search engine behind Google. Regularly post your thoughts on your blog; guest blog for others; and comment on other blogs. Join and comment on industry specific LinkedIn groups and make sure you have a website.
7. Cultivate a relationship with the media: TV, radio and print are the fastest mediums to demonstrate your knowledge. The media craves good content. Press releases are a good way to get out front, but remember, no one is interested in a commercial. Commenting on relevant, current issues is key. Once introduced to a reporter, develop a professional relationship. Be available when they need you. Feed good information to them. Remember, Thought Leaders share their knowledge, never holding back.
8. Write a book: A professionally published book is the gold standard of Thought Leadership. Opinions of you vastly change when you become an author. Doors open. The media calls you. Associations want you to speak before their group. And individuals want to see the book, read it, and learn all about it. With a book, you quickly rise to the top.

Your body of work puts you in a position to leverage your expertise to increased exposure, business and professional repute. Leverage is a circular process. Articles lead to speaking engagements, which leads to media exposure, which leads to business opportunities, which spurs news ideas for more writing and speaking. It is a dynamic and continuous process. And all this positions you as the expert. The more you do, the higher your recognition level and professional stature. No longer are you a secret. You are now the go-to person—a true industry guru, a Thought Leader.

Article written by Rick Dacri

Published in Mainebiz

Recruitment: Landing Your Next Manager

(I wrote this article and it was published in the Maine Townsman Magazine, April 2012 issue. The Maine Townsman is the magazine of the Maine Municipal Association.)

The most important responsibility of any Council or Board is to hire a top notch City or Town Manager. The success of your municipality is dependent upon having a highly qualified executive steering your operation. Absent that, you can expect trouble big time. Focus lots of time and attention on bringing into your municipality the best of the best. Great executives are out there. Your job is to find them—or engage someone who can.

Recruiting good candidates is not an easy task for anyone. The process is complicated and candidates often know what to say and do to get the job, and it is going to get more difficult. The International City/County Management Association’s Next Generation Initiatives study cited the “retirement tidal wave” as a major barrier facing local governments. They noted that the “local government management profession is at a crossroads as baby boomers that compromise the majority of local government managers approach retirement at a quickening pace, and statistics indicate the greatest number of retires will come from the management ranks.” Making matters worse, Maine’s oldest in the nation population puts this graying profession at a greater risk. And the problem doesn’t end at the executive level. This same crisis blankets all municipal management roles. So what should you do?

Putting together a successful recruitment program and search requires expertise, experience and know-how. Understanding what you are looking for, finding the right candidate, and getting him or her to say “yes” to your offer requires a comprehensive plan.

Every municipality dreams of having a steady stream of highly qualified applicants knocking at their door, hoping to be hired as your Town Manager–applicants, who are skilled, fully engaged and who mesh with their current employees and fit within their community. And as idealistic as this sounds, communities with a strong recruitment brand enjoy this benefit. There are many prominent examples of this at the corporate level. Just ask the folks at Google, Johnson & Johnson and Apple. They understand the value of a strong brand.

So what is a recruitment brand and how can you develop one? A recruitment brand is a message that communicates what it’s like to work at your organization. It tells the world who you are and what you believe in—your mission, culture and values. It’s your way of telling applicants “this is who we are and individuals who believe and think like us are welcome.” And for those who think a recruitment brand is not important to recruiting your next manager, you would be mistaken. Simply attend a gathering of city and town managers and listen to their conversations about various communities throughout the state. You will soon learn that some towns are coveted places to work while others are to be avoided. It is all about the brand.

With a strong recruitment brand, candidates will seek you out, saving you time and money on recruitment initiatives. But even more importantly, your brand is the glue that holds your current workers together, increasing employee retention, engagement, loyalty and productivity.

Building a brand takes two uncomplicated steps:

1. Understanding who you are. To fully understand this, ask yourself and then ask your employees why do you want to work here? What kinds of people are successful here? What kind of people fit it? And what kinds of people are not successful here? Getting the answer to these questions will help you define your municipality’s brand. Listen to how your employees respond.
2. Communicate your message about what it’s like to work at your municipality. Get your employees to offer their stories. These compelling stories of why people want to work in your town provide you the insights into who you are and your recruitment brand.

Communicate your brand consistently and with clarity in all your recruitment pieces. And as your brand evolves, listen to hear how former employees, residents and the public echo it. A positive recruitment brand will attract your targeted candidates to your town like a magnet, ensuring that you always have a steady stream of candidates drawn to your door.

Next, profile your ideal candidate. This sounds simple, but so often councilors do not know which candidate will be successful in their community and which one will fail. Knowing this is critical. Often we start the recruitment process without truly understanding what we are looking for. Job descriptions are helpful. They define the education, experience and tasks the new hire will perform. What they do not do is identify the traits, those qualitative factors that tell you who will fit and who will not. To do this, ask yourself these two questions: 1) what type of person will be most successful in our community? 2) What type will not? How you answer these questions will focus your entire recruitment search.

It is also important to understand that positions change and evolve overtime. With rapid changes in regulations, resident demands, state and federal mandates, revenue challenges and changing demographics, the type of Town Manager you need now may be very different from your previous manager. As such, simply using an outdated job description and a profile of the incumbent will not give you a clear picture of a successful new hire. It will not help you to identify what you need today and what you will need in the future. Remember, each time you are faced with making a hire, you must go through this process. Your investment in time now will yield good long-term rewards.

In developing the profile of your ideal Town Manager, look at six critical elements: 1) job priorities; 2) business/management/financial skills; 3) essential personal traits; 4) negative traits–traits that would make the individual unsuccessful; 5) short term challenges the candidate would face immediately upon starting the job; and 6) the long term challenges he would face in your community and state. Armed with this profile, you can use this tool to identify what you need in a candidate, what you do not want, where you should find such a candidate, and what questions you should ask during the interview.

Finally, hire for fit. Though you now have the profile of your ideal candidate, you must focus on the person who will fit within your community. He is the one who can work with your staff, elected officials, and residents; assimilate within your culture and community; and adopt your Town’s belief systems. Find people who best meet the requirements of the job. Critical job skills go beyond the technical—they must include personality traits and include those soft skills such as teamwork, relational competences, and empathy. Finally, select candidates with the right attitude. Remember, one thing you cannot change in people is their inherent attitudes. Evaluate the impact your new hire will have on your staff, residents and community. Be uncompromising about hiring the right person. If you make a bad hiring decision, you will soon have to make the tough decision to say good-bye.

Next it is important to understand where the right candidates are. Successful fishermen know where and when the fish are biting. Successful recruitment requires you to do the same. Ask yourself, if I were looking for a town manager, where would I find one? The answer could be towns similar to yours; professional associations; schools of government; etc. In other words, it isn’t just the help wanted pages or the Internet. Think creatively—think differently.

Once you’ve found your candidate, it’s critically important to conduct a thorough job interview. Prepare carefully. Formulate questions before hand, which explore ability, skill and fit. Ask behavioral oriented questions, which are questions that require a response based on actual experience. Probe until you are sure that you have all the information you need. Listen to what the candidate says and how he says it. Ask the candidate if he or she has any questions. The questions they have will tell you a lot about them and what is important to them. Put as many eyes on the candidate as you can, in multiple settings and times. Too many costly mistakes are made during the interview phase.

Resist the temptation to fill the job quickly. Don’t blame mistakes on the labor pool. Don’t hire until you are sure you have the right candidate. Trust your gut. Listen and watch for red flags—those signs that tell you something is not right here. People decisions are significant—they impact the overall morale, culture and capacity of the organization. You know the expression about the one bad apple….

Always reference check. You learn a lot from reference checking. Listen to what is being said and how it is said. Interview the references. Remember, your goal here is not to confirm your beliefs. It is to learn more about the candidate so you can make an educated decision about their ability to lead your local government.

Finally, make your final evaluation. Ask yourself: Can he do the job? Will she be accepted? Will he fit? Is she interested? What is the likelihood that he will stay? Will outside factors interfere with his performance? Remember, it is easy to hire, hard to fire.

There are many steps in finding the right Town Manager for your municipality. Recruiting your next manager is probably the most important responsibility of your Council. Putting together a strategic recruitment plan and following these steps, will ensure that you hire the right candidate.

Recruitment Brand: The Magnet That Draws Candidates

Every employer dreams of having a steady stream of highly qualified applicants knocking at their door, hoping to be hired–applicants, who are skilled, fully engaged and who mesh with their current employees and fit within their culture. And as idealistic as this sounds, companies with a strong recruitment brand enjoy this benefit. Just ask the folks at Google, Johnson & Johnson and Apple. They understand the value of a strong brand.

So what is a recruitment brand and how can you develop one? A recruitment brand is a message that communicates what it’s like to work at your company. It tells the world who you are and what you believe in—your mission, culture and values.  It’s your way of telling applicants “this is who we are and individuals who believe and think like us are welcome.”

 Whether it’s Zappos that promises to “deliver happiness to the world” or Southwest Airlines’ focus on the “power of relationships to achieve high performance” or J&J’s family friendly environment—a positive recruitment brand attracts candidates who identify with their beliefs and culture.

 With a strong recruitment brand, candidates will seek you out, saving you time and money on recruitment initiatives. But even more importantly, your brand is the glue that holds your current works together, increasing employee retention, engagement, loyalty and productivity.

 Building a brand takes three uncomplicated steps:

1. Understanding  who you are. To fully understand this, ask yourself and then ask your employees  why do you want to work here? What kinds of people are successful here?  What kind of people fit it? And what kinds of people are not successful  here? Getting the answer to these questions will help you define you   company’s brand. Listen to how your employees respond.
2. Profile  your ideal candidates. Creating this profile allows you to target, find  and recruit your ideal candidates.
3. Communicate your message about what it’s like to work at your company. Get your employees to offer their stories. These compelling stories of why people  want to work in your company provide you the insights into who you are and   your recruitment brand.

Communicate your brand consistently and with clarity in all your recruitment pieces. And as your brand evolves, listen to hear how it is echoed by former employees, customers and the public.

A positive recruitment brand will attract your targeted candidates to your company like a magnet, ensuring that you always have a steady stream of candidates drawn to your door.