Qualities that serve experts well in the media

When we speak with someone, we can usually tell within seconds whether they’ll do well in the media.

There are certain qualities experts have that often determine how far they go with PR. Catherine Ball and I unpack them in today’s episode of Dauntless PR Unfiltered.

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Welcome to Dauntless PR Unfiltered. What we're going to talk about today are the qualities that serve experts really well in the media.

Speaker 1 0:11

I feel like there's a few here, but the first one I'm going to say is like a real desire to share their knowledge, their wisdom, and an actual real passion for what they do, where they actually they want to talk about it all the time because it's really interesting to them. They want to share what they've got, and that is infectious. So, like when somebody really cares about their topic, they really care about their thing, people want to hear what they've got to say because that's really like inviting. I I end up sometimes watching, say, like people maybe on TikTok and they talk about something that they really care about. And it's something I'm not bothered about at all, but I'll end up staying because actually the way they talk about it, I'm like, oh, okay, maybe I should care. I'm not suggesting that we should all be doing that, by the way, but that kind of infectious sort of urge to share about your topic and get people thinking about it in new ways. So that's a really good quality. I feel like if you're bored of what you're doing, everyone else is going to be bored too. If you think it's the most interesting thing ever, that's gonna come across to other people. And I think another thing is having what I would call like a fuck yes mentality. I feel like you're somebody that that fits into this category, Luana, that you someone who is looking for reasons to say yes to opportunities rather than to say no. I think that's a really important thing.

Speaker 1:54

And they kind of like, I think most of that kind of, you know, those two kind of go well together, don't they? Really? Like if you're passionate about something, why would you not want to talk about it every time? And I had to laugh just then when you were talking about like how you might see somebody talking about something you're not that interested in, and then you end up kind of hooked. Because it really reminded me of my optician. I've got the most incredible optician, right? Go with everyone who goes for regular eye tests will know how utterly boring an eye test is until I went to my new optician, right? And he is so passionate about eye care, I left excited about eye care.

unknown 2:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2:45

Because he was so good. Like he would be somebody that's good in the media. My optician, if you're listening, give me a call.

Speaker 1 2:53

But I think sometimes it's it's not necessarily even that you don't have to say something nobody else has ever said before. You're just saying it in a way that you really care about that thing, and that you see it differently.

Speaker 3:07

Exactly. Like when I was having my eye test, this guy was just like dancing in front of me. He was like, I'm I'm so passionate and so like he was emphasizing his words and his hope, he was really entertaining with it. And I was like, Oh my god, yes, I care. Woo!

unknown 3:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:25

The clients that we have that I absolutely love are the ones that initially I might not be that excited about the topic. I might be, but I might just be quite neutral about it and be like, oh, okay. And then when I come off the call with that I've had with them, I will be absolutely buzzing with ideas and I'll and it will make me see it differently, and it will make me go, yes, we do need to tell people about this. People do need to hear that. And it's that quality that they it's a mix really between what they're saying and how they're saying it, and like blending that together completely.

Speaker 4:01

It really, really is, and that's why, as well, you know, before people join us at Dauntless, they talk to the team, and the team are always asking them, you know, about their stories, their opinions, and everything like that. And we know like we can tell straight away who is going to be good in the media because their eyes light up when they talk about the topic, like they're they really believe it, and that comes through in their energy, and they want it to be in the spotlight. That's another thing. Because I've had people coming to me and saying, I'm reluctantly thinking of stepping into the spotlight. Um, I don't want to, but I feel like I should. And in those cases, I say stick to what you're doing.

Speaker 1 4:47

Yeah, if it's something that is the equivalent of like a root just root canal surgery in your mind that you're like, oh, I've been told I need to do this, and oh, I've got to do it, it's gonna be horrible. You are gonna give off, whether you mean to or not, that energy. And if I was interviewing someone for a magazine, for a newspaper, and they had this sort of fear and reluctance and not really wanting that, it would subconsciously put me off. So I might get the information that I need, but I would come off that call, probably feeling a bit like, oh, okay, yeah, I'll try and make it work. If somebody is talking to me and they're like sharing stuff and they're giving, I'd probably come off going, oh, they're great. I will recommend them to other people, or I might use them again, or I would have that, I might end up putting more of them in a piece. So maybe I might be looking for someone to give me a couple of sentences, but actually they show they really share stuff to me that make me go, so I'm gonna make the whole piece about them. So it's that kind of difference between going through the motions, and I think this is true of everything, isn't it? When you're just going through the motions, it's never gonna be as good as when you put your heart and soul into it.

Speaker 6:04

No, no, and I think that about like every aspect of business, like something I I'm going off topic a little bit here, but something I really, really disagree with in the business world is when people are like, there's only one way, it's my way. Like, no, like it's whatever way like you work, like if you're excited about it and you are enjoying it, that's gonna reflect in your energy, that's gonna create a better result. That's gonna attract more people to you, you know, more of the right people. Where if you're just like doing things because you feel like you should to create a result, it's never gonna work as well. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 6:46

Going back to when I was saying that you you kind of, to me, out of all the people I know, you are the person that embodies the kind of fuck yes mentality the most. I don't know if that's a compliment or not. I mean it as a compliment. It's fine. Do you know my kids? But this is something grabs things by the horn. Like you're just like, could be good. Okay, let's go there. Like you're someone that doesn't overthink things, which I think's brilliant.

Speaker 7:15

Well, I love the way that you framed that just then, because I am somebody who's spent their whole lives kind of defending that quality, being cold, reckless, irresponsible, that kind of thing. And it took me a long time to actually realize no, like this is a quality that serves me well. And isn't it right, Catherine, that people shame the qualities that actually make you powerful?

Speaker 1 7:44

Yeah. And so I would say, so you're doing something, it's this week, isn't it? That you're doing something that makes me go in that I would be an absolute ball of anxiety about. But you're well, if you are a ball of anxiety, you're hiding it well. But so Luana is moving across the world this week.

Speaker 8:06

Yeah, do you know what? I just thought, fuck it.

Speaker 1 8:10

The thing is that so many people, and I'm gonna count myself in that will be like, oh, that sounds amazing. But I'm not gonna fall into the thing of saying you're so lucky, because I know I absolutely could do that myself, but I'm not going to because I'm not brave enough. But that's where you have that kind of you know what you want, and I'm not saying you have to move to Thailand to have this mentality, but you're somebody who knows what they want and is prepared to do what it takes to get there. It's like this is something I need to do, and even though there's hurdles to get over, or even though there are things that might be a little bit scary about it, you find a way of making it work and you say yes to opportunities. And I think that is that's the quality that I'm kind of honing in on. That okay, maybe you might be called to be on TV and they might say, Are you available in the morning? And a lot of people, their instant reaction would be, No, I haven't had my hair done, haven't got an outfit, I have actually got something else I'm doing tomorrow morning, and their brain would instantly go to reasons to say no to this amazing opportunity because the brain's job is to keep you safe. It's to keep you comfortable. Whereas I know from I mean, we've been working together for six years, I know your brain would go, okay, I really want that. I'm gonna find a way to make it work. And that is a really great quality to have.

Speaker 9:48

I'm gonna be really, really honest now, Catherine. You know, when I come to you and I'm like, like when like let's say your team have come and they've said, look, you've got this TV interview, it's later today or it's tomorrow or something like that. And I come and I'm like, yeah, let's go, let's do it. That isn't what's happened right from the beginning. Right, my initial reaction is no, no, I can't do that because my hair's a mess. This is a this I won't be ready, I don't have time. Like all of these happen. But the difference is that I overcome it very quickly. And to other people, that can look like not just in I'm not talking about the TV interview here, but just in general, that can look like recklessness when in fact it's just a fast, you know, it's getting clear fast and recognizing what's happening. Yeah.

Speaker 1 10:38

You fast track through the bullshit, I think. Yeah. Whereas most people, because I've noticed this about myself, I've noticed about other people, where your instant reaction will often be a no. And then when you really sit and think about it, you'll gradually go, actually, I could make it work. And you'll whereas you do that at a much faster speed, where you will think it through and get to that point quicker. Yeah. And it means, but what it does mean, I think this is where it becomes sort of like a bit of a magic ingredient, is it means that you very rarely miss out on things. Whereas sometimes what will happen with other people is they will slowly go through that process, but they won't go through it quick enough to grab the opportunity. So then they'll be kind of like, oh, maybe I should have gone on that TV thing, or actually, I could have made it work, I could have gone and done that live radio interview. Or and then they get a little bit of regret because they're like, I taught myself out of that, and actually that could have been really good. Because maybe then they see somebody else doing it and they go, That would have been amazing.

Speaker 11:46

Oh, yes, we've had that before, haven't we? Like people talking themselves out of things, and then they've been like, Well, what I would have been better than that person who was on it, yeah, but you didn't grab it fast enough.

Speaker 1 11:59

Yeah, that you it's not about jumping without looking and thinking it through, but it's about not actually getting to the heart of what's going on very quickly and being like, is this something I want? Is can I resolve the issues if there are issues? And doing those kind of quick judgments. So it's not about not thinking about stuff, but it's about that kind of thing. So for me, I'm like, I mean, I've I've booked a holiday for like next year that I've been like watching videos about. So when you're like, oh, I'm moving to Thailand this week, I'm like, that would take me months of like research because that's kind of my personality type. But I so admire the fact that you knew what you wanted and you just got on with it. You just got on with it to make it happen.

Speaker 12:50

That's the But you know what here so it's not like it was an easy decision because there are always like lots of things to think about and things like that. But I would prefer to look back and think, right, I've tried this thing and it maybe it didn't work, rather than looking back and thinking, what if I had tried that thing? And when we were in Portugal, I'm in the UK now, um, just so we had to come back and sort a few things. But when we were in Portugal, it was like our intention was always to live in Portugal and to stay in Portugal. We didn't we we left it there. There was nothing wrong with our lives. And I think a lot of people are very motivated by the push, like if something's bad, then they'll fix it. Yeah. But I think another quality that serves you well in in PR is if you are, if you have like a toward mentality, like you want things to be, you don't want to tolerate mediocrity, you don't want to tolerate people things being fine, things being okay. And that's where I was in Portugal. Things were more than okay, things were great, but I couldn't shake this feeling of, but I haven't, I don't know. I don't know. And I remember speaking to my business coach about three years ago and just seeing Puquet. I've never been, right? But just seeing on a zoom, and I got him to show me around and just thinking, oh, that looks amazing. And it was in the space of probably two hours, we'd gone from me and Al, we'd gone from we're gonna be in Portugal forever, this is our place, to like fuck it, let's go to Puquet. And it was, it was all within two hours, and we've never been there. We have been looking at YouTube videos and stuff like that, but you know, we've got everything sorted. We've got an apartment there, we've got kids' school, we've got a Muay Thai gym. I can't wait for that. And I'm going with the attitude of, I think we're gonna love it, but I'm not expecting everything to be all like I don't, everything's hard. Like there are always gonna be hard points to think. Not everything's hard, that was the right wrong thing to say, but there are always gonna be like things that are good and things that are not so good, but it's choosing which hard bits you're willing to to tolerate, I guess. And I don't know what they are yet in Puket. I'll find out.

Speaker 1 15:27

And this is the thing that there's no thing that's just a magical, this is gonna take away all your problems, because if it takes away all your existing problems, there'll be new problems, like with anything in life. Like you can't, there's no line.

Speaker 15:41

Sometimes people are like, oh, PR, PR is too hard, PR is too hard. And I'm like, well, so is obscurity. Like, which hard do you prefer?

Speaker 1 15:50

I think one of the issues I see of why sometimes people think about PR and then they don't ever like take that jump to actually do it, is going back to what you were saying about that, things don't have to be broken to move forward. So, like with PR, you don't want to be doing it to fix a broken company. No, no, no. If you're if everything has gone tits up around you and everything is completely in chaos, that's not the time to think I'm gonna invest in PR, I'm gonna get out there, I'm gonna share my message. You want to get to the point where things are good and comfortable and possibly even easy. Sometimes, like, you reach a point in a business where you're like, this is actually quite easy now. I know what I'm doing. That's a great time. Then rather than staying in that comfort zone, you don't need to wait for something to break and be like, this is gonna be the thing. It's like what's gonna push me from this great place that I've found myself and get somewhere even better. It's about that kind of forward mentality. And I think the wonderful thing about the fact that you are doing so much PR is I'm not worried about you going off to Thailand and being busy doing stuff to settle into your new life and maybe not being able to post on social media as much. That doesn't worry me at all because I know that you've got all the PR stuff that's gonna keep you.

Speaker 17:25

Yeah, I mean, even the past even the past three weeks, right? While I've been on Anglesey, I've hardly been online, and that's because I've just uh I've got my four-year-old here who isn't at school in Anglesey, so he's home all the time. Al's here, but he's very much wants to be with his mum, you know. He's not he wants to be with me all the time, and then I've got other family things going on, so I haven't had the freedom that I did in Portugal, but I've already reached like seven million people. I've had nine new PR placements, I've had seven of them have gone live, so I've reached seven million people. I don't need to feel like I'm tied to the socials 24-7. And don't get me wrong, I love the social. I enjoy being on the socials. I love connecting with people, I love posting, having fun, but I also don't want to feel like a slave to it. Like I can't think of anything worse.

Speaker 1 18:28

Can feel like a treadmill or like one of those hamster wheels can social media, I think, sometimes, if you're purely relying on that to share your message. Like, I there's some content creators that will have taken time out for completely reasonable reasons and people are acting like they've died or they've gone missing or something because they took a couple of weeks out, because people get on that, but then I feel like if you are using PR as well, or sometimes even instead, I mean, like people can do really well without really putting as much into the socials, like it's not all or nothing. I think we've become a bit sort of thinking that everything's about it. I my ideal thing for people is to put effort into both, but you know, PR works very differently.

Speaker 19:19

But we have had people join us as a way of bypassing the socials as well, haven't we? And they have done that, like they've just directed people straight to their websites and they haven't done the socials. It's not what we recommend because why would you not use the socials if they're there and you know, because they're they're good, but it's not some people have got into a bit of a trap.

Speaker 1 19:41

Certainly, I've noticed this anyway. Maybe, maybe this is just me, but I think some people they imagine that success is purely linked to social media and like followers. You can actually be hugely successful and have a very small following because it's not where you're putting your attention, or you can have a very large social media following, but maybe the actual business isn't bringing money in or isn't doing well, so they're not necessarily tied to each other, like it's it's not a reliable metric for business success to look at. If you've got a really great following, that is gonna make you more attractive. If you've got like a million followers, then that's gonna be a reason that people are gonna want to feature you in the media, but it's not the only reason, it's not like being passionate and enthusiastic about your subject, being a nice person, being someone who says yes to opportunities, those qualities are arguably as if not more important than just having a really big following. What you do tend to find though is if people have got a really big following, it's because they are a magnetic personality and they are passionate about their subjects, and they are, you know, you don't get huge numbers of followers if you haven't really got anything to say and you're not very interested. So they often are those things, but it's not all down to that one thing. I think there's a lot more. It's about people's mindset, their personality, you know, actually caring about what they do. I think just that's the biggest thing for me. Like, are you interested? Because don't ask me to be interested if you're not interested in what you're doing.

Speaker 21:38

Right. So definitely, like these people, these people who answer things like, oh, yeah, that if information's in my book, like what's your story? Or you can read about that in my book. Like, if you can't be bothered talking about it, why would anyone be bothered going and buying your book and reading about it?

Speaker 1 21:58

The subconscious message that That sends is I am so bored of this after writing my book, I never want to talk about it again. Whether that is the message that you mean to send, that's the subconscious message like I've put it, I've written it out once, I never want to think about this again. Yeah.

Speaker 22:15

But that's what people like, we've had people coming in and saying that to team as well on the way in, you know, not people who are actually with us, but people who have like spoken to the team about potentially getting PR. And then the team have asked them, you know, what so you they tell me about your story, and they're just like, oh, haven't you read this in my book or whatever? And then it's like, well, what can we do with that? What can we do with that? We can't do anything with that.

Speaker 1 22:41

Yeah, because no journalist is, you are not going to find that every journalist you speak to in the media is going to have time to read your book beforehand. That is not a realistic expectation. If they do, brilliant, amazing. But that is not something that you can demand or expect. And so it's just not a realistic mindset to have. But also, why shouldn't you not want to talk about these things? Like, that's what I get. I mean, things I really love. I want to talk about it. I enjoy talking about it.

Speaker 23:12

But you can like you can feel like you're just repeating yourself over and over. That happens because I I talk about the same things all the time. And then I'm like, oh God, I've been speaking about this so much. Are people not getting bored of hearing me say the same things? But then I know that they're not because I'm constantly going in front of new audiences. That's the thing, you're not saying it to the same people.

Speaker 1 23:37

That's the thing with PR. You are sometimes with your socials, it can feel like you're saying it to the same people because you get the same people liking posts, the same people engaging. But with PR, you're going to new audiences. So, yes, maybe you've said something to Marie Claire, and then something to the same thing you might have said in an article in Forbes. Then you might have also talked to like your local newspaper about a similar topic, but they are all extremely different audiences who will all have taken different things out of it. So you're not, you're saying the things more than once because they're important and they need to be said, but they're not being heard multiple times by the same people. They they're reaching the people it needs to reach.

Speaker 24:20

This brings me to I'm not sure if you'd call this a quality, but it's that knowing, feeling that pull of knowing that you that you're already making an impact and you're speaking to audiences, changing lives already, but knowing that you're just speaking to the same people, that it's like a bubble that you're speaking to the same people about the same things, and it's having that feeling the pull of wanting to break through that bubble. And then it might be a large bubble, you know, you might have a big following already, but it's breaking past that and going into new audiences that you can then bring back into your space, and it's feeling the pull. I think everybody just reaches a point where they just know that it's their time.

Speaker 1 25:16

Yeah. It's that do people need to hear this? Do I need to take this to the next level? What am I waiting for? I think it's kind of big question like what's holding you back from that? What's that thing? And if the only thing is fear, like knowing how to push through that and say yes to the opportunities. Yeah, completely. Completely.

Speaker 25:40

And I think that that's a good place to finish on. So if you have reached that point, or if you have any questions or comments, email us on hello at dauntlesspr.com. See you next time.