Episode 110 | Media Pitching with Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever

Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the group practice exchange podcast. I’m really excited because I’ve got Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever on with me. And she’s actually one of the keynotes for our group practice owners summit coming up this summer. That’s now virtual! And we’re really excited to she’s gonna be talking about media pitching. And I know that’s something that is a topic that a lot of people are asking about. So I’m excited to have her on. Hi, Dr. Avis. Hi, how are you?

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

I’m doing well. I’m really excited about this topic.

Maureen Werrbach 

So for those who might not yet know you, and I’ve posted a little bit about you in my facebook group, with your media pitch thing that you have going on right now, but for those who don’t know you, can you give a little intro into who you are, what you do and how you help people.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

Sure. So my name is Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever. I am a media monetization mentor. And I come by that after having over 20 years of experiences. I don’t mean to say how much over 20 years but over 20 years experience in the media. I came to the media in the sense that my background is not in journalism, my background is not in PR. My background is as a subject matter expert.

My area of expertise happens to be politics. So most of my background in the media has been around either political commentary or as a researcher where I spend a great deal of my professional experience, as a subject matter expert around policy, as it’s traversing its way through the whole Washington DC thing, right. So I come by my research in my experience in media in that way.

And I looked at it from that perspective until I made the shift from employee to entrepreneur.

So when I started my own business, I started to think of how can I use my immediate exposure in a more strategic way in order to specifically drive more leads and ultimately more revenue to my business. And so I developed the system to be able to quickly position myself in the media in ways that will allow me to attract more clients to what I do, and became very successful and growing my business really quickly that way.

Since then I’ve ultimately started to teach other entrepreneurs and subject matter experts how to monetize their expertise. And how to grow their businesses through the strategic use of the media as part of what I call their media marketing matrix.

Maureen Werrbach 

So obviously, you have a lot of years experience in this. What would you say is kind of a big tip or like a first step? Maybe that group practice owner who maybe hasn’t done any media pitching at all what would your advice be or pieces of feedback around just even getting started? Because I think that’s probably the hardest part from what I’m hearing is they don’t know what they don’t know. So they don’t want to start with.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

Yeah. So I think it’s a couple of things. I think, number one, you have to know that, first of all, what you have to say, and your expertise has value.

It’s interesting to me that, you know, oftentimes people think “I don’t think anyone would really care what I have to think, or what I have to say”. They don’t really to understand how to position what they do in a way that’s newsworthy. And it all begins with first of all, understanding that your experience is valuable. And you help people in what you do every day on a micro scale in terms of being able to meet the needs of your specific clients and their specific challenges. But your body of knowledge and your expertise can also help people on a macro scale, as well as elevate you and differentiate yourself from other competitors in your space and in a way that only I believe the media can do.

So when you are able to position yourself as a quote unquote, the go to expert in your field.

And even if it’s just in your locality by strategically utilizing the media in your space, that definitely puts you into a position where you’re at a competitive advantage. So the first thing I would say is know that what your expertise has value, even beyond how you are using it today to change lives, you can really amplify that by you know, hundreds, if not thousands, quite frankly.

And then secondly, I would say that the second thing that it’s very important for new people who are entering the media space to understand is that what’s critical to get is that when you are positioning yourself for media attention, you need to make sure that the way that you present your pitch per se or you know, when you’re looking to get media attention, you need to present what you want to talk about in the media in a way that is what I call mediagenic.

So you have to understand how to position what you want to talk about in a way that would interest the media.

You know, oftentimes people who are kind of new to this space come to it thinking about a specific message that they want to relay, something specific that they’re super excited about that they want to talk about in the media. But you have to understand that whoever you’re pitching, they are sharing you with their platform. And their platform has specific interests, their platform has specific needs. So you need to figure out how can you position what you do and what you want to say in a way that would be interesting to that particular platforms audience.

And so what I really try to get people to understand is that there there needs to be a match there. There needs to be like a love connection between want to say, and the audience of the form that you’re looking to be on.

I guarantee you there are so many mediums out here you can find someone that would really resonate with the message that you want to get out. But you have to be strategic to make sure that you are media pitching the right person or the right platform for the particular for what you want to say, because it has to match their particular audience’s needs, desires interests, in order for that gatekeeper to say, yes, I want you to come on and share that message with those people who watch our television show who listen to our podcasts, or our radio show, or who read our particular publication.

Maureen Werrbach 

That makes a lot sense. I talk a lot with group practice owners who are wanting to do public speaking, whether it’s in this, you know, in schools or in local businesses, so not media, per se, but just doing workshops or presentations in the community. And so often what I see is that they come to a school and say, as an example, I want to talk to this local high school and they’ll say, here’s all these topics that I can talk about. I have specialty in, is there one that fits your needs.

And I know that, you know, people don’t want to have to do the work to get you on board, and that you really need to be coming to them, you know, with something that you know, is their pain point or something that they would need from you like a topic that were quick?

So I’m just I’m kind of hearing from you, too, which is nice to hear that even from like, the immediate perspective, is that you you really want to know the audience of those platforms before you go and talk about, you know, trying to pitch something because it obviously needs to not just fit your specialty but also fit the audience of the of the platform or the people that you’d be going on.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

Exactly. It’s you know, that old adage, a confused mind does nothing, right. Yeah. So if you are pitching an idea, and then the producer has to figure out well, how does this relevant to what we talked about or you know, what we focus on then there? They’re not going to spend time trying to figure that out, you have to make that very plain for them. So that it becomes an easy yes.

Maureen Werrbach 

That makes a lot of sense. Do you have any tips for how to actually do the searching of places? I mean, I guess that would be just another step. Step B is you can’t really think about what you’re wanting to talk about. Right? Yeah. So how do you how do you figure that kind of thing out? So I feel like there’s just mean the world is so big, how do you know?

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

Well, you know, I mean, here’s, here’s the thing. The biggest tip that I can give you, it may seem so simple, and, you know, commonsensical, but a lot of people don’t do this. The main thing is just, if you know you like a certain television show, and that’s attracting you that you just want to be on the show. Want to show her watched several episodes, if you listen to several episodes of a podcast that you’re targeting, listening to, or read a particular publication that you want to get published in, so you can get a sense of the things that they say yes to, right?

Particularly in what relates to television, oftentimes, if it’s a regular show, we’ll have like regular segments. And if you watch the show enough, you not only get a sense on the macro level, about the types of things that they cover, you get a sense about, Hey, there are particular segments that specifically focus on X, Y, and Z. And so maybe I could even say that, hey, I would be a great fit for this segment on that show.

So the thing is, you just have to become a very targeted consumer of media, particularly in spaces that you believe would be congruent with what you want to say.

Therefore, you can get a better idea of the types of things that normally show up in that space, and where you can be a value add. It can also help because sometimes people’s pitches aren’t accepted not because they’re not a good fit or not because they are a bad pitch even, it could be they just just covered that issue last week. So you have to make sure that you are a consumer of the media such that you can come into this next process the process of trying to sort of get in break in a with a level of knowledge around exactly how you would best fit not only generally the platform, but even specifically the moment such that you are adding to what they’ve done and not necessarily being repetitive for what to what they just did recently.

Maureen Werrbach 

I love that piece of feedback. Tell me, I know you have several offerings. Is there anything that our audience would benefit from if they’re interested in taking a step into figuring out how to make a pitch? Figuring out where they should make that first pitch happen?

And then also around like, the actual putting together of a pitch because I can imagine there’s a sort of art to, you know, you might be an expert on, I don’t know, let’s say OCD, right? And you work with clients that have OCD. It’s one thing to be an expert in helping supporting someone that has OCD, but it’s probably an entirely different thing to pitch, you know, talking about the subject of OCD to, you know, a place that it would benefit, you know, hearing this information, but to pitch that information out. Right.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, it’s really great because, you know, it helps people. I do have an offering to help people walk through that process and understand, as you mentioned, not only the art but also the science to media pitching. And so I offer something called a perfect media pitch masterclass, and they can go to perfectmediapitch.com to sign up for it.

It’s multi day master class, we just go an hour a night, five days a week, at the end of the process, you have your pitch done.

The last time I went through this class, before people even finished the entire process, I had one person who had already pitched and got booked on four different podcasts, and another person who use these media pitching techniques and apply them to pitching for speaking engagements. And she got two speaking engagements. I just found out yesterday that someone who went through the class actually use the strategy that I use around developing a proposal because that’s just a different type of pitch.

And she used it to get her first client for her brand new business.

So this idea of media pitching is something definitely that you can use for the media. But the strategy and the specific formula can be applied in a variety of different situations.

Maureen Werrbach 

That’s awesome. Thank you so much. I just want to make sure is there any last tip or feedback that you have or that we sort of covered that all?

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

One last tip I would like to give you and this is for our modest listeners out there. You cannot run away from the fact that you’re an expert. I think that a lot of people and I hate to say it, but particularly women tend to shy away from even thinking of themselves and definitely shy away from positioning themselves as an expert in what you do.

And I need to let you know that if you’re going to try to get into the media, you have to own that you have to embrace it, you have to hold it confidently that you are an expert. Because the media is not interested in having someone on their platform who you know kind of sort of knows what they do. There are looking exclusively for experts and so I know your listeners are all experts at what they do. And as you are positioning yourself for media opportunities, be okay with tooting your own horn and saying I’m an expert in XYZ. That’s what they want to hear.

Maureen Werrbach 

I love that that’s a great way to end this is such a good piece of feedback. I think mindset is such a big area to focus on as business owners in general, but guests especially as women, business owners, shifting mindset in just various areas of business ownership is an important topic that we talk about a lot. But I’m seeing that also be an important aspect in terms of just kind of owning that you know, something and you know something really well.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

Exactly.

Maureen Werrbach 

Well, thank you so much for coming on. And for those of you that haven’t yet signed up for the practice owners summit in July, you should totally join. We have several hundred people already signed up, which is exciting. And Dr. Avis is going to be keynoting. Day two, I think right is the day on diversity and leadership, which is going to be such an awesome topic and we’re super excited about it. So I’m really excited to get to sort of virtually meet you again. And sort of bummed that I don’t get to meet you in person, but this will do.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

I know! But well, we’ll make do with what we can do, right?

Maureen Werrbach 

Yes, absolutely. Well, it’s nice talking to you. And thank you so much.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever 

You as well. Have a great day.

Maureen Werrbach 

Thanks for listening to the good practice exchange podcast. We’ll see you next time.