Tag Archives: Beverly Mahone

Books

How To Get On The News Without Committing Murder – Book Review

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My friend Beverly Mahone will not be showing up on any of my Black Web Friday posts. She doesn’t have to because I’ve written so many times about her and mentioned her so many times, including this interview with her that she’s like one of the family. If you don’t already know enough about her by reading this blog, then including her on one of the Friday posts won’t do any good.

How to Get on the News Without Committing Murder

How’s this instead then? Let’s talk about her latest book with the long title How to Get on the News Without Committing Murder, which I got to read an early copy of and which is, obviously, now released. This is a book that teaches you how to use your skills and age, if you happen to be of baby boomer age, in getting attention from the press, to the point at which they start calling you as the expert in whatever field you’re representing, and thus helping to increase your presence and your business. How cool would that be, having people calling you up to work with them because they saw you on TV, and it was free publicity to boot?

Bev does this and more in a relatively short book, less than 55 pages, and it’s a very easy and quick read, no fluff. My wife actually read the book, and she’s not a big reader, and she obviously likes Bev’s style because she read Bev’s last book Don’t Ask, which I wrote about here.

In this book she gives you 8 tips for how to get the media to notice you, then goes into detail with each tip. I’m not about to give up the entire book, but I’m going to mention 3 tips and hope that encourages you to at least take a look at what else there is. Here they are:

* Use Your Age And Experience As Advantages

* Build Media Relationships

* Learn How To Write A Dynamic Press Release

I have to tell you that while reading an advanced copy of this book, I decided that the second point I listed was one I needed to take advantage of. I happen to know a lot of local media people, but always thought it wouldn’t be right to try to leverage it into anything else because I didn’t meet them in other than social situations. After reading that section of her book I decided to contact a couple of them to tell them what I did and offer to be a differing point of view from an older perspective if they ever needed it.

Both of the people I contacted thanked me, said they’re always looking for new perspectives and said they really didn’t know that’s what I did, even though one of them had seen me at a live event where I gave a presentation, but unfortunately we were up against each other (I drew more people lol).

This is a great book to read and let me add this; guess who wrote the foreword for the book! 🙂 If that doesn’t get you juiced up enough to at least take a look at the book I don’t know what will. And if you want to see more testimonials and reviews about the book How to Get on the News Without Committing Murder, click on that link to her site.

Go buy this! 😉
 

Interview

Beverly Mahone – Boomer Media Training Professional

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I’ve known Beverly at least 6 years now. We met on Ryze when it meant something, although I’m not sure how well she remembered me. But I did recognize her immediately on Twitter years later and we connected. I’ve been on her Blog Talk Radio show many times, and was on her regular radio show once. Now she’s got a TV show as well. Who is she and how does she do what she does? Read below:

1. How did you first get into TV news, and was it your first stop in media?

My very first television job was in 1987 — when I was hired by one of the NBC Affiliates in North Carolina. I always wanted to do television but was convinced I didn’t have the right “look.” By that, I mean my skin color. During that time, any black anchors or reporters on TV looked like Jayne Kennedy so I figured that ruled me out. I didn’t have long hair nor was I tall. But I decided to take a chance anyway since I was in North Carolina and saw women who actually looked like me. I owe everything to my start in TV to my former News Director, Jim Bennett, who was willing to take a chance on me with no previous television news experience. I didn’t disappoint him I’m happy to say and I got promoted a few times while there.

My media career actually started in radio right out of college. I went to work for a radio station in Beckley, West Virginia and soon realized they hadn’t gotten the memo about affirmative action. When I started questioning the arrest of a black man on charges of murder when he had a stone cold alibi, the Sheriff kindly told me “my kind didn’t belong there and shouldn’t be sticking my nose in business where it didn’t belong.” When I told my boss what happened, I ended up being the one who got fired because he said I was disrespectful to a law enforcement official. I took my case to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for discrimination and WON! I got a severance package out of the deal, which helped me while searching for another job.

2. What’s it like doing a daily news program? Is it as glamorous as many people think it is, and does it pay well in local markets?

There’s so much that people don’t see when it comes to gathering the news. All they see is the end result where we come into your living room. They don’t see the daily grind of how to find news on a slow news day or how to track down credible sources for a big story. They don’t see the many phone calls made and people we have to talk to before we can put the story together. They don’t see the editing or the newsroom battles we have over why we choose to do one story over another. It can get pretty intense at times. The glamorous side is being recognized on the street by someone who treats you like a celebrity.

3. When you left TV, what made you decide to go into public relations?

I don’t really call what I do “public relations.” I am a Media Trainer and what I do is teach people how to self-promote to give themselves more visibility so they will be recognized by different media outlets. I know how challenging it can be to get exposure because I was once on the “other side” combing through press releases and listening to media pitches and I know what it takes to break through and catch a reporter or producer’s eye. I LOVE doing it and I’m good at it!

4. What drove you back to media, first with Blog Talk Radio, then your radio program and finally your new TV show?

I love being a “voice” with a message. I enjoy interviewing interesting people and sharing their stories with the world.

5. I listened to your interview with Jane Velez-Mitchell; how do you get big time guests to show up for your programs?

People are always looking for exposure. It doesn’t matter how big of a celebrity they are. If they are trying to promote a book or movie or whatever, they want the opportunity. I truly live by the scripture that says you receive not because you ask not. If they turn me down, I can always find someone else. I might also add being a part of the Radio and TV groups on LinkedIn helps because we’re always trading information and being a Radio Host at a traditional radio station also helps. It also helps to have gone to school with a few celebrities like Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson). She’s been my guest a few times and we’ve stayed in touch since college.

6. You once got someone onto Oprah; how’d that happen?

Answer: It wasn’t Oprah — I WISH! It was the Today Show. I went to college with Matt Lauer and that’s all I’m saying 🙂

7. In January I reviewed your book Don’t Ask; tell people why you wrote it, how sales have been, and how it developed into a game and how that’s been going for you.

I wrote the book because of a lie I told my doctor that nearly cost me my life. I haven’t actively promoted it as much as I did the first two but sales for the card game have been tremendous!

The card game came about one evening when a few girlfriends and I were sitting around talking about the book. Each one shared their own story about what they would have done in some of my situations. From there I got the idea to create a card game. It is definitely a deck of dialogue. Rarely do people get through the entire deck because they’re so busy discussing their responses or recalling their own “Don’t Ask” stories. The game has far exceeded my expectations. I think the card game sells the book.

8. You gear a lot of your stuff towards baby boomers, which includes me. How do you see us overall taking to social media, what are we missing, and how can we be better?

I think the majority of us are doing a pretty good job in social media because we clearly understand who we’re talking to—each other. Our messages are clear and concise and we are easy to find, especially on Twitter.

For me personally, I still struggle with the technical side of it all and I think that may be a problem for other boomers. Instead of dealing with it, some just refuse to stay up-to-date. In social media, it’s hard NOT to because it’s changing all the time. That’s why it’s important to surround yourself with others who know and understand more than you about different aspects of social media — even if they’re younger. Luckily I have you, Mitch along with Heidi Caswell to help me. 🙂

9. Tell people other stuff about you that I might not have covered here.

I’m married — just celebrating our five-year anniversary in June. He is my soulmate and I am so blessed to have been given a second chance at love after living 18 years in a nightmare. I have a five-year-old grandson and a daughter, who’s a rising senior in college. Want to know how I felt about having a teenage daughter get pregnant? Read about it in my book!

10. If you get Mariah Carey to appear on any of your shows, can I be there with you? 🙂

I’ll be sure to call you well in advance!

You can find Beverly at Real Talk With Beverly Mahone and Baby Boomer Talk. And if you want to check out shows I’ve been on with Bev here you go; some of these are MP3 files:

Passions Show 4/18/10

Passions Show 1/10/10

Men Have Issues Too

Reinventing Yourself

Passions Show 7/26/09

Passions Show 6/7/09
 

Books

Don’t Ask – Book Review

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I figured that since I’m pimping stuff today I might as well finally get around to talking about our friend Beverly Mahone’s new book Don’t Ask, And I Won’t Have To Lie. It comes with another subtitle as well, ’50 is the new 30 and other tall tales’.

Don't Ask book

Don’t Ask book

At just under 80 pages the book is a very easy and entertaining read. Bev talks about her own “lie” and how it almost cost her life because she wasn’t telling her physician the whole story on how she felt and if she’d been taking care of herself. That started her exploring this concept of lying and the intricacies about it.
Continue reading Don’t Ask – Book Review →

Marketing

Getting Positive Publicity Through Interviews

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Here’s a truth; I want to be famous. I want to be well known. And I want to make money from it. I don’t want to be infamous; I don’t want to have to do something illegal or be outed for something bad to get that fame. I like to think my integrity is higher than that.

I’ve given this a lot of thought and come to this conclusion. The best way to get positive publicity is through doing interviews. This, of course, presupposes that you’ve done something that’s worth getting interviewed about. However, if you have this part covered, it’s the best way to go.

To get interviewed, you just might have to contact someone and make a pitch about why you would make a good candidate. If you’re lucky to have done something already, someone else might ask you for an interview. When this happens, you at least know that someone knows about you, which helps make things go easier later on.

Being interviewed is also a big part of marketing. It’s the reason movie stars go on talk shows when they have a new film coming out. It’s the reason musicians show up in places they wouldn’t want anyone to ever see them, because they want to promote their new album (heck, do people still call it that?). I’ve talked about marketing often on this blog; this is one of those most positive things anyone can have the privilege of doing to help promote themselves.

Basically, there are three different types of interviews, and they help you, or hurt you, in different ways. Let’s look at these three.

The first type of interview is as a part of a piece that will have other people’s opinions at the same time. The best part about an interview like this is that you have the chance to not only focus your message in a short period of time, but if the interview goes well you might get your business name mentioned in the piece as well. The bad thing about an interview like this is that you never know which line the interviewer will use of yours, so it’s possible that they’ll use your line to highlight something negative. An example of this type of this interview I was a part of, which I found while writing my article on searching for your own name on search engines.

The second type of interview is a written interview of some fashion only about you. This can be in a magazine, blog, or newspaper article of some sort. With most of these, you may have the same problem as with the first type of interview, that being that you could say a lot of things that you felt makes you look good, only to find that the interviewer decided against using most of it. The best part, of course, is that it’s all about you, and if the interview is positive, you look good and, hopefully, your business and reputation gets a nice boost. An interview that could help highlight this is doing an interview on another blog. And, actually, this recent interview I did with Jim Turner on this blog is a pretty good example.

The third type of interview is the best, that being a live interview. This can either be on live radio or television. If you’re confident enough to be in front of a live audience, you can be an instant hit if you come across well, and your message will be unfiltered. The downside, of course, is if you’re uncomfortable, or look uncomfortable, and give one or two word responses instead of coming across as easy going and someone people might like to work or talk with. This type of interview can make or break your career. An example of that is an interview I did with Beverly Mahone of BAM Enterprises, which, if you’d like, you can listen to, as I talked about the concept of reinventing oneself; this is an MP3 file.

Sometimes the person doing the interview isn’t all that good, so you take risks with your reputation in those instances. Still, most of the time people will understand if you were good and the other person wasn’t up to snuff, and if you handle it all well, then your message will still come across properly and you’ll be better off in the end. Nope, not giving any examples there. 🙂

Getting interviewed means you’ve at least made some kind of dent into the consciousness of another person. If you handle it properly, you could be on your way to great things happening in your life and career. I love being interviewed, just as I like getting other people to allow me to post interviews with them here. I think everyone can learn something from an interview, and some of us can gain something from being interviewed as well.

So, who else wants to interview me? 😉