When you’re tying to sell your book on TV, how do you get your message across? What should you say or do to get people to listen? We answer these questions and more as Robin Colucci sits down for an interview with TV host and coach, Suzanne Sena. Suzanne talks about getting your point across and gives a few simple tips to help you make a great impression on TV. Tune in to learn more on getting your point across.
—
Watch the episode here:
Listen to the podcast here:
You Got A Media Booking, Now What?!: Media Trainer Suzanne Sena Shares How to Make a Great Impression and Get Your Message Across
I am very pleased to introduce to you a very dear friend of mine, Suzanne Sena. She is a true expert on communication, having spent a lifetime as a broadcaster and a decade as one of the country’s most in-demand media trainers. Her vast on-camera career spans many years and includes hosting national talk shows, anchoring national image and international news and hosting unscripted live televised events.
Her company Sena Series Media Training provides on-camera training for key executives, C-Suiters and television personalities for companies including AEG Worldwide, Atlantic Coast Brands, Deloitte & Touche, FabFitFun, Google, YouTube, LA Kings, Lionsgate Television Group, MTV, NBCUniversal, Pop TV and many more. Suzanne’s training methods go beyond basic on-camera skills, providing tangible tools and the mindset of confidence resulting in improved communication, increased productivity and bottom-line results.
The Emmy nominated Suzanne Sena started her national TV career at E! Entertainment Television as an entertainment reporter hosting live coverage of award shows, premieres and interviewing Hollywood’s elite. She was nominated for an Emmy as the host of the network’s Celebrity Homes Show and continued her television journey on Extra co-hosting with television legend Regis Philbin on Live with Regis. Anchoring for CBS and eventually landing on the national news desk for the Fox News Channel.
In addition to her media training and presentation skills services, Suzanne is an in-demand speaker, creator and host of the show The Confidence Connection: Building Trust in a Virtual World. I met Suzanne a few years ago. I was introduced to her by a mutual friend. She has worked with some of my clients. I’ve seen tremendous results and her ability to help take somebody who doesn’t necessarily feel confident especially in front of a television camera. It very quickly helped transform their performance into something that is solid, credible and giving the author an opportunity to make sure they get their message across.
This is why I’ve invited Suzanne on is to help you gain a greater understanding of it, it’s not just about getting the media booking. It’s about how you convey your message once you’re there. There are a lot of things that you’re going to read about common mistakes to avoid and just as importantly, very quick minor changes you can make that will make all the difference in how you are perceived and how powerfully you are able to transmit your message to the media audience. I am confident you’re going to get tons of value in our interview. Enjoy.
—
Suzanne, welcome to the show.
I’m so excited to be here and share some tips with your readers.
I’m so thrilled to have you because we’ve had a couple of PR experts on, talking about getting PR. We’ve had the head of PR for a traditional publishing house talk about the relationship between the PR department and the author but what we haven’t talked about is what do you do when you get the booking? Because a lot of authors might not have experienced being interviewed especially for television, which is something that you know a lot about. I have a gazillion questions I want to ask. I’m going to try to pace myself here and let’s start by talking a little bit about what is the author’s experience that you notice? Why do people come to you in the first place? What happened right before they came to you that made them say, “I need help?”
There's a difference between just talking about your book and knowing how to get that book to sell. Click To TweetSometimes a disaster of an appearance can send them my way. To be quite honest, I get a lot of my clients from publicists who are trying to do their best to get their clients these bookings. They’ve heard of me or they’ve worked with me and they know the difference that I can make or media training in general but especially me because I’ve worked with so many authors. I tend to know the biggest mistakes they make. I understand a lot of the personalities.
Not everybody who writes a book is meant to have a career on television and that means they don’t understand how to relate to the audience and how to be effective at promoting the book. There’s a difference between just talking about your book and knowing how to get that book to sell. That’s a persuasive speech, which can be taught. That’s in how you handle yourself at speaking in sound bites and the biggest mistake authors make is thinking because they wrote the book and are an expert on their topic that they’ll be able to ace the interview.
Let’s have you talk about some of the common mistakes because my imagination is already thinking of a few that I would guess would be on your list. What would you say are a couple of the more common mistakes that authors make when they’re doing these media interviews?
One of the biggest mistakes is letting the interviewer control the narrative and just lead. If you aren’t familiar with what it’s like to be out there trying to promote your book in the media, it makes sense. You think they’ll ask you a question, you’ll answer. They ask you a question, you answer. When you do that, somebody who’s watching thinks that you’re trying to sell something which you are and so there’s a little less trust. Also, 9 times out of 10 the interviewer goes in a direction that you did not want to go and you feel lost. It’s important for an author to know the main points that they want to be covering and also how to get the conversation back to where they want it to go.
I know you worked with a client of mine and I’ve watched his evolution. It was extraordinary to see him now when he’s interviewed on national news shows. To watch these interviewers pitch him a question that is designed to lead him into a trap and watch him just maneuver his way out of it without even seeming but also answering the question that they should have asked. If they’re asking a question that’s trying to politicize the information and he’s answering in a way that’s just giving the facts. That would be a good example.
I do a lot of crisis management and media training with people who find themselves in a little bit of a scandal. When I do that, the same concept can be applied, which is basically, if you don’t like what people are saying, you change the conversation. Too often, people are a little bit robotic. They feel like the person asked me this question, I must answer that question. You can acknowledge the question and then take it in a different direction. We see politicians do this all the time. There are techniques to it. One of the things that I like so much and I appreciate what you said about seeing the evolution because I promise anybody who does any media training with me at all, always 100% sees an improvement after our first session. Because some of these things are not brain surgery. I like to say my specialty is small adjustments that make a big difference.
One of the examples and you may have seen your client do this too after working with me is thatftentimes when an interviewer introduces somebody, they say, “Here we have so-and-so. I’m glad to have you here. Thanks for being with us.” The author, the interviewee always responds, “Thanks. It’s great to be here.” They lose an opportunity right there to get their message across. When you just introduced me, the first thing I said was, “Thanks, Robin. I’m excited to have some tips for your audience.” At least there’s something you can say immediately but we’re so programmed to answer what’s asked and not offer our own. When you do take control a little bit, it makes you have a sense of authority and it also ends up being a little more of a conversation, which is perceived by the audience as more credible and familiar. “If that person is trusting you then I trust you.”
It’s so true. I’ve witnessed all of this so I really know that everything you’re saying is accurate. What’s another mistake that you see authors make that there’s a simple adjustment for?
One thing is an author should always be sure to read whatever the publicist is sending out ahead of time. I’ve worked with an author and when I’m preparing, I ask the publicist, “Please send me the press releases you’ve written and how are you pitching this person?” I was doing a half-day session with somebody and as a former journalist and anchor, I did what I would normally do. I read all the materials sent to me and I picked out questions based on that. In this press kit, it said, “In this book, you’ll learn these four tips for such and such.” I asked in our mock interview, “Tell me about the four tips for this and that.” They went, “What?” I said, “It’s right here. You need to know how you are being presented and what the angle is.” That’s a mistake, not reading those things.
Also, understanding that less is best and sound bites are essential. Only the meat. The things people will resonate with them. The things that will stand out. A lot of my authors in the medical and the food space tend to get into the science of things and not very audience-friendly terms. A way to get around that is to lead with what I would call that impact statement and then fill it in or backing it up if you need to but always start with the sound bite. I do help people create sound bites. Some people don’t even know what that looks like.
Way back in the early 2000s when we didn’t have a show, we had internet radio. I had a show. If I had kept this up, I would own the internet. It took a lot of time and it didn’t fill the coffers at all. I had to let it go for a while but it was a show for authors and I had authors on. Something that I saw over and over again as I would say, “Tell us a little bit about what your book is about,” and they would inhale and it seemed like they talked a monologue about what their book was about for 30 minutes before I could even detect them pausing to inhale again. I never got a chance to ask a follow-up question. Do you see that a lot?
Yeah. The instinct for people who aren’t trained in this is that, “You asked what it’s about. Let me tell you about the twelve chapters.” As opposed to knowing ahead of time, “What are the three points you want to get across?” That’s important. Another thing I do is I train people to work on home shopping channels. It’s important because all of these principles apply no matter what. People don’t buy because of a feature, they buy because of a benefit.
If I say, “I can help you with better time management.” That is going to be a feature of the book. The benefit is you’re going to have more time with your kids. We need to work on that. What is your book about that? How is that book going to benefit the reader? That’s something people don’t think about. Why should they? They wrote that they know what’s in the book but knowing what to highlight, to get the book talked about, to get the book featured again and to come back as a recurring guest, those are the things I teach.
I imagine there are some little hacks or strategies you can use to get yourself invited back. You must be teaching that because the client we both have in mind gets invited back quite a bit.
I can’t remember if the video that we’re doing right now is going to be seen by your readers but if they are reading or if they could see, I want to say, “You’re an expert at this. You have a performance background. You look so engaged,” and that’s another mistake that the authors tend to make, is that they sit there very stoically until they’re asked a question. You’re nodding. I feel like we’re having a great conversation and that does help.
Here’s a little hack for you. If somebody is going to appear on the show, who are you being interviewed by? Look that person up. Ask if you don’t know. Ask who the host is. Look at their previous interviews. To say something like, “I noticed that last week, your guest was so-and-so and blah, blah.” Now you think I’m super interested in you. If I say, “I know you love going to New York.” “So do I.” You’re looking for commonalities. Those things are about being able to create chemistry and to identify the commonalities. Those things definitely give you an advantage. Rather than it all comes down to what I think is the simple but magic spell in how we create repeat guests, how we get our audiences to love us and that is this. You must be likable and relatable.
You can be super smart. You can be an expert but if you’re not likable and I can’t relate to you in some way, I don’t necessarily trust you and trust is everything. If I have a medical expert who says, “You have to eat green beans. It’s going to change your life. You’re going to feel healthier.” “Okay,” but if you say, “I got to be honest. I was feeling horrible last week and I ate some of these green beans and I don’t know what happened to me. I just ran around cleaning like a mad fool and I was so productive,” and then I’m more relatable because it’s a story. I know you’ve done features with The Art of Story before. I can’t stress enough that revealing yourself and sharing your examples with personal stories, help drastically increase that likeability factor, relate-ability factor and trust factor.
As you were talking, I was thinking of something else that must be a factor. If you’re on a show, usually, there’s a host, who’s there all the time and the audience is already bonded with the host. They like the host. They don’t know you. If you can form a nice connection with the host and have a good rapport then it’s going to make the audience pay more attention to you as well.
You are 100% correct. One of the things I was going to add and let your audience know is a simple tip that does what you said, which shows that you have bonded with your interviewer even if you haven’t yet is to use the interviewers. People don’t do that. It’s such a simple thing. if somebody named Karen is talking to you and you say, “Karen, I remember a time.” All of a sudden the audience is like, “They know each other. They’re friends.”
Also, the interviewer likes to hear their name. They feel respected. Everyone does. Everyone loves to talk about themselves. They really do especially a TV host or any host, they do it for a reason. Here’s another thing. Exactly in the way I say about using their name, just because you’re being interviewed doesn’t mean you can’t ask a question. A lot of people don’t. It goes question, answer, question, answer.
As an example, I was working with a director who put together a film. It was a great independent film and it was about the crash of the auto industry and what happened with the auto industry. He was pretty dry. It was not overly exciting and I said, “How about early on, you ask somebody who’s interviewing you, what was your first car? Do you remember your first car?” All of a sudden, the person, “Everyone has a wonderful memory of their first car,” and changes the tone. It deflects a little bit. As the person being interviewed, you’re not as nervous and it does add some life and just makes it more interesting as a conversation. I call that turning the tables. It’s because you are the interviewee and someone else is the interviewer doesn’t mean you can’t be the interviewer once in a while. It’s much better that way.
Not everybody who writes a book is meant to have a career on television. Click To TweetWhat I love about that too is it’s going to pique the interest of the audience because now they’re learning something about the host, who they’re already probably more curious about than the author.
You were so right on about that because that goes back to, they already liked that person and when they learn something, that’s really cool. You know so much about this.
It just brings me back to something I told my children a long time ago. When you go to a cocktail party, a dinner party or something like that and you want to make a good impression, just say as little about yourself as you possibly can and be really interested in everyone else. They’ll all think you’re the best conversationalist they’ve ever met.
I use that example and I have used it again and again because it is proven. That if you ask someone a question, they talk for 30 minutes and walk away, they’ll go, “She was really easy to talk to. She’s a great conversationalist.” It’s so psychological.
You need to do some of the talking because you’re promoting a book but bringing a mindset to it can help. Let’s talk a little bit about that, like taking some of the pressure off by not just talking at the host but engaging with the host.
Once you’re prepared, you’ve got your bullet points, you know the areas you want to go to and you know what your story is. You know what the beginning is going to be, no matter what happens with the host, the middle that you’re going to get to, no matter what happens with the host and how you want to wrap up, start strong and finish strong. Another one of my little mantras is, “You really just start to have fun.”
Here’s the thing, just be present. If you’re reading and you know how the way you want to go to, if you’re listening and having an honest conversation, that’s going to work the best. Engaging in conversation with the host is going to be perceived well by the audience reading or watching. That goes back to personality. Let’s go to the simplest of all things we can do that everybody thinks they do that they don’t do. Smile. People feel weird smiling when they talk.
I have a female attorney who’s written a book. I say this with females because it’s especially prevalent with female professionals, a female physician. They have worked hard to show that they’re smart and they don’t want to be perceived as silly and they don’t want to laugh and they have this image. I always say, “We know you’re smart because A) You’ve got to publish a book and B) You got that degree and the whole MD after your name.” We don’t know you’re nice. We don’t know you’re likable.
I always want people to see themselves because what some people think is a big old silly grin isn’t even a noticeable smile. You have to practice. If you’re a person who feels silly smiling when you’re talking, I say, “Then don’t think about smiling. Find something about the person that you either are amused by, interested or if you even feel a little snarky about.” What happens is you start getting that look in your eye and I’m not thinking about smiling but right now I’m going, “That’s a pretty scarf you’re wearing.” I’m thinking about that. Stuff like that. It’s perceived as likable and you got to be likable.
TV picks up everything because you’ve got a tight shot. It’s not even like being on the stage. It does pick up facial expressions.
It’s also important just the appearance overall. There is a method to our madness when we putting ourselves together for on-camera wardrobe. You’re a professional author. You’re thinking that doesn’t matter, what matters is my book cover. The thing is that you’re not going to want to wear the same thing for a morning show audience as you wear for a business show audience. You’re trying to be liked and feel relatable to the audience.
It’s important to think about those things. It’s no surprise to me. You’re wearing book it blue. Blue is the most comfortable color that people like to see and it’s also a color that looks good on everybody. Any shade of blue. There are certain colors that are better than others. If you’ve done the research, you know what the set looks like and you’re sitting on a white couch with a neutral background, don’t wear a white outfit. You’re going to blend in. These things people don’t think about and are some of the simple things that you can do. Robin, there’s a whole science to color psychology. I am not a psychologist with color but I do know some things and certain colors will project certain things.
What else have we not covered yet that you want our readers to know that I haven’t asked you that I should have?
I did want to touch again on the persuasive language because that’s something that people don’t think about. That again goes back to how do I get the books sold. One of the tips was talking about the benefits in addition to the features. You could tell me all day long what the chapter titles cover but if you tell me why and how that’s going to affect me and benefit me, that’s more powerfully persuasive.
There are proven studies as to certain words that are persuasive. These studies have been conducted by advertisers. If we’re advertising or selling and we’ve got 30 seconds to be persuasive, what word matters more? Here’s a simple example of that. Some people will say something like, “What you’re going to find when you put this into action is this? A better word than find is discover. Discovery is awesome. I discover something is to be the first to know it. To discover has a sense of all these wonderful things that the word find just does not. There are several of these words and just getting used to learning those can make a difference in the persuasiveness and effectiveness of your sales when you are selling a book.
Give me another one. What’s another word that makes me want to buy the book or that makes me love it?
Love is a very powerful word. Guarantee is a powerful word. Once you start to hear these, it’s going to make sense why some commercials will say, “When you discover the changes that you’ll have in your life, you’re going to love the difference it makes. Guaranteed.”
That’s like, “Insert brand name.” That’s the ad copy for every commercial ever.
People really respond to this. Generally talking about a person’s health or about their family are very persuasive angles to take. People will do anything to be healthier and to take care of their kids and their families. They’re just a couple of things but hire me and I’ll teach you some more.
What has amazed me is seeing just how quickly you can cause a transformation with your clients.
There’s one thing about just sharing the info like I’m doing now but where that comes into play, the quick progress is in the mock interviews. You don’t want your first TV interview to be on TV. You don’t want it to be live. The stakes are so high. To work with someone who knows what’s likely to be asked to practice, to stop and hear why that answer worked but this is a little better. I never want someone to memorize anything. I’m not trying to teach somebody what to say. I’m showing them principles that help them speak in a way that’s going to work to serve them better.
The other thing is to record themselves. If you don’t hire anybody, you ask your spouse or child to ask you some sample questions and you put your iPhone up and record yourself, you’re going to be able to play that back and see what’s working and what’s not. I can do it easier and quicker and show you because what to look for. Here’s another quick example as to how something as simple as recording and playing back can help. I have a client. I’ve been coaching an author and he’s fairly dry as some authors tend to be. Not everybody. There are plenty of fun authors out there but a little bit on the dry side and a lot of his information are also a little on the dry side because it’s very medical and technical.
However, there was something that was making him dragged down, seeming so boring and here’s what it was. There was a space between the question and answer that you could drive a truck through. Because he was being interviewed virtually, to him it sounded normal. Because there was a delay and I knew that, I said, “You’ve got to jump on that person’s question,” and he felt that might be rude. I said, “Let’s try it,” and we tried it because I know what I’m saying here. We recorded it and played it back, he could not believe the difference. What felt to him like he was being rude and cutting someone off, made the timing. That timing is everything. That made a huge difference and that was a simple tip. A small adjustment that made a huge difference.
That is so important, similar to what I was saying like, “Your facial expressions are magnified on television,” because you’ve got this tight thought, they’re right on your face normally. You have to be really aware of you don’t want to have a resting bored face or if you’re doing too much fiddling with yourself. You got to be still. You have to stay in the frame. All of these things but when you were talking about even the timing because a lot of these things don’t feel natural and they don’t even look normal if you’re in a conversation with someone in the room. It looks right on television. The same thing’s happening but it’s going to be perceived differently.
Another great example of that is pre-COVID and hopefully post-COVID when we go back to standing near each other again. In addition to media training, I teach. I work with celebrities who are hired to host shows, co-hosts. I do public speaking training and here’s something when you see two hosts together, two people on camera or in the case of an interviewer and an interviewee. Your physical distance feels uncomfortable if you’re too close and that’s what looks best on camera.
When you stand at a comfortable distance, you don’t have that same chemistry that’s coming across. It’s always a little weird. I always say, “Stand a little closer.” It’s like anyone who’s had their pictures taken, their photos done professionally. The photographer, who knows what they’re going for will say, “Turn your shoulder down, lift your face up, tilt your head,” and you’re like, “That feels ridiculous.” Then you see it and you’re like, “I look fabulous.” Robin, we could put together a little comedy routine of sorts and do something at some point based on some of this. It’s educational but funny.
We should because I forgot we’re also both comedians. You are quite the comedian. Tell our readers a little bit. Are you doing comedy again?
I’m not. I have a strangely diverse background and having been a real national news anchor and a former actress, I was hired to play a news anchor in a comedic TV show called the Onion News Network. That was a lot of fun for me but because it was what people in the comedy community consider comedy gold, The Onion. Everyone knows The Onion. It’s sarcastic and sardonic. I had a lot of opportunities.
I was invited to appear in places and I thought, “Why don’t I learn more about this comedy thing? I studied standup and put together a show. I had an absolute blast. Now I keep my humor to my own thoughts and I’m just focused so much on business. I pretty much stopped performing in general about few years ago, as far as acting and all of that. The business has taken off, been great and rewarding. I still do spokesperson work. I do television work but the things that don’t require me to be up late at night on the stage, somewhere on a regular basis.
I know before COVID you used to have a studio where you would have your clients come to you if they wanted to. Is that something you’re still doing or have you started doing again? Is that off the table for now? How are you working with people these days?
That’s a great question because I struggle. If you would ask me before COVID, “Could you do this without a studio?” I’d say, “I absolutely not.” Like everybody else, I was forced to adapt and I thought, “I can do some of this over virtual but I can’t teach teleprompter until I had a client who insisted on a teleprompter, I didn’t want to lose the business and I learned to do it virtually.”
A quandary that I have is this lovely studio outside LA in Sherman Oaks that I have continued to pay rent on for several years and couldn’t use because in LA we were seriously locked down for most of this time. I have only used it a handful of times and just started using it a bit again. Because I have adapted, I’m seriously questioning whether or not to keep the studio. I think there’s a little bit of ego involved if I’m being super honest. I liked the prestige of it. I love the look of it and it is nice to have space and I did. It’s a studio.
I used to host a show for few years, a finance show. We shot once a week. We use my studio. There is that. Although, I have broadcast from home. I have a green screen at home. I have lights now at home. I don’t know. I’ll tell you something else that that’s happened is I feel very fortunate because I have so many friends whose businesses were impacted in a negative way. What it did to me is the whole world turned into broadcasters. Everybody became a broadcaster. Everyone has to know how to be in front of a camera now. My skills translate very easily to that. If you’re in the corporate world, you should just get an hour of how to look your best on Zoom, how to sound good on Zoom. What can lighting do to make a difference?
People make the mistake there of thinking, “It doesn’t matter what I look like. I’m not trying to be pretty.” That’s not what it’s about. It’s about trying to be as if you’re in the room. You want to be seen. I promise you. You would not be sitting above somebody in a meeting looking down. You’d be sitting eye to eye looking right at them and so those little things are important and they make a big difference in those meetings.
I love being in the shadows like a lot of people are. You can’t even see their face.
I have been able to instantly help people drastically upgrade their Zoom or their team meetings in the way they come across because I can look at what they’re doing now and then I can simply make some suggestions. Something as simple as I worked with somebody. A corporate executive, she was doing stuff from home. The way she had her set up was so odd and I said, “Is there anywhere else you can go?” She said, “Not really. This is my desk. It’s fixed. This is the only place I can have this computer.”
I said, “Can you shin it a little angle this way,” and she did and said, “It’s 100% better already.” Can you put a plant over there? Because it’s like set dressing. That for me is all of my years of being a producer, being an actor, being a host, knowing how to make things look good. I am at my desk and my house is mainly windows. I know it’s bright behind me but if I didn’t have what I call my fake studio all up, you would not see my face. All of this is a three-level, three-panel, twofold poster board, science board or project board that you get for kids. I have one of those and I stick it up. My husband likes it so much. He has one now in his office but it blocks the sun when I need it to. There are these little things. If you care and you should care because that’s where the world is going.
I wonder if all this Zoom will make us all better TV interviews.
If you practice and work on it, it does. It changes the playing field. An author who wanted to be in this city and in that city could be in the same cities on the same day virtually.
That is a big thing because I know in the past to do a national publicity campaign would mean a lot of travel but not so much these days.
Sometimes that’s sad. We like the interaction of being in person and all that too but every single tip that we have gone over and talked about, these things are applicable everywhere. Every aspect of your life. No matter if you’re trying to get a loan from a bank, if you’re trying to convince a child to do something or if you’re promoting a book, all of these things matter because it’s about communication and confidence.
People don't buy because of a feature. They buy because of a benefit. Click To TweetThat’s the one thing I haven’t covered. What it comes down to is boosting someone’s confidence. When you’re confident, you’re not as nervous. You sound authoritative and I can help anybody sound more confident. You can sound more confident by increasing your volume a tiny little bit. That’s something someone will say, “That sounds so loud.” I say, “Let’s record it. Play it back. What do you think?” Always, they don’t have a good perception of how they’re coming across. Confidence is what we sell here.
If I still had little kids, I’d be trying to write a script like, “Discover the joys of cleaning your room. You are going to love knowing where all your toys are. I guarantee it.”
You also used another persuasive word and I didn’t cover it, which is the most persuasive word in the English language is you. It goes back to what you and I talked about. People care about themselves. I have had some authors who will say, “I like this and here’s what I did. Here’s the way I came up with that,” but that’s not as effective as saying, “What you’re going to find, what you’re going to discover, what you will learn from this or how this is going to affect you in the mornings.” That’s what people care about. Not you, me, which is you.
I hope some of this is helpful and I love what I do. My confidence in it is so strong because I’ve done it now for a decade. I started this business a decade ago. I still work in all of these different environments. I still am the person on television. I still am the person who’s interviewed. I keep learning, refining, finding shortcuts and tips. I’ll tell you, there’s nothing more gratifying to me than seeing one of my clients on the Today Show. Seeing a client on Ellen, knowing where they started and watching them ace that. I always get vested and feel like, “That’s me. I’m there with them.” Sometimes I hear the strategy or the approach and I have chills thinking about it.
Suzanne, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all these wonderful golden nuggets. You’ve been generous and it’s such fun to get to hang out with you again. Thank you for being on the show.
I’m so thrilled, Robin. I’m now saying, “Why did we wait all this time to connect on Zoom?” It’s great to see you. Thanks for having me. Let me know if I can ever be of help.
I will do that. I’ll talk to you soon.
Important Links:
- Sena Series Media Training
- The Confidence Connection: Building Trust in a Virtual World
- www.suzannesena.com
About Suzanne Sena
Suzanne Sena is a true guru of communication, having spent a lifetime as a broadcaster and a decade as one of the country’s most in-demand media trainers. Her vast on-camera career spans 30 years, and includes hosting national talk shows, anchoring national and international news, and hosting unscripted live televised events.
Her company, Sena-Series Media Training provides on-camera training of key executives, C-suiters and television personalities, for companies including AEG Worldwide, Atlantic Coast Brands, Avanath Corporation, Deloitte & Touche, FabFitFun, Google / YouTube, LA Kings, Lionsgate Television Group, MTV, NBC Universal, Pop TV , and many more.
As the pandemic has changed the way the world works, every individual in today’s workforce has been forced into the role of a broadcaster – not only having to adjust to communicating “on-camera,” but becoming their own set designer, lighting technician, floor director and more. Sena is addressing the needs of “the new normal” by launching an initiative she’s calling V.I.P. – helping companies with transitioning into the virtual world, by transforming each employee into a Virtually Impactful Person.
Sena’s training methods go beyond basic on-camera skills, providing tangible tools and a mindset of confidence, resulting in improved communication, increased productivity and bottom-line results.
“The key to successful communication through the lens of a camera is being likable and relatable,” she says, adding, “Once that trust is established, combining it with learnable skills like dynamic speaking and persuasive language make for a powerful on-camera performer.”
The Emmy-Nominated Sena started her national TV career at E! Entertainment Television as an entertainment reporter, hosting live coverage of awards shows, premieres and interviewing Hollywood’s elite. She was nominated for an Emmy as the host of the network’s “Celebrity Homes,” and continued her television journey on “Extra,” co-hosting with television legend, Regis Philbin on “Live with Regis” anchoring for CBS and eventually landing on the national news desk for The Fox News Channel.
In addition to her media training and presentation skills services, Sena is an in-demand speaker, and creator and host of a podcast called, “The Confidence Connection: Building Trust in a Virtual World.”
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join The Author’s Corner Community today:
