professional problem-solver
Some Examples of How I Saved Clients’ Bacon
Project: Powering Bold Ideas
Skills: Branding, Corporate Communications, Writing, Editing
Challenge: During a brief period of uncertainty within the C-Suite, the client wanted to get the salesforce’s attention off of HQ.
Action: I noticed that we had collateral on a few top salespeople from a recent national meeting. I pitched that I interview each over the phone and write up a feature that boosts company pride and revs up competitive spirit.
Result: The client was impressed and relieved by the quick delivery. The project was ultimately effective. I was able to spin a month’s worth of web content just from repurposing media and some quick phone interviews.
Among the salesforce, logons and shares in the salesforce’s intranet each exceeded 1000%.
Project: Breaking News - 6/24/21 - Surfside, FL Building Collapse
Skills: Breaking News, Multi-Tasking, Decisiveness, Leadership, Fast-Acting, Nimble, Capable
Challenge: We had time to fill at the end of our show. Despite how iconic and devastating the video of the building collapse was, there wasn’t enough of it to satisfyingly fill a show. We had a hole. I was managing all live elements - video, audio, reporters. On one of the feeds I saw Florida-based, NBC National News Correspondent, Kerry Sanders pull out his IFB, as if he was done for the night. I quickly called his producer to see if he do a live hit for us. Unfortunately he had to give up his camera.
Action: Even though I wasn’t in Miami, my years of live producing enabled me to visualize a solution. I knew that the media were all being kept well away from the building site. But I also had a hunch that all of the media were within blocks of each other. Long story short, I directed Sanders to walk over to where our anchor was and they would share the same camera.
Result: This ended up being a nice segment to cap off a full day of breaking news. Kerry Sanders has been a journalist in South Florida for decades and he often appeared on our show remotely. I incentivized the live hit with him and his producer by saying that we want to lean into these facts.
What delights me the most is that my initial hurdle (not having a camera), ended up being what made the final interview so compelling. Two journalists with local ties, just comparing notes after a long day of reporting.
Project: Spartan Race’s Joe DeSena on The News with Shepard Smith
Skills: Planning, Pre-production, Live TV Production
Challenge: When there is news, it’s not difficult to fill an hour-long news program. But quiet days happen too. That’s when good planning pays off.
Action: CNBC partnered with Spartan on a show called “Business Bootcamp” and I pitched a tie-in. His team told us we had to wait until he got back from Europe, because he was delivering supplies to Ukrainians. We thought that sounded like an ideal scenario in which to talk to him. So I worked with him to find a spot with good connectivity and a compelling backdrop and we interviewed him live.
Result: We got a live segment that fit into the category of hard news, but it also promoted CNBC content.
Project: Crisis Communication for Tainted Product
Skills: Crisis Communications, Decisiveness, Leadership
Challenge: The production line of one of my client’s medications failed a safety test. We had to communicate to the the salesforce how they should present this information in conversations with physicians.
Action: I proposed that we create an infographic that could be texted, emailed, posted on Yammer and on the intranet site.
I identified talking points that sales people would be inclined to share with physicians. I carefully crafted three easy-to-remember bullets with that information.
Then I took important contextual information and created a brief intro to the talking points.
The remaining information I incorporated into a stylized Q&A.
Result: The salesforce was quickly informed not only on talking points, but on tone and significance.