Guest Meltdown on The View

I was watching The View a few days ago and witnessed something that made me shutter. No, it wasn't Elizabeth Hasselbeck talking about her new clothing line, it was a guest who was booked to chat up her book. I witnessed her melt down and wasn't pretty.
I shall not mention her name. Why add to her humiliation? I shall only say that she was a physician plugging her book. A book about something or other. I really wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, but more HOW bad she was saying it.
She looked good. Nice haircut. Good shoes. Nice smile. And then she opened her mouth. She couldn't breath. She gulped, her voice quivered and shook, and she lost her train of thought as she tried to talk above a whisper. To her right was Barbara Walters, who clearly saw her difficulty and gently patted her on the back as if to tell her “It's alright darling. Just get though this and you'll never have to do this again because you'll never be booked while I'm here.”
As a media coach and former talk show producer, I know what happened. I could almost hear the producer saying to her boss “I swear, she was good on the phone.”
We always said that when a guest went south. “She was good on the phone” meaning when we pre-interviewed her to see if she was worthy of being booked, she was energetic, confident, funny, the whole deal. So what happens from the pre-interview to the set?
Pressure. Lights, cameras, audience...Barbara Walters, all staring down at you. Then you have the pressure of plugging your book as your publicists and publishers look on from the front row of the audience. Then you worry that your sister in Bayone will be watching and laughing at you. It's all just too much.
So what do you do? Get media coaching before you do a major talk show appearance!!!!
'You can't chance being bad. You better know from experts what to expect and how producers expect you to perform. When we coach, we put people on camera and do mock interviews. We even put up lights and mic you. We want you to know exactly what will happen. We take you through the process from the pre-interview with the producer over the phone to what your sound bites are. We want you to be a success and get asked back when you get on The View.
So here's the lesson that doctor on The View learned. Even if you get booked on a national show, even if you are told you're a great speaker and look great on camera,and even if you're a frequent speaker at your local chapter of the AMA and you kill at your book club teas, it doesn't mean you're ready for your TV moment. Get media coaching. It'll pay off. If you're a good guest, people will pay attention to you and be more likely to buy your book, and Barbara Walters won't ban you from ever being booked on her show again.