Be alarmed when your alarm fails

You may remember our recent blog posting, Don’t fall asleep, and 27 other tips to help you get more ink and air. This was a popular story for us. It chronicled top "do's and don'ts" for successful media interviews. The list was based on our experiences of working with our clients and from reporters who were nice enough to provide feedback.

Well, we added another to do to the list based on real life experience.

Earlier this week, I took our client to NY for his first media tour to meet and share his story with top reporters from major news sources. Our car company picked me up at 7:30am. Ideally we would have also picked up my client at his hotel at 7:45am to make our first meeting an hour later with plenty of time to spare. But he didn't come out of the hotel. It's not unusual for clients to be 5-10 minutes late. Typically we call on their cell phone and they quickly come out.

During the 1 hour and 15 minutes suspense, worry and concern was building. I called my client's cell phone 3 times, asked the front desk to call his room, and called his top officer at the headquarters to learn if he had heard from the boss that morning - who also texted the missing executive to see if he would respond.

My SunStar colleague arrived directly to the first meeting expecting to meet us there. When he didn't see us, he called me. I told him of our dilemma. He asked the building security if maybe our client checked in on his own and perhaps forgot we were picking him up.

Our driver offered his ideas too on where our very late client could be. "There was a recent story of a man bringing a lady back to his hotel room. She spiked his drink, he passed out and was robbed of his Rolex and is money. When his co-worker went to the room with hotel security, he was barely conscious and half dressed...."

Finally, he called me. Our client apologized and said to give him 10 minutes. Somehow, he looked quite dapper and acted very calm, given the circumstances.

On the way to our first meeting, which we arrived at a few minutes late to a still accomodating journalist, he admitted he was still asleep because he forgot to adjust has travel alarm for daylight savings time. So for the tip: Set your alarm correctly so you wake up on time.