What makes something a sound bite? What makes some of your words quotable to a reporter whereas most of you words are not?

These are questions I toss out during speeches or training sessions to people. Normally, attendees toss out things like the following:

It has to be short.

Something catchy.

Controversy.

I then engage the audience further by asking more follow up questions. Then I give them a matrix for analyzing and creating sound bites.

But sometimes, I am met with blank stares. Uh-oh! This is embarrassingor it least it could be, if you let it.

What I do is to pause for a moment, and then treat my very real question as if I had asked it as a rhetorical question. Then I answer it myself.

Sometimes audiences like to participate, sometimes they dont. And sometimes they just dont know what to say. The trick is to not let an audiences reactions or non-reactions get you down.

So if your audience ever leaves you hanging at the end of a question, dont let it get you down. Act as though you fully intended to ask it rhetorically and that you are more than pleased to answer it yourself. So don't get scared or give up just relax and recover quickly from your mistake without anyone even noticing.