To be the guest producers call back, do two things: make the journalist's job easier before the interview, and answer for their audience rather than yours. Offer photographs they can actually use, point them to other people worth talking to, and send a possible Q and A. Then deliver on air. That combination is what gets you invited back.
Why do producers rebook some guests and not others?
Everyone interviewing you is doing work you never see. Television, print, radio, online outlets, bloggers, podcasters, all of them have preparation to get through before you walk in. They are gathering photographs. They are working out who you have helped and who your clients are. They are trying to figure out what you might actually say once the camera is on.
Every one of those tasks is a place where you can help. The more of that load you take off them, the more they like working with you before you have said a word on air. I spent thirteen years as a producer at ABC, NBC and Fox, and I can tell you the guests we called back were rarely the most famous ones. They were the ones who made the segment easy to build.
How do you make a journalist's job easier?
Three specifics, in order of how much they are appreciated:
- Photographs. If you have images that would suit their piece better than whatever they were going to find, say so and send them. Do not make them hunt.
- Other voices. If a client or colleague would strengthen the story, recommend them. Handing a reporter a second source is genuinely useful and it costs you nothing.
- A possible Q and A. The most powerful of the three, and the most misunderstood.
What is a possible Q and A, and why does it work?
You write out the questions they might ask, and roughly how you would answer each one. Then you send it over. What happens next surprises people: many of those questions get used, close to as written.
The framing is the whole trick. Call it a possible Q and A, never a suggested one. Possible reads as help for someone on a deadline. Suggested reads as an instruction, and journalists reject instructions from the people they are covering. Same document, opposite reception.
Possible, not suggested. One word decides whether it reads as help or as an instruction.
Who is the audience, and why does that question change your answers?
Before any interview, ask the person who booked you a single question: who is going to see, read or hear this? Then work out what would genuinely serve that group, and come from there.
Most guests skip this and deliver the same material they would give any generic room. It is the fastest way to be forgettable. When you aim squarely at the real audience, they get value, and the person who booked you looks good for booking you. That is who decides whether you come back.
What if you would rather avoid media requests altogether?
Some of my clients are in exactly this position. Somebody else in the organisation handles the press, and that suits them fine. If that is you, I would push back, because the ground has moved.
Media is no longer a studio you can decline to enter. There are investor calls. There are video calls that get recorded. There is anyone at a conference who walks up with a phone. The exposure exists whether or not you engage with it, so avoiding it does not protect you. It just means you meet it without the skills.
For everyone else, this is one of the better marketing opportunities available to you. You get to connect with people directly, show who you actually are, and let some personality through. And it compounds. Every interview you do makes the next one better.
What to do next
Before your next interview, send three things: any photograph that beats what they would otherwise use, one name worth talking to, and a possible Q and A. Then ask who the audience is and rewrite your answers for them. If you want the on-air half to match the preparation, start with how to prepare for a media interview and what journalists are thinking in an interview. When you want this built into a team, get a quick quote and we will shape it around your calendar.