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Before a media interview, run four checks. Decide what you want the interview to create. Use your head, your hands and your body so you look natural. Know your three message categories. And plan a short answer that closes the question before you move to your point.
Start with where you are going, not what you will say
Always begin with the end in mind. Before you think about a single answer, decide what you want to create as a result of this interview. Are you trying to drive people to your website? Are you trying to get them to take an action? Is this a story about you that you want to get ahead of and own the narrative on?
That outcome does not happen by accident. It has to be planned for, and it has to be built into your answers and your messages, or it will not survive the interview.
Style and substance: which one matters more?
It is a trick question. They are both important and you cannot have one without the other.
On the style side, the fastest fixes are physical. Use your head, your hands and your body when you speak. You will look more natural, and you will look more interesting. In a seated interview, sit about fifteen degrees forward. You will look thinner, you will literally be on the edge of your seat, and it lifts your energy.
I always ask people what they are passionate about, because passion equals energy. The question changes how they sit and how they sound before they have changed a single word of the answer.
The message system: seven minutes and a sheet of paper
Substance starts with a message system. In a training session I have people sit down and write out, for about seven minutes, every answer they wish they could give. No editing, no judging, just get it out.
Then take that sheet of paper, turn it sideways, and draw a grid. Sort what you wrote into three columns, and give each column a one word heading. Those three headings become your road map.
The headings can be anything that lets you mentally reach into that column and pull something out. If you can remember three words, you have a road map for every answer in the interview.
The one that matters most is the call to action, and it is the piece most people leave out entirely. Give it its own category or inject it wherever it fits, but decide in advance what you want people to do. That is where an interview stops being coverage and starts creating something.
The answer system: short answer first, then move
The beginning of every answer is a short answer that actually deals with the question. That matters, because it means you are never dodging. You handle the question, you tie a bow on it, and now you have control.
From there you move to something from one of your three message categories. Done well, you can build up to a three part answer every time.
Every answer stands on its own. The reporter slicing it into fragments still gets all three points, and the listener who tunes in for thirty seconds still hears a complete idea.
Two places the interview can go
If the interview were a road, there are only two destinations.
- The land of everything you know. There is far too much over there. Nobody can follow you and nothing lands.
- Message point island. There are only three trees on it, exactly like the three categories in your grid. That is where you want to be.
Anything outside those three categories is literally off message. That is the whole test, and it is easy to apply in the moment.
So what happens to the basic questions you know are coming? The ones about your background, your numbers, your timeline? You take the answers to those and you put them in the grid too. Once the obvious questions live inside your three categories, you are prepared for almost anything.
Make the answers worth quoting
The last layer is the sound bite. The goal is for a reporter to hear an answer and think, I want to print that. For a live listener, it is the moment an answer pops instead of passing by. There is a list of techniques for this, and the fastest one to use is attaching a familiar phrase to your point so the sentence has a handle on it.
One more thing, and it is the one people forget under pressure. Do not repeat the negative. If an interviewer puts a loaded word in front of you, do not put it in your own mouth, not even to deny it. Say the true version in your own words instead.
Practice on camera, not in your head
Read all of this and none of it changes what you do at minute nine of a hard interview. Practicing with a recording device does. Answer the ten questions you least want, watch it back, and you will find the habits you did not know you had.
If you want your team taken through this with the questions they are actually getting, get a quick quote. To go deeper on any one piece, start with how to prepare for a media interview, then key messages for media interviews.