Problem, solution, call to action is a three-step formula for answering media interview questions: name a problem your audience has, show how you solve it, then tell them what to do next. It is one of the templates I teach in advanced media training, and it works in a TV segment, a radio call-in or a podcast.
Most people walk into an interview with facts about themselves. This formula starts with the people listening instead. It turns an answer from a description of what you do into a reason to act.
The three message categories
Think of these as three buckets you fill before the interview, not three lines you memorize. Each bucket answers a different question for the audience.
1. Problem: what are your audience dealing with?
Start with the problems your prospects, your clients and the people you help actually run into. Be specific. A listener who hears their own frustration described back to them leans in, because now the interview is about them.
2. Solution: how do you make their lives easier?
Next, show how you solve that problem. Not the whole method, and not a sales pitch. One clear piece of the fix that the audience can picture using.
3. Call to action: what should they do now?
Then tell them the next step. Where should they go? How should they start? A good call to action is concrete enough that someone could do it the moment the segment ends.
You are not solving everything in one interview
This is the part people get wrong. They hear "solution" and try to deliver the entire answer on air. There isn't time, and it leaves the audience with no reason to follow up.
The solution leg is a hint. Give enough that the audience believes you can help, then let the call to action carry them to the rest. That gap between what you shared and what you know is the reason anyone visits your site, calls your office or buys the book.
Notice the last phrase in the quote above: new problems they didn't know they had. A strong answer can do more than fix the problem the audience walked in with. It can show them a problem they had not named yet, which is often the one that brings them to you.
Use it in every answer, not just the last one
The ideal is a problem, a solution and a call to action in every answer you give during the interview. Not once at the end, when the host is already wrapping up and half the audience has tuned out.
That sounds repetitive on paper. In practice it isn't, because each question pulls a different problem out of the bucket. The call to action can stay the same while the problem and the solution change with every question. Listeners who tune in halfway through still hear the full arc at least once.
If you want to go deeper on that third leg, read why you should put a call to action in every interview answer. For a way to organize all three categories on one sheet of paper before you go on, see the message grid and the three part answer.
How to prepare it
Before the interview, write down three or four problems your audience has. Under each, write the one piece of the solution you are willing to share on air. Then write a single call to action you can say naturally in one sentence. Practice saying each problem, solution and call to action out loud as one answer, on camera if you can, until it sounds like conversation rather than a script.
Then try it. Problem, solution, call to action. When you are ready to build this into your team's interview preparation, get a quick quote and we will shape the training around the interviews you actually do.