The most common mistake everyone makes in media interviews is this: trying to please the reporter. This is the worst thing you can do.
It’s not your job to make the reporter happy. Your prime directive is to make your customers and investors happy. Media relations is part of marketing. The reporter is a conduit through which you deliver a great message to your target audiences so they’ll be more encouraged to buy things from your company. Then, when more stuff gets sold, your investors will be happy. That is the point of doing media relations. A reporter writes a great article about you when you have a great story to tell – with great messages, great data, and a compelling, unique point of view. The reporter is not your friend. The reporter will not write a great story about your company just because you’re a lovely, charming person. Media relations is 100% transactional. Show merit, receive coverage. That’s it.
In an interview you have one job – to persistently and artfully deliver your message over and over again. Because the only thing you can control in a media interview is what comes out of your mouth.
This is shockingly hard. A lifetime of training and habit conspire against you. From your first day of nursery school you were taught that when someone asks you a question you should politely answer it. When you answered a question well, you got a smile, a good grade or some other reward. Not answering questions feels so awkward and impolite. But the reporter is not your school teacher, your parent, or your parole board.
Let’s say you have a brilliant message, some great data, and some really fabulous soundbites. You sit there patiently waiting for the reporter to ask you that perfect question so you can answer with all your great content. You smile, you answer every question that comes your way, and all of the sudden it’s minute 29 of a 30 minute interview. The perfect question has never come. You never got to deliver your message.
Politely answering whatever questions you get in an interview can be a wasted opportunity or it can be a PR disaster. Help your company. Learn the proper spokesperson techniques. Do not be that reporter’s bi#&h.
Your business must scale, and you must scale with it. You need to hire a great team, forge strong customer relationships and lead your market with a powerful point of view. You can do none of these things without exceptional communication skills. Click here to receive pragmatic communications advice in your inbox every month.
