During 30 years in PR I trained hundreds of spokespersons to talk to the press. Behold, my favorite spokesperson homilies:
Credibility is hard won – and virtually impossible to regain once lost. In other words, don’t make crazy stuff up. Making stuff up in a media interview is dangerous, because, when the Internet finds you out and broadcasts your falsehood (which it will), you will have created a PR crisis.
Even if everything you’re saying is true, you still need to prove it. Why? Because reporters (and people who read) are skeptical of corporate spokespersons. It’s not your fault. It’s the world we live in. Every year the Edelman Trust Barometer tells us how much people around the world trust corporations, governments and institutions. The answer is “very little”.
Edelman’s 2018 report talks about a “global stagnation of trust”, the “polarization of trust”. It’s not good. What does that mean for you as a spokesperson? Bring third party data, customer examples, partner endorsements, and whatever else you can think of to every interaction with the press!
Your audiences don’t find your company anywhere near as fascinating as you do. There is a big world out there – you’re not the center of it. An ambitious spokesperson intoxicated by media attention can easily forget that they are not the center of the universe. Please don’t be a narcissist. Your role is to share information that helps people.
Expect no institutional memory, expect no context. Never assume that a reporter has done any homework, or remembers what you talked about last time. Start wherever they need you to start. Learning how to read your audience – in a media interview, a sales meeting, in a performance review – is an exceptionally important skill. Repetition is the only defense against our massively over-saturated, over-stimulated culture.
Everyone remembers graciousness. Be nice. For real. Is there any setting in which this is bad communication advice?
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