Media Training Worldwide’s TJ Walker Gives Insights On Public Speaking, Presentation

TJ’s Insights

April 5, 2005

New Books, TJ Walker’s “Media Training A-Z”
http://www.mediatrainingworldwide.com/mediatrainingaz.html
“Presentation Training A-Z” http://www.mediatrainingworldwide.com/presentaz.html

Answering Media Questions With Precision

Of all the things I teach people to do during media interview training, by far the hardest is to get them to repeat all three of their main message points IN EVERY SINGLE ANSWER. This is an odd, weird thing to do. In real life, if you repeat yourself often, your friends and family will lock you up. But media interviews aren’t real life.

There is a very simple solution to this problem of not repeating your message often enough during telephone interviews. I simply instruct my clients to have their three message points in front of them when conducting telephone media interviews. Then, while they are answering each question from the reporter, I ask them to put a check mark next to their message point each time they mention one during an answer. The goal is to end up with a check mark next to each message point FOR EVERY SINGLE ANSWER YOU GIVE TO THE REPORTER.

I know this seems redundant. It seems like overkill. It seems crazy! But it works.

The real skill comes in being able to communicate your message points using different words, different examples and a different order—that way you don’t seem like a broken record.

But try the checklist approach. You likely aren’t as good at hitting all your message points as you think you are. With your notes and pencil markings in front of you, you will know exactly what you are doing.

So write down each time you hit a message point in your answer; don’t stop until you have hit all three. Then and only then can you be confident that your message is getting through.

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Author of Media Training A-Z
& Presentation Training A-Z

TJ Walker
Media Training Worldwide
212-764-4955

Media Training Worldwide provides more media and presentation training workshops and seminars (54 separate courses) than any other company in the world. Media Training Worldwide also publishes more than 100 presentation training books, DVDs, CDs, and other information products and is the largest presentation/media training publisher in the world. For a product catalog or more information on training services call 800-755-7220 or visit http://mediatrainingworldwide.com/mediatrainingcatalogapril2004.pdf.

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