Can You Be Over Prepared?
Preparation is the key to successful media interviews. That’s a message I’ve preached for years in media training and conversations with clients. But can you be over prepared? And, if so, what does that look like?
As I see it, the issue is being misprepared rather than over prepared. There was a time when I told media training clients that if a reporter asks you what day of the week it is, you shouldn’t just say it’s Monday; you should also work your message into your answer.
In fact, a lot of media trainers will tell you that. And sometimes you should. If you’re doing a one or two minute live broadcast interview, you need to get to your message right out of the starting gate or you probably won’t get to it at all.
Even if you’re doing a taped interview, you may only get one soundbite into the story. If that’s likely to happen, you’ll want to get your message into every answer, if you can, because only one of your answers — or part of one of your answers — will make it into the story.
But most of the time, there’s more give and take than that during an interview.
Being well prepared means you’ll be able to deliver your message clearly — and make it interesting enough to get into the story. But overselling your message can be as bad as not having a clear message. If you oversell your message, you’ll lose credibility and likeability. Instead of selling your message, you may have exactly the opposite effect. You’ll be like any other salesperson who doesn’t know when to back off.
So, be prepared to deliver your message whenever you can. But be realistic about it. And don’t oversell your story.
That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours? Next week: More mistakes people make during interviews.
Tags: Media Interviews, media minute, media relations, Media Training, monday morning media minute