Media training is a “must-have” professional development program for any serious leader or manager.

Media interview training gives you the skills to deal effectively with the media.

Media relations training, with a specific focus on television media presentation training, can be very stressful for beginners.

Here’s why you should consider taking a media training course and some essential tips from our media skills training courses.

If you go to the archives of any commercial television station and pull images from a 1960s newsletter and watch them with a stopwatch, you will find the average quote length (known as a sound snippet or news snapshot) from the person interviewed for the story is about 60 seconds.

If you watch commercial television tonight with the timer ready and you measure each piece of sound or news capture, the average length will be seven seconds.

That’s why it’s called McNuggett News! It’s fast, slippery, fast, and tasty, but not very satisfying.

There are three reasons for this shortening in length.

1. Increased competition for our diminishing attention span,

2. Greater variety, noise and disorder in our lives, and

3. The fusion of information and entertainment disguised as news.

So how do you get your message on a complex and detailed topic across the media in seven seconds?

Well, you need to craft your key message and deliver it smoothly as a media-friendly quotable quote.

Remember, you only get one chance to get it right. The professional television news crews I work with are constantly talking to me about the people who call them after the interview and say “can you come back, did I forget to say this and that?”

Of course, the media is so poor on time and deadlines that they never come back.

So you only have one chance to maximize your media moment.

How do you do this, especially for television? Here are my top 10 tips:

1. Dress well.

In the powerful visual medium of television, you will be judged on your appearance. Clothing patterns and colors will contribute to the impact of your interview in front of the camera. Avoid clothing with many designs or patterns. A dark jacket (blue, black, dark gray, or navy) with a white shirt / blouse always looks good on camera. Follow the example of what TV news readers wear. Listen to my mother’s advice: “It is better to pay more and buy a really good suit than to have a lot of inferior quality.”

2. Warm up your voice.

Tiger Woods wouldn’t go play a championship round of golf without warming up. You, as a professional communicator and official spokesperson, should never interact with the media without warming up your voice.

3. Speak with more energy.

Speak at a higher volume, range, pitch, and pitch than you normally would. Imagine having a conversation with someone and speaking at a slightly more animated level than you normally would.

4. Anchor your feet and slow down deliberate movements.

The more you move, the more your body language will distract from your message. Doing stand-up interviews, even radio interviews, will change your entire physiology and give you more energy and authority. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and firmly anchored to the ground. It is difficult to appear credible standing on one foot.

In the book launch Understanding Influence for Leaders at All Levels, I learned from co-author Des Guilfoyle that slow, flowing, deliberate movements will give you more power of reference, charisma, and personal magnetism.

TIP: Watch your interviews with the sound off to get a better idea of ​​what your body language is doing in the interview.

5. Stay calm.

Assertive, aggressive, and even angry reporters will hurl questions at you, like bullets spit out from a machine gun. Your speech patterns will be intense and fast. Don’t get carried away by mirroring and combining these patterns. In these situations, breathe and speak more slowly than the interviewer.

6. Memorize your three key points.

You should be able to deliver them smoothly without reading notes. First of all, write them down. Writing things down helps to fix them in the mind and seeing them written also helps. Then compose a visual picture of the actual words. Visually place them in the upper left part of your brain. As you remember these points, look to the upper left of your brain and they will come to you instantly as if by magic.

In technical terms, brain experts have shown that the left side of the prefrontal cortex (just behind the forehead) experiences increased blood flow as new information enters our episodic memory. In fact, the brain thesaurus is scattered across many separate parts of the left brain hemisphere (Source: The Odd Brain by Dr. Stephen Juan, Harper Collins, 1998).

7. Never say without comment.

Journalists will believe that ‘where there is smoke there is fire’. Don’t comment, but back this up with a valid reason.

8. Drink lots of water.

Stay hydrated and avoid caffeine and milk before an interview. The milk gobbles the acorns of saliva, causing a dry mouth. This manifests itself in the common nervous habit of licking dry lips.

9. Get into the moment.

Elite athletes talk and practice getting to the zone for peak performance. You need to do the same.

Try this: relax, close your eyes, and take three deep breaths, concentrating on clearing your mind. Then visualize a time in the past when you felt very motivated and very confident. Capture this moment in your mind and anchor those feelings. Place this mental image inside your right hand and clench your fists. Cover this fist with your left hand. Repeat this process until you can instantly get into a state of peak performance.

10. Review, evaluate and improve.

After each media interview, always check:

What worked well?

What could be improved?

What will I work on next time?