Tough crowd

​Do you ever get candidates for media training who need persuading it’s worth making the effort to get acquainted with interview techniques and the media mind-set?

Michael Dempsey and I have worked with executives who weren’t sold on the value of media relations, and hence media training.

Sometimes this becomes clear from a telling combination of body language and lack of engagement. You get reluctant participants who think this is all a waste of their valuable time and feel they have better things to do than to attend media training,

So how do we handle this?

We spend time talking about why speaking to the media matters for all businesses.

In these situations I like to quote my old boss Harold Burson when he said, “If you don’t get out and tell your story, someone else will and you won’t like the way they tell it.”  This great line is topical every time I repeat it. Control your own narrative or you create a vacuum that gets filled by someone else’s story.

And of course there’s Bill Gates on the value of media relations. “If I had one dollar left, I would spend it on PR.”

The fact is that while online information sources have proliferated the traditional media is still widely trusted. Certainly more trusted than newer entrants to the media game such as social media.

This is proven by sources as varied as Edelman’s Trust Barometer and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). For instance the EBU cites radio being trusted by 56% of European respondents versus social media trusted by 20%.

Communicating effectively through the media does so much more than raise awareness of a company’s products and brand with customers, partners and investors. It reaches policy makers, regulators and political influencers and in turn shapes public policy. Media communications can reinforce internal messaging, communicate strategies and showcase expertise.

So if any of this matters to a company then being coached to handle the media effectively is a must.

Does our approach work? The challenging delegates always settle down to enjoy the media training to the end. And guess what? They frequently make great spokespeople

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