Most media training prepares people for interviews that don't happen. This prepares them for the one that does.
Start a conversationMedia coaching teaches posture, pacing and bridging. Useful, and not the problem. The problem is that your spokesperson has never been asked the hard question by someone whose job is to ask it.
I spent twenty years on the other side of that microphone, and before that I assigned the reporters who held it. I know where the follow-up comes from, because I was the one who sent them back for it. This is a rehearsal with the real questions in it.
Before I train anyone, I read what you've published and I find the questions I'd have assigned a reporter to ask. That list is usually the most uncomfortable document a comms team sees all year.
Mock interviews at real pressure, recorded. Not a friendly conversation. The interview your spokesperson is afraid of, run in a room where the mistake costs nothing.
We watch it back. What worked, what didn't, and what to do differently. Then we run it again, because nobody gets it on the first take and nobody ever has.
No. Coaching works on delivery. This works on content. A spokesperson with beautiful delivery and a weak answer still makes news for the wrong reason. I've watched it happen from the assignment desk more times than I can count. The fix is knowing which question you can't answer yet, and fixing that before the camera is on.
Experience with friendly interviews is not the same as readiness for a hard one, and the hard one is the one that matters. Most experienced spokespeople have simply never been pushed. It's worth finding out in a room with me rather than live.
Both. Most organizations do a group session on the fundamentals and then one-on-one work with the two or three people who will actually carry the interviews. That's usually the right split.
Let's talk
Send me something your organization has published. I'll send back the questions I would have assigned a reporter to ask about it. That conversation usually tells you whether you need this.
Start a conversationor email me