'Answer the Question You Wish You Were Asked' with Jonathon Narvey

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Answer the question you wish were asked. But those aren't the questions you're being asked. So, how do you do it in a way that feels prepared and authentic? In this episode of TFR, This Feels Right, we're going to be diving into that. How you can show up with clarity, confidence, and authenticity in interviews, media appearances, and what could feel like high-stakes conversations. Our guest, Jonathan Narvey, knows all about that. He's a former journalist and the founder of Mind Meld PR, where he helps leaders and entrepreneurs craft compelling messages and stand out in the media. Drawing from his experience on both sides of the microphone, Jonathan's gonna share with us some real-world— tongue twister here— strategies to turn abstract ideas into attention-grabbing stories. All right, let's meet Jonathan Narvey and answer the question you wish were asked.

Jonathan, welcome to TFR This Feels Right Podcast. You're out in Vancouver. How is the weather today doing in Vancouver?

It's beautiful, like always. Yeah, good to be here, Joel. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. So we're going to talk about, and I love this idea, which is how to be able to answer questions. more authentically, more efficiently. And as we're gonna find out, you've been helping a lot of people on how to answer the questions that they would love to be asked, but those are not the questions they're being asked. So how do they do it in a way that they feel prepared and authentic? But before we get into that, I just wanna make sure, have you done a vocal warmup before doing this podcast?

Well, I think we were doing a bit of a vocal warmup with each other. I really appreciated our conversation this morning.

A little chat, a little chat.

Yeah, absolutely.

Great. I'm just wondering if you ever do that with the people before they're gonna be interviewed. If you ever say, make sure you do a little vocal warmup, or if you do ever, ever give them those kinds of guidelines.

I'm gonna add that to the, uh, to our toolkit. That's, that's a great idea that I've, uh, for, for some reason left on the table. Um, but no, vocal warmups, that's, yeah, we should be, that, that should be a, a must-have. But I like where you're going with this. One of our ways that we prepare our PR clients for media interviews is, well, Be prepared. And we're gonna, we're gonna go through what that entails.

Yeah.

Aside from getting your voice ready.

So, so, and so before we, we get into that, I'd love to know, and I think our listeners would love to know, um, because we're, we're really interested, obviously, like we wanna get to the good stuff and get to the expertise and the strategy that you're gonna share with us. Maybe a little bit about, about your background in a sense, like how did you figure this out? How did you figure out what seems to work best for your, for your clients? Where did you, where did you learn this or how did you discover this?

What a great question. So, well, this goes to my background as a journalist, to interview people all the time. So I got a sense both from my own, you know, how I operated and how people reacted and also seeing people's reactions. Okay, well, there's some certain, there's certain things that you want to be able to do to perform well, you know, like some basics for a TV interview, you know, you, well, don't move around so much. That's, yeah, it's distracting.

Yeah.

And also, you know, just being very careful to get to the point quickly, having your talking points ready, you know, the basics.

Right.

We'll get into that.

Well, so, so as a journalist, were you sort of mentally taking notes while you were interviewing people about, all right, I've noticed that that doesn't work when they're, as you say, when they're weaving their head or when they seem unprepared? Were you sort of compiling like, is this— did you know that this is what you're going to end up doing was coaching the people that you ended up interviewing?

There was. So there, that, that's part of it, absolutely, is it's just sort of an organic picking up of tips and tricks along the way. I also have to confess, this wasn't all just, you know, my, my skill set and, and the skill set of a star communicator doesn't necessarily just get picked up, uh, by talking to people in a professional setting. Um, I, um, Spent a lot of time talking to strangers in dive bars. I've spent a lot of time schmoozing at conferences. I pretty much spend the entire time if I'm if I'm going to a conference. I I don't spend any time in the in the panels, bettering myself with education. Instead, I will schmooze in the lobby and do a ton of networking. And so yeah, you you pick up things along the way. And and of course, also I I've had some good mentors along the way. People in in the journalism. Career and also people, fellow PR practitioners who I've worked alongside, and even sometimes people I have directed. If I was head of communications and the company hired a PR agency, and I would see how they were operating with our people, I would say, that's interesting. That's a trick I'm going to keep in mind. So yeah, it Comes organically.

It comes organically. And it sounds like you've also been really a student of observation. And I like the different perspectives from dive bars to conferences, meeting all different types of people, not just Hollywood A-listers, so to speak.

100%. You know, if, if I can go on a bit of a tangent. Yes. Yeah. The way that journalists and, you know, became journalists until recently, like journalism school wasn't a thing. Like you would transition into it from other careers. It used to be a working class kind of a stepping stone for the working class into sort of middle and upper class. So this is a skill that, like, yes, you can go to journalism school. I went to journalism school.

Okay.

But actually, to talk to people, ask interesting questions and listen and ask follow-ups, this is a skill that humans have been Figuring out for long, long, a long, long time. Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's something that can be trained in just about anyone. And this is a very useful skill set, talking to people, getting to the right answers, doing, you know, doing your research. You don't have to be a journalist, but you want to find things out. This is a useful skill set for just about anyone.

Absolutely. Asking those, those how, what, why questions and being curious. And I love that idea from the reporter standpoint. All right, let's get into your methodology at MindMelt PR about how you prepare Is that what you want to say? How do you prepare your client to face these types of questions? Is that how you would phrase it?

100%. So let's say if one of our clients had an upcoming big interview that they were nervous about, let's say they haven't spent a ton of time, you know, in front of media and they signed us last week and suddenly, you know, we're getting them an interview on CTV or CNN or Fox or something. And they're like, wait a second, I thought it was going to take a couple weeks, right?

Right.

Yeah, yeah. Hey now, it's okay, it's okay, we got this handled. We will, we will train you up. And of course, the more you do it, the easier it is. But you know, what are some steps that we use when we're helping our, our clients with communications and media training? Number one, before we even get to the, the actual stuff they're doing, like talking, we want to get into What are the content? What do they actually want to talk about? Because I'm sure heard the, the phrase talking points. This is a thing you want that drilled into you. You want to go into any conversation with a journalist with a very strategic mindset. These are the things I want to say. These are the things I need to say.

Mm-hmm.

Here's some must-haves. Here's some nice-to-haves if there's time. So you, you know, let's say, you know, we pitch a reporter about, let's say, a product launch, new product, does things 876% times more effectively than the leading competitors. Well, clearly the interview is going to be about that. So what can we talk about about this product that's actually interesting? Not from a, you know, not interesting to your engineering team that, right, we're not talking about features. We're talking about Benefits. We're talking about who benefits, how do they benefit, and you know where can they pick it up? Things like that. So covering those elements, if there's you know maybe milestones in your company you you wanted to maybe there's milestones in your in your personal growth that you can add into the conversation. But there's going to be layers to the types of topics that or talking points that you want to get into, and you want to be very clear. Okay, this is what we're aiming to get out with this with this interview, and not in a control. You know, you've probably heard the expression pertaining to warfare, you know, a plan, you know, what is it? A plan tends not to survive contact with the enemy. When you go into a reporter, they're gonna ask their questions, and they're probably gonna maybe steer the direction and steer the conversation in certain directions.

Yeah.

So, and that's okay. There are ways of getting back to your talking points if the reporter starts veering away from it. way where you can bridge. You can say, look, oh, that's a very— what a great question. You answer that. And then you— but the really interesting thing that I think all your listeners will want to know is blah, blah, blah, blah. And you tie it back to the— to your talking points using a bridging technique. There's a few common bridging techniques for basically getting back to the thing that you want to say. And also staying away from things that you're maybe you're not prepared to talk about. So a reporter says, Hey, you know, a new finding this morning, as reported in the Globe and Mail, says this and this is happening. What do you think about that? And okay, so you didn't see that report, what they're talking about. So how do you bridge, you know, back? Well, look, be honest. Mike, I haven't heard that. I'm, to be honest, this is the first I'm hearing of that.

Yeah.

But that's very interesting. And here's what I can say about that. But to be on safer ground, what I can also say is, and now you get back to the thing that you actually wanted to talk about that you prepared.

Right.

So going anyways, long story short, preparing in advance, what, knowing what you want to say and what you need to say for your company. What is strategic for your company to get out there? What is this love to have out there? And be prepared to be nimble.

Yes.

If a reporter is steering a conversation in a direction that you might maybe didn't want to go in, it might not be because they're trying to attack you or make you look bad. They just have a certain point of interest and it's not 100% aligned with where, what you wanted to talk about. Fair enough. They, they have their own interests and they know their audience. So, um, and this is another way to prepare is, you know, know Know your audience. Your audience is actually the reporter's audience. So before you head into that interview, okay, do a bit of research. Who is this reporter? What's his last 5, 6 stories been about? How does he tend to run things? You can prepare that way. I've been, my mouth's been running away. So you can, you probably want to interject at some point.

Well, you're, it's good because you're, you're, you're, you're rekindling I'm just recapping a lot of the stuff that's, you know, that you share in a more conversational way with your clients. And, you know, what I'm hearing is the same thing one would coach in someone doing a presentation, which is stick to your main topic. What's the one thing you're trying to get across here? But not from what you find maybe so exciting and maybe from, it's like a scientific or engineering point of view, but what your audience would find interesting about the fact. And if you have a metaphor, if you have a story to back it up or an example to back it up.

Mm-hmm.

But stick with the, like we said about the, what you want to say and, or need to say, and maybe the wants are, or nice to haves, I think is the word you said. The nice to haves is there in your back pocket. And then I like it because people always say, how do I deal with like tough questions? And so if you're clear, I think is what you're saying, if you're clear about what your main topic is, don't ignore it, address it. And then while you have the platform, bridge it back to— Like we said, but you know what's really interesting about that is the 876% that is over the— you give that, you go back to that main fact, the bridging. So I think that is some really good points. And then the last point you mentioned about being nimble, I think is so important because, you know, what happens with that? What happens with maybe someone— let me— so let me ask you some questions around that. What happens with someone is they're so married to their solution and they think their solution or their idea is so good that it's difficult for them to, to maybe hear that someone might be poking a hole in it or something like that?

Yeah, I think probably if this is your first week in business, maybe that, that might be a problem for you. But my experience is entrepreneurs, founders, uh, and just professional people who have been around for a while, everyone has fallen down. Everyone has made errors, gotten raked through the coals at some point by someone who was higher up on the echelon. And at some point, most of us who are not complete psychopaths learn to be, you know, very— think more clearly about, well, what actually do I know? And what do I not know? And what can I be— what should I be humble about? What should I— so, you know, again, if someone, if a reporter is asking you a question about something that you're unfamiliar with, well, just be honest with them. Look, I'm— this is the first time hearing of this, or I'm not an expert on that. I gotta tell you, I'm an expert on this and this thing, and I can talk about that. I'm gonna have to look into that, and I will. And I would love to talk about that maybe on a future show, something like that.

Well, Jonathan, the magic word there you said, and this is again for our listeners, no matter— I think what the listener just heard is that our one listener just heard is that you have so much— you might have so much experience, but there's still this ability and need to what can I be humble about. I think that's a great soundbite about that. It's not admitting failure, or it's not, it's not losing face. It's because our ego is so fragile that to be comfortable with failures, but also be, to be comfortable with being humble about that. And I've seen a lot of leaders struggle sometimes to, to do that, uh, for example, to be humble. So I think that's, that's a great point. Um, all right, let's go to, um, another question here, which is If you want someone to communicate better, do you model it? Like, how do you sort of coach them to, to get there?

Well, this is, it's partly something we do in the written form. So maybe I'll cover that first. Very often when we are working with a client, they, they have an idea that, that they're going to They've worked on elevator pitches, they've worked on taglines, they've worked on all kinds of ways to promote their businesses in very catchy ways. But when it comes down to it, okay, are you describing something in a way that people will actually understand what that is? So the more abstract your message, the worse it is, even if it's a catchy rhyme. So What we drill into our clients from the get-go when they're answering reporters' questions, often in written form, but, you know, and that leads to an interview, is figure out what are the most astounding data points that we can throw into this. What statistics, a, you know, your, okay, your workforce has grown, 150% while layoffs in this industry are actually way more common. And so you've grown 150%, added 73 more personnel to your engineering team. Why is that happening? Numbers are magic. And so let me explain what that means. Human beings don't do well with with abstract concepts and numbers are a little bit abstract. Words are abstract, like the written word is abstract.

Right.

So humans have kind of, we've over the last couple thousand years, we've kind of figured out, okay, words when writing and all that. But numbers, like I can tell you, I almost every day, but certainly every week I'll see an instance of someone, let's say on Twitter, who doesn't seem to understand The idea of statistics and per capita and demographics and all, all the rest. Like, anyways, I, I won't get into that, but numbers can be confusing to some people, but they're also eye-catching. People's eyes focus in on what is this weird glyphy symbol that's in this, uh, in this press release.

85% of people agree that numbers, numbers are more meaningful.

Yeah. So I think I, I, I just made that up, but I think, but there we go.

I think that That backs up what you're saying is that numbers are factual. And when we say words, it's an opinion, which is, oh, we've grown exponentially. Okay, we've grown by 50% compared with the industry that's only grown at 25%. Oh, I get it.

Okay.

So the numbers somehow are more factual and I guess are more believable. Is that the magic that happens?

Yes. And so this is, I think that's part of the magic that happens is inserting numbers. So basically, yeah, there's another— what you're trying to do is qualify, not just quantify, but qualify what you're saying. How can I prove this in the swiftest, easiest way? So numbers are one way. Another way that you can get people's attention instantly is name drop. It's like, look, we're not just— we're not the only ones doing this. Apple is doing this. Meta is doing this. And they're the leaders. We're, we're right snapping at their heels. Actually, they're following us. We were doing this 6 months ago. They're now doing what we're— what we were doing. Maybe name drop that, or maybe if you're in a different line of work, maybe if you're more lifestyle focused, okay, you're gonna mention the Kardashians, you're gonna mention, you know, some famous celebrities. Maybe, I guess, are the Kardashians still cool? Maybe not.

Sure. Well, they're— I don't know if they're cool, but they're very famous. Usually, you mention that word and Every— everyone knows it. Well, I'll tell you something, this, you know, Smartless podcast, which is the number one podcast, is now doing what I'm doing. I'm joking, but I'm, I'm picking up some great tips here. So numbers and name drop. Okay, great.

Yeah, beyond that, um, you know, also showing momentum. This is part of numbers, but it's like, okay, we over a particular time frame, so over one year, we added 1,000 customers with no sales team, something like that. And it's like, oh, and, and actually to, to show the meteoric rise, you've got to say, okay, in the first 3 months of our, our, of our company, we landed, uh, 12 customers and we were struggling. And then over the next year, we added 1,000 customers with no sales team. Want to hear how that happened? So something like that, showing momentum, uh, people like that. So these are, these will catch a reporter's attention. They will be interesting to to an audience. And yeah, so the question you were asking originally was, okay, how do we model this behavior? We are typically, we'll write it, we'll write the pitch, we'll write the press release for our client, we'll note, sometimes we don't have all the facts at hand, but we have a sense of where the story should go based off what our client has said. And so we'll Throw in fake facts, and this isn't going to go to the reporter. We'll throw in fake facts and a fake quote into the release, and we'll go to our client. We'll say we'll leave a little comment in the Google Doc. We'll say, okay, this is fake. We know it's fake. You know it's fake. This is what we want. What do you have that's like this?

Right.

And and so and and we do the same thing verbally, like when we're talking to our clients, and often we. have to push back, usually gently, because we have to, um, sometimes we push a little more persistently to get the details, to not be abstract.

Yes.

If you're saying the thing that everyone else is saying, you're boring. We're not allowed to be boring. We can't be boring. It never wins. This brings me to, sorry, one, one little bit on, uh, that, that's important for People and companies operating in 2025. Do you think AI is going to come up with the details that you need to make a reporter interested? No, I have bad news for you. It never works. It never ever works. We've tried it. So there's a bit of an aside and I'll, you know.

Oh, it's good.

I think, you know, how you started this, this whole question off was basically have astounding facts. I think that's a great soundbite for what we're going for and not, not just repeating what everyone else is saying. There's a lot of noise out there, and I think it's even harder for someone to get attention these days in a sense because there's so much noise. And yeah, so your, your facts, your name-dropping, your momentum is a great way to think about how to make your story or your interview more astounding. Is that—

And again, it goes back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier of knowing your audience. So you're gonna—

yes.

Certain facts and stories and anecdotes, astonishing anecdotes, funny anecdotes.

Right.

And also not just that, a zero-to-hero story. These are great ways to catch attention, whether it's in a long thought leadership piece or a short little anecdote. I know a lot of business people who maybe are new to running a business are leery of looking like losers. So they don't want to talk about their failures. Everybody fails. You know, everybody fails.

We love those stories.

So we love these stories of, well, I mean, if If you just, if the story is you tried something, you failed and that's the end, that's not a good story. But if it's we did this, we failed, we thought we learned a lesson from that, then we implemented this and it actually worked like we sold like hotcakes.

Yeah. Okay.

That's a good story.

Yeah. Well, it's the Luke Skywalker thing, right? So Luke Skywalker was, A nobody on a nobody planet, and then all of a sudden he's a Jedi.

100%.

Destroying the Empire. But it's even your story, Jonathan. You know, just in our pre-chat, when you were saying about, you know, the journalism and the challenges that it was, it's not that you failed, but it was challenging to have a consistent— to have momentum in a sense going forward. But what it taught you has now led you into the business of MindMeld PR and having the success that you're having now?

So, you know, penniless writer is a phrase I think a lot of people know about. So yeah, early on, journalist, and, you know, didn't make a ton of money in that racket. But when I made the switch, it's, you know, having that skill set of listen, tell stories, you know, just interact with people in a fluid way and, you know, communicate well. That has served me very well as an entrepreneur, as a founder, etc.

Well, learning to ask meaningful questions that gets more interesting answers, I think, is probably one of the things that you learned.

All right.

This is, so this has been really, really insightful. I think, you know, for me, it's really stood out about Be clear on what it is you wanna say, but that's gonna be, again, but know your audience. So what you wanna say and why the audience would care. So why they would find this interesting, or even like your word, astounding. Be nimble. And then also the other parts of this is, you know, numbers speak to the facts versus words could be opinions. And also, what was the second part of that? Oh, sharing the momentum and sharing some of the challenges or the failures, so to speak, or zero to hero, I think, as you said it.

Yes. 100%, with some zigzags in between.

You said zigzags. Well, that's, that's the Luke Skywalker story. Absolutely.

All right.

Well, that's been great. Let me, let me have one final question. And this has got nothing to do with, with being, with answering questions. It's, it's sort of speaking of asking meaningful questions, Jonathan, you know, growing up in the, in the prairies, did you see yourself being a reporter or being running a PR firm? What did you think you were going to be Oh, what a great question.

Okay, I was a dumb kid, and they— so, and I'm not being overly humble here, I'm a one-trick pony. I don't— I can't do music, the higher forms of mathematics elude me, I can't fix a car. I know how to— I got the gift of gab. So I knew I was gonna go into something to do with writing. And, you know, I mean, at times I aspired to be, you know, maybe a novelist, something like that. But you know, I'm I also have a pragmatic, practical bent to a lot of what I do, and so I wound up you know going into a trade, which is journalism. And this may be a thing of when I think there's been a cultural shift from when I was growing up. The there's word entrepreneur was unfamiliar to me until probably my early twenties. I didn't even know what that was. The concept of you know, operating within a business, much less running a business, was kind of foreign to me. I understand that, you know, newspapers and media are a kind of business, but it's sort of, it's a sector unto itself with some unusual rules. It's not like working, you know, at an insurance company or at a, well, I mean, there's a million jobs that are very different from what journalists do and what journalism is about, which, you know, there's a bit of a higher purpose. I don't want to, you know, maybe get over my skis here, but with journalism, the intent was, you know, this is a search for truth. So there's kind of a nobility to the trade.

Yes.

Or, you know, was in past years. We're not going to get into where we are.

No, no. But I see what you're saying about the nobility. And I think it comes even to having— right, to being a novelist, which was, Telling the truth in the story, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, but telling the truth of the story. And I think that's what I'm hearing was the call to journalism was getting it right. And absolutely, that was the whole point of journalism when we only had 2 TV stations and just a few newspapers. You only got your source of news once a day from the newspaper or from the news at 11 or news at 6.

Yeah.

100%.

And that was it.

Yeah. All right, Jonathan, thank you so much. Now, before we let you go, if people have more questions for you or want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for people to reach out to Jonathan?

Okay. They can go to mindmeldpr.com, mindmeldpr.com. So yeah, PR agency, mostly tech focused, but we also work with like a furniture company that has 44 locations. We have, we have a coffee client, but you know, a lot of software and such in there. We make our clients famous. So if you need that kind of help, we're around.

If you want to help, if you want help telling astounding stories, reach out to Jonathan Narvey at Mind Meld PR.

Thank you.

All right, thanks for being a guest on TFR, This Feels Right podcast.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for listening to this episode of TFR, This Feels Right. And if this felt right, then please leave a review. Comment or ask us a question. And of course, we ask if you could kindly follow us so you don't miss an episode of Impactful Communication Skills. And speaking of impactful communication skills, you can learn more at our website, thisfeelsright.ca. I'm your host, Joel Silverstone, and happy to connect with you on LinkedIn. And we'll see you on the next episode of TFR, This Feels Right.