A recorded interview (YouTube) between TJ Walker and Nikolay about executive media training. They discuss who commissions coaching (shift from press officers to HR/CEO offices), typical formats (one-day sessions, quarterly recurring coaching, short-notice online sessions), the use of camera and controlled stress to simulate real media conditions, and Nikolay's promotion of his services to international CEOs (based in Munich).
Chapters
They got it exclusively from social media and from their social media bubble, not from the other bubble who might have a different opinion because they want to hear their own stuff again and again and again, like an echo chamber and want to have this good feeling because if someone else is saying the same stuff what I'm saying usually then I'm pretty good. Well, I'm right.
Part of a community where we're the good guys against the bad guys over here.
Yeah.
It is a. And it is a harmful dynamic that we can all fall into that we.
Have a big community and the big community is the inhabitants of this planet. And if we destroy it, then there's no more, no more good life on, on this planet, you know.
Well, Nick, I appreciate you going big. Nothing is more big picture than the entire planet and the fate of the planet. Let's drill down and go really deep into something for a minute in tactical areas. Because a lot of people who watch this show are interested in communication skills, communications training, and I'm always interested in different approaches. If a CEO comes to me for a day of training, it's typically we have dinner the night before we start for the day and I'm going to get them on camera for a dozen little speeches or media interviews. And it's we role play, watch critique again and again. But that's not the only way of doing it. Tell us how you what a typical engagement is for you, whether it's a CEO or a top executive. They come to you and say, hey, I just want to get a lot better at my media skills or presentation skills. How do I work with you?
It's a shift there. So let's start 15 years ago. Usually I got a call from the press officer in let's say 70, 80% and they say my CEO needs this and that. Nowadays it's say 50, 60% the HR department or the HR department for the top management calling me and maybe only 20% press officers and maybe 10% the CEO office by itself. So the awareness is already different. And most of the modern leaders know they need someone to coach them, to support them with their messages, with their appearance on important communications. Yeah. Events. And we have coach CEOs who call me two days ahead and say, well, I have this big meeting. Do you have still time for. For meeting or can you give me an online coaching for this? And others who do on a regular basis, like say four times a year, plan it a couple of months in advance so you have everything in between. Usually when we have a training meeting, we don't meet the evening before. That's very rarely, but it's a good idea. I try to invent this. Usually we start in the morning, make some research together what's important for them in their message. And I ask them, okay, what would be your message to this target group? And often we change a lot within the message itself before we start talking about the appearance in front of the audience. And then we do a lot of training with the camera together. And sometimes I have the camera with me. Usually we have a camera person, a camera lady or a cameraman doing the job to give it a more professional environment. And for some people, it's really stressy. If they have the big lights, if they have the microphone and a big.
Camera, is that good or bad? Because I've heard people say, oh, we don't want to stress our people out. And I always say I want them stressed. If they can't perform in the stress of when no one's going to see it, how are they going to perform when the real CNN is there? So how do you view this?
That's the point.
What's the appropriate level of stress to give in a training is really the question.
It depends a little bit on your experience. And imagine some football or basketball trainer doing just the training. With softballs, it wouldn't work. Yeah, you have to have the, the actual ball. You have to have the actual force you, you need for later. And if they fail, well, then they fail, but then they learn from their failures and it's documented on camera. And you, you see every round and they're getting better and better. And that's the great. On our job. T.J. in the evening, they're all happy because they see a big progress. I've, I've practically never had a, a client who did not see a progress. Well, I had once a lady, she did not saw the progress and she had no progress because she didn't want it to. Yeah, she refused to do it. She ref. She refused.
What do you do? What did she refuse to be on camera or did she.
Was she.
No.
Change things? I told her and I showed her and she didn't believe it. I mean, sometimes that happened. But there was one lady in 17 years where I have my company now, but usually you see this great, great progress and that's so helpful in our business. If we see my screen went black again, I have to work on this.
Your energy saving devices are doing their job. They're saving.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But we can see you and hear you clearly. That may be an indicator I am stealing too much of your energy and all of your time. We do appreciate it. Let's switch gears a minute. I do want to offer you the same courtesy I give all of our guests and apologies if this seems too stereotypically hyper promotional American. But what I want to do is is here you promote because we try to encourage people and empower people to feel confident when they are promoting their businesses, their craft, their service, their expertise. So I want to do is just give you a couple of minutes and you can set the stage as far as whether you're speaking to a convention of automotive CEOs and you like their business, but really sell us on what you do. And if you want to encourage us to sign up for follow up with you on LinkedIn or your website or any of that, feel free to do I'm going to step off. I'll be here. I'm not leaving, but I'm going to step off and I want to just hear you promote and tell the world about what you do and what you're happy about doing.
Hi, I'm Nikolay and I like to help you with your messages, how you bring your messages to your target group, and how to make clear, concise and empathetic communication. If you're interested, you can look me up on the Internet. You can subscribe my newsletter. It won't be very often because I usually work with CEOs and executives on their communication and do not have that much time to write my own newsletters. And I'm sitting in Munich, Germany, but I have a lot of international clients from all over the world, especially big companies also from the US who work in the German or European market and are not so familiar with the European environment, with the European communications environment.
