Media Training: Get Quoted, Look Confident | Filtered with TJ Walker

Hi and thanks for joining me.

I'm TJ Walker. This is filtered and today I'm taking the day off. But I didn't want to leave you empty handed, so I wanted to reach.

Back into the vault and share something with you that I think could help you plan some part of your creation, what you're trying to do to promote your own career in 2026. I'm showing you a video where frankly, the audio quality is not very good. The lighting is nothing special. I've got an old TV behind me running a video clip. The reason I'm showing you this video.

Is it's so simple.

You can do it. All I did was turn a camera on and talk for about an hour.

Telling people about what I do with.

Media training, which certainly back then was the core part of my business. Individuals, companies, organizations would hire me to do in person media training workshops and seminars. So I just put it all out there. I didn't protect all the trade secrets. I didn't say if you want more.

You got to hire me.

I gave them all my best stuff and I just talked one take. You can do it too, because you talk about whatever it is you do and in your business frequently. Important to note, it's got a cheap microphone, a TV set behind me. There's no editing at all. There's not a single image on this video and it was done about 15 years ago. Every single day it gets views on YouTube. It continues to get leads for me. Clients come in from it. It's now one of my most popular videos ever. It's had 150 some thousand views and it's really not high quality at all from a technical standpoint, but it does have substance. It has real meat. I'm betting that you have real substance inside you, but you're waiting for someone to hire you before you share it. Are you waiting for someone to ask you the right question or you're waiting for someone, someone to invite you on as a podcast guest to talk about it? All of those things are great, but you don't have to wait now. You might not want to be a bloviating podcaster and beyond 24 hours a day like I am, and post videos seven days a week. You don't have to. I would recommend that you make at.

Least one video.

This year, preferably in January, preferably in the next week, where you simply explain to people what it is you do, why you're valuable, why they should hire you if you're a consultant or an expert, why they should consider hiring you if you ever wanted another job, let them know what your real area of expertise is. Don't worry about it being perfect. Don't worry about editing out the uhs and ums.

Don't about worry.

Just hit record and speak. Don't worry about a set length. If it's 2 hours and 10 minutes, fine. If it's 8 minutes and 23 seconds, that's fine too. But distill your expertise in one place and share it with the world.

It's highly unlikely anything bad can happen. And if it's anything like what happened to me, good things can happen for.

Months and months and years to come.

Hi, I'm TJ Walker and for the next hour I'm going to share with you the secrets of media training, corporate media training, media training that goes on for high level politicians, CEOs, heads of governments. You're going to learn exactly the same secrets that they learn after they pay people like me lots of money. Specifically, in this video, I'm going to teach you the ins and outs of how to look comfortable, confident, relaxed, anytime. You have to be in front of one of these, a video camera, because for most people, that gets them nervous, they're not sure where to look. I'm going to go through all the tips of how to look your best and really sound your best. The next big skill is how do you shape a media message? How do you go from a topic that's really complex where you could look at 50, 100 things you could say and really boil it down to your top three messages? The third skill is how to answer questions in an interview. Now, it's not what you think, it's not ignore the question and tell them whatever you want to tell. No, that's the cartoonish version of media training. In the real world, you have to answer questions from reporters, but you have to do it in a focused, strategic way. It's simply not the same as answering questions in the real world from colleagues, friends, family, workers, co workers, investors, customers or clients. There's a different process. I'm going to walk you through all the steps of that. The final thing that I'm going to teach you is how to package your messages with sound bites. Now, if you follow news and politics closely, you hear this term sound bites bandied about all the time. But what is it? Most people can't actually define a sound bite or tell you how to take a message and turn it into a sound bite. I'm going to share with you how my system on exactly how to convert any message point into a sound bite so that you know in advance exactly what quote is going to get in the final story. Because here's the goal of really high level professional media training. It's not just to be comfortable. You can be comfortable with the media and frankly be awful. You can be awful. And that means you don't get the messages you want in the story, even though you feel comfortable. So the goal is not just to feel comfortable. The goal is not to control the interview. The goal is not to make the reporter like you. The goal in high quality media training is for you to be able to get the exact message and the exact quote that you want into the final story. That's what I teach my clients and that's what you can learn right here. Now, before we really hop in deeper, a brief, brief plug. If you want to know these skills in much greater detail, I have an online course that gives you a lot of exercises to help really build these skills. So you can click below to find out more about the online training. Plus, I am available for in person workshops. That's what I do with presidents of countries and prime ministers and Nobel Peace prize winners and CEOs all over the world. So if you want information about that, it's in the link below. Plus you can always reach me at mediatrainingworldwide.com and that's 1 212-764-4955. Now let's hop right in to the fundamentals of how to look your best. Because it frankly doesn't matter if you have a great message, great answers, great sound bites. If you look scared or nervous or uncomfortable, no one's going to remember anything you say. So the first thing you've got to really keep in mind when you're on camera. And these days it could be the BBC, CNN or NBC, but it also could be a one person blogger who at the last second pulls out a cell phone and ask if they can record a video of you so that video footage can go on their blog. So you're going to see more and more opportunities to do video interviews, even if it's not a full fledged broadcast TV news interview. That's why it's critically important that you know how to look your best and sound your best. Everyone says, well, just be natural. Be natural. Here's the problem with that advice. The natural thing to do when there's a bright light in your face and a microphone stuck in your face is this. It's to freeze. And I want to get my message just right. My name is TJ Walker. I'm president of Media Training Worldwide. That's the natural thing to do. Unfortunately, you look scared. You look stiff because you are scared because you are stiff. So the first big thing you have to first focus on is just not getting stiff, not stiffening up your face and your body because that will make you look scared. Let's step back a minute and start with the fundamentals. Before the interview starts, you're asked to sit down. You go to a studio and the reporter comes to you. People say, well, be comfortable, be relaxed, sit back. If you sit back on tv, your double chin will show up. You'll look fatter than you are. Even if you're not fat. You've heard the expression the camera puts £20 on you. Well, it does if you sit back. That's always the least flattering situation. If you're in a couch or a chair that leans back, don't lean back. Now the next thing people do is something like this. They sit up perfectly straight. Hi, My name is T.J. walker. I help people look relaxed and comfortable on TV. Is that credible? I don't think so. I look literally stiff, scared. By having the so called perfect posture on tv, to look your best, you need to hold yourself up high and lean forward about 15 degrees. Now you don't see a double chin. Now the camera is focused more on my face than my body. That's what you want. Now let me turn to the side. It's not a particularly natural looking pose if I'm sitting or standing, but it will come across much more natural when you are on camera. So that's why it's important to sit that way. Now your face and your eyes are very important on camera because again, you can have a great message if you're doing things like this. Hi, yes, at the T.J. walker Investment Fund, if you send your kids college education money to us in the Cayman Islands, I'll double your money every three months. Is that believable? I looked literally shifty eyed. Nobody trusts anyone shifty eyed. So my advice is, when you're being interviewed by a reporter, look at the reporter, don't look at the camera. Now I have no reporter here. I'm just talking to you. If there's no reporter around or if you're being interviewed through an earpiece remotely, someone is interviewing you from another city, well, then you would look right at the camera. But what you don't want to do is sort of be interviewed by a reporter and play to the camera. Hi, Bill. I'm glad you asked me that question. Aren't I cute? Playing to the camera now it looks awful. Just look at the human being. You have a lifetime of experience looking at human beings when you talk to them. You have very little experience talking to a human being, listening to them and ignoring them, and staring at a piece of machinery across the room. So my advice, keep it simple and just look at the reporter. If there's no reporter, then at the camera. Now here's another problem people often have. That's a good question. I'm really glad you asked me that. Sam. Yes. Have I ever trained CEOs see what I'm doing? My eyes are going up. Now, it's natural when someone asks you a question and you're thinking for your eyes to go up and over. But on video it looks weird. It kind of looks like, I don't know, let me just make up stuff. So my advice, try to look at the reporter or the camera as much as possible. If you have to look away occasionally look down, it will be much less noticeable. You'll look thoughtful. If you look up, it's kind of like, I don't know what to say. Something else that is really noticeable on camera. That's just different from being in person or giving a speech or presentation. It's this. Most of us, when we're listening to someone talk, our face goes blank. But on tv, if you have a blank look, it looks like this. Not very impressive is it looks like a bored, boring, about to die flat. So in order to look natural, alive, to look your best on video, I recommend you have a slight smile on your face. Not a gigantic TV creature smile just a little bit. You don't even have to show teeth. Just a little bit of a smile. Here's the thing. Even when you're talking about a crisis, even when you're talking about bad news, it won't look like you're smiling. You'll simply look a little more relaxed, a little more comfortable and a little more confident. Regardless of the topic, it's always good to look relaxed, comfortable and confident. Now let's talk about makeup. Most men are like, eh, I don't like to wear makeup. I don't wear makeup. What do we need that for? Here's the thing. Everybody on TV is wearing makeup. I'm wearing makeup right now. It's probably not noticeable to you, but here's all you need. And here's all. I typically use just a simple powder. And this is a. It's called a mosaic. It just has a whole lot of different colors of powder. I do this and this takes the shine off my forehead, takes the shine off my nose. And I already have some on, so it's not going to be that noticeable. It also minimizes some of the five o' clock shadow. And sorry, this is overly personal here, but since you can see I don't have a lot of hair in my case, I'll actually put it on the top of my head. Not because it's going to make me look like I have a beautiful head of hair, but it will reduce the shine, the reflection on the top of my head. And that way people can just focus on what I'm saying with fewer distractions. Now let's put some of these things together. So I'm going to smile a little. Eyes aren't darting. Lean forward. Tell me how this looks. Hi, I'm TJ Walker at Media Training Worldwide. We coach CEOs and professionals, leaders, authors, experts on how to communicate to the world. What's wrong with that? Didn't seem very convincing, did it? Here's the problem. I was completely stiff. Nothing was moving except my lips. And that makes someone look scared. It makes them sound and look like a robot. I wasn't even trying to make my voice monotone, but by freezing my body, it basically forced my voice into this monotone. Sounded like I was reading something, even though I wasn't. So let's change an element. Tell me what's different here. Hi, I'm TJ Walker at Media Training Worldwide. We help executives communicate more effectively regardless of the medium. What was different that time? All I did was move my head. All of us move our head all the time when we talk and we're comfortable. So let's add another element. Hi, I'm TJ Walker at Media Training Worldwide. We help executives communicate effectively regardless of the medium. What was different that time? Well, it was subtle, but I was moving my body. Not jerking around, not jumping up and dancing, but from the waist up, moving around. Let's add another element. Hi, I'm TJ Walker at Media Training Worldwide. What do we do? We help executives all over the world take a message and then communicate it throughout every single media outlet. What was different that time? These. The number one myth out there when it comes to public speaking and speaking to the media is somehow you need to control your hands. Control your hands. Like these things are going to just strangle yourself. No. Complete, utter nonsense. The more confident the speaker, the more comfortable the speaker in general, the more often you see their hands move. I've worked with clients from six continents all over the world, all kinds of languages, all sorts of cultures. When people are comfortable and they're talking, their hands move. So the second you do this or this or something like that, that's what's distracting. That's what makes you appear to be less than comfortable. Now, do you have to move your hands if you're going to be on TV or on video? No. But the second you freeze your hands or hold a pen or do something like that or knock things over, it makes you look nervous and it distracts the audience. So my recommendation, move your hand. Now, a few tips for seated interviews. The best thing is don't lean in the back of the seat. I'm standing at the moment, but if I were seated, I would not be leaning on the back of the seat. I wouldn't lean on the armrests on either side because that would immobilize me and I wouldn't lean on a table in front of me. It's fine to have your hands on a table when you're listening to someone, but if you're talking, your hands should be moving. That's the best way. A few items on clothing. I'm not trying to make everyone fit in a little box and make everybody sound the same and look the same. My advice to you when it comes to how you dress for TV is just make sure that what you're wearing is consistent with what you're about and that you don't confuse people and that you don't distract people. I am primarily a corporate media trainer. I work with politicians, authors, experts and others. But most of my clients work for big corporations. So I'm wearing a somewhat traditional suit and tie in a way that makes my customers feel like, hey, he's one of us. Also note a solid light blue shirt doesn't have to be light blue. The pinstripes on my suit are very subtle so they don't jump around and the tie is solid. Now, these are not particularly interesting looking clothes. That's the point. I want you to focus on what I'm saying and not what I am wearing. That's what's really most significant. If you are an artist, then by all means wear something really colorful that draws people in and helps cement your reputation as someone different and artistic. But if you're in financial services or a CEO or CFO of a major corporation in energy services, for example, you probably don't want people focused on what you're wearing. That's why I would recommend wear solids. Avoid black. Black is too dark. It's too Hard to light actually makes you look heavy, heavier in person than or on TV than in person. Unlike how black can have a slimming effect in person because your arms blend together, it can blend in with the chair, the background. So I would avoid black. I would also avoid white. The problem with white becomes the brightest thing on the screen, makes it harder to light your face. And I want the focus to be on you, not what you're wearing or the white shirt. I'd also avoid stripes. They can jump around plaids. Anything that has a lot of complexity into it can be a problem. It might look great on someone's gigantic high definition TV, but if they're watching you on YouTube or on your website on their cell phone, it could be fuzzy. So that's really the problem with that. So these are the basics of how to look your best on camera. Again, just very, very briefly, slight plug. If you want exercises on how to do this, more feedback and the ability to ask me questions and get personalized responses, click below and you can sign up for my online course on media training. And we can go much more in depth and you can have the exercises you need to build this skill. Or you can always call me and we can have a private workshop, typically one day long, often two days long, where I get you on camera and we practice these things again and again and again. And I can help you really look your best so that you don't have any awkward moments. Speaking of which, Some of you may remember a few years back, a well known politician was giving a major speech on tv and then he sort of lunged awkwardly for his bottle of water, drank it, put it back, and the thing was so memorable because he looked like a little boy who was caught stealing a cookie. There's nothing wrong with doing what I just did. Famous comedians do it. Some Broadway stars do it. Just don't act embarrassed, don't act rushed, don't act ashamed. And typically people won't remember it. You want people to remember your messages, not anything you're doing in a really distracting way. Okay, now part two. How do you frame a message for. For a media interview? My recommendation to all of my clients is, hey, the reporter gets to pick the topic, but you get to pick what you think is most important. I believe anytime you go into a media interview, you should have written down, whether it's on your cell phone or a piece of paper, three messages. Each message should be no more than 10 words. That's 30 words. It should be that focused. Each one should have a subject, a verb, an Object. It's not three main themes and three sub points beneath each one. No. Now, a lot of people have difficulty with this because they are so immersed in all the details, all the minutiae of their subject matter that they think in terms of whole paragraphs, whole pages, entire press releases. That just doesn't work for an interview. Here's something else I'd ask you to think about before you go into a media interview. If you could write the story any way you want for the first paragraph, the first three sentences, what would it be? You need to have that level of clarity. If NBC came to you and said, we're going to give you a free public service announcement TV ad, 30 seconds long to say whatever you want on this subject, what would it be? I'm pretty sure you'd figure out how to boil your Message down to 30 seconds if you were given millions of dollars worth of advertising. So that's the challenge. Now, some people bristle at this and say, well, I don't want to dumb it down. That's not intellectually honest. That's the coward's way out. I'm sorry. Mark Twain once said to a friend, I'm sorry I wrote you a long letter. I didn't have time to write you a short letter. It actually takes more intellect, more time, more thought to write a short letter than a long letter. It takes more time to boil your messages down to three than it does to just go into an interview knowing everything with 50 messages or thinking, well, if this question's asked, I'll say these 10 things. And if this question's asked, I'll say these 10 things. Not the way to do it. So I'm going to give you some more tips on how to come up with your message for a media interview. Before you go into the interview, for starters, you need to brainstorm on messages that answer the most obvious questions. Coming up, the who, what, when, where, why as it relates to your topic. That's the first step. Next, you need to ask yourself, what's important to me? What is it about this topic that I want the world to know? Again, if I were given a free ad, what would I say to people? Write all those messages down. Next, I want you to think about the reporter. What's interesting to the reporter? Now, ideally, it overlaps with some of the things you care about, but it might not write down every single idea you think would be of interest to the reporter. There's another constituency we have to think about, and that is the audience of that media outlet. I need you to ask yourself, what will the readers, viewers, listeners of this media outlet really care about? Write all those messages down. And then it's very helpful for people is to create a Venn diagram on a blackboard, on a white chart. Put all of the messages you care about in one circle. All of the messages the reporter cares about. See where the overlap is. And then finally, the messages of interest to the public, the readers, viewers. And you have to eliminate any messages that aren't right in the center of that. So, for example, if you are an energy company and there's an explosion at your plant and people are missing and three are injured, you might want to tell people, safety is our number one concern. I understand that that may be a message that's important to you, but I can tell you right now, there is no reporter in the world who's putting together a story who is going to quote you saying safety is your number one concern. When there's a fire, an explosion, missing, that's not interesting to the reporter. They want to know, how are you going to stop this fire? The public wants to know, is my aunt or uncle one of the ones missing? There's so many things that people want to know. The fact that you have a general platitude of safety as our number one concern is a horrible message. Don't say it. It's a perfectly fine message for a website, for a press release, for your own internal videos. But that's one of the challenges that so many people grapple with when they're coming up with their messages is they stick to generic, self serving messages that are not of interest to the public and to the media. You've got to eliminate anything that isn't in the center of that Venn diagram. Then you've got to narrow it down to the top and you've got to ask yourself for each message. If I could only get quoted on one message in the entire story, would I be happy with this one? If the answer is no, chances are you don't really have a good message. If any of your messages are dependent on order or being second with the first one going as your premise, if it has complexity that requires context in a certain way, that means it's a horrible message. Every single message point needs to stand on its own. It needs to be understood on its own. It can't stand on its own. It is by definition an awful message point. Get rid of it. Now the hard part for many people is when a message point covers, say, two of these categories. Let me give you an example. Many years ago, 30 years ago, when I first got into the media training game, I worked with a number of politicians running for public office, running for Congress, and they ran on the platform of I will not take PAC money, I will not take special interest PAC money. This was a message that was really important to them. They cared about it passionately. So it's in that checkmark of the box or the circle. Interesting to them. Political reporters found this fascinating. It was clearly in that part of the circle where reporters thought, this is interesting. And you know what? These politicians had story after story, column after column, written about the fact that they weren't taking PAC money and their horrible opponents were taking PAC money. Sounds like a great media issue, right? Only one problem. There's that final circle down here. Messages of interest to the readers, viewers, listeners of these media outlets. In this case, it was the general public, voters. One problem with this message, voters didn't know what PAC money was. They didn't care what PAC money was. They didn't find the message interesting. Guess what happened to all of those candidates. That's right. Every single one of them lost. So it's not enough to have a message that's important to you. It's not enough to have a message of interest to the reporters. It has to be of interest to the audience. You care about who is looking at that media outlet. So that's what's involved with coming up with a media message. So please take that into mind. It's not about simply having a smart answer for every question. That's not the drill at all. You can have a great answer for every question a reporter asks and never get quoted or never get quoted on anything that's important to you. So now let's go to the next part. We've covered how to look your best on tv. We've covered how to shape a media message. Now we got to talk about how to answer questions. This is one of these areas that people think they know what it is. Oh, just ignore the question and say, which one? No, that's the cartoonish version of media training. There was a politician back in the 90s who ran for president, a magazine publisher. And no matter what somebody asked him, sir, what's your position on gun control? What's your position on school prayer? He would answer, my position on school prayer is that the first thing I'll do as president is abolish the irs. My position on gun control is the first thing I'll do is put, president has abolished the irs. Well, he had a message. He stuck to his message. But he so completely ignored the questions from the reporters that they hated him. They thought he was a moron, and they went out of their way in every story to remind people that this was just a rich man's son who flunked eighth grade and was running a vanity campaign. So, no, it's not about ignoring the question and saying what you want. That's not it at all. There's a very, very particular strategy you must follow when you're answering questions. So for starters, sometimes a reporter may ask you two or three or four questions. Don't try to be the smart college professor and say, let me take your fourth question first and you third question second. Now, also, don't pick the most interesting question, the most intellectually challenging question. This isn't about you. This is about the audience, how you're going to help them. So my recommendation, pick the one question that helps you get back to your message points as quickly as possible. You're not telling the reporter, ah, I'm not going to answer your other questions. You're not saying that they can ask again. But if you answered even one of the four questions, nobody can accuse you of dodging questions. So another big tip, critically important for any kind of interview you do over the telephone. Have a cheat sheet. Have all your notes right in front of you, have your message point points in front of you, have your eyes staring at your messages. Sounds obvious. Nobody ever does it. People feel this need to continue doing email and handling text messages, looking at their phone while doing an interview, continuing to read different web pages. What comes out of your mouth is quite often a function of what goes in your eyes. So if you, if you want to have maximum control over the outcomes in the interview, you're far better off with your eyes focused on your message points. Literally stare at them. Now, if you're doing a TV interview, I wouldn't be holding a sheet of paper in front of your face while doing a TV interview, but you should be looking at it right before the interview starts. If you're driving to the TV station or the press conference or you're in the makeup room, you should be staring at your message points. Make it easy for yourself. The next thing that's critically important when you're answering questions, don't repeat the negatives in the question. This has tripped up a lot of very successful CEOs and politicians. No, the President is not a crook. I am not a crook. Richard Nixon. Repeating negatives and negative press premises. Anytime you're rebutting a negative premise in a media interview, and it's edited. You're asking for trouble because only the negative premise might get into the story. Tony Hayward, the former CEO of BP during the Gulf spill, was asked, are you going to make good on all the legal claims against you, all the lawsuits? He said, of course we want to help people. We want to help help the economy, we want to help entrepreneurs who have been harmed in any way. Everything he said was great. No one would object to it. Everything was fine. Then the question was, yeah, but what about the frivolous lawsuits? And he said, well, hey, it's America. Of course there will be frivolous lawsuits. But I just want to stress, we want to. For the next 10 minutes, all great content, all great messages. What was the only thing quoted? Hey, it's America. Of course there'll be frivolous lawsuits. He repeated the negative and that was quoted. I'll tell you in the next section exactly why it was quoted and how you can control against that. So please do not repeat the negative questions or the negative assumptions when you're answering. There is one answer that's quite often a great answer and it's often overlooked. If you're asked a question and you don't know the answer to it, just state, I don't know. Don't act embarrassed, don't act flustered, don't have your face get red, don't apologize, but simply say, I don't know. What I do know is. And then talk about something that is relevant to the question that takes you close to your message. That's the real key. Now, I'm not suggesting that you lie, and just because it's a topic you're not interested in talking about, saying, I don't know if you really do know. But if a reporter asks you to predict the future and you don't know the future, there's nothing wrong with saying, I don't know and then bridging to something that is relevant. That way the reporter doesn't get flustered. You can't claim. She can't claim that you didn't answer because you did answer. He said, I don't know. The reporter can even write that down. But they're unlikely to quote you on that unless it's something really obvious. If you're running for President of the United States and they say, can you please name the Prime Minister of Great Britain? And you can't name it, well, yes, then if you say, I don't know, that could be quoted. But most of the time it's a very safe Answer, answer. Okay, I've covered a bunch of basics for how to answer questions in interviews. Now I want to come to the two most important tips. This next tip is you have to rewrite questions when you hear them to make them easier for you. If you hear a tough question, a mean question, a hostile question, all that means is you have not done your job yet. This is not the same thing as dodging questions, avoiding questions, but it is a subtle art here. There's an art form to rewriting the questions to make it easier for you in a way that still satisfies the reporter and doesn't give the reporter anything, any ammunition to quote you in a negative way. So, for example, oftentimes when I go to foreign countries and I'm training a prime minister or a top political leader, the political reporters in that country will come to me and say, tj don't you feel guilty and ashamed about teaching people how to lie and spin and obfuscate? Now that sounds like a tough question, right? How do I answer that? I don't teach people to lie, but I don't want to say I don't teach people to lie because that kind of sounds like what a professional lying teacher would say. I don't feel guilty about my profession, but I don't want to say I don't feel guilty about my profession because that's kind of one of those quotes you see in profiles of exotic dancers and people in other embarrassing professions, or at least some embarrassing. I don't want to be associated with that. But how do I answer that? Because I do want to answer the question. I can't answer the question until I rewrite the question. So again, the question was, TJ don't you feel guilty and ashamed about being in a profession that teaches people to lie? I don't agree with the premise of lying, so I'm not going to deal with that part. I don't agree with the premise of feeling embarrassed, so I'm not going to deal with that part. So I have to keep backing up, looking at this question, holding it up to the light. What is this reporter really asking me? Instead of, do you feel embarrassed? It's how do you feel? I'm simply going to rewrite the question to T.J. how do you feel about being in your profession? Now, I've neutralized the question. I've taken all the negativity out of it. I've taken all the negative assumptions. It's still essentially the same question. I've just stripped it of all of its negative assumptions. And I've rewritten it to tj. How do you feel about being in your profession? Well, now it's easy to answer. I feel great to be in a profession where I teach leaders, communicate more effectively to the rest of the world. Now, will the reporter love that answer? Not necessarily. But is there any part of that message, that answer a reporter could use to make me look negative, foolish, defensive, stupid? No. Can the reporter write or state that I refuse to comment? No. Can't do that either. That's why it protects me. Now, the final big tip. You really need to know when you're answering questions in an interview. And let me confess right up front, it feels awkward, it feels strange, it feels weird. But here's the tip. You're asked a question, you need to answer it briefly at some level. And then you need to hit one of your message points and the second one, and the third one, you need to hit all three message points and in every answer, or at least try to. I don't mean in the same order. I don't mean word for word the same. But you do need to try to hit all three. Get different order, different levels of abstraction, different examples, different case studies. But thematically, you need to try to hit all three. Ah, but you know, teacher, the reporter will think I'm crazy. That's boring. Not if you do it well and you mix it up with different examples, different case studies, different wording. If you say it word for word the same way, like a broken record, well, yeah, then it's going to sound annoying and the reporter is going to find it obnoxious. This is hard to do, but it is a great way of increasing the odds that the message you want gets into the final story. Let's not lose sight of. Of what the ultimate goal is. The ultimate goal is for you to get the message you want in the final story. So if all you do is answer the reporter's questions and every single answer, you have a bunch of different message points, well, then what's important to you is going to get lost. Because at the end of the interview, there's going to be 75 different messages for the reporter to choose from. It's going to be lost. So that's what's critically important, is to bridge back again and again and again to all of your three messages repeatedly. Now, for those of you who do sign up for my course, you'll have exercises where you'll actually grade your own answers. Here's a little grid. Did you hit your message point? Did you answer the question? Did you hit 1, 2, 3 message points? So again, just briefly, if you are interested in going from an intellectual understanding, which I hope I'm giving you here, to an actual skill, then I would suggest you sign up for either an online media training course, the information is below. Or give us a call and schedule an in person media training workshop. Information is below. Plus you can always reach me at mediatrainingworldwide, that's 3Ws mediatrainingworldwide.com or just pick up the phone and call me from anywhere in the world. Plus 1212-764-4955 sound bites I've got good news and I've got bad news for you. The good news is you. If you've been following me so far, you actually know a lot about how to look your best on camera. That's great. You know how to shape a message. That's great. You know how to deliver a message. That's fantastic. And you've got tips on how to answer questions in an interview. All wonderful, all fantastic. But here's the problem. You can do that all day long and never get quoted. All we've really done so far is talk about what we want, what we like, what we need. We haven't really talked about what reporters need. And reporters other than those doing live shows need sound bites. They need quotes for newspaper stories, text stories, webpage stories. They need sound bites for any audio or video, whether it's television broadcast or a radio podcast. And here's the problem. You can talk to a reporter for 10 minutes and have 1,000 words come out of your mouth and only eight words get into the final story. 992 words are edited away. So how do you know in advance what those eight words are going to be? Or if you have two or three quotes, what are those 24 words going to be that you get into the final story? That's what I'm going to teach you right here. So please take careful notes because this is what you don't find in any public relations handbook. You don't find it in most media training books either. But I'm going to walk you through steps because what I have found is that every single quote in newspapers, television, broadcast, radio, broadcast, subject matter may be different, but the actual sentence structure of what gets quoted is remarkably consistent. It all comes down to 10 very specific speech patterns. Before we go into that, let's step back for a minute and ask ourselves, what's a reporter doing when they quote us? What they're trying to do is make the Story more interesting, more understandable, more memorable, more helpful to their audience. That's what it is. They don't need you just for the facts. They can write the facts in the story. The reporter can stand up and state the facts. What they need from you is some perspective on the facts, an opinion on the facts to give shape to the story, something that the report can't do individually. Oftentimes I'll ask my clients, why do you think a reporter quoted you this way? Or why do you think any reporter uses a quote? And quite often my clients will say, well, T.J. that's just backing up the opinion of the reporter. They're just looking for someone to say something they felt anyway. And I say, really? So when liberal reporters for the New York Times or NBC News quote Ann Coulter saying Obama's the devil, that's because that's what they really believe. Now, that doesn't make sense at all. Ann Coulter, for those of you not familiar, is a conservative commentator who is widely quoted all over the time, primarily because she has soundbites that are filled with attacks, absolutes and humor. And reporters and editors, all the American media quote her constantly. Not because they agree necessarily with anything she says, but they see the value of the soundbite and they see soundbites coming out of her mouth constantly. And she gets a tremendous amount of publicity. And that benefits her because all of her books then go on to become New York Times best sellers. So let's play Pull Back the Curtain and let me walk you through exactly what it takes to turn your messages into sound bites. For starters, any bold, action oriented words. If you say, I'm going to tear down this wall, as Reagan did, or I'm going to build up this wall, this massive wall, as Trump might say, those are bold, action oriented words. Action is, quote, quotable. Boldness makes it quotable. So that's the first one. The next thing, emotion reporters are supposed to be neutral. They're supposed to be objective. They can't talk about their emotions. But if you talk about how angry you are, upset, you are, disappointed, bummed out, ecstatic, reporters will quote that because it brings in a human element to the story. That's what they're looking for. The next element. Examples. Anytime you can give a specific example, this person, this client, yourself, it takes the message from something abstract and allows people to see it, touch it, taste it, feel it. So that is the next one, the next element. And let me be cautious here, I'm not advocating that you use any of these sound bite elements. What I'm telling you is if they do come out of your mouth, you will be quoted. The absolute easiest way to get quoted is the way I'm about to discuss with you. And that sound bite method is boom. The attack. Anytime you attack someone, you're likely to get quoted. Talk show hosts know this. That's why talk show hosts are always attacking people. Donald Trump knows this. That's why he's always attacking people. Am I telling you to run around attacking your competitors, your opponents, other people you compete with? No. What I am saying is if you attack, you will be quoted. So you have to be very sparing with this. Now, it applies not to just flamboyant political figures. If you said something like, well, initially, we were slow to realize how bad the recession was going to be, but come 2010, we really regeared. And then for the next half hour, I say all these great things about my business, guess what the only quote might be. Initially, we were slow to realize how bad the recession was. That's an attack. It's not a mean attack. It's not a vicious attack. But I attacked myself. I attacked my own company that could be quoted. So please keep this in mind. You got to be very careful about attacks. The next sound bite element, absolutes. Anytime you can say, always, must, never has to, it creates a certainty to it. People are craving certainty. Reporters can't state it. It seems biased, but they love quoting experts, leaders, political candidates, business executives stating things with absolute. Next element, cliches. We're all taught in high school class not to write cliches. It's a sign of sloppy, lazy writing. Guess what? You're not the writer of this story. Story journalists might not like to write cliches themselves, but they love quoting spokespersons using cliches. So if you have a cliche that is on your message, that's your goal. Your goal is not to win writing awards. If you're being interviewed, your goal is to get the message you want into the final story. This is one of these differences between public speaking and versus speaking to the media. You're giving a speech. If you just repeat your same three messages constantly and you have a bunch of cliches come out of your mouth, people will think you're an idiot. But speaking to the media for an edited interview is not the same thing. So cliches can be extremely helpful in getting you quoted. Again, I'm not telling you you have to use cliches. But if a cliche cliche does come out of your mouth, there's a Good chance it will be quoted. The next element, humor. Everybody loves a good laugh, Everybody loves a chuckle. So if you can use humor and it is on your message and you're happy with it, then by all means use it. But be very careful. So much of humor is a subtle attack on someone, and it might work if people can see a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye, but if they're reading it the next day in text, it could just make you look mean spirited. So be very, very careful about using humor. I'm not saying be humorless, but it can often boomerang back and hurt you. The next sound bite element, rhetorical questions. Simply ask. Put a question mark at the end of your message point. Those of you who follow politics for a long time may remember Ronald Reagan in 1980. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Basic rhetorical question, just restating his message, which is, economically, things are worse than four years ago. That's a bland, straightforward message. The rhetorical question made it quotable. Reporters hear that, they'll type it up. The next element, analogy. Reporters are trying to make the story understandable, more interesting. If you can see it, you can say, this new thing is like this old thing I already know. It increases the odds that it will be quoted. Reporters love analogies. They will quote you using analogies. The final sound bite element, pop culture references. If you tie anything you do with somebody already well known, a well known sports figure, political figure, movie, action hero, anything that's already well known will increase your odds of being quoted. So Those are the 10 soundbite elements. If you want more information on that. My book Media Training A to Z is available as a part of the online media training course. Course. I've tried to be very light here on the promotions because I'm trying to give information that's really useful to you if you have absolutely no budget. But if you do want to take it to the next level and go deeper in your learning and build a new skill, I would recommend you check out below the online media training school or give us a call and schedule an interview in person. Media training workshop. Now, I go to my clients all over the world, whether it's Dubai or Mumbai or Paris or they come to me in New York either way. Or we do training through live Skype video or the online courses on demand, which are very, very affordable. So please check out the link. Or you can always just go to mediatrainingworldwide.com for more information. I do want to summarize here what I hope you've taken away. And also to realize with every interview you do, there's five possible outcomes. Number one, you do the interview, you get no quote at all. Lost opportunity. You missed an opportunity to help yourself, but you didn't hurt yourself. The second option is you're quoted and you said something so ridiculously racist, sexist, foolish, you lose your job and you're humiliated. It doesn't happen that often, but it does happen to people. The third option is that you're quoted and it's on the message you hoped for, that you planned. And pretty good. That's good. There's another option. You get quoted. Nothing to do with anything that was important to you. But hey, they spelled your name right, no one's upset. But there is a fifth option. The fifth option is you got quoted. It's the message you decided you wanted in advance, and it's the exact word for word quote, you decided you wanted in advance. If you follow the lessons that I've described here in this video for the past hour, you'll have the tools to get that fifth option every time. And I do believe that you should never go into an interview unless you have your three messages, three to six sound bites for each one written down underneath it on a single sheet of paper. And go into the interview with that specific goal of here's the exact message I want. Here's the exact word for word quote I want to see in this story. If you follow the techniques that I've outlined for you, you're going to get the exact message and the exact quote you want. Not 100% of the time, but you'll get it about 95% of the time. So I wish you luck with all of your media opportunities in the future. I appreciate those of you who stayed with me till the end. And again, if I can ever help you, please call me at 212-764-4955. I'm T.J. walker for Media Training World.