TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

14 Dec 2016 · 2 min

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TJ Walker, in a 2016 live-stream segment, describes five possible outcomes of any media interview ranging from catastrophic reputational damage to achieving a word-for-word desired sound bite. He emphasizes that the ideal goal for every interview is to be quoted verbatim on the exact message you prepared; anything less he calls a failure. The chunk is a practical, tactical advice piece about preparing and controlling interview messaging.

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With every media interview you do, don't forget, there are five possible outcomes. The first possible outcome is you say something so ridiculously racist, sexist, foolish, you destroy your reputation, you're fired, you run out of the industry, and you never work again. That doesn't happen that often, but it does happen to people. The second option is you don't get quoted at all. Lost opportunity, lost branding. Didn't help yourself at all, but you didn't damage yourself directly. The third option is you're quoted. Nobody's upset, spelled your name right, spelled the organization right, but nothing really important was quoted, attributed to you. It wasn't a message point you cared about, it wasn't anything of strategic significance. It was just a random fact, stuff better than nothing. But you really didn't help yourself much. The fourth option is you're quoted and it's on the message you decided you wanted in advance. Pretty good. You kind of got lucky. The quote itself wasn't anything you planned, but you did get quoted and is the message you wanted because you had a message and you stuck to it. Pretty good. But there is a fifth option for every single interview you do for the rest of your life. The fifth option is you got quoted on the exact message you wanted and you got the word for word. Quote the word for word. Sound bite. You decided in advance that you wanted in the story and it got in the story. That is what I believe your goal should be for every interview you ever do. Don't lose sight of that goal. Anything below that you should consider an utter failure.