“I was really nervous about the course today, but actually, you’ve reassured me”.
As the specialist media training course provider for law firms, when we deliver our media interview workshops for lawyers, this is often their feedback, so we remain encouraged. Similarly, Communicate Media offers media training courses for architects. They also tell us that as creative people; their minds have been opened by our media training workshops for architectural practices – something we are continuously proud of!
Indeed, people tell us that their attitude towards the media has changed, but, more importantly, not only do they feel better equipped to handle media interviews, but they’ve also improved their general business communication skills. Here are five tips to ensure that you get the most out of your media training course – hopefully, the one you do with us!
5 Tips for our Media Training Courses
- Come with an open mind. Everybody has strong opinions about the media, and we’re always delighted to hear them during our media training workshops. But what people say that they appreciate when we talk about what makes a story is the insights that it gives them into the media and general business communication. “I’ll never look at the television news again in the same way” is a frequent comment from the people on our courses, and we regard this as a small triumph!
- Think of a good topic for the interview. We send out pre-course questionnaires to all our participants with questions such as their previous experience and issues they would like us to interview them on. At the start of the course, we’ll also confirm these aims and objectives and work with the participants to refine their interview subjects – but it’s worth having a good idea of what you would like to talk about before you start the course.
- Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. We want everybody to come to our media training courses with a growth mindset and the attitude that making mistakes is the best way to learn. We’ll challenge all our participants but, at the same time, we’ll ensure that we do so in a supportive and encouraging way. We’ll set some little traps during our authentic role-play media interviews, and we’ll try and push interviewees off course. Still, we’ll then provide some tools and techniques to ensure they’re well prepared to handle these typical challenges involved in doing a media interview.
- Think of positive angles as well as defensive ones for your media interviews. Even during our crisis communications courses, we find that people can promote positive stories about their organisations. These are fine, but, as we stress, the important thing is to back them up with stories, examples, and case studies. Good media relations are based on anecdotes and models, so we advise our media training course participants to start thinking about these and perhaps even set up a shared file within the organisation where everybody can record stories and case studies, including little human anecdotes to illustrate excellent customer service or human stories that vividly demonstrate the work that the organisation does.
- Practice what we’ve taught to you after the course. You might find that it takes a while for you to get back into practice when you go skiing or go on holiday and try to speak a foreign language again. We provide a lot of refresher media training courses, and people tell us the same thing. “It’s beginning to come back to me now. I was a bit rusty, but now I feel more confident again,” participants of our media training courses often tell us. So, we advise anyone who’s done a course with us to do some practice interviews with colleagues, especially those on the course with them. Recording role-play interviews on your smartphone and playing them back is a great way of doing this. Our media coaching courses for lawyers, architects and those in the fashion and luxury sector begin with a thorough analysis of what makes a story for journalists, especially in the participants’ particular industry. We advise everyone who does our media coaching courses to go away and look at this in their daily work. Can they pitch a story to their PR agency or in-house comms team based on what they now know make the raw ingredients for a media story?
Why use Communicate?
We can’t promise that our media training courses will change your life, but they will undoubtedly change how you look at the media and give you essential skills for media interviews and improve your general business communication. Book your training course with Communicate, today! Contact us now.
