Media training for property companies
There’s so much happening in the property sector at the moment. We’ve seen the fall out of the Grenfell enquiry, the demands to build more homes, and questions about the centre of our towns and cities post pandemic and lockdown.
That’s why a growing number of PR companies and inhouse communications teams are asking us to provide media training for the property companies that they work for. In our media interview workshops, after we’ve discussed the aims and objectives of the participants, we look at what makes a media story. This gives the course participants confidence because they know the nature of the beast they’re dealing with. It also enables them to prepare more effectively for media interviews and it’s this preparation point that comes next in the training schedule.
We’ll then do a range of role play press, radio or podcast and TV interviews. As working journalists operating under strict NDAs, our tutors will do the interviews exactly as they would in their day job. However, during these courses they’ll go on to provide feedback and recommendations.
But, generally, how can property company spokespeople do better interviews?
1. They need to focus on the audience
Very often Media interviews go wrong because the interviewee hasn’t thought about the audience. In our media coaching for property company spokespeople, we focus on who the readers, listeners or viewers of the interview are.
Business leaders in the property sector can do better media interviews by thinking about whether they are speaking to the trade publications such as EG, a business title, perhaps the Financial Times, or a local newspaper such as the Manchester Evening News or the Glasgow Herald.
Thinking about your audience and ensuring that your comments are focused on their needs and interest will help you to do a better media interview. If you’re a business leader in the property sector you also need to think about the language you are using. There might be words, phrases and acronyms that mean something to the trade media, but which wouldn’t resonate with a local newspaper or radio station. So, mind your language.
2. They need to include examples.
Another mistake that many spokespeople for the property industry make is that they talk in broad terms and introduce abstract concepts without anchoring them in reality.
Journalists are very granular – we like specific examples, case studies and even simple stories. Property company leaders who tell stories using their day-to-day experience and including references to human beings will do better in the media than those who don’t. In our Media Training for property company executives, we help them, to identify and tell stories that can illustrate and prove their points.
This might be a case study, for instance. Here maintaining confidentiality of a client is very important but there are ways around this that we can share with you. Even if you’re talking about a multi-million-pound development, telling a story and including a human anecdote will help you to gain better Media coverage.
3. They need to do more than just answer the journalist’s questions
Isn’t a Media interview simply about providing answers to the questions that the journalist puts to you, people often ask in our media training workshops for property companies.
The answer is that you can certainly do this but, if you want to make the most of a media interview and get good coverage, you should aim to do more. The problem of simply giving an answer to whatever the journalist asks you is that they have control of the agenda, and you risk losing the opportunity to put across some of your own positive messages and to promote your company.
It’s also more likely that they will throw in difficult questions or ask you something left field. Yes, of course, you’ve got to make your answers relevant to what the journalist asks you. However, we would say, use those questions as prompts to put across your key messages, back them up with interesting examples and take the interview in a direction that suits you.
As long as what you’re saying is relevant to the article and is telling the audience something they didn’t know journalists will be happy for you to get into the driving seat like this.
4. They need to anticipate difficult questions
Property companies might feel as if the media has it in for them sometimes. This comes in the wake of Grenfell and with questions about developers’ extensive land banks and accusations that housebuilders only want to build a certain type of home.
Yes, we ask tough questions because we need to test your truth and your arguments. We often play devil’s advocate to verify what you’re saying and to provoke you into giving us a strong response.
However, very importantly, we’re thinking about the questions that our audience will want us to ask you. Most of all, though, we simply want a story from you, as we explain in our media coaching for property companies. Ideally, you’ll be giving us enough relevant, topical information that there’s less need or opportunity for us to throw a difficult question at you.
But there are still so many tricky issues in property at the moment that we’re bound to ask you something challenging. Very often property company leaders come unstuck during media interviews because they haven’t anticipated these questions, or they get tetchy because they believe that the media is persecuting them.
Either way, the trick here is to be prepared for these questions and to have answers ready for them. We teach a variety of methods for handling difficult questions in our media training courses for property groups so that their spokespeople can regain the initiative and get back to their key messages.
Talking to the media brings with it a number of risks. However, it also offers rewards, and you can bet that, even if you’re not looking for media coverage, then your competitors will be.
Media Interview tips
We hope that these media interview tips have been useful. Our media training courses for property companies help you to increase the chances of generating positive coverage while minimising the risks involved in interacting with the media.
Media Training for property companies
We’d love to work with you – come and speak to us. You can follow us on LinkedIn here.
