Media training for housebuilders

As the government promotes its programme to build more homes, media training for housebuilders is increasingly important. 

Already we’ve seen growing interest by the media in house builders and construction companies. Journalists have been asking CEOs and other senior leaders in the property sector about whether the government’s proposals are realistic. They also want to know about the challenges facing homebuilders themselves. 

Not surprisingly, we’ve seen an increase in demand for our media training courses for housebuilders. A growing number of house builders want to be prepared for media interviews. They’re coming to us because we’re specialists in media training for housebuilders. We help spokespeople to prepare for interviews, to develop confidence, to put across their key messages and to handle difficult questions during media interviews. 

Media interviews for housebuilders or construction companies

Here are three things that the spokesperson for any housebuilder or construction company should bear in mind when doing a media interview.

1. Think about the audience

When communication fails it almost always does so because the person doing the communication hasn’t thought carefully enough about the people that their communicating with. This means that their messages might not be appropriate and neither is their language.

In our Media Training workshops for homebuilders, we work closely with their press offices and PR companies to help their spokes people to focus on their audiences. This might be trade press such as Construction News or it might be a general business publication such as The Times or Financial Times. It could also be local media. 

In each case, as a company spokesperson, you’ll want to ensure that your messages are relevant. You’ll also need to think about the language that you use. There might be words and phrases including technical language that will work for the specialist media but will mean nothing to a local radio station.

The danger here is that even if the journalist is willing to translate these technical terms, you’re literally not speaking the same language as your audience. In our Media Training for housebuilders, we say that it’s good to use language that people will understand but it’s better to use language that they use.

2. Have some case studies and stories ready

Messages are great, but they mean nothing and are unlikely to land unless you have a story to back them up. The great thing about examples is that they both illustrate your point and prove it. For example, you might be talking about taking on apprentices and developing new talent. This all sounds very laudable but the problem is that your audience can’t see it.

Having some human case studies and even little anecdotes to throw into an interview will help to demonstrate your point about apprenticeships and human resources. As we explain in our Media Training courses for homebuilders, it also makes your comments more memorable. 

The same might be true if you’re talking about sustainability. You can claim that your construction methods are sustainable. However, if you give us some examples – especially something quirky and surprising – we’ll not only be more likely to believe you, but we’ll also remember what you’ve said.

We don’t necessarily recall a key message or a theme, but we do remember stories. In their study of communications, Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath conducted an experiment with students at Stanford University. This showed that stories are between 12 and 13 times more memorable than statistics. 

3. Get ready for some difficult questions

“How do I handle difficult questions from a journalist?” is something that we hear very often during our media training courses for housebuilders. It’s quite understandable. And it’s also what is most likely to damage people’s confidence and reduce the chances of them wanting to do a media interview.

All of our media trainers are experienced, working journalists operating under strict non-disclosure agreements. As they will tell you, a reporter isn’t out to get you. Well, not most of the time anyway.

“We’re just asking the questions that we think our audience will be asking and will expect us to ask on their behalf,” says Simon Brooke, one of our senior trainers. “These might sometimes be tough questions but very often spokespeople can handle them effectively.”

Our Media Training courses for construction companies and homebuilders

In our Media Training courses for construction companies and homebuilders we work closely with their comms teams and PR companies to identify difficult issues. Because we have extensive experience of providing Media Training for housebuilders and others we know many of the issues anyway.

There’s a range of techniques that you can use to handle these difficult questions before moving on and regaining control of the interview. We teach these strategies and then allow our course participants to put them into practice with our authentic, role-play media interviews. However, before you do any of this, you need to have identified these difficult questions beforehand. This is a key part of your preparation. As we point out, very often you will be familiar with these tricky issues because you’ve been managing them day-to-day.

Again, finding the right language to use and feeling confident is essential when it comes to dealing with difficult questions from the media.

It’s worth adding that our crisis communications courses for housebuilders and construction companies are also increasingly popular. You don’t need us to tell you that building sites and the construction process are fraught with risk.

Obviously, you’ll have your own safety and risk mitigation strategies in place. However, being ready to handle enquiries from the media, should something go wrong, is essential. 

Crisis communications strategy

Even if you already have a crisis communications strategy, you need to test it. A growing number of house builders and construction companies are asking us to evaluate these strategies and to put their senior spokespeople through their paces.

We work with the PR companies and in-house media relations teams of homebuilders and construction companies to develop a range of authentic crisis scenarios. We then subject the senior leadership team of the company to crisis media interviews. These are tough, as they would be in the real world, but they’re conducted in a safe environment. More importantly, we provide advice and recommendations after each interview..

Media training for house builders

Our Media Training courses for housebuilders are created bespoke to meet the exact needs of our clients. Come and talk to us about how we can help you. You can follow us on LinkedIn here.