CGM blog: Media go-to guys

29 Jan CGM blog: Media go-to guys

It’s a law of nature that space gets filled.

‘Nature abhors a vacuum’ as my media training colleague Tom Watt once said.

Writ-large, in business, if someone gets there before you – happy days for them. Long nights of contemplation for you.

When it comes to profile and reputation, you may know more than others. You may make better products or provide better services. But if you don’t tell anyone that you do, and constantly pass on opportunities to talk about what you do, what you know and how much expertise you have – let alone any opinions you may have – who will believe you? Who will care?

And so to media training. Opportunities always exist for expert commentators and industry experts in all walks of life. Sometimes at national or international level, sometimes on TV, radio, online and in publications in your town, city, county or region.

They’re called media go-to guys – people broadcasters seek out for expert comment on a myriad subjects.

When I worked as a broadcast journalist I had a contacts book full of reliable folks who could deliver incisive soundbites.

Did they know more than others? Maybe. Did they deliver good value and talk a good game? Usually.

Most had good reputations (at least in the media) and they were rarely a gamble to put on air. They knew how to play the media game – and had prepared and practised for it.

So imagine how tired I feel when meeting business folks who profess they know more or could a better job than x, who has cornered the market in talking about y.

Ask if they’ve done anything to put their name in the frame or if they’ve taken training to make sure they could give a good interview should the case arise and they usually fall silent.

Fact is, most of those folks are not in anyone’s contacts book. Not on anyone’s radar. And if per chance someone did seek them out, the odds are, like so many other one-time interviewees, they wouldn’t do it well enough to be asked back again.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

I love media training. It is an absolute privilege to help people overcome their fears and learn to be confident communicators.

Better still, I’m able to pass on what I know (and the same goes for my team, which includes fellow broadcasters Tom Watt and Lance Hardy), about TV and radio.

Working with people to get on message, how to handle differing interviews, enabling them to make decisions on where to do them (such as on location or in a studio, if there’s an option) and whether to commit to a live or pre-recorded interview, as well as the mechanics of doing actual interviews, are great experiences to share with people.

The satisfaction of knowing you’ve helped someone is overwhelming. When they contact us later having made the most of their training it is even better.

So with a new series of executive courses coming along, I’m looking forward to helping more people become media go-to guys with our Mastering Broadcast Media Interviews course.

Chris Green is CGM’s managing director and an author and broadcaster.