If you have to give a radio or TV interview, don’t let your time on-air be your first rehearsal. Once you are clear about the main points you want to make, practice and rehearse them to ensure they come across as strongly as possible. It’s smart to spend a few minutes doing this even before you speak to a reporter from the ‘print’ media too. Otherwise these points will not be ‘front of mind’ when you speak to the journalist – or for that matter customers, clients or other stakeholders, if they are your audience. The clearer you are about your interview objectives, the more your subconscious will be looking for ways to bring these points to the fore. Particularly if you have a broadcast interview coming up, there is no substitute for saying it out loud; it is only then that you realise whether the point will flow and be convincing, not waffly, and full of jargon and sub-clauses. Running it through a few times beforehand will make a big difference. Don’t think you can just wing it—that is when the mistakes get made.
(Taken from the book The M-Factor by Tom Maddocks)
