Most business owners and CEOs understand that good communication is at the heart of any successful company. Good managers are aware that how they talk to their team and motivate them is an integral part of productivity. The right words here and there can make a huge difference in terms of understanding, respect, and a positive outcome.
Media training is focused on how you can effectively talk to individuals like journalists or appear on media such as television and radio. Most of us tend to take our communication skills for granted and rarely question whether they are adequate for a particular situation.
The truth is that media training teaches you to focus and control your communication in ways that have a beneficial knock-on effect for relationships in general. The skills that you learn on a course can easily be adapted to dealing with your team or taking a leadership role.
For example, let’s say you have a planned appearance in front of the media to explain your new company product. Media training teaches you not only to focus on the right talking points but to understand the type of interview and how to handle difficult questions in a balanced and informative way. This is the kind of skill that can also be implemented in everyday situations from job interviews and presentations to dealing with disgruntled employees.
Applying Media Training to General Communication
Many of the processes that you might use for a media interview are applicable when you are engaged in general communication. It makes you think more about what you are saying and the impact that it is likely to have on an individual or a team. It also trains you to look at your communication from the outside and form a critical opinion of what you do well and what you could do better.
If you are going to be talking to a journalist, you need to answer several questions:
- What information are they trying to get from you?
- What sort of media are you communicating over – TV, webinar, radio, and the like?
- What key points do you want to get across about your business?
This latter point is even more important if you are having an interview that relates to crisis management in your company. You want your messages to be clear and easily digested by the audience and you need to present everything in a calm and measured way that shows your business in the best light.
What You’ll Learn in Media Training
Media training covers a host of different areas from the messages that you want to get across to the type of language that you use and even how you physically react in front of a camera or when you’re on the telephone. Selecting the right content for your interview is critical and understanding what angle the journalist is coming from is also very important.
These skills developed during media training give you a range of different tools and approaches that can be used in high-pressure situations such as interviews. It not only improves your performance while on camera but provides a unique perspective that can also be applied in a wide variety of different but important communication situations.
The team at Hawkeye Media can create a bespoke Media Training course to suit your individual needs.