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Media training is not the plug-and-play exercise ➿ that some think it is.
Sure, we’d love to be able to serve up a universal formula for great interviews and relationship building, sit back and put our feet up. But it doesn’t work that way.
A lot of today’s training for multinational clients centres on Western narratives, regardless of whether they’re speaking to people in New York, Shanghai or Tokyo. It can take a one-size-fits-all approach, failing to adapt to individuals and their circumstances.
It also tends to teach executives to stay ‘on-message’ at all times, forgetting that humans (and journalists too) are naturally resistant to messaging but highly receptive to personal stories. (Can you remember the last time you said to yourself, ‘What a great message!?')
An uninspired approach to training leads B2B tech executives to see it as a box to tick, not the exercise in risk management and value creation that it should be. For many tech startups, training isn’t even on the radar.
Yet done well, it’s one of the most important exercises they can perform.
Realistic and Ready
Two mistakes executives with little media experience make are to see journalists as messengers – there to churn out their corporate narrative word for word – or aggressors to field and tackle. In reality, they just want a good story.
Still, if you claim to be doing something important for the world, which most companies do, you have to be fully prepared to answer difficult questions.
We help clients achieve this by both demystifying the media process and turning up the heat. We’re not afraid to put executives through their paces with a wide range of scenarios.
We tailor our approach according to experience, position, personality and passion points as well as geography, and local-market interests and issues. We’re clear on what clients can control and what they can’t. And on what the media values so that interactions become a conversation that benefits both sides.
Ethical Discussion
Although we’re steeped in tech, we steer clients firmly away from jargon and corporate-speak. We show how to make tech relatable for any audience, even if it’s something they will never touch in daily life (like a photolithography system to make semiconductors, for example).
And we ask tough questions – often about areas clients have never considered, including possible ethical concerns. For startups in particular, a bi-product of this approach is a clearer product strategy.
Our goal is to help you define what you stand for, tell your story with confidence, clarity and humanity, and face up to challenges and possible criticism: to hold yourself accountable before anyone else does.