Media Skills Coach | Training for Media Interviews

Take your media skills to the next level with one-on-one attention from our highly experienced media training coaches.

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Personalized Media Coaching

Throughline Wrote the Book on Media Training

Since 2004, we’ve offered practical, personalized, and effective techniques and strategies on how best to work with the media to thousands of top executives, government leaders, nonprofit directors, and entrepreneurs. We mean it when we say we wrote the book on media training. Our book, The Media Training Bible, has been Amazon’s top-selling media interview training book since its release in 2012.

We are knowledgeable and trusted media trainers who want you to leave our session with the confidence that you not only can answer the tough questions, but you also will do so with grace and poise.

During our media coaching, we zero in on the areas that will bring immediate improvement and results. We tailor our approach to your industry and the media questions and requests that you typically receive. We don’t believe in a generic approach to a highly specialized skill.

This is what we’ll do:

  • Help you develop an action plan that works for today’s TV interview, tomorrow’s meeting with a newspaper reporter, and next week’s press conference.
  • Dive deeply into research about your industry and your customized needs, personalizing our training to the issues that matter most to you, your industry, and your audiences.
  • Ask the questions the media are likely to ask and test you on the ones that are unexpected and challenging.
  • Tailor our techniques and strategies to align with your style, content, and specific media needs.

You can work with our media training coaches in New York City or Washington, D.C., or wherever you are through in-person consultations and virtual training.

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DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE EBOOK NOW

An Essential Guide for Media Interviewing Success

In this free e-book, you will learn how to develop a compelling media message, deliver it effectively, and modify your approach to meet the medium.

An Essential Guide for Media Interviewing Success

HOW IS OUR MEDIA TRAINING COACHING DIFFERENT?

Throughline’s media training coaching services are only the beginning of a much longer relationship. We’ll help you gain the critical skills to boost your confidence, refine and amplify your message, and authentically and effectively connect with the audiences who matter most to you. We’ll help you to unlock your full communication potential and transform your skills long after your session.

Here are four ways we're different:

  • Highly experienced trainers

    Whatever your communications challenge, we’ve likely seen it — and have the experience to help you meet it. Our trainers have helped clients prepare for virtually every major broadcast and cable news program, newspaper, radio network, and more. We’ve prepared members of Congress for national prime time interviews. We’ve prepared corporate leaders to successfully navigate hostile interviews. And, we’ve worked with advocates to publicize and attract supporters to their causes.

  • Deeper curriculum

    You’ll leave with a strong foundation of essential media interviewing skills, but we also go deeper than the basics. Learn the subtle points that often go overlooked. These can make a huge difference in your confidence, your message, and your delivery.

  • Full customization

    We tailor the agenda to reflect your specific needs and goals, and focus on practice interview questions that are relevant to your work and your audiences. We also conduct an extensive clip review before your training. Our work begins long before you walk through the door.

  • Extensive practice and practical feedback

    Who wants delayed results? As you practice, experiment, and expand your range during your training sessions, we’ll be there to offer personalized, direct feedback that will allow you to improve and develop your skills in real time. In this warm and encouraging environment, your confidence will soar, as will your effectiveness as a communicator.

What Can Your Media Training Coach Help You Learn?

How to nail the media interview

Our personalized media coaching will focus squarely on your specific needs. Among other topics, you might choose to learn how to:

  • Interview for print, radio, television, and online outlets
  • Understand the rules of working with the media
  • Spot and avoid reporters’ tricks
  • Manage adversarial and hostile questioning
  • Transition from off-topic questions to on-message responses
  • Deliver a crisp 15-second description of your work
  • Get the headlines you want
  • Develop messages that have impact
  • Use the “message support stool” to strengthen messages
  • Remain “on message” without compromising authenticity
  • Identify your true target audience
  • Boost your credibility with the audience
  • Cite data in a compelling manner
  • Tell a story that moves minds and drives action
  • Develop irresistible media sound bites
  • Create the right “feedback loops” through effective body language
  • Model best practices for gesture, posture, voice, and eye contact
  • …and more, customized to your specific needs

WHAT CLIENTS ARE SAYING

“That was added value I did not expect!”

I would have been very happy walking away with techniques and tools that would better equip me for engagements with the media, but I quickly realized these techniques were very easily transferable to sales, internal company communications, and external presentations. That was added value I did not expect!

Rob Tod, Founder, Allagash Brewing Company See More Reviews

DURING THE MEDIA COACHING ENGAGEMENT

Our custom media training workshops feature a diverse of relevant activities that have been delivered successfully hundreds of times to tens of thousands of people since 2004. Our proven teaching methodology helps participants grow their skill set meaningfully, and often dramatically, during their training sessions. During your workshop, you will learn through:

  • Greater focus on your message

    Many media training workshops over-emphasize body language. While the manner in which you deliver your message is vitally important, your delivery rests upon the quality of your message. We’ll give you detailed feedback on both.

  • Practice interviews

    We’ll conduct several rounds of practice interviews during your media training workshops, that we’ll also videotape. After each interview, we’ll offer specific feedback on your message and delivery, as well as review key concepts with you. The recorded practice interviews are yours to keep.

  • Challenging questions

    What’s one way to win over audiences? Know how to handle and respond to challenging questions. During your practice interviews, we’ll ask the questions a fair but skeptical interviewer might ask, and provide you with the tools and resources to respond effectively and remain on message.

  • Video examples

    We’ll share media interviewing best practices through several curated clips. You’ll learn how interviewees navigated challenging interviews, often in unexpected and highly effective ways.

AFTER THE MEDIA COACHING ENGAGEMENT

We will be with you every step of the way – even after the initial coaching engagement ends. Mastering a new skill takes time, effort, and commitment. We’ll help you to continue your learning through:

  • In-depth clients-only reports

    Once a month for the ten months following your media training, you’ll receive an in-depth article that goes deeper into the areas that were covered. The materials will help you to learn, practice, and further refine new skills and techniques throughout the year. The papers might include a deeper dive into sound bites, effective ways to handle a media crisis, and how to use advanced media “bridging” techniques in your next interview.

  • A free one-hour phone or Skype call

    Facing an upcoming interview? Want a review of a recent media interview? You can schedule a free, one-hour call with one of our trainers within a year of your training. Take the time to discuss anything that will help you to advance your learning. (Offer extended to five people in any private workshop.)

  • A 20% discount

    For two years following your training, you can receive a 20 percent discount on our standard hourly consulting fee.

  • Relevant takeaway materials

    You’ll receive our 254-page bestselling book The Media Training Bible, worksheet templates, and videos of your practice interviews.

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Any Questions?

Reach out to us at info@throughline.com
or head over to our Frequently Asked Questions.

Enhance Your Media Presence

How to Make the Most of Your Media Interview

We work with our clients to develop the tools and techniques that magnify the skills and talents they already possess. We help you to unlock those skills and build upon them.

As part of our personalized media coaching, you will not only learn the fundamentals, but how to use them to best serve your distinct media needs.

During our media training, we use interactive exercises and real-time video review to effectively and productively focus on areas for growth. We listen, observe, and ask questions – often difficult and challenging ones. We seek breakthroughs and transformational change, because we know you do, too. Our media tips are solid, but flexible enough to be individualized to your personality and approach to media interviews.

This is what you’ll learn:

  • How to develop and share a compelling media message.
  • How to manage the toughest of questions
  • How to reduce fear and anxiety during your media interview
  • How to comment when you can’t comment
  • How to handle interviews for Skype, video calls, and live streams
  • And much more …

Skills that Get Results

Most savvy spokespeople are not born that way. They’ve earned it by immersing themselves in the art of great media interviews. Constantly refining and reinforcing their message, mannerisms, and methods, these communicators know how to use the media to connect with their audience, as well as broaden their reach.

The way you become a better spokesperson, subject matter expert, or interviewee is by learning valuable media skills that allow you to best convey your message, to remain authentic, and remain in control of your media interviews.

We’ll focus on how to build an effective and successful media presence. Here are some of the questions we’ll help you answer:

  • How do you find your message? We’ll look at the different types of messages that spokespeople depend on and audiences understand. We then help you to identify the message that is right for you and your organization, and the work needed to ensure it cuts through the clutter.
  • How much is too much? We focus on finesse. Repetition of your message is key, but you don’t want to appear as a wind-up doll at every interview. Repetition doesn’t necessarily have to become repetitive. With a mix of powerful stories, statistics, and case studies, you can reiterate your message every time you speak, providing additional context and meaning for your audience.
  • How do you stay on track? We focus on the road ahead. A rather consistent anxiety among spokespeople is being steered off the main path by a reporter’s line of off-topic or controversial questions. We give you the tools to stay on – and not stray from – your message.
  • How do I prepare? We focus on the ground rules. The reporter is not the only one who gets to ask questions. By following some basic ground rules for working with the media, you can gain a better sense of the reporter, the news outlet, and, possibly, the story angle. This information leaves you better prepared to do pre-interview research.

Why You Can Trust Our Media Coaching

We Offer Practical Advice Rooted in Theory

A great communications coach knows spokespeople perform better when the advice they get is doable, practical, and measurable. Our training is based on theory that is borne out in real-life applications. Our highly recommended media training coaches identify the best practices, align them with your needs, and convey that knowledge for immediate results.

We’ve seen our clients use these commonsense approaches to reach their audience quickly and effectively in high-stakes media moments. During your training, we will focus on all aspects of your media presence, or only in those areas in which want to sharpen your skills.

Why should you put your trust in us?

We are industry leaders

We have prepared members of Congress for prime-time interviews on national and international media outlets. We’ve given top executives the tools they needed for challenging and hostile media interviews. And, we have helped nonprofit and advocacy groups find their voice and connect with their audiences on news outlets that included newspapers, magazines, television, and radio, as well as digital and social media.

We are driven by research

Our extensive preparation and research into your industry or area of expertise enables us to offer the strategies that are more relevant and effective to you. We will review your previous media interviews. We’ll study the audiences you are likely to face. We’ll study the obstacles you’ve faced in the past and the techniques that will allow you to surmount them in the future.

We provide strategies for all media

The way we communicate in everyday life doesn’t automatically translate when we’re talking about two-minute live interviews or tightly edited quotes. We work on helping you to make a few authentic adjustments to your usual speaking style to become more fluent in your media communications.

We foster an encouraging environment

We want you to reach your potential in a warm and encouraging environment that focuses on continual improvement.

We focus on your message

We will give you the techniques you need to focus on your message and deliver it to the audiences that matter most.

We seek real-time growth

We provide the media training ground that allows you to experiment, practice, and expand your range. Through video recording and immediate feedback, our media training coaches will help you to better implement the tips and techniques for successful media interviews. As your skills grow in real time, your confidence will, too.

We are part of your team

We also work with your communications team to ensure that the formula fits with your corporate culture, industry standards, and professional community. You learn how better to connect, inform, and inspire your audience.

We offer ongoing training

We also offer one of the most generous free post-training programs in the industry, which includes:

  • 10 in-depth clients-only special reports
  • A one-on-one follow up consultation with your trainer before your next presentation

When you are training for media interviews, you want the best coach so you can gain the best results. We present ourselves as a proven option.

Other Media Training Offerings

Sessions modified to meet your needs

In addition to the media training workshop format described above, we also offer:

  • Customized executive media training
  • Training via Skype or other virtual technology
  • Coaching for online video and Facebook Live
  • Media training refresher courses
  • Advanced media training sessions
  • Other customized options (please inquire)

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