Blurbs and Talking Points

Media trainer and publicist Susan Harrow suggests that you create short bios for every single subject you pitch to the media. We call these the “About” blurb, and they are identical to the blurbs you place after news releases. These blurbs should be two to four sentences specifically tailored to your news release or article, or the topic you'll be discussing on TV or radio. Provide the blurb ahead of time to the radio or television personality or journalist who will be interviewing you.

To prepare for the actual interview, you need the following:

• Talking points or “sound bites” for you to use during media interviews
• A helpful set of sample questions for the journalist or interviewer to use while interviewing you

Memorize your talking points and practice them out loud. These must be shorter than your 30-second commercial, because in television, you get about half that amount of time to say what you want to say. Yes--you heard me right! You’ll have ten seconds to give your audience your message! Each of these ten-second shots at fame will come in succession, as you have a back-and-forth conversation with your interviewer. Media interviews--especially radio and television interviews--are not monologues, they are dialogues.

Many people don’t realize that it’s up to them to supply the media with interview questions for radio, TV and podcasts. Write these so that you can answer the questions with your already-prepared sound bites or talking points. Provide them to any broadcast or print journalist who interviews you.

How do you write interview questions that the media will find useful? To answer this question, let’s go about it backwards, by writing your talking points first. Let’s say you are an accountant interested in promoting yourself with small business owners. Here is a sample set of talking points:

1. Make it a priority to understand your company’s financials and use these reports to manage your business.
2. Know your most cost effective products and services.
3. Comprehend your cash flow statements.
4. Do not fail to review budget-to-actuals on a weekly/monthly basis.
5. Without the constant review of where the financials of the business are currently standing, you cannot make informed decisions about expansion, purchasing new assets or developing a new product.

These are workable talking points, but they lack a certain pizzazz, wouldn’t you agree? With a little imagination and creativity, we can whip these points into something a lot more fun to listen to, which in turn makes the points themselves more memorable. How about transforming these talking points into “The Five Commandments of Cash Flow”? One of our clients did just that:

The Five Commandments of Cash Flow

1. Know Thy Numbers.
2. Thou Shalt Save For a Rainy Day.
3. Know Thy Customers.
4. Honor Thy Banker.
5. Thou Shalt Not Use Thy Business as a Credit Card.

Now we’re getting somewhere! We’ve created sound bites that are memorable -- not just for those listening, but for ourselves as well. Because you must memorize your sound bites and be ready to talk about them at a moment’s notice, do yourself a favor and find a catchy phrase or a tagline that will help you remember your messages.

If you had five commandments, and five to ten bullet points under each commandment, supplemented with plenty of anecdotes (humorous ones are often the best), you could probably talk for at least a half hour on your topic! The very worst thing you can ever do in an interview is ramble and hem-haw around.