Ep 223 How to Speak during a Live TV or Radio Interview August 10, 2016
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The following is a time-coded transcript of the show:
how do you speak to the news media if it's a live interview
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speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media at work
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speaking with TJ Walker how do you speak to the news media that's a live
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interview it's live TV live radio live webcast people can see you now the
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implication that's a common question I get the application is that you should
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somehow treat this very differently from and edited interview whether it's video
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audio or a telephone interview with the text reporter there is this idea out
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there that most executives politicians authors experts have that they're just
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completely different interviews
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I subscribe to the school of thought that says no
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for the most part you should treat them exactly the same because anything you do
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well in an edited interview having a message sticking to the message having
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good sound bites are pretty good things to do in live interviews
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- now the irony of course is most people think that live interviews are scarier
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harder to do more difficult and that somehow it's safe for easier to do
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recorded interviews edited reason it's just not true with an edited interview
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you give so much more power to the reporter because you can be on message
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have a great message
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stick to it a hundred times in three hours and say one stupid thing for two
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seconds and that's the only boat that gets in the story for an edited
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interview so I do believe that any time you have a chance between live versus
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recorded and edited always go for the live interview
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like that's why during a time of crisis some politicians actually really require
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they said we will not do an interview unless it's live
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because when it's live
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you can guarantee that you can get some of your messages across reporter might
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interrupt you my talk over you might say you're full of baloney
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but you can get your message across four edited interviews
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you really don't have that control the reporter can edit out anything they
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think it's completely irrelevant or not remain to the topic so certainly in
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times of crisis when you know your issue is going to be contentious with the
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try to do as many live interviews as possible because you can bridge back to
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your message now here's what gets people tripped up
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they think oh I know I'm supposed to have bring messages bridge back to many
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messages again and began for an edited interview but since it's live
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I don't want to do that because i don't want to bore people here's the problem
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let's say you're on a live talk radio show for a whole hour
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sounds like a lot of time you don't want to bore people here's the thing if you
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look at a typical am talk radio show for example we've got news weather sports
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traffic to about seven after the hour
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the host is going to talk set things up maybe another commercial a few questions
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the whole amount of time you talk in the first 15 minute block might only be two
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well guess what for most talk radio shows the average listing time moment
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might only be 15 minutes people are listing on their drive to the grocery
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store to pick up their kids out listing for the whole hour so if you don't
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really nail your messages in
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a couple of times you have to talk during that 15 minute block for your own
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they're not going to hear it you certainly don't want to wait till the
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end of the hour to make your pitch to talk about the issue you care about the
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in most situations some shows can be a little different but that's a big
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mistake many people make it the OS an hour we have the luxury of going into so
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you could but can you really guarantee your audience will remember more get
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much more out of it are the more likely to take the action you want again I'm
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operating under the assumption that when you're going on a talk show you want
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people to either buy your book
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subscribe to a newsletter vote for you donate to the charity you're promoting
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you want people to take a specific action
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so you've got to work back from that and figure out what are the three ideas or
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so that are going to motivate the audience to take that specific action
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and then communicate that in a way that's interesting and memorable
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now what is it a little bit different about live interviews is you don't have
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to speak in sound bites
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although if you do that only helps again what is a sound by the sound is simply
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more interesting memorable way of stating a message and stating in a
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abstract way the other thing about live interviews is if you say something
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interesting and quotable
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there's no reason why reporters can't pull quotes from the live interview and
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put it into other stories
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how many times have we seen some news maker live on a news program Face the
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Nation one of the Sunday morning talk shows
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say something that's interesting or attack someone and then the wire
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services of the New York Times will pull that quote out put it in stories that
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get filtered about for the next week
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so just because something is live doesn't mean it can't
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edited especially if you say something stupid or something while the
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controversial more in a moment to hire TJ walker as a keynote speaker or
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workshop leader for your next conference call - 12 7 64 4955 this next question
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i'm going to toss out to you is what I do here from time to time it
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at first blush it seems ridiculous but it actually deals with a common problem
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the question is how do you smile during a speech now unless you have a
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neurological problem or a major dental problem
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most people smile all the time you smile when you're happy is my oh and you're
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telling a joke you smile when you hear a job
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smile and you see a child or someone you love
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so human beings smile pretty easily the problem of course is that when you're
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nervous or uncomfortable
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the thing most people do is their face goes blank if you're giving a speech and
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you don't love giving speeches and you're not a hundred percent comfortable
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most people are in that category the natural thing to do is to have your face
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go blank and the problem then is you are going to look nervous you're going to
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look uncomfortable you're going to look scared
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and that can have a downward spiraling effect because you are you thinking of
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I'm not smiling i'm looking scared two people they're going to think I'm
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that's actually going to make you more nervous so it's a negative cycle of
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non-virtue so to speak
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so how do you protect against that two big ways of doing it
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number one have some ideas have some stories that bring a smile to your face
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the easiest way to smile is to recount and
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actual story that's relevant to your audience that brings a smile to your
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face and then it's authentic
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that's why you can't yet another reason why you can't just get up and go over
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fact fact dated updated updated up is it's just hard to smile or stuff like
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what you don't want to do is have a big phony fake smile plastered on your face
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it has to look authentic it's one thing people are good at all over the world
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these days is spotting phony and bad actors because everyone watches movies
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TV shows produced from hollywood bollywood the great production houses of
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the world and so we're used to seeing bad actors
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so if you go from a blank scared look to to a too quick of a fake
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big smile or it's just teeth showing in your eyes don't look happy people can
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spot that Richard Nixon was famously accused of this quite often of just to
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quickly putting on a big fake smile and that building to his image of being
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so the solution is to tell stories say things that naturally bring a light to
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your face smile to your face
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the other thing is I know you've heard me say this before so if you're tired of
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you need to practice your speeches on video and actually look at your face
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because if you're looking at your face and you're saying wow this person seems
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like he or she is frowning doesn't look happy
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then you can adjust for the next time
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if you're in front of a lot of people in your feeling nervous especially there
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any video cameras around my recommendation put just a tiny little
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bit of a smile on your face
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just a little upturn think of it almost is just bringing your cheeks up it
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doesn't have to be a giant toothy grin
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but you want your face up as opposed to completely blank as if it's completely
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blank you look bored and scared something you have to not necessarily
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practice magenta think about it
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you have to watch and you have to measure I'm PJ Walker has always been
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all of your presentations be a success and may they put smiles on other
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see you next time speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily
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