Figure out what you want to say.

The goal of this training is to give you and your team the tools for handling professional journalists. We will clarify, tighten up and refresh the delivery of your ideas, ensuring you are seen in your best light.  Participants learn how to side risky questions with grace  and develop productive relationships with reporters. Training is tailored both to the likely audience and outlet including television, social media, legacy press, web media, podcasts and radio.

Most media training sessions last two hours, with 30 minute follow ups as needed. Coaching can be done individually, in small groups of up to four people or via larger lecture format webinars.

The skills you learn in media training are widely transferable. Media training teaches you how to:

• Push your strongest ideas to the fore in meetings
• Communicate those ideas efficiently so you retain credit
• Eliminate the assumptions and jargon that alienate clients and colleagues
• Infuse humor and storytelling into your answers

Executives are increasingly being asked to moderate a panel in front of a televised audience. The ability to manage both a panelists expectations and the audience’s is no easy feat, especially without training.

Being a great moderator isn’t all that different from running a meeting. You need to be sensitive. You need to listen. You need to prepare ahead of time so you can pull the best from the team. Yet, many moderators fall down on the job, asking boring, plodding questions that don’t reveal truths. For those who are used to presenting information, the role is radically different and requires more humility and a different kind of preparation.

Moderator training sessions last 90 minutes and are done either privately or in a group session. Thirty minute follow ups are recommended to practice skills, and can be done individually or in small groups.

The skills you learn in moderator training are widely transferable. Moderating teaches you how to:

• Run a meeting by listening more and talking less
• Become inclusive by pulling in shy folks and curbing loquacious ones
• Tease out important anecdotes from your team or client

Fear of speaking in public is pervasive and relentless. It’s understandable you or your team may be daunted by the complexity of delivering a deck or answering a client’s question. It’s hard.

The skill of speaking well is one of the most important skills to learn, and it is infinitely learnable. No great speaker started out great. 

This training lays out the pillars of successful oratory, whether it be a formal presentation for clients, a keynote speech, an appearance on a panel or impromptu comments made in a meeting. 

Special emphasis is made on pitfalls common to expert presentations– overly dense slides, poor storytelling, lack of context in the opening minutes, and carelessness towards the audience — and recommendations on how to avoid them. 

These trainings are tailored to your organizations speaking needs. Worried about the way your team uses voice and body language to communicate? We can concentrate on that. Worried about what is going on the slides and whether that information is landing with an audience? We can also work on that.

Transferable skills:

• Learn important time management skills 
• Relearn the joys of simplicity and persuasion

The training will pressure test the organization’s response to a hypothetical crisis and help develop messaging that could be used in a real-life scenario. The session will expose what vulnerabilities the organization may have, who on the leadership team is best positioned to speak for the company and what messaging works. The session can include media training and deposition training.

Working off a predetermined scenario, we will role-play communicating with the press, workers and stakeholders during an unfolding crisis. Each member of the team will be invited to discuss the issue  from a different angle. Feedback will be offered in real time and deliverables often include recommendations on strategic realignment.