Speaker 1: Hi everyone, welcome to this edition of the broadcast where we give you bite-sized bits of best practices to help you be a better leader and a more effective communicator. I'm your host, Jarrett Bro. Earlier this week on social media, we asked this question, what should be your first words in a media interview? Regardless of whether it's tape, radio, in-person, web, print, TV, it doesn't matter, what should your first words be? That's kind of a trick question, but here are some of the observations we got. Little Black Book said, thank you for the opportunity to meet you. Sorry, not the right answer. One of the things you don't want to do in an interview is waste time on thank yous, especially if it's a live interview, because every second is valuable and worth money. And if you waste seconds on pleasantness rather than getting to a good answer, you've lost a lot of money. Michael says, start by saying and spelling your name, including your title. Michael says, too often the media screw up the basics. Yep, good observation, Michael. And Justin agrees and says, start with, my name is John Doe. The spelling is J-O-H-N-D-O-E, my title is, and give that. Yep, good basic stuff. M. Light the Wind says, always start by saying, I brought donuts. That's always a funny one, because in the newsroom, people love to eat. But maybe I wasn't clear enough on the question. Here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to go into every interview knowing the answer to the first question, regardless of what the first question is going to be. This is something that I pioneered in my media training classes. Because so many people are so upset wondering, what will the first question be? To which I have to explain to them, it doesn't matter what the first question is if you know how the beginning of the answer starts. Let me go deeper in that. Preambles are the perfect way to begin an interview. Sure, get the pleasantries out the way, make sure they spell your name right. But if you're asked a direct question, buffer a direct question with a preamble that adds context and purpose to why you are there. If there are universal truths about the topic, get into the universal truths. Try to get two or three universal truths about that topic that the entire audience can agree with. Let me give you a perfect example. I use a videotape in my media training class in which an executive has to build a $700 million chemical plant. And it's a controversial plant in a controversial location. And the reporter asked a direct question, and the executive gave a horrible direct answer. The direct question is, will this plant pollute at all? And his answer was, well, yes. We have permits from the state to make caustic chlorine, BDC, VCM, PVC. And he goes on with this alphabet soup, and he ends by saying, and that permit is essentially a license to pollute. That soundbite helped this facility never get built. A 12-second soundbite have a $700 million impact on that company. Instead, he could have started with a preamble that stated certain universal truths. I would have written this for him. I would have had him say, in order for us to build this facility, we have to promise to be protective of human health and the environment. We have to protect the air, we have to protect the land, and we have to protect the water. Let me tell you how we're going to do that. You see what that is? It's a preamble that stated three truths that the entire audience could essentially agree with. There was no spin. We didn't pivot off to another topic. We had a context. Before you go into your next interview, spend some time, whether it's you as the spokesperson or someone that you're training, spend some time to develop a great preamble so that you're not worried about what the first question is. Know how the beginning of the answer begins. Sure, that's not the entire answer. There will always be some ad libs, but the more you can script, the less you're likely to say something outrageously bad that's going to cost your company millions of dollars. Well, those are my thoughts on this topic. We'll be back with another question next week. For the Brocast, I'm Jared Bro.