Media Training Prepares Founders for Any Interview
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
Most media opportunities happen fast and only allow you a few hours to prepare.
During a recent Inc. Founders House event in Santa Monica, I was unexpectedly invited to participate in an on-camera Q&A to discuss the value of business travel and attending live events. It was just before 9 a.m. and they needed me on camera in just a few hours. The interview would be a full setup with a boom mic, a camera, and a producer.
Everything moved quickly. In less than 15 minutes from receiving the invitation, I agreed to participate, and by 2 p.m., the interview was filmed and wrapped. Not exactly the kind of opportunity where you have time to prepare, let alone overthink your answers.
Media training is an essential communications strategy
While that might sound fast-moving, it’s an accurate reflection of how media opportunities tend to work. They seldom arrive on a perfectly manicured timeline. The window to say yes is often smaller than people expect, and you may only have a few hours or less to gather your talking points. This is exactly why it’s imperative to prepare before the opportunity even exists.
Many founders assume media training is reserved for when the big interview has been booked or there is a crisis. In reality, media training is a foundational part of your communication strategy. Whether it’s a podcast, a panel, or an on-camera interview, media training prepares you to communicate the points your audience needs to hear quickly and efficiently.
Public speaking and being media ready aren’t the same
What often surprises people is that being a strong public speaker doesn’t automatically translate into media readiness. Many founders are excellent on stage. They’ve honed the skill of telling a compelling story, holding attention, and delivering a point, but media interviews require a different kind of communication discipline. You don’t typically have the luxury of building context gradually. In many cases, you need to deliver a complete, clear, and useful answer in under a minute—sometimes even less—without losing your impact.
Beyond that, it’s important to understand how the media will use your answer. Short, succinct, and impactful statements should be usable on their own, without requiring the audience to seek additional context or the prompter’s question. This means you must not only know how to format your answers but also how to avoid vague references or answers that assume the audience has the necessary context.
It’s a small shift, but it makes a significant difference in how effectively you communicate your message.
Preparation brings clarity
Most founders know their business inside and out, but unfortunately, being too close to it can make it harder to pinpoint which information or topics matter in the moment. Media training pushes you beyond a basic elevator pitch, focusing on the practical information, and the questions you are most likely to receive about your business, rather than the ones you think they will ask.
Media training empowers you to answer concisely, consistently, and in a way that is easy to understand.
While everyone wants to answer questions about the topics that excite them, it is just as important, if not more, to prepare for the questions you hope no one asks. While it can be uncomfortable, thinking through and practicing responses to questions you don’t want to answer builds confidence, clarity, and helps you control the narrative when it matters most.
Over time, you start to recognize what a strong answer feels like, and you become more comfortable being brief without sounding abrupt, and more articulate without overexplaining.
Details make or break the moment
There’s an entire layer of preparation that has nothing to do with what you say but still impacts how you show up. Every behind-the-scenes detail—your eye contact, wardrobe, makeup and styling, posture, or habits like shifting in your chair—can undermine your presence if you haven’t worked through them in advance. They can seem minor until they become a distraction in the moment.
A friend recently described a Zoom interview with a TV station in a top-10 media market that went sideways because her camera framing was off. The producer asked her to adjust her camera right before going live; she then felt disconnected from the screen and lost her focus. Her message was perfect, but the disruption threw her off her rhythm, and she never found it again.
That’s exactly the kind of issue you can avoid with preparation. A good media training team doesn’t just ensure you know what to say but also aligns every detail to make sure you exude an executive presence that reflects the brand you are building.
Final thoughts
While media training doesn’t guarantee you’ll be perfect, doing the work in advance reduces friction. My media opportunity at Inc. Founders House was positive, seamless, and fun because I’ve spent years honing my message and building confidence on camera.
When you wake up prepared to talk about your business with impact, knowing how to structure an answer and manage the environment, you have the best chance at a successful media opportunity that moves the needle and ensures you don’t miss the moment.
