Customized Media & Spokesperson Training

When you give a great interview, you present yourself and your organization well, convey your key messages, advance your objectives AND increase your value as a spokesperson and source. So, why chance it?

SHERMAN communications’ media and spokesperson training program is proven, effective, fun, informative and equips participants to work with and speak to media in the most effective and helpful way possible (for both parties).

Before any session, we have participants complete a questionnaire, discuss objectives and then design our training around what clients know about media, want to achieve and their role as company representatives / spokespersons.

We have trained CEOs, CFOs, COOs, VPs of marketing, VPs of sales, VPs of development, division heads, heads of production, authors, and folks in many other roles.

We’ve trained one person to 10 people. Most sessions take half a day. In December 2019, we designed and conducted a two-day training program for top-level executives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Primary participant outcomes:

  • Overcome your uncertainty about interviews and gain confidence.
  • Develop a much stronger understanding about what media want and how to provide it.
  • View the interview from the reporter’s perspective and understand the demands of his/her industry, profession, audience and editors. Create a mutual understanding and benefit between yourself, your organization and the interviewer.
  • Learn how to create compelling key messages…and how to incorporate them into your answers.
  • Learn how to avoid making statements or providing answers that may later come back to bite you.
  • Learn how to thoroughly prepare for a media interview or press conference by researching reporters and their outlets, creating sample questions, practicing answers, using key messages and creating handouts.
  • Gain added comfort by learning that most interviews are just fluid, dynamic conversations.
  • Learn how to carefully listen and respond to each question with thoughtful, engaging answers vs. canned responses.
  • Learn how to build on your initial interviews and develop valuable relationships with reporters.
  • Learn how to create potential questions & answers.
  • Practice via interactive, mock interview with real-world, custom examples. Simulate on-camera interviews.