Everything about a media appearance should be about effectively communicating your key message but how do you make sure you did it the right way? Sally offers a small checklist you can use. First, you should be able to hook the audience in just a couple of lines and there should be a nice, catchy headline. Second, try to insert ST words into your story, like the best, the strongest, the first etc. Superlatives just create more impact. And finally, support what you say with facts. Once you get the story picked up, you need to focus on proving your key messages, says Sally. Watch the whole video for all her tips on solidifying your position.

While an interview is supposed to be about questions, there are times when you get those curveball questions, as another Present to Succeed lector, David Goad, calls them, and you might not be sure how to play them out. Sally says questions are opportunities to reiterate your key message and we need to embrace them, rather than panic about them. She even offers a formula for it:  

Q (the question)= A+1 

A is your answer or it’s you acknowledging the question, because you might not have the answer at the moment. It sounds like “Thank you for the question” or “That’s a great question, I can see why you’ve asked that”. Then comes the + which is a linking phrase that you use to go back to 1, your key message. That’s right, any question can be used as an opportunity to draw the attention back to your intent. 

Sally Prosser says that mastering your breath does wonders for your media performance. While we do experience different levels of public speaking anxiety, this can be overcome by warming up your jaws and practicing breathwork. (And before you ask what warming up your jaws means, it’s like a workout for your mouth. Watch the session for the actual exercise). And finally, Sally says that purposeful breathing will teach you to slow down and get comfortable with the unusual situation of talking to the media.