Speaking in soundbites

- When I was a senior health producer at Fox News Channel, I booked guest experts all the time. Sometimes experts rambled when the host wanted a short answer and sometimes people didn't give enough information. To be a go-to media expert, you need to be able to speak in sound bites. A sound bite is a portion of an interview that is particularly powerful and catchy. It's what journalists are looking for. That means you have to be able to talk about your expertise within different time constraints. And this is the core of my media prep plan that I teach all of my media training clients. I call it the accordion method. It's called this because you should have a short, medium, and long answer to any question that is asked of you and you can open or close the accordion accordingly at any time. Here are the four steps to using it. Step one, what is the question? First, brainstorm the basic question or questions you'll likely be asked during the interview. You need to know the show and its audience to figure this one out. Watch previous episodes and see what kinds of questions the hosts usually ask. For example, I'm often asked, "Why did you write a book about lists?" Okay, great. This takes us to step number two. What is the short answer? Once you come up with a key question, you need to draft a short answer. This is the answer you give when you only have a few seconds. Think in headlines. Get to the point quickly here. For example, my short answer to, "Why did you write a book about lists?" is, "Lists changed my life." You see that? It's short, it's to the point, and it gets the message across succinctly and powerfully. But if I have more time, then I can go to step number three, what is the medium answer? You can open up the accordion a bit and use your medium answer. Just like for your short answer, you want to get right to the point, but now you can add a little bit more detail. So for example, my medium answer for "Why did you write a book about lists?" is, "Lists changed my life. "I went from being overwhelmed and disorganized "to successful and less stressed." Here's the key to medium answers. Start with a bang and then add some context and evidence, rather than the other way around. Okay, so this is not intuitive, because it's not usually how we write. Typically, you'd start with a story and then finish with a thesis statement. But beginning with something like, "Lists changed my life" grabs attention right away. Don't hold back. Start with your thesis, your big line, your controversial statement. Pack a punch right from the beginning. Okay, if you're on a podcast or long form show, you can probably use step number four. What is the long answer? You begin with a strong start, just like with the medium answer, but then you add even more to it. Here's my long answer. "Lists changed my life. "I went from being overwhelmed and disorganized "to successful and less stressed. "Every night before I leave my desk for the evening, "I make a to-do list for the following day. "I run through everything I need to do "so I can hit the ground running in the morning." Did you notice how all my details are specific? My explanation of my routine is evidence for my first statement. Start noticing how newspaper articles are written and how news anchors speak. It's exactly this way. Now that you know the accordion method, you can use it for your media prep or anytime you're speaking in public.