Valley PR Blog

Why don’t more local companies use media training?

By Linda VandeVrede on April 18th, 2008 In Best Practices

Hats off to local talents like Kathy Kerchner, who are using their media backgrounds to help companies improve their poise in front of reporters and cameras. But why aren’t more Arizona-based companies doing this?

My speculation is that many of the local entrepreneurs launched their companies without much corporate experience, so they don’t know what they don’t know. It’s like people who teach themselves how to play golf. Can they get it down the fairway? Yeah. How does it look? Pretty awful.

One local company that is on a mission to use media training to protect their brand is Avnet. According to their Chief Communications Officer Al Maag, “Hoping (to get more PR coverage) is not a strategy. We are convinced that brand is important and one element of brand is PR. Studies show that most readers believe journalists over any advertising technique.”

He has been at Avnet for 10 years and has seen the company become much more open in its media dealings. They realized they needed more spokespeople within the company, and have media trained employees in Avnet offices around the world. Employees are told, ‘It’s part of your job.’ And apparently, the employees have enjoyed it. It has helped them with their career development. Avnet now earns over 50% of the coverage in their space – more than double that of their closest competitor.

One of the hardest thing for entrepreneurs to learn, according to Kathy Kerchner, is “how to take complicated concepts and bring them down to a level the average person understands. If you have the technical knowledge AND you can communicate, that’s the dynamic duo.” Her company, Master Your Message, trains individuals how to tell their story to the media with confidence, and with the necessary degree of intuition.

Case in point: I worked with an executive at one AZ company who felt that he had plenty of media experience and didn’t need to be trained. We went back east to visit one of the prominent computer publications, and he was bursting with pride when we sat down with the editor. He launched into his spiel immediately, supremely confident that she would lap up every word. “Let me tell you about my company…..” he began. The editor reached out, put her hand firmly on his arm, looked him in the eye, and said, “Please don’t. Just give me the names of customers who are using your product.”

No one, including me (and shame on me), had had the temerity to stop him mid-sentence before. I asked Kathy, what’s your advice for PR pros whose bosses just don’t think they need media training? What do you say to them? Her suggestion: “Tell them that they are good, and this will help them be the best they can be.” Al’s perspective: “If you want to increase your business, and if you don’t want to be reading about your competitors all the time in the press, you have to get up and get in the game.”

What’s your experience? Have your clients willingly agreed to undergo media training? Or are they winging it?

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