The Media Interview

I’m not a fan of titles like this: 7 Steps to the Perfect Media Interview. The article is from John Jantsch - author of the popular (and I think highly useful) Duct Tape Marketing System and there’s nothing I would disagree with in his 7 steps. But neither will they lead to a perfect interview… whatever that is exactly. Following them will improve your chances of achieving the goals you set for your media interviews, but make them perfect? Hmmmm.

Sure, the use of “perfect” is a marketing tool to grab people’s attention and it’s easy to say that people aren’t fooled by hyperbole, but you have to know that for a good number of them there’s a tiny part of their brain that perks up at the sound of the word and thinks: this is my ticket to success.

John’s marketing tool has indeed grabbed attention - this search in Google yields 24 sites who quote from, link to, or reproduce John’s article; probably many more if you tried other variations. Haven’t come across any other articles about media interview tips that are as widely referenced. No doubt the success is due in part to John’s ability to effectively market his information, but it certainly hasn’t hurt to have the “p” word.

Am I being overly sensitive about this? Maybe, but if I was looking for a personal media coach and they talked about making my interviews perfect I wouldn’t take it as a sign of confidence; I’d keep looking.

BTW, I’ve used John’s article as an example simply because I kept seeing it everywhere (just found it on Hewlett-Packard’s Small Business site), but there are other examples on the internet.