I was called by a reporter from a major national trade publication who was doing a story on media training and sound bites. The day he called was a national holiday, but I happened to be taping some video training segments when the call came in. I told the reporter that it wasn’t a good time and he said, “TJ, no problem, just call me back anytime in the next week.”
My response was, “I’ll call you today. How late will you be there?”
Why was I so insistent on calling him back that day, when it was a national holiday? Because I reasoned that this was the best way to get quoted in the story, to perhaps get more quotes than anyone else, to potentially squeeze other competitors out of the story, and to prevent the chance of not being interviewed at all.
I called the reporter back one hour later on the day of the holiday and he conducted an extensive 30 minute interview with me. I made darn sure he had dozens and dozens of greet sound bites from me on the relevant subject before we got off of the phone.
Here was my strategy:
- By calling back ASAP, I gave the reporter no time to forget me or his interest in the subject of interviewing me.
- By calling right away, I was his first interview for this story. It’s always best to be able to communicate any message first because that is when it is most memorable.
- By giving the interview first and by trying to make it a long and thorough interview, I am trying to subtly convince the reporter that he doesn’t need to interview anyone else on the subject, or at least not nearly as many people as he originally thought he might need.
- By getting my interview in the can, I am protected in case the reporter gets side tracked with other, more important stories. This way, even if the reporter had planned on interviewing 10 other experts, if I am the only one he got to and his deadline is in one hour, then chances are I will be the only one quoted.
- By being so prompt to call back, especially on a holiday, I generate more goodwill with the reporter. So it’s only human nature that if my quotes are comparable to another expert’s quotes who took a week to return a call, then the reporter may be more inclined to use mine.
- Long term reputation as a source. I always want reporters to feel like they can count on me for a quick turn around in their time of need. It just so happens that this story was not time sensitive. But my quick actions sent a message to this reporter that I am someone he can count on if he needed a quick comment on a breaking news story.
Always take enough time to prepare your message points and sound bites before calling back a reporter for an interview. But don’t take any more time than you need to do those bare essentials. In most cases, the early bird does get the bigger and juicier sound bite.
