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Warren Weeks

Dad. Media training coach. I sold my 1st newspaper to my grandmother when I was 5. Writer. Conference speaker. Podcast host. Biz owner for 19+ years.

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The executive blind spot

Everyone knows executives and entrepreneurs who are super hard-core about self improvement. They pursue post-grad studies. They go on retreats, read books, listen to business podcasts, attend conferences, practice intermittent fasting, cold plunges, yoga. They're always looking for a hack. An edge. Something to help them level up 1%. Something that will make them smarter, better prepared, more successful. Many of these leaders share a common vulnerability. They don't know how to prepare for...

3 months ago • 2 min read

I was doing a media training session last week when the CEO popped into the room and said, "I haven't seen one of your emails in a while." Aww, I didn't think anyone had noticed! I do apologize for the lack of content of late. My media training schedule has kept me on the move over the past few months. So, let's do a little catch-up, shall we? Your best messages are in the friendzone In the world of romance, the friendzone is the last place anyone wants to be. But when you're trying to write...

5 months ago • 5 min read

I hope you're doing well and that you're having a great summer so far! With any luck, you're on a beach, at a cottage or hanging out with family and friends this week. Anyway, this is just a quick heads-up about two new podcast interviews I published in the past week that I thought you might enjoy, since they're with experts in the marketing and communications worlds. The first is a conversation with Ron Tite. He's a keynote speaker, author and the founder of marketing agency Church+State. We...

9 months ago • 1 min read

If you surveyed people who do media interviews, you’d discover that one of their most common fears is freezing up during a live TV or radio interview. Losing their train of thought and drawing a blank while the seconds tick agonizingly by. It’s truly the stuff of nightmares. Here are my top 5 tips to help you avoid becoming the deer in the headlights during your next live media interview: Write better messages (and less of them) - You don’t need endless pages of content, stats and numbers for...

10 months ago • 2 min read

I have two objectives this week. One is to share what I consider to be one of the most important ideas that can help pave the way for better media coverage for you and your company. The second is to give you a peek inside my online media training course, The Art of the Great Media Interview. I've had a few people email me asking about the structure and content of the course (what does it look like, what do the videos cover, etc.). So this week's content has been pulled right from the course...

11 months ago • 2 min read

Elon Musk. Whether you love him or hate him, this week's media interview tip is inspired by the polarizing billionaire. This past week, Musk did an in-depth, sit-down interview with CNBC's David Faber following Tesla's 2023 annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas. The interview was wide-ranging, touching on topics including his acquisition of Twitter, the economic outlook, interest rates, free speech, artificial intelligence and the US presidential race to name a few. But it wasn't the...

11 months ago • 1 min read

I hope you're having a great weekend! You might have noticed (or maybe not?) there were no newsletters the past two weeks. In addition to being busy racing around Ontario doing media training sessions, I must admit I didn't really feel like I had anything worthwhile to share. And, so, rather than send some generic content to meet an arbitrary deadline, I've decided to only write when there's a comms-related topic that has captured my attention and which I think might be of interest to you. I...

12 months ago • 4 min read

As a media spokesperson, you have more control over the length of your media interview than you might think. Ask any journalist. Gathering two or three usable quotes from a typical spokesperson is a bit like pulling teeth. Many spokespeople treat a media interview like a conversation and, as a result, journalists end up on the receiving end of a lot of partial thoughts (e.g. the spokesperson starts a new idea halfway through the previous thought), rambling answers, corporate speak, industry...

about 1 year ago • 2 min read

I was delivering a media training session for a university a few months back. As is often the case in media training sessions, most of the participants' interview topics were based on crisis scenarios. In these scenarios, it's common for people to be either killed, hurt, offended or inconvenienced. When it came time to review and discuss the participants' key messages, a member of the school's Communications team shared an acronym that's been stuck in my head ever since. I've referenced it...

about 1 year ago • 1 min read

Last fall, I did a three-part series on becoming a better presenter. It was a detailed look at the elements I thought were important to deliver the best presentation possible. If you're a new subscriber, you can find the first of those three issues here. This week, I want to take this to a whole new level by analyzing every measurable aspect of a keynote I delivered this past Thursday with the intention of drawing out some observations and insights that I hope you will find useful as you try...

about 1 year ago • 6 min read
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