It’s an old cliché that practice makes perfect – but it’s not true. No matter how good you get at a particular skill, you’ll never be ‘perfect’ because that would imply there’s nothing else to learn. And I believe there’s always something to learn: even the most skilled people in the world can always learn something new.

What you DO get by practising is, of course, a level of mastery at something, which can lead to some great opportunities. The more you keep doing something, the better at it you become: you go from being the ‘apprentice’ (complete beginner) to the ‘technician’ (competent) to the ‘master’ (you know your stuff) and even up another level to that of the ‘artist’ (you know your stuff so well you can create new depths to it).

That goes for giving media interviews. If you’ve never done one, or you’ve done one or two but not got any results in terms of more business or client attraction or more readers for your book, you need practice!

Journalists are super busy – we’re always on deadline for one story or another – and if you ramble on at us instead of staying ‘on message’ we’ll choose what to include and what to miss out. This means your most important points are unlikely to make it into the story, which defeats the purpose of you getting free publicity in the first place!

Like anything else, doing media interviews takes practice. The more you do, the better you get, which results in you getting invited to do even more interviews and of course you get even better until you get to a place where Ellen Degeneres could call and you know you’ll nail the interview.

• If a journalist called you today and wanted to get some comments from you for an article they’re writing, or wanted you on their radio or TV show, would you know what questions to ask THEM before agreeing to be featured?
• Do you know how to prepare for an interview with a reporter?
• Do you know how to answer a curly question without being drawn off-track by a journalist?

To get the answers to these questions along with a whole lot more valuable insider strategies, join my email newsletter by heading over to www.howtogetfreepublicitynow.com/freevideos (you’ll get my 5 free videos on the biggest mistakes to avoid when you want to get into the media).