If you truly prepare for a big issue, you'll have piles of fact sheets, background information, talking points and whatnot.
Preparing too well can actually trip you up, because a message has to be short and simple to break through.
The more you prepare, the more tempting it is to complicate your message.
This is especially true with quotes and soundbites, whether you're talking to a print reporter, doing a radio show or TV interview.
A good quote or soundbite has to be short and pithy. Exactly how short may surprise you.
The best data on this comes from TV soundbites for presidential candidates.
Daniel Hadlin studied soundbites on network news stations for presidential candidates. You'd expect CBS, NBC and ABC to give people running for president a lot of coverage, and back in the 1960s, the average soundbite was more than 40 seconds long.
By the 1980s, the average soundbite for presidential candidates had dropped down to less than 10 seconds.
New research by Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik Bucy shows the soundbites of today are even shorter at 7.7 seconds, and they say the decline of words has made images even more important.
The work of Michael Deaver when Ronald Reagan was president buttresses this point. Deaver safeguarded the image of Reagan -- literally. His main concern for TV stories wasn't the angle of the story or the words being said by the reporter. What mattered to him were the images being shown on the screen. If a story was unflattering, but the station ran footage of Reagan looking presidential, that was a win.
But back to the words. How do you say something meaningful in 7.7 seconds?
You don't want public figures talking like auctioneers. A decent speaking rate that's pleasant to listen to is between 100 and 150 words per minute. So depending on the speaker, a soundbite that's 7.7 seconds can be roughly 10 to 14 words.
Pick those words wisely.
Also, make sure (a) it's what you say first, because the first thing you tell a reporter is likely what they'll quote or broadcast and (b) pause before and after your soundbite, so a print reporter has time to write it down and TV or radio reporters don't have to work hard to cut it out your best quote from the middle of a muddle of words.