The MediaCoach

Hi John,

I'm at the annual conference of the Professional Speakers Association of the UK and Ireland. . It's an opportunity to reconnect with my tribe, meet old friends and make new ones, and most importantly for you, chat to speakers from around the world about advice that I will be passing on (with full credit to them) over the coming months.

I'm a follower of political speeches. Politics apart (I know, its difficult), I like to assess how political leaders perform in terms of technique. Here is my analysis of Theresa May's speech to the Conservative Party Conference 2018 - what did you think?

Speaking is a global business. Too often, the focus is local or national. I have been working in the last few months with a speaking expert in Russia - Alexandra Pozharskaya. Hear my interview with her, and our plans for co-operation in the future, in the Media Coach Web Radio Show. There is also a superb song from Geoff Gibbons.
Go to the iTunes Archive of the MediaCoach Show
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The MediaMaestro award goes to Zoe Ball, who has been announced as the first woman to present the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, some twenty years after becoming the first woman to present the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. She quit the Radio 1 breakfast show in 2000, after two-and-a-half years, to raise a family. She'd enjoyed audiences of more than 7 million; and interviewed everyone from the Spice Girls to Madonna. I'm sure that guests will be clamouring to come on her new show when she takes over in January, since it's the most-listened to radio show in the UK. Good for her!

The MediaMug award goes to Costa Coffee which has had an advert banned for urging customers to buy a bacon roll rather than avocados. The radio ad featured a voiceover which said there was "a great deal on ripen-at-home avocados" but they will only "be ready to eat for about 10 minutes, then they'll go off". Now, I'm a fan of both a bacon roll and avocado - in fact bacon and avocado together is no bad thing. But in its ruling, the Advertising Standards Authority said consumers would interpret the ad as a comparison between the experience of eating an avocado and a bacon roll or egg muffin. Ah well. Pass the brown sauce and the lemon juice.

STORYBOARD YOUR SPEECH

Pictures can tell a great story. However, the pictures that you paint in the minds of your audience members can tell it even more strongly. Better yet are the pictures that they paint themselves based on your words, since that will make your message really memorable. In order to create those great images, there are several things that you can do.

Let's talk about storyboarding (I may have made up a verb there, but stick with me). Every scriptwriter, and many fiction writers, use storyboards to show the flow of their narrative. The basic elements are a large board and some pictures (no real surprises there, eh?). Each element of your presentation (be it a speech, film or novel) is represented by a picture, which can be hand-drawn, a photograph, or an image from a magazine or newspaper. You can even include a few words if you like. Once you have assembled all the elements of your speech, move them around until they "flow" nicely. Not only will you create a speech that delights your audience, you will also find it easy to remember, provided you have no more than around 15 images.

When you deliver your speech, use words that enhance the images. Describe the sights, sounds, smells and feel of elements within your images. Be as specific as you can. As you see the picture from your storyboard in your mind's eye, describe it. As you get more used to using this technique, you will find that you can easily deliver a 40-minute speech without notes. And you won't need any slides either.

NOT BEING THERE

You may well be asked to do a TV interview with a presenter in a remote location. These "down-the-line" interviews can be tough to do, since there is no-one there with you, and you have to do a fair amount of set-up work yourself. Even in Broadcasting House in London, the home of the BBC, you may be given a key to the remote studio, shown the way, and left to it. If you are luckier, you will be helped by a technician, who will set everything up for you before the interview starts.

Your focus will be the camera that is pointing at you. You need to look directly at it for the duration of your interview. If you look away, even for a moment, the viewer will perceive you as being less than totally honest, since it will appear to them that you can't "look them in the eye". The trick to this type of interview, then, is to maintain your gaze on the lens. Speaking to an inanimate object is not easy. For this reason, most presenters will imagine that they are talking to a trusted friend on the other side of the lens. If you can visualise a colleague, friend or family member that you enjoy talking to, imagine that you are speaking to them, and them alone, through the lens in front of you.

You will hear the interviewer's voice through a speaker. Don't look to where the voice is coming from, but keep focusing on the camera. If there is a monitor in the room, showing the interviewer in vision, it is almost impossible to ignore it. What you can do before the interview is to ask the technician if you can turn it off or turn it away from you. As a last resort, throw your coat over it.

Keep your gaze steady. It will only be for a few minutes. Finally, don't forget that you may be in sound and vision, and possibly recorded, before the interview starts. Don't make any unguarded remarks, even in jest.

WHO DO YOU KNOW WHO KNOWS SOMETHING - OR SOMEONE?

Social networking is not just about who you know. It's much more about who they know. For example, I have over 8,000 Twitter followers. Assuming an average of 500 followers for each of them, I can reach four million people in two steps. It's this, in my opinion, that is making Twitter the collective brain of the planet. LinkedIn tells me exactly how many "second level" contacts I have - currently almost two and a half million.

Once, I used to turn to Google if I had a question I couldn't answer. Now I turn to social networks. In the one week alone, they have helped me find the source of an obscure quote, helped me to get rid of some furniture to a good home, and allowed me to set up an interview with a rock star. All of the responses came back within 10 minutes. It's not who you know, it's who they know (and what they know, too).

However, don't abuse your network by continually asking questions and seeking help. Give more than you receive. When you really need some information, someone will provide it for you, if you have behaved with respect and been helpful to others.

Apparently there are a staggering four million songs on Spotify that have never been listened to. You can do something about that.

My year-long speaker coaching programme is now taking bookings for 2019. Drop me a line for details.

The information in this ezine may be freely re-used in any online or offline publication, provided it is accompanied by the following credit line - "This information was written by Alan Stevens, and originally appeared in "The MediaCoach", his free weekly ezine, available at www.mediacoach.co.uk."