Writing a speech? There are some tips to be gleaned by reading two high profile speeches delivered late last week. Both the Chancellor, Philip Hammond and the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney gave their annual Mansion House speech to city grandees. Here I am not going to comment on the substance of […]
Remember the numbers! This needs to be a new mantra for anyone planning high profile media interviews. Sadly the media are deeply unforgiving of someone who doesn’t know a number. Nicola Sturgeon forgets the cost of Scottish Independence Nicola Sturgeon was last Friday, the latest in a long line of politicians to forget a key […]
Answer the question! A phrase that must be shouted at the radio and television hundreds of times a day. It is also a plea used by many a frustrated political interviewer. But last week interviewer Richard Madeley (of Richard and Judy) went one step further and after several attempts to get Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson […]
I have come to the conclusion that each of us who represent our business to the outside world, however that is defined, needs to have a honed and perfected elevator pitch. What is an elevator pitch? It is a succinct, thought-through and rehearsed explanation of what the business does. Why do we need one? Because […]
How to sit and stand on TV is one of those things that we cover as standard in any broadcast media training. The rules are very simple and widely understood, so I was immediately struck when I saw this interview with Bill Gates on Friday. I happened to have the Sky News Channel on mute […]
As a team, we at The Media Coach both give and watch a lot of presentations. I find watching someone else give an unprepared and hesitant or confusing presentation deeply physically uncomfortable. I am also horribly aware when occasionally I fall short on some of these very simple rules. So for all of us at […]
The blue passport has been called an icon of British Identity. And we are going to hear a lot more about that icon in the coming weeks. The blue passport: why all the fuss? The blue passport was discontinued in 1988, although given the lifetime of passports there were probably a few around for 20 […]
Journalists are not clients or customers and this seems to confuse those planning to speak with them for the first time. One of the great advantages of being a consultant of any sort but a media trainer, in particular, is you get a huge variety of experience. We get to see and experience the cultures […]
Rail passenger communication needs to be dragged into the 21st Century. Stuck on a train, in the snow, trying to get to a training session on time or catch a flight must be among the most frustrating, the most stressful and the most unpleasant experiences of my life. And I had a number of those experiences […]
Oxfam is in crisis. There must be a whole book of ‘lessons’ from the implosion of this once great British organisation. An implosion caused by a seven-year-old scandal exposed by The Times newspaper last Friday. It is ghastly to watch and a text book example of a ‘crisis’ where new damaging elements of the negative […]
