“Good evening, and welcome to South East Today.  Our Top Stories tonight …” 

It’s a line I was privileged to utter many times over my twenty year career as one of the presenting team on the BBC’s nightly news programme covering the south-east of England.  

But there’s one word in those two sentences that’s doing all the work.  

“Stories”. 

It’s why people watched, and (the statistics suggested) usually watched to the end. 

If you apply the same principle to your own presentations, I reckon you’ll stand a much better chance of holding your own audience’s attention to the end. 

Let’s be honest.  They weren’t tuning in because they particularly wanted to see me or my co-presenter.  Yes, TV presenters do build up a loyal base of people who enjoy their through-the-screen friendship, but it’s not the primary reason they tune in. 

Audiences tune in because they want information, but they want it delivered in an engaging way.  Stories are the vehicle for that. 

Let me break down that principal — and then apply it to your world of business. 

Many of the news stories I covered could be, put bluntly, complex and boring.  But journalists take the view that they are paid, as journalists, to deal with that.  It’s a journalist’s job to make boring things interesting. 

Take a story about rail timetable changes, brought about to save money but dismaying some passengers.   It’s boring, but it’s important.  There are lots of facts in the story — schedules, rotas, budgets, policy, research. 

Does the news reporter simply list those details, with charts and graphs on the screen? 

No.  The reporter’s first instinct is to find a real person caught up in it all, and (briefly) tell their story.  And only once they’ve done that, they’ll perhaps put three or four key facts from those charts and graphs on the screen.

This slide from my latest workshop, How to Hold Your Audience’s Attention: Seven Clues from TV News! illustrates this. 

A story about rail delays?  We hear from a commuter, first.  Then we get a few figures. 

A story about council tax cuts?  We hear from a local resident, first.  Then we get a few statistics. 

A story about tech overload in young people?  We hear from a campaigner who’s tackling it, first.  Then we get a couple of data points from the research. 

A story about leasehold reform?  We hear from a gentleman called Jamie Pearman, a tenant (but for some reason the word ‘tenant’ was missed from the name captain!).   Then we get a couple of bar charts from a government survey about trends in housing policy. 

Let’s apply all that to your business. 

Let’s say you’re making changes to HR policy, and you need to present these to your staff in a meeting.  It’s boring, but it’s important.  There are lots of facts to get through — schedules, rotas, budgets, policy, research … 

Or you’re a technical consultant, delivering a sales pitch about your cloud data solution that could transform your audience’s business. 

The way to hold your audience’s attention is to find a real person who will be effected by this, and tell their story.  Immediately, you will have emotionally engaged your audience in a way that throwing numbers and charts at could not. 

A member of staff who’s going to be helped by those HR changes, perhaps? 

A former client who faced computer meltdown hell one Tuesday morning last March, but who you saved? 

At this point you may be shouting at the screen — “but you have no idea how many numbers and charts I have to include in my presentation!  And I’ve only been given eight minutes!  What am I going to do with all that data?  I’ve got to get through all these charts and graphs!” 

But I would ask you — do you really?  Is a visual, spoken presentation — no doubt with slides — is that really the best way to relay detailed information?   

TV reporters often have only 90 seconds to tell a story.  One of the hardest parts of learning to be journalist is grasping that the skill lies in picking the key facts and figures that explain a situation, and having the confidence to leave the bulk of the rest out.  If you don’t, you’ll simply confuse, rather than clarify. 

I suggest you steal a technique that TV News uses all the time.  At the end of the report, the presenter may say: “And you can find more about the government’s new leasehold reforms on our website …” 

The equivalent in a business presentation is a PDF you can send around, or a QR code they can scan. 

Any slide with more than half a dozen points on it simply won’t be grasped when an audience member’s brain is trying to process what you’re saying, too. 

But they can spend as long as they like, without your voice distracting them, when they open it up on their tablet. 

So here’s another slide from my workshop to bang that home. 

Nice idea, you may be thinking.  But … “find a real person?  I haven’t got time to do that!  I’d have to jump through so many hoops to sort out the permission.  And what does ‘telling their story’ actually mean, anyway?” 

So let me conclude with the tough love. 

It’s about the mindset.  

To tell a human story really well, a story that will connect emotionally with your audience and hold their attention, you do indeed need to find a real person to agree to it.  You may need to ask for their photo, or (better still) if you can record a few words with them and play the video clip within your slides.  You may ask them for pictures that illustrate the story you’re trying to tell. 

It could be that member of staff benefiting from the new HR rules.  Or a wonderful case-study who’s loving the product you sell.  Or a young apprentice who really represents what your business is about these days and makes your company look human in a sea of faceless rivals.

It’s what journalists do every single day.   They go out and find people.  They ask for their permission to tell their story visually.  They get to work then and there.   Frequently people say a polite ‘no’.  And when they do, they go out and find someone else.  

This is often done on the day.  If their deadline is the lunchtime news (as mine so often was) it’s done by lunchtime.  If you’ve got a week or more to prepare your presentation, could you perhaps come up with something?  

So I hope this article has held your attention, too.  

If it has, maybe that’s because its shared information through the prism of a journalist’s story.  

If you’d like to see me play the video clips that illustrate these points, as part of a lively and interactive workshop that’ll help you find those stories and restructure your presentations, take a look at the 90 second video tease below!

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have tuned out of what’s been going on in Syria years ago. 

It all became far too complicated, and I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t really be bothered to even try to follow it. 

But last night I watched a sixty second video at the top of a news article online.  The video was brimming with emotional power.  I was captivated.

But here’s the thing. 

Because I was captivated, I read the rest of the article — and now feel more informed about a complex subject.

And here’s the business link. 

If you want to hold a business audience’s attention — to stop them tuning out of your meetings or presentations — you need to capture them with in-your-face images and stories from the very start, too. 

Here’s the video that stopped me in my tracks last night, compiled by The Guardian. 

Imagine if that video hadn’t been at the top of the article.   Imagine if instead, this map (which was used later in the reporting) had been at the top of the page. 

I’m pretty sure I would never have read the article at all. 

Let’s translate that to your business.

You’re planning a presentation to the board.   

You’ve got some great stats to share with them, and want to get them out there early. 

But now ask yourself … will those stats (the equivalent of the complicated map in this news story) hold your audience’s attention— or will your audience  just start to tune out as soon as you start grinding through them? 

Now imagine instead that you had begun your presentation with an arresting image that related to your product and told a story about those stats. 

Of course, I very much doubt your arresting image will be as powerful as the toppling of much hated dictators’ statues. 

But if your stats are about your sales, why can’t you precede those stats with an image of a delighted sales team member pumping the air with joy when she hit her targets?  And then briefly tell her story? 

If your meeting’s about a new health and safety policy, what’s to stop you finding an image that demonstrates viscerally what can happen if the rules aren’t followed?   And share that alarming story? 

If you’re making the case for a client to choose your product rather than a rival’s, could you not ask a happy client to create a short video using that product, exuberantly describing why they’re so pleased with it?   And play that video — that story — at the beginning of the presentation, not as some ‘testimonial’ afterthought at the end? 

It’s the journalists’ approach.  Grab the audience’s attention early, and they’ll be far more likely to trust you and stick around for the rest.

A ridiculous proposition for business?

I honestly don’t think so.  Seven years working with business clients, coaxing their stories from them, challenging them to find imaginative ways of telling those stories, up-front, in-your-face and early, make me confident of this.

Go on.  Make the journalist’s approach, your business approach.   

Take something boring or complicated, track down the emotion at the heart of it, and share that emotion first. 

Start with a story.  Do the data later. 

Popping up on a podcast can be great publicity for you or your company. It implies you’re a go-to expert with something to say.

The truth can be a little less flattering. Broadcast producers have a lot of time to fill, and aren’t always too fussy who they fill it with. 

But you can play that to your advantage. Building a relationship with a radio station or podcast producer is win-win. In a newsroom environment, producers want to get hold of reliable people, fast. If yours is the phone number they know will be picked up, they’ll keep ringing it. And you’ll keep getting the free publicity.

During my years at the BBC, both in TV and radio, I was often struck by how anxious guests were before the mic went live. It was perfectly understandable — I was in my comfort zone, and they most certainly were out of theirs.

More recently, as a communications and media consultant, I’ve been helping clients build their confidence during broadcast interviews.

So a few weeks ago, I popped along to BBC Radio Sussex to record an interview with Will Flockton, a Senior Radio Producer. What, I asked, was his advice for nervous radio guests?
His answers are, I hope, very reassuring.  Here they are in person …

… and here’s my summary.

Q1: What’s the process? Let’s say a researcher has rung me and asked me to do an interview the following morning on Zoom or on my phone. We agree a time for them to call me during their programme. Am I live the moment the phone rings?

A1: Almost certainly not. I can’t speak for independent radio, which may have even fewer staff, but in a BBC environment you are likely to be called by the producer a couple of minutes before you go on air. This will give them a chance to check your details, and will give you a chance to ask about the interview ahead. You will then be ‘patched through’ to the live studio, where you will hear the presenter introducing your item. Only then will you be ‘live.’

Q2: How do I know the presenter won’t be trying to trip me up?
A2: Because that’s not the presenter’s job. If your role is to be an expert on a topic, the presenter will want to get the best out of you, and will try to guide you to the best answers for the audience. If you are being interviewed because you are ‘accountable’ — for example, defending a position as a local councillor or MP, or a company that’s let a customer down — then the presenter may take a different approach, being more challenging and putting alternative points of view. But the BBC’s rules on this (known as “Fair Dealing”) mean that the interview will be rigorous, it must also be fair.

Q3: Is it okay for me to give the presenter a list of questions I’m prepared to answer?
A3: No. A broadcast interview is a conversation, and conversations need to flow. It is reasonable, though, to ask the producer (or researcher who may have called you the previous day to fix the interview) for a broad area of topics. The Fair Dealing rules apply here too — it wouldn’t be fair to invite you on to talk about a new service, and then spring on you the fact that a caller is on the line who’s been let down by that service. You would have a right to make a formal complaint if this were to happen.

Q4: Is it okay for me to plug my company or service?
A4: This is more of a grey area. Broadcast producers understand that if you are, for example, a solicitor coming on air to talk about a new development in the law, the commercial benefit to you is that a listener may make a note of your name and firm. So it’s fine to mention your firm in one or two answers, and maybe even refer to your website (especially if you are running a campaign.) But don’t do it too often, or it can become offputting. And do bear in mind that the presenter is likely to remind the audience of your name, and where you come from, at the end of the interview too. Treat it like a networking event — you want people to know who you are and what you do, but you do want to be subtle about it!

Q5: Is it better to do a podcast or radio interview from home (over phone or Zoom), or to come into the studio itself?
Q5: Without question, it’s better to come into the studio itself. Firstly, the sound quality will be far better for the listener (and don’t underestimate the importance of this — I’ve had to abandon listening to many podcasts because it’s simply too exhausting to listen to a crackly phone line for minutes on end.) Second, the conversation will be much more natural and free-flowing, benefiting from eye contact and warmth. And finally — by being face-to-face, you’ll be building a much stronger relationship with that station and that producer.

And as we all know in business — it’s all about the relationships.

So if you’re faced with a sudden interview situation and are a bit nervous – give me a call.  I won’t charge for a few nerve-calming minutes of advice … I’d much rather build a relationship of trust with you.

Happy Broadcasting!

It’s come to be known as the defining moment of the 1997 General Election — the sight of a Conservative grandee, tipped as the next leader, losing his own seat to a wide-eyed Labour novice in Enfield Southgate.

The phrase ‘were you up for Portillo?’ refers to the fact that it happened at 3.07am.

I know this, because the BBC have helpfully posted the entire overnight election programme on Iplayer, and, being an election junky, I’ve watched the lot. (You can find it too if you go to Iplayer and search for ‘Election 97’)

To save you scrolling through the entire thing, you can see that Portillo Moment here. (Or it’s at 5’07 on the timeline if you go to Iplayer itself.)

But watching the rest of the coverage, three things struck me forcefully that might prove useful tips for anybody who’s anxious about appearing in the media, or addressing a large audience in a crowded venue.

1. If you’re on the ropes, keep your answers short.

Several hours before his defeat, Michael Portillo was at the BBC’s Television Centre. It was 10.20pm — far too early for any actual results, but a sacrificial lamb was required to respond to the ominous Exit Poll, and Mr Portillo had stepped up. Jeremy Paxman was asking the questions. Here’s the first minute of the exchange.

PAXMAN: “Are you going to miss the Ministerial Limo?”

PORTILLO: “As Brain Mawhinny said, I think we will wait for the real results”.

PAXMAN: “But on the basis of these Exit Polls, you aren’t in with a prayer, you’re going down to the worst defeat in 150 years …”

PORTILLO: “I still think it’s reasonable that we should wait for the real results, rather than speculate on the theory. We’re going to have a theory, and a fact tonight. So why don’t we wait for the fact.”

PAXMAN: “What do you think was the biggest mistake in the campaign?”

PORTILLO: “I think the biggest mistake was Tony Blair telling fibs about Pensions.”

PAXMAN: “And what was your own biggest mistake in the Party?”

PORTILLO: “I think that the thing the Party needs to reflect upon, is that it has done itself no good by showing its divisions. I think that’s what we need to reflect upon.”

Do you notice, as I did, how short Mr Portillo’s answers are? The first is four seconds. The next is ten. The third is five seconds. And the fourth comes in at just over eight.

Too many interviewees, when on the defensive, resort to ‘talking the clock down’ — reaching for a stock set of facts and statements, quite possibly repeated several times already, blending into one long ramble. The guaranteed result is that the audience will be irritated, and the interviewer will have plenty of time to compose a powerful follow up question. Both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have demonstrated this in recent weeks with wearying regularity.

But by keeping his answers so short, Portillo ensures that the journalist is having to do a lot of quick thinking, too.
With someone as skilled as Jeremy Paxman, it’s a fair contest. But if you are being interviewed by someone less experienced — who may themselves be nervous — deploying the short answer technique could mean the interviewer runs out of ideas before you’ve had to resort to a rehearsed and inauthentic ramble.

Trust me, I have been that reporter — looking and sounding confident, perhaps, but in the early days, dreading the short answer that would test me to the full.

2. If you’re addressing your tribe, look at them. All of them.

Three hours later, Tony Blair had won his Sedgefield Seat, and was aware that a landslide awaited him in Downing Street. You may love him or loathe him for what came to pass over the next ten years, but few would deny his skill at communicating with an audience.

Watching his acceptance speech in County Durham before flying down to London for the rally at the Festival Hall, I was struck by a technique he used on stage that can be so powerful, but so often overlooked by a nervous speaker.
The Audience Scan.

You can see it here.

Tony Blair doesn’t simply glance around a bit. As he thanks his supporters, and outlines his plans, he looks left, he looks right, he tilts his head forward. He doesn’t simply move his eyes, he moves his head and neck.

He is a leader of his tribe, determined to make as many people in the room as possible feel that he’s looked them in the eye.

If you’re addressing your tribe, even if relying on a script or notes, be confident enough with your material to look up regularly. And once you’ve looked up, look around. Look all around. Exaggerate it a bit. Your audience will notice the eye contact far more than what’s coming out of your mouth.

3. However bad things are turning out, empathy is good

Not only did Michael Portillo have to stand on stage at the nation watched aghast. He then had to listen to the man who had humiliated him deliver his victory speech — and respond.
But he does this with empathy and grace.

He says that he thinks Stephen Twigg will be a very good MP, and that he wishes him well. He goes on to wish the new government well. He describes the unfolding drama as “a truly terrible night for the Conservatives”. And he ends with a line of black humour: “One thing I will not miss … will be answering the questions about the leadership!”

Who knows what moments Election Night 2024 will deliver. I’ll be keeping an eye out for them on another all-nighter, and maybe composing a new blog post in my head as I go.

However you cast your vote, I hope you enjoy the broadcast spectacle that lies ahead — and that it perhaps helps you when you face a big broadcast moment of your own.

Were you, like me, unable to take your eyes off the glistening suit, drips racing down the lapels, the Prime Minister’s forehead sparkling as he fumbled through his soggy announcement of the 2024 General Election? 

It was clear immediately that the chatter on the news channels later that evening, and the headlines the following morning, would not be about what the Prime Minister actually had to say.  

It would be about the rain, and the racket from a notorious protester taking delight in ruining a national moment for the country. 

Jeremy Vine, on his BBC Radio Two phone in, summed it up most brutally.  “Without wishing to be unkind” he said, “the PM’s election campaign crashed on take-off!”

The speech was a case-study in the manner of the delivery masking the message.   

And if you’re a business leader, with a lectern to face and (whisper it) a pounding heart, here are three things that you can learn from Rishi’s misfortune. 

1.  It really is all about the Optics.  When they change the story, you need to change the script.  

“Optics” is one of those words used in communications that I often try to avoid, but on this occasion it can’t be avoided.  The Prime Minister’s people will have had their head in their hands as they watched the disaster unfold — their man fighting the rain, and fighting the protester’s selfish  din.  

The answer in this situation is for the person delivering the speech to acknowledge when the ‘optics’ have taken over.   Had Mr Sunak paused, smiled, and asked for an umbrella, we would all have understood.  Had he looked askance, tilted his head, and said ‘can you hear me at the back?’, he would have gained our sympathy. 

But by simply ploughing on, Sunak created an image of a man a world apart from the rest of us, afraid to divert from the programme, lacking the courage to go off script and look the nation in the eye.  It’s not a good look for a leader.

2.   If you sound bored, how will the audience feel?

Rishi Sunak’s announcement followed a frenzy of speculation that had been mounting all day.  News crews had been frantically despatched to Downing Street, scaffolding rigged, bulletin running orders cleared.  

So when the black door of Downing Street finally swung open and the Prime Minister appeared, we were all anticipating a moment of some drama.  

But listen to the way Mr Sunak begins his speech.   Straight in — no pause for effect, no scanning of the media before him, no relishing of the moment.  He just begins to read the words printed on paper in front of him, delivering it with all the passion of an overworked Deputy Headteacher announcing the date of the next Parents’ Evening to their staff. 

There is much to be said for measured, reflective leadership.  We’ve all seen in recent years how perilous excitable leadership can be.  But when the lectern is being put into place and you’re about to share some exciting news with your people, you need to sound excited, too. 

One suggestion I make to any of my more subdued clients is that if they feel they’ve got the energy about right, they’ll need to up it by about ten percent.   They’ll feel they’re overdoing it, but their audience won’t. 

3.  Deploy our Possessive Pronouns … and we all know what they are, don’t we? 

It’s a great shame that Rishi Sunak’s speech will be remembered for the rain and the racket, because its structure revealed skilful use a device which any leader needs to have in their toolkit. 

In the first two minutes of his speech, the Prime Minister’s used the words ‘our’, ‘us’, and ‘we’, twelve times.  (And when using the word ‘we’, he was referring to the nation, not the Conservative Party.)

He used the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ eleven times. 

Sir Keir Starmer’s speech in response (delivered cozily indoors and flanked by optically pleasing Union Flags) took a similar approach.  

In the same timeframe, the Leader of the Opposition used ‘our’, ‘us’ and ‘we’ seven times, and ‘you’ and ‘your’ a further seven times. 

I used a transcript to check.  You can find it here.

It’s an early lesson for anyone developing their skills as a public speaker. 

These little words drive your message direct into the arms and mind of your audience.  They truly connect.

An early tip I learnt on this circuit is to aim to halve the number of times you say ‘I’ in your opening comments, and double the amount of times you say ‘you.’ 

Thankfully, I’ve never had to contend with driving rain or unwelcome sound pollution when I’ve taken to the lectern.  But I hope these thoughts will help you if you ever do.