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Training: Don't sell yourself short
(PR Week Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)PROs, one might assume, are top communicators. Not necessarily, says Hannah Marriott - many lack some basic skills.
Anyone who watched BBC2's Dragons' Den would have no doubt pitied the squirming, sweating, stuttering attempts of business hopefuls as they tried to convince entrepreneurs to invest in their product or service. Most went home no richer than they arrived, and most stumbled when trying to communicate their ideas.
Of course, these were not professional marketers: such flustering would surely never happen with PR practitioners. Or would it?
Khalid Aziz, chief executive of comms consultancy The Aziz Corporation, claims PROs are often left woefully exposed by their employers in a pitch situation because it is assumed they know what to do. Many of his clients who have entertained PR pitch teams do not tell a happy story: 'They are often placed in the position of having to hire the company that did the least worst pitch,' he reveals.
CIPR trainer Di Burton, founder of Cicada Public Relations, has been training PROs for 15 years. She says PR people are not naturally blessed with good interpersonal skills, and more bosses should realise this: 'People say they want to be in PR because they want to deal with people, but they don't necessarily have good presenting and relationship-building skills.
We are storytellers, but there is a need for more training on our delivery.'
Aziz and Burton agree that agency and in-house management often fail to see that presentation skills are something that should be uniquely taught. Indeed, some believe it is a rite of passage for PROs to learn these skills the hard way. One senior PRO remembers being so nervous as a junior presenting to a group of managers that during his mumbling speech he tumbled backwards and fell off the stage.
'PROs usually, although not always, have a facility with words,' says Aziz. 'This is what drives them into PR in the first place. However, most do not understand the fundamental differences between the spoken and the written word.' In an industry where practitioners sink or swim by pitching to clients and building relationships with journalists, this is a worrying assessment.
Meanwhile, there is a growing consensus that confidence is something that can and should be taught. Feverfew director Deborah Goodall runs CIPR courses on topics such as 'persuasive presenting'. 'The message is that if you can hold a coherent conversation, you can present,' she says.
John Gotting, who runs personal development firm PeopleFocus.co.
uk, advises: 'Be natural, be yourself. If you don't think you are funny, don't try to be. But usually the situation will bring incidental things to give you the opportunity to laugh or smile, to relax and be yourself.'
Think on your feet
Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster Manchester and Edinburgh MD Brian Beech turned one potentially awkward situation to his advantage when a prospective client fell asleep during a pitch for a major lager brand. 'I didn't know whether to ignore it or carry on, but decided to be self-deprecating, and include him in the show. I started a running joke, almost using him as a stooge to make everyone laugh, asking the audience 'is it me?'. We won the business and he later explained that he fell asleep because he had been on a tasting session rather than because I was boring him.'
Adaptability is crucial, as Jackie Cooper PR founding partner Robert Phillips remembers: 'I once drove to a pitch with the boot of my car open, and the presentation boards were strewn down the M4. But we improvised and won the business - the key is to not rely on any one technique.'
Indeed, learning a script is, according to PeopleFocus's Gotting, 'the worst thing to do. Learning lines is a technique for acting, not presenting'.
And there are other, more pioneering ways of adjusting a presentation to suit the needs of specific clients or situations. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), for instance - the practice of listening to the way clients talk to ascertain their personality type - is used frequently by management consultancies.
Although unheard of at some agencies, others are embracing NLP.
Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster account director Pippa Lawrence says: 'NLP is so helpful in business. On a basic level you can open up communications with people by mirroring their body language or employing coping strategies to help diffuse tense situations.'
Simple shortcuts to creating rapport include cutting out distracting body language. Gotting says: 'Men putting their hands in their pockets, for example, can be off-putting to women, and lack of eye contact also makes people feel uncomfortable.'
What's it worth?
On-the-ball agencies realise that there are returns to be made from interpersonal skills training. Although statistics for this specific element of training are unavailable, the PRCA's FrontLine survey in December showed a year-on-year increase in general training. Eighty-three per cent of account executives and managers received external training in 2005, up from 81 per cent in 2004 and 74 per cent in 2003.
Some agencies contacted by PRWeek were happy to reveal their training budgets. Healthcare consultancy Chandler Chicco Agency reveals that it spends pounds 1,500 a year on training for each of its 43 UK-based staff, including a one-day presentation skills course. Firefly Communications, meanwhile, spends an annual pounds 1,000 a head on external training and pounds 1,500 per employee on internal training. It also gives staff the chance to sign up to London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art courses, which cover areas such as how to project your voice.
ID:ology, whose trainers include former actors, carries out regular tailor-made sessions for Cohn & Wolfe. Agency HR director Paula Grant says: 'This is probably the course people talk about the most. It is fun and boosts people's confidence.' Before some pitches, C&W even drafts ID:ology in to watch the rehearsals. 'The reassurance of an expert with an external perspective gives you permission to be enthusiastic, as well as confidence in what you're saying,' explains account director Eleanor Conroy.
One particularly quirky method of teaching presentation skills is through magic. Magic Management founder Nick Fitzherbert is a member of the Magic Circle and - after making PROs sign a secrecy agreement - teaches them tricks and the principles of magic. 'Our attention tracks from left to right, because that's the way we read,' he says. 'Magicians use this to direct attention. PROs can use it to plan the way they arrange presentations - they should stand on the left, with their prop or slides on the right.'
Even on university courses, often berated for being too academic, there is an increasing emphasis on practical skills such as presentation, with students' efforts assessed by outside parties. Cardiff University public and media relations diploma student Roberta Snape delivers around two presentations a week. 'Lots of people dread it, but it doesn't worry me,' she says.
And agency graduate intake programmes put great stock in presentation skills, testing them early on in the selection procedure. The graduate assessment days at The Red Consultancy and Hill & Knowlton, for example, include presentations. At Fishburn Hedges, meanwhile, candidates present a news review to demonstrate their 'ability to talk in an articulate way'.
Telephone training
But there is still a long way to go, particularly in the area of telephone skills training. In the PRCA FrontLine survey, nine per cent of practitioners named cold calling journalists as the most problematic aspect of their job; this was second only to writing long-form copy (12 per cent).
On university courses too, telephone skills receive far less attention than presentation skills. Most students get their experience of selling in stories to journalists through work placements. There are only a few examples of telephone-based role plays in course modules - such as Leeds Metropolitan University's Writing for PR course, in which half of the group pose as journalists and half as PROs.
Even among agencies that otherwise offer thorough schemes, telephone training tends to be limited to role plays or on-the-job advice. It is even more unusual for external telephone skills training to be offered.
But as Fitzherbert says, a lack of telephone skills can reflect badly on an agency: 'Journalists get the wrong impression from tongue-tied executives who call up.'
Media Training Masterclasses' Warwick Partington agrees that phone skills are paramount: 'The telephone is vital in establishing credibility, and the voice is a communication tool that can support or destroy.' He stresses that a journalist is likely to remember the last thing said, and advises speaking concisely and phrasing appropriately.
A financial gamble?
So why do some agencies - particularly smaller ones - offer only limited training, particularly to new recruits? 'The problem is that younger people can be fly-by-night, so there is a reluctance to spend too much on training only to see individuals move on,' explains Aziz.
For smaller agencies, the CIPR's Burton recommends regular, quick informal sessions at 8.30am with bacon butties. To maximise external spending on courses, she advises meeting staff newly returned from training so they can share their knowledge.
Internal training can provide other benefits. Jackie Cooper PR runs internal courses called 'presentation skills the Jackie Cooper PR way', for instance, which simultaneously teach recruits about the company's culture - thus killing two birds with one stone.
Firefly founder and CEO Claire Walker also runs presentation training with the dual aim of getting to know new recruits. They all tend to have fun together, she says, and learn to avoid her bete noir - 'the tea-pot position: waving an arm with a hand on your hip while you talk'.
And the best training, according to Feverfew's Goodall, is that which relates directly to your job. While practising interpersonal skills, 'discuss specific clients, outline what you can do tomorrow', she says, adding that external experts are vital: 'An outside perspective is the lifeblood of PR.'
FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO:
www.azizcorp.com; www.id-ology.org
www.lotus-exchange.com
www.media-training-masterclasses.com
www.peoplefocus.co.uk
www.workingvoices.com
CASE STUDY: BRANDS2LIFE TRIES 'STAND-UP'
How would you play the role of a forgetful pimp, an arrogant banker or a shy circus-master? Last November, Brands2Life found out, with staff embracing their inner jokers to perform sketches with the help of two stand-up comedians.
The half-day session, aimed at giving the agency's presentation skills more pizzazz, as well as being a fun way to build team spirit, was provided by training consultancy The Lotus Exchange.
Lotus Exchange founder Ailon Freedman, who facilitated the session with comic and trainer Jack Milnah, says: 'Most people would say that doing stand-up comedy is one of the most scary things you could ever do.' So Freedman and Milnah broke the PROs in gently with warm-up exercises, as well as advice on building a rapport with the audience and the use of timing, questions, humour and body language.
Tips included building confidence by imagining the audience as just one person: 'Look at each person individually,' says Freedman. 'Make eye contact with them one at a time, perhaps start a dialogue with just one person if you get stuck - it's a lot less daunting.'
Suitably relaxed now, it was time for Brands2Life's performances to start.
Freedman and Milnah elicited a list of job titles from the participants and then a list of adjectives, which they paired together in a random order to produce descriptions of characters. Thus a colourful range of fictional characters were born. Brands2Life then split into small groups to work on sketches, which also included a few straight characters, a host of gregarious working girls and shell-shocked shop assistants.
Freedman says: 'Their performances were really good - really clever and creative. They only had 20 minutes but it seemed like they had been rehearsing for days. And they finished the day on a massive high. Happy people are more productive, and they enjoyed a real laugh together.'
According to Brands2Life co-founder Giles Fraser: 'There was so much the comedians could teach us about holding an audience, movement, voice, use of timing and projection. We learned quite a few techniques, on how to change emphasis, for example - how you can stress some aspects of what you are saying and under-emphasise others with use of your hands.' 'For some clients, going to a PR company is an exciting experience,' says Freedman.
'PR is seen as creative and cool, so presentations should be energised.
The team's performance should embody what the client thinks it is buying,' he adds.
CASE STUDY: RED LORRY YELLOW LORRY GETS GRILLED
Despite a collective 20 years' experience in PR and marketing, tech agency Red Lorry Yellow Lorry account managers Cathy Owen and Maria Ogunlaja and director Guy Walsingham - like most PROs - had never had their presentation skills assessed externally (above left).
So there were a few nervous faces when PRWeek arranged for Nick Smallman, MD of interpersonal communications consultancy Working Voices (above right), to watch them repeat a pitch they'd already given to a client and score them on how well they performed.
Smallman, a trained classical actor who set up Working Voices in 1998, acted as the client, while the 'lorries' re-enacted their winning pitch to WiMAX provider Libera. As they settled down in their seats and turned on the projector, the PROs were keen to explain how the scenario differed from their usual pitches.
'Usually by this point we know the client,' said Walsingham.'Perhaps we've had a couple of preliminary meetings - so we tend to use this time as an interactive discussion, rather than a formal presentation.' But if the team thought this session would not be interactive, they had not counted on Smallman's performance. After Walsingham's introduction, their potential 'client' gave Owen and Ogunlaja a friendly grilling as they outlined their plans, turning it into a discussion after all. But the team made their case with confidence, and Smallwood thought it obvious why they had won the real account. 'You are better at pitching than 90 per cent of my clients,' he said, also praising the way Owen and Ogunlaja 'supported each other physically', each nodding as the other spoke.
But there was some criticism. 'Your beginning needed to be at the end,' Smallman advised. 'You need to surprise your clients. Don't give them an overview of the agency - give them a hook from the outset. Make your introduction something like 'Here are Cathy and Maria - they are going to talk to you about you'. It's quirky and will leave the client wanting more.'
And Smallman counselled on body language and speech, particularly for Walsingham, who kept his hands under the table as he spoke: 'Hands are a barometer of your mood and should always be on show.'
Ogunlaja said afterwards: 'When we get feedback from clients it's always about content, so it was helpful to have someone judging us on our body language. The advice was simple - telling us not to slouch - but we see each other in pitches so often that we wouldn't have picked up on that. We found it to be a really useful exercise.'
JOURNALISTS' GRIPES
'Some PROs act like your best friend when you've never even met. Asking questions about my weekend, for example, seems false, and reinforces journalists' innate cynicism about PR. We're busy, so PROs need to be professional and really plan how their call could be useful to us.'
CLARE NEWSOME, EDITOR, WHAT HI-FI? SOUND AND VISION
'PROs need to be good sales people. Occasionally they stammer, or take ages to explain what they want to say. They should be crisp - if it takes you half an hour to describe something, imagine what a job I will have trying to put it into a 100-word news story.'
IAN KING, BUSINESS EDITOR, THE SUN
'I get lots of calls from PROs and I always try to be receptive, as I have to cold-call people too. What I find taxing, and amusing, is PROs' reliance on jargon. The phrases 'speaks to' (such and such issue), 'cover off' and 'interface with', for example, should be avoided wherever possible.'
TAMZIN BOOTH, MEDIA CORRESPONDENT, THE ECONOMIST.
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