VANITY OR IS IT COMMON SENSE?

I’m on one of my biannual diets. The time comes when my trousers don’t fit (correction- they seem to have shrunk) and I become a geography teacher, floppy corduroy and podgy. And I believe that I can still get away with it quaffing my pint of Harveys,  munching on my pork pie, and fattening up prudently to withstand a cold winter. More in curiosity than anything else I clambered on to one of those weighing machines in Boots that gives weight, height and  BMI. Well it says I’m borderline obese with an excessive BMI. I ask more questions online (being truthful about once being a heavy smoker and an enthusiastic drinker) and my life expectancy prediction says I died five years ago.

I am not prone to panic but it’s not good to learn you are probably a zombie.  So I go on the carb free, booze free, food free diet  - the one Tom Watson (the politician not golfer) went on and lost 7 stone. He now looks svelte, healthy and almost credible. See you at the gym Tom, I too am on a roll – not a bacon roll either.

As I embark on this incredible shrinking journey I reflect on food (I wish), no I reflect on why it is so many of us fail to do ourselves justice.  I am a presentation coach and spend a lot of time watching people let themselves down by being lazy; by spending too little time preparing; by failing to edit; by doing the equivalent of failing to comb their hair (only Boris can do that and even with him I’m not sure.)

Jeremy Corbyn belongs to this tribe of sloppy presenters doing so under the bogus umbrella of authenticity. Until Liverpool. In the General Election, whenever it comes, remember my words “Until Liverpool.”  Jeremy has been coached. It shows. He was concise, audience responsive and impressive. He looked up for a much bigger job. I should hate to be Teresa May at the best of times but, for her these are definitely not the best of times. She has a lot to live up to.  In Brighton Liberal leader Vince Cable ‘s speech was good in content but apologetically delivered and lacklustre. You have got to be slim, fit and sleek if you’re on stage. Ken Clarke would have been Prime Minister and probably a good one if he’d bothered to look better. A pity.

I have seen so many presentations where the content was great and the delivery deadpan dreadful. The ones where the content was mediocre but the delivery energetic were a bit better, not great just better at the time rather than in retrospect.

Maya Angelou said: “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

How you look and talk are the magic ingredients in making people feel great about you. People will never forget Steve’s presentation.

A TRUE STORY OF CREATIVITY

I was asked to talk to a group of small businesses in Lewes. If you haven’t been to Lewes go there. It’s perched on a hill which runs down to the River Ouse, the fragrant scent  of Harvey’s the Brewery suffuses the place with its antique shops and organic cafes. Once upon a time Oxford was like this, reflective and inward looking. At night Lewes quietens as its inhabitants go indoors to pubs and dining rooms and talk, drink and think. The architecture is Elizabethan in part, unlike its rowdy brother Brighton with its Regency look-at-me white stucco. Lewes is alive with a sense of rebellion, independence and talent. Home to Glyndebourne, musicians and craftsmen it’s one of those places that remind one why Britain is so extraordinarily rich and stable a country.

So there I was in the genial Con Club, sun shafting through the windows. As I started, my key theme being you should tell people about how good you are and be assertive - because you are your own salesforce, I reflected on the irony.  There I was an ex-Ad Man who’d worked on big budget commercials, talking about why marketing on a shoestring was so wonderful, a bit like a chef talking to hungry people about dieting.  Yet I learned so much from them and about their businesses and felt humbled as, following my advice they expressed themselves vividly, confidently and with passion about their products and services.

A carpenter who talked of his love of wood and his passion for working it, another saying he loved what he did, really understood it and had an absolute certainty of success, another who talked of the joy of transforming people they taught, another of the sheer pleasure of giving pleasure in her B&B (I want to stay there) and another who talked about photography with an appetite that’s rare and an ability to project magic - “at my best I do photographs that knock people’s socks  off.”  It was a morning of passion, insight, self-belief and colour. They all, when it was drawn from them loved what they did. Life was a formula balancing passion and pragmatism; a compromise between art, joy, a story to tell and paying the bills.
I learned  small is really beautiful. These were people who lived, breathed and spun threads of love around what they did. They used all their senses not just their left brain. From Pilates to theatre to arts to caring I heard great stories, people describing change as though it was fun and normal.

Respite from writing my book? Yes but also an education in the terror and the ecstasy of being your own person not an employee. I hope I boosted their sense of being special and helped them become a bit more marketing assertive. These were great storytellers when unleashed. And that‘s the best marketing tool of all.

Some of the slides from my presentation are included