How Military Leaders Speak to the Media - Jay Saunders

Foreign.

Speaking, the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

My guest today is coming from across the pond. Jay Saunders is a longtime military public affairs expert. He was in the Royal Navy for 20 years and in that position he dealt with all media public affairs for everything from the Ebola virus to military campaigns in Sierra Leone. Currently he's head of. He's the managing director of Micromedia Limited, a British public speaking media training firm. Jay, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks very much for having me, tj.

So you've started your firm fairly recently. What did you see as the opening in the marketplace? Because when I think of England, Great Britain, London, I think of about 20 million former BBC people all putting out their shingle as media training experts and communication experts.

I think it was because I saw the gap that people are too firm in the opinion of thinking about public relations, marketing, advertising and seeing them as stovepipes. My experience with working through the military is if you form a professional relationship with the media, you can actually get your messages through them to generate the effects you want. That's what the military had been doing for many, many years. So I'm just taking that into the civilian and business markets.

Tell us about some of your successes with communications in the military. Because a lot of US audiences, they think of the military and often they think of either no comment and sort of a button down approach, not being very forthcoming with the media, although there are exceptions. General Norman Schwarzkopf gave a press conference during the first Gulf War in 1991 that people still talk about as an example of just fantastic communication.

I think that I was in such a privileged position to be training some of the UK's most senior officers, you know, generals, admirals, air marshals, and we did a lot of research and as you said, the no comment philosophy just comes back and bites you because people automatically assume guilt. And we were able from the Defence Media Operations center to convince these senior officers that actually you've got to give an answer, you've got to be honest, you've got to be a human being. And that I think was our greatest success because we got these very senior military officers to understand that you've got to talk to an audience and you've got to be as honest as you can. That builds your reputation and it stops you from being such a scary entity such as the military. You suddenly become a human being.

Isn't there a mindset difference? I mean, in the military, and I have no experience with the British military But just military in general tend to be hierarchical organizations. Top down. The person at the top can give someone orders, give them a message and say, don't question it. When you're talking to the media, they don't see themselves as a part of a hierarchy. For the most part, reporters I know think of themselves as equal to the person they're reporting, and they think that they are entitled to question not only anything, but everything. How do you change the mindset of military officers who are used to simply delivering the message unquestioned?

Absolutely. I mean, that's the culture shock that nearly every one of my students went through. The fact that they used to believe they could walk into an interview and present the journalist with a list of questions they were not allowed to ask. And then it's taken them into that point of this is a professional relationship. Would you do that with one of your lords and masters in the House of Commons? Would you do that with the Defense, the Ministry of Defense? What would the Defense Minister say to you if you told him that he was not allowed to ask you those questions? All you're going to do is annoy them, and then you're suddenly placing yourself into an aggressive relationship and an aggressive interview. Remember, it is a professional relationship you're having. They're looking for a story, you have a story. So be as open and honest as you can. But you obviously, they understand that you're not allowed to reveal military secrets. They understand that you're not allowed to talk about rules of engagement. They know this, so work with them.

Now, the rules of engagement with the media are a little different in the United Kingdom. I mean, here in the United States, you've got someone like Donald Trump who can just say, obama wasn't born in America, you can say anything about anyone. And it's extraordinarily rare to have a libel charge or a slander charge really held up in court. It's a little different in Great Britain. Does that change the relationship between not only military officials you train, but other public leaders when they're dealing with the media?

That's very interesting. In the uk, we've got some fantastic broadcast channels. So if we're talking about the BBC, itv, even Sky News, they do work by a code of conduct and you can form the right kind of relationships with them. Where we've had issues in the UK has been print media, because they can. On broadcast media, they are constrained that they've actually got to report what you've said in order. In print media, they haven't been constrained that way so they could move your sound bites around to end up making it look like a completely different story. And you've probably seen that there's been a lot of problems with our print publications, with phone hacking and what have you and trying to place some degree of regulation around it. That's the main one I have to give my students is remember, it's a completely different relationship, a very different way they will publish their article in print as opposed to doing broadcast. Actually doing broadcast is a lot easier in the UK than it is to do print.

Our guest is Jay Saunders. He is the managing Director of Micromedia Ltd. For more information you can go to his website and that is bethemedia.comco.uk Jay, thanks for being our guest today.

More than welcome.

Okay, stop. Timeout. It's time to pull back the curtains and analyze. That was sort of a typical 5, 6 minute profile interview as you might receive if you were on let's say a business show on the BBC or the Today show. Let's step back now and dissect it. What were you trying to do there? By the way, even though you and I talked in advance, our audience should know. It's not like I sent you the questions I would ask for that part of the interview and you told There was no agreement. In fact, typical of many interviews, I didn't really know what I was going to ask you. And the questions that popped out of my mouth really did just pop out of my mouth because they were interesting to me. I at that moment, because I was thinking of them at that moment. And that is it wasn't a particular agenda I had. And in my experience, that really is the way not all reporters work and host and talk show hosts, but many of them. So now walk us through your messages, what you were trying to do and what your plan was for that interview.

I think the main point I was trying to put across is number one, I'm a human being working in the communications field. I'm not a spin doctor. I'm not one for bending the truth or trying to exaggerate on things. Plus, I was trying to put across the point that I do have some considerable expertise that many people won't have experienced having done communications in the military where we derive all of our plans and then try and communicate to generate. We are trying to change behaviors, we're trying to change attitudes and I'd sooner change behaviors. And finally trying to put a cross the point that these skills that I've acquired from being a military communicator could Actually very easily be taken across into the civil and business sectors so that businesses can actually start thinking about their comms to generate the effects that they want.

Okay, I always like to start off the this section, the interview, by getting. Allowing the guest to give just one simple, quick preparation tip for a media interview. Anything that you do personally or that you advise your own clients, just a simple tip that you do either right before an interview to make it go better.

The outset is think of islands. This is a technique I've used with nearly every person I've trained ready for a broadcast interview.

Sorry, you say think of violence, think of islands.

So this is a technique we developed a few years ago. What I want my client to do is think of three messages that they want to be able to communicate. Those messages should be leading towards effect. Then when there be an interview, just think of these three islands floating in front of you so that.

Oh, I'm sorry, you said islands. I thought you said violence. As if you were going to smash the anchors or the host head in with a hammer.

No, no, no. Islands, as in surrounded by water, a beautiful little tropical island in front of you.

Yes, now I get it.

I'm feeling more.

I'm feeling more relaxed now. Think of you as wanting to smash my skull.

Absolutely not. So you've got these three beautiful little islands floating in front of you. And as the interviewer is asking you those questions, you work out, is there a way I can bridge from acknowledging his question to take me to that island? So you end up with those three messages that they're just floating in front of you. It's easier to manage your own brain just by having these three things in front of you going, yeah, I can move across and talk about that one. It takes so much of the pressure off you. You don't have to answer every question because you don't know all the information. So be honest about it. But when you see the opportunities move toward that bridge to the island you want to be on.

Great way of thinking about it and clearly visual. I have to ask you because, as I'm sure you do, I train people all over the world and what I find is in every country, people are insecure and they think that everyone in their nation is uniquely bad about public speaking. So if I'm in India or if I'm in Serbia, people say, well, everyone in our country is bad at speaking. It's you Americans that are great. And all Americans are great speaking. And when I work with American clients, they feel like, well, all of us in America are awful speakers. It's those British people. They're the ones that are just all with the silver tongue. I'm interested in your perspective. How does the typical British person feel about their nation? Because there's. I don't know of anyone else you could look up to because certainly a lot of British people think of Americans as sort of George Bush inarticulate boobs. So I know you don't look up to us.

You couldn't be further from the truth.

Okay.

The British perception of American communications is that every single citizen of the USA is quite happy to stand in front of the camera and speak to it. And you see it on news reports and what have you. We think you're so much more media savvy than us.

Yeah, but don't you think of us as standing there obese, with the plaid shorts and tacky hat.

Absolutely.

Saying Donald Trump esque idiocies?

Of course, you've got some rather unique individuals out there that do make this amused and what Trump and Bush, they are. You know, we were astounded by it, but we've got the same kind of people. You've now encountered Boris Johnson. He is a very comical character. You wonder if you were going to take him seriously. But the British attitude to speaking is terrifying. Everybody's terrified. The old joke is that the two biggest fears of Britain is, number one, public speaking, number two, death. So people would rather be in the coffin than deliver the eulogy. It is just a British thing. They're all terrified of speaking because they don't think they're going to sound intelligent enough.

And I certainly have found that to be true in every country. No doubt about it. I'm fascinated by your experience with the military because I have occasionally worked with military people, but it's like, you know, once every six years, and it's at a fairly low level. What are the unique challenges of communicating when you've got. It's not just one person's consulting shop where the stakes are low, the stakes are really high. When you're communicating about military issues, it's literally life and death involved. You've got tough, fair questions. I can only imagine questions that must have come up during 10 years ago. Gulf. Not just Gulf wars, but some of George Bush's wars, where your Prime Minister was the good ally of the United States but had to back a very unpopular war. How do you communicate wildly complex messages and issues when you have life and death at stake?

Yeah. I had to train the UK commanders that were in control in Afghanistan as an example so you suddenly got this very senior British officer that's now got to start communicating. And with them, I really take them into three parts. Number one, be a human being. It's one that is universal throughout the world. It's very easy to hate a tank, it's very easy to hate a bomber, it's very easy to hate a nuclear submarine. But it's very difficult to hate a reasonable, compassionate human being. I want people to see these commanding officers as human beings that wear a uniform, not a uniform that doesn't care about his people. So actually becoming human. Second, think about the effect you are trying to generate. Are you talking to your home audience? Are you trying to talk to the community, to the parents, the young private soldiers that are serving with you back, back at home, always worried about the child, or are you trying to address your opposition and tell them that, you know, if they do not comply, you will have to be forced into a situation to use extreme force. And then finally, you then think really, really tightly about the message that that audience wants to hear. And it's not always talking to the journalist. It is that moment of talking to the audience and in the way that they want to hear you talking.

And that's relatively easy for a lot of people in the world. But what do you do if the audience wants to hear, we're not going to war, we're going to end the war, we're going to win the war. It's going to be an easy war to win. And those are just not messages you can communicate.

And I think that's where we got the benefit of our publics. I mean, both the US citizens and British citizens, you know, the way that we look at our armed forces, we hold them in high regard and we understand that the armed forces do not make the decisions, you know, they are the extension of politics by all other means. It is not their decision to do this. And your audiences understand that. But then when you start communicating about how proud you are of your servicemen serving for you, the people that you were meeting every day, that you were placing in harm's way, and the admiration you have for them and their families, it makes life so much. You just talk about the thing you love the most. And in the military, you love your. You love the people that serve for you because they are the ones you're fighting for the guy left and right of you, because they are fighting for the guys left and right of them.

We're speaking with Jay Saunders, the managing director of Micromedia Limited, a leading British media training public speaking Training firm. You're listening to Speaking with TJ Walker. If you haven't yet subscribed, there's no charge, so it's not enough to just listen. You need to go to, preferably itunes, hit the subscribe button. That way each new show every day is automatically put into your podcast file and it's easy to find. Also, very much appreciated if you could leave a review. So, Jay, tell us about, and I understand if you have to change the names or the rank, but tell us about your most successful media preparation and interview with a colleague and tell me about your worst, least successful one.

My most successful. I think that had to be when we started talking about Reaper being operated in the United Kingdom. As you know. You know.

I'm sorry, what?

So the military drones, the ones with offensive capability, the UK have been using them extensively in Afghanistan. And we were flying and it suddenly moved to the position Afghans moving was actually winding down. And we ended up having to bring these, as the military wants to call them, remotely Piloted Automated Systems, air systems, and actually turning around to the senior command going, yes, I know you want the British public to actually start calling these things RPAs, you know, remotely Piloted Air systems, but realize the British public are never going to do that. The British public are always going to call them drones. You can. The key message you want to be going into is somebody is actually in control of the, of this thing at all times. It is not an automated machine that can kill on demand. And that was a great moment for me because they actually got that message and that's the way they ended up taking things forward, reminding people there were people constantly in control of these devices. The actual ambition to try and get the British public to refer to them RPAs was complete fantasy here in the UK you should be referring to that thing that picks up the dirt from your carpet as a vacuum. But everybody calls it a Hoover and that's a trademark. It's not going to change, but it's actually the attitude we wanted to change, not the name.

Any other stories you can share that are about either interviews gone wrong or something that really went well.

One that went wrong was actually my fault of my making, I suppose. You may remember several years ago, we ended up with a terrorist murder on the streets of London where two individuals ended up murdering a British soldier called Drummer Rigby. It was a horrific event here in the uk. A couple of months after his murder, we were informed that a documentary team were going to be interviewing his former colleagues and his former friends that he had served with Obviously, at that point I instantly started training a media minder. Now, a media minder in the UK military is somebody that's there to support the people that are going to be interviewed. They're going to prepare them, they're not going to rehearse them because I don't like doing things in that fashion. But it's telling them this is the way that you really want to communicate, to make yourself look professional, to make us look professional and to be a human being. Then we came to the point of we knew they were going to interview his best friend and we were worried that the question might be asked of him of what penalty would you like to see these men have after their court trial? So we tried to explain to him that, you know, be careful about what you want to say there because these terrorists want us to be angry. They want us to be seen as asking for retribution and vengeance. So. So be very conscious about what you say. It should be a matter for the courts. Well, unfortunately, during the interview he was asked the question, what would you like to happen to these men? And he came back with the sound bite of I know what I want to say, but I'm not allowed to say it.

INSTANT SOUNDBITE. The second you heard that, you knew that was the only thing that would be used, correct?

I care not a jot what that made the British military look like, that we were trying to control the way the media do things. Failure was that I did not get the message properly across that guy of what I wanted him to be. He did not believe in the advice I gave him. So that was a failing on my part.

I've got to dissect this a moment. I'm very curious about what you just mentioned that you say you don't like to. You prepare people, but you don't rehearse. I understand not wanting to get someone to memorize answers, but I find in my own practice that giving advice, consulting, strategy, talking, hand holding, all of that is frankly a complete waste of time. The only thing I do that I think is any value to my clients is rehearsing on video, playing it back. And in that case, if I had rehearsed with him and he said that on video, I would play back that video and just say, how do you feel if that's the only quote that is played non stop? So I'm interested in your take on rehearsal.

To me, it's the way you define rehearsal. To me, a rehearsal is you've memorized something and you're coming back out with it, which May be okay for delivering a speech, but for an interview it doesn't work. What I would do exactly say is I stand them in front of a camera and I will ask all the hard questions. It will change every time I do it. I never ask the same series of questions first. All I'm doing is getting their head into the space where they are prepared to listen to the questions that are coming towards them, realizing they've got to acknowledge them. And then I go back to my islands, which island you want to bridge to if you, if it's possible to do so, to get your message across. So it's not rehearsal in the sense of memorize all these sound bites, memorize this script, but it's the experience of being put under a great deal of pressure sometimes by a peer. More often when I've done it is, you know, I'm must have been subordinate to this person and asking them questions they really don't want to ask. But really making them realize a journalist is completely entitled to do that now.

But I have to ask in that particular case, did you practice that question or did he give. Did he give one answer? In practice that was fine, but then in the real interview gave that awful sound bite or what happened in. And by the way, it sounds like we have a similar take on rehearsal. I don't want people to memorize things, but I do practice on video. Did he say something different in the practice than he did in real life?

Because I was working remotely, he was based overseas. I had a young Royal Marine captain acting as his media minder and we were communicating together. I didn't see all of his interviews but my, my captain was confident that he was, you know, he was capable of standing in front of the screen and to be honest, he was. But we had a grieving young soldier that was missing his best friend that had been killed in the most abysmal way. I have been told by some very well respected defense journalists that it was completely improper to ask him that question knowing the amount of grief he was going through. But the question was asked and I don't think myself or the captain invested enough time in his personal feelings to make him realize we want you to look the best and actually give the best possible memory to Lee Rigby.

And then if you can go back and unfortunately we can never do this and believe me, I've made plenty of screw ups myself that in one case even cost me my job. So you're better off than I am. But if you can go back in time, what would have been the best response to that question.

I think his best response would have been if he could have actually believed it is. This is a matter for the justice systems. We're not the same as these vile creatures from isis, isil, Daesh, whatever you want to call it. You know, we work by a code of conduct. We have rules of engagement, we follow conventions. These people seem to be immune from it, but we work by the rule of law. That's what makes us better than them.

And then how do not to pick on this case because it obviously didn't work out that well. But how in general do you help people understand that? As much as I love your analogy of islands, in fact, I've used that before. Bridging doesn't help at all. If you have an initial comment that is so packed with interesting sound bites that reporters going to use it because the way you stated that I forget the exact language, but I know what I want to say. It's filled with emotion, attack, intrigue. And it's second you hear it, you know, oh my gosh, the reporter has to use that. They're going to use it. There's no doubt about it. And you can bridge all day long to great message points. Nothing else is going to get in the story. Am I right?

Oh, totally. But again, I go back to this point, especially when you're dealing with senior military officers. And this equally applies to heads of major corporations. Corporations are just seen as faceless entities that are purely about getting cash. When you actually get an individual to stand up and talk, their first mission, their first effects, their first island has to be becoming a human being. And it's becoming a reasonable, compassionate human being that people want to trust. And that's where that first part comes out. That's where you start using your emotions. I keep on telling my students, don't ever think that human beings are logical creatures that feel we are emotional beings that revert to logic at different rates. So don't be afraid of using your emotions to connect with your audiences and then move on to the logic as you move along.

Intriguing way of laying that out for people. How did you get into this? You joined the military more than 20 years ago, very few people joined the military saying, I'm going to be a communications expert. How did you get into this?

Many, many years ago, before I joined the service, I was a print journalist on computer magazines and I just loved it crafting copy. In my career in the military, I came across and I got into amateur dramatics just in one way or another. And I Enjoyed being on stage. I didn't realize I could actually do it well. But then the opportunity came for me to go to the Defense Media Operations center. And then when I arrived there, myself and my commanding officer realized we could make some absolutely fundamental changes to the way that we were working, the way we were setting policy, the way that we were setting doctrine. And we restructured the organization completely and I became the executive officer, second in command. And we were able to make amazing changes into the way that we were actually getting people to communicate. The way that we were actually internally communicating within the military and our lords and masters in parliament changed dramatically. And that enabled us to start building far more effective relationships with all the media outlets where they would actually come to us rather than us constantly pushing things to them. That was such an amazing moment when we started to realize it's all about, we want to generate effect. And that effect starts by forming the right relationship.

And there are certainly a lot of strengths and weaknesses, advantages, disadvantages of any work environment. I've worked for governments, federal government here in the US state government, but I've also been a small, you know, part of a very small consulting firm, my own firm. There's pros and cons to everything. In my own experience working with the government, you have a lot more resources, but it can take a lot more time to get messages approved and work their way up. And sometimes by the time something is approved, it's no longer relevant. What did you find were the biggest advantages of, of working having the full force of a federal government behind you and what frustrations did you have?

The major frustration, exactly as you said, was actually getting messages cleared, giving people permission to speak. I'm firmly of the opinion that you get the lowest ranking person to speak as possible, and that would apply to a civilian company as well. Everybody's going to assume that a general's got an agenda. Everybody's going to assume that the CEO has got an agenda. But if you get somebody from the workforce, you get a private soldier talking, then people are going to trust them more because they know that they're on the shop floor. They are the people standing in harm's way. In a civilian sector, these are the people that are actually making the money for the company. They are the best. So trying to get them the permissions for people to speak probably was the most frustrating because they're trying to double check everything and analyze every moment of risk. The greatest.

How do you, how do you sell a low level level soldier on why they should speak to the media? Because they're probably thinking the safest thing is keep my mouth shut, I don't offend anybody, I don't get court martial. How do you sell that to someone? Because it is in fact risky to speak to the media.

The first question I would ask them is what do your mom and dad want to hear? What does your wife want to hear? What do your kids want to hear at this precise moment? And if they get that part, then they are probably going to be a suitable person that's going to talk for me and talk for us as a family. That is the military, that if they want to give that reassurance across to their families, to film you, to actually make everybody proud of what they are doing, then that becomes the ideal person. And it's basically, I'm not asking you to represent the British military, I'm asking you to turn around to your own family and tell them you've got a great team, you believe in what you're doing. And yes, it's scary and yes, it's hard. But I'm here and I'm serving with the best people I could be serving with. And that will hit a multitude of audiences if they do that.

We're speaking to Jay Saunders. He's the managing director of Micromedia Limited based in Great Britain. You're listening to Speaking with TJ Walker, brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. If you're looking to improve your own public speaking, your own media skills, then you can write in today for a free no obligation online media training course and an online video based presentation training course. Just go to mediatrainingworldwide.com or click in the show notes and that will take you right to the link to receive your free course. Now, Jay, I'm intrigued by something you just said because it's against conventional wisdom. You're saying the lowest level person should speak. Conventional wisdom in the public relations industry is you want the highest ranking official, especially if it's a crisis, if there's some explosion at a factory and people's lives are at risk. You want to hear from the CEO who is ultimately accountable to elected officials, the community shareholders. Are you taking a different viewpoint on that?

No, I think they are very useful. But they're only useful to a point. Absolutely. In the moment of a crisis, your reputation's in damage. You need the highest possible person up there to start talking about it because everybody's going to need somebody that's going to be held accountable. And that's one of the challenges of taking such a high level job. But you need to blend it. You need to blend it. That person will go out and make all the right statements or say all the right words. But as I go back to. People are going to make assumptions about that level of speaker. They're going to assume that they've got an agenda. They're going to assume that they're hiding things. They're going to assume there is some moment of guilt. So blend that with the lowest possible level. So you actually turn around to see one of these people that are actually doing the real job. The audience is more likely to believe them than they are the CEO or the general. You want the person that was there that is actually dealing with the situation to speak because you are going to have a greater empathic connection with that lower level.

Now, confession. I've been to London many times, but I've never done a lot of work in Great Britain. I'm certainly not an expert on the culture from my perspective and a lot of people who are in sort of the media and communication fields here in the US when we think of sort of the greatest speakers of all time, we think of Winston Churchill. When we think of one of the top three public speakers in the English speaking world today, I still think of Tony Blair. I'm interested in what is the average person or the people you deal with in Britain think of when they think of all time greats and current greats.

All time great. Yeah, absolutely. You are talking about Churchill. He is still that major brand, something everybody aspires to be. Even understanding his great thoughts of his depression and his use of alcohol and what have you. But equally, I don't think.

Not to mention a lisp and a stutter.

Absolutely. The other one they will turn around to is of course Her Majesty the Queen's father. Especially with the release of the King's speech and realizing what pain that man went through to be a good orator and be the sovereign of the state. But what they.

I apologize. Timeout. But we've got to give a shout out to the kink speech. A, it's a great movie. B, anytime the public speaking coach is the hero of the movie, we want to give extra emphasis and highlight that. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.

Go ahead. No, absolutely. But it's that moment of actually seeing, you know, many people don't realize how much work they put in to becoming that greater speaker to be able to communicate in that way. Then you can flip it on his head. I mean, Tony Blair is not very well respected in the UK any longer. We've ended up.

But that's for political reasons in terms of pure communication skills. And it's hard to separate the two, obviously, for a lot of people. Who else is. Who else, if you can take away the politics, is really respected today.

I'll go for a strange one. Then let's go into the world of entertainment. I would have to say Stephen Fry. He is loved for his humor, his intelligence, and his actual problems. But if you've ever seen Stephen Fry talk, you actually see a man that maybe you don't agree with his views, maybe you don't agree with his standpoints, but you absolutely empathize with the emotion he brings to it and the thought he has brought to it. There is a man that can actually blend that. That technique. Yeah, Those two parts of raw emotion and proper logic together. So you actually walk away thinking in a different manner. That is a very, very talented man.

I will make it something on my to do list to check out videos from him on YouTube. I'm curious, who else motivates you as a communicator? Are there people you like to watch on you? I mean, I do watch Winston Churchill documentaries on YouTube. That's the sort of thing I do for fun. You may be like that too. But who else do you watch? Do you like TED Talks? What else do you do to give you motivation and inspiration when it comes to great speaking?

I tend to do a blend of things. I love watching the news, like critique journalists, their styles, the way they've actually interacted with their interviewees. Have they made them feel like equals? Have they made them feel subordinate? I do watch a lot of TED Talks. I think they're great to go through to actually see the range around that. I do a lot of reading. I do a lot of online research. But one thing I absolutely adore doing is watching Those channels on YouTube that have exploded and nobody could see them coming forward to see what they've done differently, to connect to an audience that nobody's really connected to before. How did Rhett and Link become as big as they did? How did Pentatonix go from acapella to such an enormous following? Why is. Well, a young girl that actually comes from the time I live in become a multimillionaire. How did they actually make their comms so effective that they resonated with an audience so. So powerfully?

And let's. Let's see if we can distill that. I mean, certainly there are a lot of YouTube channels that have exploded because they're wildly entertaining. There's Great humor or there's great singing. But I'm curious as to any sites that you can put your fingers on that they're not funny, they're not singing, but somehow they've really connected through either a combination of the message or the speaking skills or the presentation.

Who jumps out to you, I would say, although she can be quite amusing at the time, I would have to say Zoella because of this moment. If you go back through her back catalog and her history here, was a young girl, very insecure in herself, but was actually open and honest to say where her insecurities were. And it was all about her building her confidence, trying to become what she perceived to be a better person. And I've got to agree with it. But actually being exposing that part of herself, being a human being. I keep on running back to this running back, and I'm sorry, who is.

This person and how do you spell the person's name?

So we can search Zoe Ella. You'll find her on YouTube. She has a huge following, as I said, based out, of course, from here in the uk. She's got a lifestyle and makeup blog and talks about her boyfriend and what have you. But it's been that point of being a true human being, being vulnerable, not trying to be perfect, not trying to have every single answer. And I think that's why she connected so well. And it's one of the things I try to get my clients all to do is, yes, I understand we have a professional image, image we've got to portray, and that is right. But human beings are fallible. Human beings do make mistakes. Don't try and be Superman, because if you do, something's going to come and trip you up. Be a human being that people can connect with.

That's why I always get a kick out of these emails I get probably once a week now, people see that I have a podcast. So I get solicited from professional podcast services and I should probably use a bunch of them. But one of the services they're constantly hawking is we will edit out the ums and us from your guest to make the show better. And my question is always, what evidence do you have that that will make the show any better? And of course, they have none.

Absolutely. All they're doing is feeding to the fear of public speaking. People aren't too worried that they. They are. They fiddle with their hands. They don't know what to do with their hands. Well, actually, forget about that. Let's go to the message, let's go to the emotion. Actually, what I want is a human being communicating. And those little ticks, as long as they don't get in the way of the message, actually make you a human being. I don't want somebody standing up in front of a camera looking as though they've been massively media trained. I want them to stand up being a human being. And I've seen some amazing examples where people have got that massively wrong.

And we should point out, we are 40 minutes into the interview and I haven't heard you say am or ah once, but I do think you're coming across like a human being.

Thank you.

It's not simply a function of putting verbal tics in, but it also doesn't ruin it either. What is the best speech you've ever seen in your life, whether in person or on video, But I'm most interested in one you saw in person.

I would have to say it was the leaving speech of one of my senior officers, a very, very respected commodore who had been in charge of where we place all of our ratings or our junior ranks of the Royal Navy. And he stood up after 25 years service and he was only wearing one medal on his chest, and that was the Jubilee Medal for the celebration of Her Majesty the Queen's 25th anniversary. So you can see how many years ago we're talking about this. But he stood up there with pride and actually said, as a naval officer, the fact I do not have any medals for combat is the perfect definition of why I've been effective as a naval officer. The Navy should be a deterrence that prevents people daring to threat our nation. So he actually took a moment of pride where other people were sat there very, very proudly wearing an absolute chest full of medals, that he could actually turn it on his head and say with absolute pride that he only wore one because he had done his job properly.

And here you are remembering it, the visual, the imagery, the message, years later, decades later, I guess.

And it was that, because it was. Again, we go back to the point, there was logic, but the first thing that came forward was the emotion. We could actually connect with that emotion and then move it to the point of being gently taken down the path to see the logic behind that emotion so you could relate to it.

Okay. We talked about being a human being and showing all. And I've shared with my audience times when I've been fired. I've had bad interviews, I've had people pull guns on me. I've been hung up, I've been booed off stages. Now I Want to hear from you. What is your biggest communication blunder? What's your worst interview? Your worst speech?

Worst speech would, would have been there.

I finally got you to say, there you go.

You hit the emotion straight away. Thankfully it was in training. But I was just, this was immediately before I was going to go on screen and I tried with my media minder to answer the questions and I was just fake because I did not believe a single word of what I was saying. You could see it in my eyes. You could see it in the way I was standing. I was being told to come out with something that I didn't believe in. And we were running dangerously close to the interview happening as a. It was a down the line interview. Thankfully I had the courage to turn round to my very senior officers going, you can't put me there. You need to find somebody else that needs to sit in this seat. Or we have to move to a point where today we say no comment. We will get you another speaker, Give us some time, we'll get you somebody that can speak to you. Nobody else wanted to stand up. So we ended up going to the point where we had to go. It was an empty chair interview. Yeah, we did have somebody, they did not attend. And actually, yeah, okay, that was damaging, but it was less damaging than me sitting there and not being convincing or believing what I was saying.

And perfect example of why it's good to rehearse and figure out in advance something just isn't working. So if you're going to make a mistake, rehearsal is the place to make it. As one of our guests on earlier in the week mentioned, his worst speech ever was in a Toastmasters event. And again, that's a perfect place to make a mistake because you don't have actual real customers or clients there. But I am curious. It's very easy for me as a very small company and a lot of consultants, experts and authors to only say things that they 100% believe in. I mean, that's just easy. But when you are working with a government at large institution, a military, it's not about your opinion. And there may be times when you have to defend a policy that you are personally opposed to. How do you help people, coach people? You can't simply turn down all those interviews.

No, no. In the military, let's be honest about it, we are exceptionally fortunate because, yes, you may be fighting, you may be engaging in combat in an area that people don't want you to be. They don't like the morality behind it. They don't like the political decisions behind it. But again, I go back to this point. Our public adore our military. Our public understand that it wasn't our decision. You know, those soldiers, sailors and airmen are actually out there because they've been ordered to do that. So it's very easier for a senior officer to not deflect away from that. But it's a political decision. Why we're here. My main concern is the safety and well being of my, you know, of the people under my command. And you can instantly run to that emotion of how much you care about them, how we are a family, how we fight for the man or woman standing to the left or right of us. So it is exceptionally easy for a military man to do that. It's a heck of a lot harder if you're a CEO, because you've actually got to justify why you've got there. It was your decision.

Everyone is at some level in a state of progress, getting better or worse. It's very hard to stay right the same at any skill level. Where do you still see your flaws as a speaker or media communicator? And how are you trying to improve yourself even now after you've been in this business for decades, as I'm sure.

Everybody will say after we publish this podcast. My greatest flaw that I know about and I still fail to deal with is the pace at which I speak. Hopefully you can see that I am very passionate. I'm very excited about what I do, but what that leads me to do is speak far, far too fast. So that's something I call.

Now, I'm curious because to me, you're not speaking too quickly. Are other people telling you this or this is your own perception that constantly getting feedback.

So slow down, Jay, slow down. I really want to absorb what you're saying. Yeah, I've had that for many, many years, but I'm slowly working on it. That's why I spend some time on my podcast and what I do on YouTube. I've been slowly building it to a state where I think I'm getting there. And it's.

To my ear, you sound. I hate to sound like I'm sucking up to the guests, but to my ear you sound great. You're easy to understand, with the one exception of. I thought you wanted us to think about not violence, but violence other than confusing that one word. I find you incredibly articulate and easy to listen to and conversational. Again, there are differing schools of thought.

I mostly get it from the UK audience because I do have a pronounced regional Accent. You know, I.

You may be subconsciously speaking slower because you think I'm talking to a dumb American. I better, I better speak slowly.

Not. I mean, I've watched so many of your videos now, tj, and so many of them I completely agree with. Now, there's no way you could have that perception from me at all.

Thanks. How else are you communicating these days? You worked in the military, in a big institution where frankly it was. You didn't have to beat the bushes to get media coverage. They're coming to you.

Yeah.

You now work in a small organization where you can't just expect the BBC to call you. How do you reach out to the media and how do you communicate with your own audience using social media?

At the moment, I'm predominantly just going through the social media channels and local media channels as I'm building the business to become what I want it to be. And that is all about sharing information. It is all about starting a conversation. It is not about selling. You move to selling much, much later on in your communication career. What you're trying to do is give somebody something for free. That's what people want. But then if they want to expand upon it, then they realize that they need to get into partnership. They may have to start spending money. But it's actually.

And which, which outlet do you prefer and find works best? I mean, I always preferred YouTube and video because I figure, well, I'm speaking and people have to see it. And what makes people nervous is the fact that people can see you. But what I have found recently is my audience actually prefers audio, which is why we're doing this audio podcast and not video.

When you actually look at the. And this is one thing every communicator needs to do is actually follow up on your communications. Make sure you know how to measure it. And that's measurements of performance and measurements of effect. But when I start looking at what I'm doing, I absolutely adore Twitter. I've got a love hate relationship with Facebook and its ever changing algorithms. I adore YouTube. I am slowly building my presence there. But the one that suddenly generates the most reach is, which really surprised me because I thought it was dying off was blogging. The reach you get from a blog, don't underestimate it because it will suddenly expand so much further. You can really make a difference in your reach hits by regularly blogging.

People like Tim Ferriss and others are always saying the best SEO in the world is a great blog post. An evergreen blog post that people come back to for Years.

Yeah, absolutely. And you have a chance to plan your communication within a blog post as well. You're not doing it live, you're not worrying about stumbling and what have you, but you've got to make it relevant and you've got to target it to your audience.

I always give our guests an opportunity to go on a little bit of a rant. What is the worst communication advice you hear out there? There's so much communication advice. Everyone is a so called public speaking expert or media expert. I'm constantly ridiculing bad advice I hear, but I want to hear from you every single time.

It has to be journalists are the enemy. Journalists are there to get their story. They're only interested in the Pulitzer Prize, they're only interested in getting their next award and what have you. In my experience, I've only had two bad experiences, one of which I've spoken about with a journalist. The vast majority, especially if you're talking about the higher level people, are very, very professional people. They understand that it is a relationship. They understand that you want to get something out of it. And actually you are in effect, the media. You are the person that's got the story. They need you just as much as you need them. But this aspect that journalists are purely there for themselves, not true. Especially if you're talking about a cub reporter, somebody new to the game. They are actually looking for the stories that actually will connect with their audiences, that, that builds their relationships, that builds their reputation. So by giving them the story, you're doing them a great favor. So don't think of the enemy. This is somebody you need a professional relationship with.

And if you only had two bad experiences in 20 years, you're doing a lot better than I am. Thank you. That's good. A pretty, pretty good track record. What's the best communication advice that you give people that they just don't follow?

Don't be a politician. Do not be a politician. It's this. It was a tip given to me by my father, was, you know, there is never a simple answer to a complex problem. If somebody presents you with a simple problem, you know, simple answer to a complex problem, they're either a liar, idiot or politician. And it's because of that point that life is complex. Okay? Politicians will use that. They will say there's a simple answer to this horrible situation there because it gets them votes. And then they're going to have to spend their political career defending why they said that they've not managed to fix it very quickly afterwards. So don't try and do that. Admit that the situation you're in and what you're actually dealing with is complex. Explain the complexities and then explain to your audience where your starting points are and how you are starting to deal with it. Again, it's this moment of we want our audiences to know that we are taking them seriously, we don't think they're dumb. Communicate to them that this is very complex. We are doing our best. We're starting with this. We're starting with this. I know there are going to be frustrations on the way and actually communicate and treat your audience as your intellectual equal.

And if any of our audience wants to be the equal with Jay, they can communicate with him directly. He's on Twitter, you can find him Micromedia uk. That's at Micromedia uk. Jay, how else would you like the audience to either communicate with you, interact with you, what's your goal? What would you like them to do? We appreciate your time, but there's a million things you can do with your time. I believe every interview there should be mutual benefit. What is it you want this audience to do for you, since you've been generous with them on a personal level?

I'd love them to follow me on my social media channels so we can start having those kind of conversations. But what I really want them to do is share with me, stand back for one second and think about the relationship they could have with the media. Tell me what their relationship is at the moment and what it could be. Can they actually move away from thinking of stovepipes, of advertising, communicate advertising, marketing, public relations. But can they actually think back one step, take it more holistically and go, do you know what? I've got some amazing stories and that's what this is all about. Taking the step back to go, Jay, do you think this is a story? And some things will be stories and things won't be. If you've won an industrial award, well done. But that's not a story that's of interest to your tiny niche market that was actually in the running for that award. But if you've got a member of your company that has done something fantastic for the community or something heroic, bang, there's a story. That's why they want to support you, that's why they would come in. So it's challenging themselves to see if they've actually got a story the media would want to take on.

The website is Bethemedia. Our special guest has been Jay Saunders, managing director of Micromedia. I'm TJ Walker.

Speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily streaming TV and radio show devoted to all aspects of speaking and communication. If you received value from the show, then please subscribe to it@mediatrainingworldwide.com Please review the show, leave comments and share it with your friends and colleagues today.