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Politicians often appear to be skilled at handling interviews because they receive extensive media training and coaching. This training is designed to help them effectively communicate their messages, stay on point, and navigate potentially tricky or challenging questions.

Here are a few reasons why politicians may appear to be good at interviews:

1. Media Training: Politicians typically undergo media training to learn techniques for delivering their messages effectively. They are taught strategies such as staying on message, bridging to preferred topics, and deflecting difficult questions. These training sessions also help them develop skills like public speaking, body language, and voice modulation.

2. Preparation: Politicians and their teams invest significant time and effort in preparing for interviews. They research the interviewer, the media outlet, and potential questions that may arise. They gather facts, statistics, and talking points to support their positions. This preparation helps them feel more confident and enables them to respond to questions with well-prepared answers.

3. Messaging Discipline: Politicians often have carefully crafted messaging strategies to convey their policy positions, values, and political agendas. These messages are repeated consistently across various interviews, speeches, and public appearances. The repetition helps reinforce their ideas and makes it easier for them to stay on track during interviews.

4. Experience: Many politicians have extensive experience in public speaking and media engagements. Over time, they become more adept at handling different interview scenarios, anticipating questions, and effectively communicating their ideas. This experience allows them to remain composed, confident, and articulate during interviews.

5. Spokespeople and Media Advisors: Politicians usually have teams of communications professionals, including press secretaries and media advisors, who assist them in preparing for interviews. These experts provide guidance, review potential questions and answers, offer feedback on performance, and help strategise the politician’s media presence.

If you’re an executive or leader in the corporate, government or not-for-profit sector, you can also benefit hugely from considering the factors above when preparing to speak to your most important audiences. You may not have a big team of media advisors or speechwriters at your disposal, but it’s vital to get the support of your corporate affairs or communications team if you have one, or a trusted colleague to help you to workshop your messages. Media and presentation skills training is ideal for anyone who wants to work on better verbal communication and to improve their relationship with their organisation’s stakeholders.

If you want to improve your communication skills when being asked a question on a hot-button issue, engage with us by sending us an email at [email protected]. We can definitely help you.

This week an AFR article said that the CEO of Optus, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was “labelled ‘unavailable’, ‘defensive’, ‘out of touch’ and ‘just not good enough'”; how the company communicated with its customers and the government during a day-long network blackout this week has been met with only criticism”.

And in this article that “a Canberra press gallery reporter breaks the story of the breach” and “reveals details that Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin doesn’t in her subsequent press conference. From the first moments of the crisis, the company had already lost control”.

And this….

“When Bayer Rosmarin eventually fronted the media as school children were heading to recess, she rolled out some obfuscatory waffle about the outage being too hard to explain, despite the media unpacking the likely cause”.

And like last year, when Optus had a data breach, there was no apology to customers as the first thing that came out of the mouths of the company spokespeople, including Bayer Rosmarin.

Surely since last year the company and their spokespeople have reviewed their crisis communications plan and done some crisis media spokesperson training.

But it doesn’t appear that way and the impression the company gave this time around was once again lacking in genuine concern for the primary stakeholder – the customer base. It appears they also forgot about the power of the government as a key and influential stakeholder. Again, the government attacked Optus ferociously and publicly.

Were there no lessons learnt from last year?

Here are four primary tips:

1. Have a good crisis communication plan that analyses the main stakeholders and know what they want and/or need to hear.
2. Show care and concern quickly to the people who matter the most and who are significantly and adversely affected – like customers.
3. Have regular media crisis training so you appear in control – impression is everything to shape opinions and attitudes.
4. Be fast communicating – don’t hide.

Imagine working on a skill in 2023 that, once mastered, could raise your value by 50%… that one skill is public speaking!

In Warren Buffett’s office, he has only one Diploma on display. It’s not his business degree. It’s a certificate he earned after completing Dale Carnegie’s public-speaking course. Buffett says it’s the most valuable degree he has. For a man who’s worth $80 billion, that’s saying something!

Buffett says, “The dividends on the investment you make in sharpening your communication skills will pay off for the rest of your career.”

Best-selling author and TED curator Chris Anderson calls the ability to captivate an audience “presentation literacy”, a superpower to pitch your ideas, sell products and accomplish your dreams. The return-on-investment of sharpening your communication skills will pay off for the rest of your career.

The great news is, regardless of your personality type, age and level of experience, public speaking skills are teachable. Undoubtedly, Buffett demands attention, yet his journey to prominence was not without its challenges. Early in his career, he was “terrified” of public speaking and took specific steps to overcome his fear.

We have literally transformed our executive presentation skills clients from dreary and run-of-the-mill presenters to presenters that are congratulated by their colleagues for being “outstanding” and audience members describing them as “exceptional” speakers.

We have made people “great”. Ask us how.

Watch today’s video to learn the 3 steps Warren Buffett took to conquer his fear of public speaking.

Public Speaking is no Longer a ‘Soft Skill’ –  It’s Critical to Your Future Career Success

The hard data shows ‘soft skills’ are in high demand.

In a recent LinkedIn study, “persuasion” was one of the top skills “most worth learning”. According to the study, “strengthening a soft skill is one of the best investments you can make in your career, as they never go out of style.”

Deirdre McCloskey, an economist and historian at the University of Illinois, Chicago conducted a research project to prove that persuasion is responsible for growing a share of the USA’s national income. She analysed 250 occupations covering 140 million people and concluded persuasion is responsible for generating one-quarter of America’s total national income. McCloskey expects it to rise to 40% over the next 20 years. Her research was taken up by another economist in Australia who reached a similar conclusion.

It’s time we stop referring to public speaking and the art of persuasion as “soft skills”. There is nothing “soft” about these skills, as they are critical to your future career success.

We have literally transformed our executive presentation skills clients from dreary and run-of-the-mill presenters to presenters that are congratulated by their colleagues for being “outstanding” and audience members describing them as “exceptional” speakers.

Public speaking in any forum is a learned skill and there are few people who would not want to go to next level. We have made people “great”. Ask us how.

Watch our video to learn about the invaluable skill of changing minds!

What research says about presentation skills that could be holding executives back in their careers.

A survey published by Forbes (and conducted by Prezi) found that 70% of executives surveyed ranked presentation skills as a critical component to their career success. And 75% of them indicated they would like to improve their presentation skills further.

The survey also revealed the extreme measures executives will go to, to get out of presenting. 20% of the respondents said they would do almost anything to avoid giving a presentation, including pretending to be sick or asking a colleague to give the presentation, even if it resulted in “losing respect” within their organisation.

Clearly, there’s a lot of work to be done… so why are executives not prioritising improving their presentation skills?

We have literally transformed our executive presentation skills clients from dreary and run-of-the-mill presenters to presenters that are congratulated by their colleagues for being “outstanding” and audience members describing them as “exceptional” speakers.

Public speaking in any forum is a learned skill and there are few people who would not want to go to the next level. We have made people “great”. Ask us how.

Watch this video for our take on why!

Transport NSW saw its Sydney Digital Train Radio System (DTRS) fail, resulting in the Sydney Trains network shutting down immediately and all trains halting for safety reasons. This, of course, caused extreme commuter chaos for the evening peak hour.

Sydney Trains chief executive, Matthew Longland, is obviously a strong graduate of media training and stakeholder communications and was quick off the mark to communicate with his stakeholders.

His communication and key messages were clear and to the point. He relayed the services that had been affected – nearly 3,000 of them – and ruled out any thoughts of a scary infrastructure cyber attack.

He expressed the need to shut down for commuter safety, communicated that most passengers were safely moved to platforms, and he put the incident into perspective, saying that the Sydney train network had never been affected by this system’s failure before.

Then Sydney Trains was on the front foot when the trains started running a couple of hours later, using social media and news media to get the message out.

The key to good executive communication and reputation protection is fast, factual information that stakeholders need; not corporate weasel words.

In this case, people needed to know if and when they could to get to where they needed to go. Particularly, for some, for the all-important commute home after work.