Chris Norton: 0:05

Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the podcast where we turn screw-ups into breakthrough strategies for success. I'm Chris Norton, your host, and today we're diving into one of the most critical skills for success, both in and out of the workplace communication. Joining us is Jayne Constantinus, a dynamic trainer, speaker and presenter with an impressive career spanning live TV on BBC, corporate events and even the TED stage. Jayne shares her insights on why communication is an essential life skill and how you can grow your confidence as a communicator. We'll explore practical tips to overcome the fear of public speaking, understand the powerful role of active listening and learn how to navigate high pressure communication situations with poise and effectiveness. So if you've ever felt nervous before that big board presentation or struggled to make your voice heard in a crowded room, not a problem, I've ever had, obviously. This episode is definitely just for you. So, as always, sit back, relax and let's uncover how you can become a more confident communicator in any situation. Enjoy. Okay, welcome to the show, Jayne Constantinus. Thank you for joining us. Pleasure Only, a pleasure to be here.

Chris Norton: 1:19

The show today is about how communication is the most important life skill and how to become a more confident communicator in any situation. Now, I know this is your area of expertise, but obviously, before we get into all that, please can you tell us how you got into what you do now?

Jayne: 1:36

Well, what I do now is a combination of training other people, helping them to become more skillful and more confident communicators, and a lot of other jobs have led to this point, some of them brilliant and some of them really terrible. I started off working in agencies. I was in corporate and financial PR and advertising corporate and financial PR and advertising and then I went into branding and corporate identity. And then I went to the BBC and, by one of those sliding doors moments, got an amazing job as a continuity announcer, and they are the voices that you hear in between television programs telling you what's coming next. So now on BBC One, eastenders, that sort of thing. Ideally it's a bit more creative than that, but you know what that will do, and I did that for eight years and it was back in the 1800s, so it was all live and we had millions of viewers because it was pre-digital, but it was a thrilling, thrilling, thrilling and terrifying job in equal measure.

Jayne: 2:47

And then I did a bit of news reading, slash reporting, focusing on business and financial news. And then I embarked on the world of freelancing and have been ever since and doing a combination of presenting. So I did a few series for BBC two Factual entertainment was my genre history and travel and countryside things and a lot of corporate presenting a lot of live events, moderating conferences and speaking at those events did a TED talk. That's 14 more minutes of terror. It's been a lot of terror in the career up to this point and and I continue to do a lot of that work now alongside the training, but the training is probably 85 percent of what I do and I've been doing that for 20 years and I absolutely love it because it's like everything I've ever done is now useful to other people the bbc stuff you've done.

Chris Norton: 3:51

I've always been intrigued because I know will's got a question for you. But the thing that's always interesting, are you sat in a broom cupboard and going and now bbc it's eastenders and you just sign a like a little room on your own and is it completely live and you're ad-libbing. How does it work that?

Jayne: 4:08

time. And it's funny you say broom cupboard, because when I joined the booth the continuity booth did double up as the broom cupboard for the children's. So there was a children's segment, children's Andy Peters. So at 4 30 we would do the announcement into cbbc or whatever it was called then, and um, andy peters and the gang would all be there waiting in the doorway and you would leap out of the chair. They would all run in and put all the posters and the stickers and everything and get ready with the. I can't even remember what the puppet was called you probably go for that.

Chris Norton: 5:03

that was Phil Schofield's, wasn't it that one?

Jayne: 5:06

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Norton: 5:07

Yeah.

Jayne: 5:07

Andy didn't have a puppet. But anyway in the days when there was a puppet, the person would be down there next to the chair with the hand up the puppets.

Will Ockenden: 5:16

It's so basic that you had to.

Jayne: 5:17

you know there's obviously a better way to do it, but no one thought to suggest it obviously a better way to do it, but no one thought to suggest it, no at the time, um, and then next to you. So there'd be then a big, a big window between you and the gallery and there was a like a you know, you live scene production galleries, um, and so there was a production gallery for the bits in between, and you'd have engineers and director, um, a vision mixer, a whole team of people, and so all through your shift, what you were doing was preparing they're called junctions, the bits in between. So you'd be preparing for the junctions, and in my day, everything was live, because there was no alternative, and so you would sit there. An evening shift would run from about six to close down, and in my day, again, there was an actual close down. I mean, I had a CD that was the National Anthem. You put it in a machine, you press play.

Chris Norton: 6:18

I remember that, the National Anthem. It used to come. Yeah, they used to turn the BBC off, didn't they? At a certain time, exactly, exactly that. Yeah, that is a throwback. I remember that anthem. It used to come.

Jayne: 6:24

yeah, they used to turn the bbc off, didn't they at a certain time exactly?

Chris Norton: 6:25

exactly that yeah, that is a throwback. I remember that. And were you just sat there then in sheer terror for when your bit was coming on?

Jayne: 6:33

um, so you had a bit of time without the terror while while you were in the middle of the program. And then, uh, and you know, oh my god, this is actually making my heart pound thinking about it, and I still have. You know, we all have God. This is actually making my heart pound thinking about it, and I still have. You know, we all have stress dreams, don't we? I have one where it's two minutes to the junction, and so that's when the terror really kicks in, because they put the red light on two minutes, nobody's allowed into the gallery and everybody's now getting ready, and everybody's now getting ready. And my nightmare, my stress dream, is that it's two minutes and I'm locked out of the booth and I can't get in and I can see the chair and I can see the microphone but I can't get in to do the announcements.

Jayne: 7:19

Oh my God. So then, yeah, two minutes to go, everybody gets into a slightly higher gear and and you've got that thing during the junction of somebody counting down in your ear, and that's that's. You know, a thing that you have to get to grips with and learn to be able to do to listen and speak at the same time. So they're counting you down from five to zero into the programme. So they're counting you down from five to zero into the programme. Or, the most stressful shift of all was the evening shift on BBC One, when you had to get to the news on a clock. Do you remember that? The ticking clock? And obviously you couldn't go over by even half a second. So there was a little bit of pressure to get to that.

Will Ockenden: 8:05

That was the highlight of the evening, so fast forward to today communication training. This sounds like an obvious question, but how important is our ability to communicate well?

Jayne: 8:15

Well, you said it in your intro, didn't you? I really do genuinely believe that it is the most important life skill in and out of work. But I'll tell you what I am seeing. Probably for the last five years, I've seen the business of communicating out loud being elevated in status in the workplace, which means, obviously, that more people are arriving in my training room, which is lovely, but it also means that I'm seeing, for example, people not getting promoted because the one piece of the jigsaw that's missing is communication, so they're not communicating with maximum confidence and gravitas and impact and presence. These are the words that I hear a lot, and so they're being slightly held back. The good news is you can fix it very easily, put tools and skills and techniques into practice and go for that promotion again and get it the second time.

Will Ockenden: 9:24

Well, we'll dig into that in a moment. You said it's kind of grown in importance in the last five years. What do you think is driving that? And sort of a side question is the digital world and social media kind of inhibiting the way we communicate verbally?

Jayne: 9:39

Two different issues there and both very pertinent issues there and both very pertinent. When I used to work in advertising and PR, if we wanted, say, the chair to do a video, oh it was a really big thing. It was a big song and dance and there was a lot of rehearsing and it was unusual that you needed a spokesperson to speak out loud into a camera. Nowadays it's absolutely expected and there is nowhere to hide, is there for all sorts of people, at all levels of seniority, in all sorts of organisations. Everybody, it seems, has to be talking out loud all of the time. So that's definitely changed and audiences expect more of people, I think, because they see more professionals doing it. So there is a need for more people to do it and to do it well. Your second point about digital and social media and so on.

Jayne: 10:46

There is a really tangible impact on particularly young people in the workplace and I work with very, very many groups who are from marketing and PR that sector and PR that sector, and what I see is people who are really terrified to speak out loud without preparation, without having thought about it and crafted it, and, of course, what we know is that people who've grown up in a digital world, have had, from earliest times, a lot of control over how they communicate, when they communicate, whether or not they choose to communicate at all.

Jayne: 11:37

Isn't there some stat that something like a quarter of 18 to 24 year olds never answer their phone when it rings? So people choose and they have this level of control. And then when they get into the workplace and they're in a meeting and someone says, and Susan, what do you think about that? And they're thrown onto the back foot. No time to prepare, having to ad lib, having to be spontaneous, it's really, really difficult for them and it's a theme that I come across a lot in the training room, and I've actually designed something specially which is called flying by the seat of your pants Any excuse to get a rude word in like pants, um, and when there is there is um.

Chris Norton: 12:26

There are techniques that we can use to be better at it so if I was, if I was a listener now and I'm in marketing and I've got a big board presentation I've got to present to the I don't know the cfo or the ceo and I'm absolutely to use your um analogy crapping my pants. What can I do to ease the tension from me being brilliant at data and marketing and make sure that I can sort of tell my story so I can pull them along with me? What tips have you got for them?

Jayne: 12:57

How long is this recording, by the way?

Chris Norton: 13:02

3.4 hours. No, maximum one hour. That's it Sorry, 3.4 hours.

Jayne: 13:07

No, it's a maximum one hour. That's it, sorry. Ok, so everything is about preparation. You see, I believe passionately. I know that word is overused, isn't it? But I do actually passionately believe, and I know that confidence is a muscle. Believe, and I know that confidence is a muscle. Confidence is a muscle. It's not some mystical force field or something that you get by osmosis or something that you're necessarily even born with. It's something that we take control of and we grow, and people love that because it's very empowering. So the way we take control of our own confidence is by doing really good prep. So I'll condense this down.

Jayne: 13:49

First thing, think about the audience. Who am I going to be communicating to? What do they know about the subject? What is the mood of those individuals when I'm going to stand up or lean across a desk or into a camera? Up or lean across a desk or into a camera? What do I want to achieve and what can I give them? What can I say? What can I offer in terms of content that is genuinely valuable to them? Because that's what they're sitting thinking the whole time. You're speaking. What's in it for them? How is this useful to them? And I like to, for shorthand, talk about gold nuggets. Make sure you've got gold nuggets of content for them, not that you're just turning up telling them stuff that you think is interesting. So gold nuggets, and do you know what? That is your first building block of confidence knowing that your content is strong, because you now can't wait to deliver that content to them. So that's the first stage of the preparation.

Jayne: 14:53

Then, obviously, if you're using slides, they need to be created, and we all know what a good slide looks like and what a terrible slide looks like. Too much information, too many full sentences, paragraphs of text If they're reading, they're not listening. So be guided by that. So create whatever it is that you're going to use to support your material. And then rehearsal Rehearsing out loud, and it has to be out loud in your actual voice. It's not enough to look at the slides run through in your head. Think about it. It's got to be out of your mouth, because magical things happen.

Jayne: 15:35

When you say it out loud, you notice things. You might notice that there's repetition. You might notice that you're using too many of those horrid filler words like kind of and sort of, and you know and like, and you can start to eliminate them. You can also get comfortable that it's not perfect. One of the biggest problems I come across is perfectionism that people think it should sound perfect. That's not how human beings really speak. So you can, in rehearsal, get comfortable that you might express it slightly differently. What you'll notice here is we're never writing a script, because once you've got a script, firstly, what you will have written will be more sophisticated, it will be perfect. It will be perfect. It'll be more complex than the way human beings speak out loud. Secondly, you've either got to read it or you've got to learn it. And if you've learned a script, all you're doing in the real thing is regurgitating something from the memory, whereas if you only ever have notes, it will be fresher so.

Chris Norton: 16:45

So, Jayne, you said when you're speaking to people, they're thinking what's in it for me, actually I was just listening to that, what you were saying there and the two analogies you gave there, exactly how will and I present, so will, when we've got a presentation, will and I present quite often together will go off in a room and he'll do his thing, probably to best practice, out loud and say I can see him doing it. I can't do that. I've tried to do that and I just get on my own nerves. So I try and do it in my head and then I try and think that doesn't work. There's repetition here.

Chris Norton: 17:16

But I do think that the speaking out loud is a better way of doing it. But then I often feel and I don't know what people listening to this will feel I feel if I've done it over and over again, it doesn't feel as authentic and it feels more rehearsed. And so I can't portray my personality and my passion over in a sales situation compared to maybe if I just did it ad-lib. But I do think that practice makes perfect. So I'm kind of answering my own question, I think. What do you think? Which is the better of the two?

Jayne: 17:44

Well, definitely notes and rehearsing out loud, but you are right that there is such a thing as too much rehearsing, where you get to the point where you're sounding robotic. Yeah, that's why it's really important that in every rehearsal it's allowed to sound a little bit different, because you're actually thinking about what you're saying, not just repeating words, and that might let you keep that authenticity and the freshness and it is possible to create the illusion of spontaneity even when you've rehearsed a lot.

Chris Norton: 18:27

It's what stand-up?

Jayne: 18:28

comedians do. Every time it's almost as if they've just had another idea. Oh something happened on the way in this morning? No, it didn't. You've said that 10 times already today.

Will Ockenden: 19:57

So what you've sort of talked about there, that's a scenario where you've got the luxury of preparation and you know you at least roughly expect what's going to be asked of you. What about the more spontaneous kind of interactions, probably in the Q&A at the end of the presentation, if you get, you know, asked, if you get asked to say a few words for someone's leaving do in the office, how would you kind of recommend people speak clearly and with confidence in those kind of scenarios?

Jayne: 20:25

but you see, being asked to speak at somebody's leaving due, you might have three minutes to prepare because somebody will say, oh, would you mind? And you go. Yeah, of course, no problem at all, I'll just pop to the loo. While you're on the loo, what you're doing is thinking about a structure, you're thinking about potentially a device and you know this actually happened to me the other day. It wasn't a work leaving do, but it was somebody leaving my street, a neighbour, and I hadn't anticipated that they might ask me to do it, but they did and I went off into a corner with a tiny bit of paper and thought of one anecdote. I thought of one device and what came to me was, you know, that thing called what three words you know the location yeah, yeah, location yeah, location finder exactly.

Jayne: 21:24

And because they were moving to a new location, this popped into my head what three words so I used as my device? What three words would we, these neighbors who like this family a lot? What would we use about them? Um, and I can't remember what it was Friendly, generous, something, another word I can't remember. So I quickly thought of a device. I thought about one anecdote that beautifully illustrates how close our relationship is as neighbours. And then an ending is going to be well, that's going to be what next. Then an ending is going to be well, that's going to be what next? Um, and so I quickly you know two minutes jotted down a few words and then was able to do it reasonably well and reasonably confidently so there's always, you know, even if it's 30 seconds, that's still in some cases sufficient um preparation time interesting.

Chris Norton: 22:17

So you, you've done a ted, ted, ted x is it ted? X or ted, is it yeah?

Jayne: 22:21

yeah, is it. Well, it's the. It's sort of the same thing, but it wasn't at the actual main ted event Interesting.

Chris Norton: 22:26

So you've done a TEDx Is it TEDx or TED? Yeah, well, it's sort of the same thing, but it wasn't at the actual main TED event. Okay, so you've done a TED event where you've spoken for 14 minutes that I do a lot of speaking, we do events, podcasting everything. A TED event I could do, but it would'm not. I'm saying this out loud. I've never. I admit that that does scare me, because I think that everybody's staring at you. You've got no prompt. Really. The lights are on you, there's 300 people staring at you, the cameras are recording you. So if you collapse or whatever you do wrong, how how do you just get through that sheer terror? Because I don't care who you are. You have to be prepared, is what you're going to say, I think. But what are the things you can do to prepare for the sheer terror you're about to experience?

Jayne: 23:11

And you are right, terror is the word. And I did this talk after 20 years of working in live television, live events. You know I'd stood on stages for two decades with people staring at me and yet this particular 14 minutes was possibly one of the most stressful things I've ever done, and that's partly because I recognised the marketing potential of it, that brand association. You know it was one of the things that I knew I had to get on my CV and so there was a lot. I felt a lot of pressure to do a half decent job, you know, to do something that I wasn't embarrassed to send to people or to point them in the direction. So there was a huge amount of pressure. So the first thing when you've got a big event coming up like that is to map out your preparation process. I don't know if you're familiar with a guy called steve peters and his book called the chimp paradox oh, no, I've read it, yeah, oh, what do you think?

Chris Norton: 24:26

it's the monkey. It's the monkey brain that talks to you. So you, it's like your um. It's like the little from back in the cartoons, the little character on your shoulder that's talking in your ear. Go, that's your monkey. You've got your normal brain and then you've got your monkey brain going. Chris, chris, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fail. Don't step onto that screen. As soon as you stand out there, you're gonna trip up, fall over. You're gonna forget everything you talk about. That's your monkey brain, right, is that right?

Jayne: 24:48

yeah, that's it, that's the book, and one of the things he recommends in that book and actually I was really fortunate to work with some, um, elite sports people and they reinforce this is to focus on process, not outcome, and what we mean by that is if you wake up every morning five months from the, the TED talk, stressing and allowing the, the chimp brain, to derail you and get your heart rate pumping, for every day for five months, you won't be able to step on that stage.

Jayne: 25:25

And so what you do, what elite sports people do, is they break down the preparation and they work out what they're going to do every week, every month, every day, and focus on that. What am I doing today? What am I doing this afternoon? What's my emphasis for this week? Is it creating my slides this week? And you focus entirely on that the process, rather than stressing about what will happen when you step on the stage and whether you fall apart. So that's the first thing. Second thing is really back. I won't we won't go on about rehearsal again, but rehearsal is a huge building block.

Chris Norton: 26:03

And how often did you rehearse for yours, for instance, just to give us some frame of reference. I mean, obviously you've got 20 years broadcast experience, so how much prep did you do?

Jayne: 26:14

Five months, Five months of prep. In between my full-time job. I am quite busy, but in between I mapped it all out from the minute I got accepted to the minute I stepped on the stage. So audience mapping, content generation, finessing that, bringing it to life with examples. Then the timing starts because, as you mentioned, it's 14 minutes. The most terrifying thing about it is there's an enormous red digital clock in your eye line at the back of the auditorium.

Will Ockenden: 26:47

It's making me worse, just to make it even more stressful.

Chris Norton: 26:51

Yeah, so does it count down? Yeah, it's counting down Like a bomb.

Jayne: 26:55

Yeah, so you've got half an eye on that, Right, yeah? So then the timing and rehearsing out loud timing, every section with a stopwatch. First complete run through it was 19 minutes, so there's a lot of editing to be done there. That was another whole week of work editing timing again and again and again. Get it down to exactly the 14 minutes, because you don't want to waste any time. You've got interesting stuff to say, hopefully. And then, oh, honestly, I probably will have done 20 rehearsals, probably.

Chris Norton: 27:37

Okay, that's not actually as much as I thought. I don't know, because when we do presentations ourselves, will and and I doing a presentation or a webinar or whatever I've. Just I can't remember from presentation training I had years ago. The one that I always back back to will is each slide is one minute. You've got to think of each. So if you've got a 30 minute presentation of a 30 slide, or 28, 29 roundabout, it's a minute. So I don't how many words is 14 minutes of sheer terror? That's what I want to know yeah, um, I didn't.

Jayne: 28:09

Um, my slides weren't that type. Some of them were images and they would have been up there for five seconds.

Jayne: 28:17

Um, there were quotes, so I yeah, I structured it slightly differently, but when I say 20 or 25 rehearsals, that would be all the way through. Leading up to that, each section would have been rehearsed out loud and timed with a stopwatch, um. So there was more talking out loud before that, um. But then there comes a point when you have to do what's called what I've I've not made this up a dress rehearsal. What do you think is the key thing about a dress rehearsal that you can't do in all the previous rehearsals?

Chris Norton: 28:51

Get a camera. I would have thought on you, because even the light scares most people.

Will Ockenden: 28:57

Everyone's confident until you turn a camera on and then they just go boom, yeah, it introduces an element of peril, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly exactly.

Jayne: 29:05

But the other thing that you can't do in a dress rehearsal is stop. Now you asked me about managing nerves this scenario where you're presenting to the board so you've done all your other rehearsals, the slides are looking good and it's the right amount of time. But what typically happens in an ordinary rehearsal is you might get two thirds of the way through and then that slide is not quite working. You stop, you go back, you do it again In a dress rehearsal what we're going to call a dress rehearsal you can't stop whatever happens. You can't stop whatever happens.

Jayne: 29:40

And I really think that for some people this is empowering because, let's say, you forget a word in this dress rehearsal. You have to find a way to get over. I call it being on a patch of ice. So you're on a patch of ice, you've forgotten a word. You have to find a way over it. So there might be a pause, you'll think you'll find another word or you'll go back and express the idea differently and you move forward over the patch of ice. And what is so brilliant about that is it means you've grown your confidence in a very deliberate way, a very tangible way in that moment, because you coped when it went a bit wrong and you moved forward. And then when that happens in the real thing and listen, we all have to accept every time we speak out loud, there will be a moment when we're a little bit rubbish. When we're a little bit rubbish and when you are being a bit rubbish, if you know you can move forward without falling off the stage, wow, that confidence muscle will be growing.

Will Ockenden: 30:47

So, Jayne, we've been talking to you for a little while now. What's the quality of Chris? And I's listening Because listening active listening is a a skill isn't it. It's not a passive. It's not a passive thing.

Jayne: 31:03

Yeah it is. It's very good because you keep picking up on things that I've said and and wanting to expand on them. So you clearly are, and I can see you're both nodding and making good eye contact. So I think 10 out of 10 for the active listening.

Will Ockenden: 31:20

So why is that so important, then? You know, listening is, you know, is that one of the keys to great communication being a really good listener. Talk to us about that.

Jayne: 31:29

I think it can work particularly well when you're in a meeting situation, or let's say that you find yourselves and maybe you'll tell me in a minute whether you've done this or not but you might find yourself running a panel at a conference or being on a panel at a conference, and to be able to demonstrate that you were listening and you do remember what people have said means that you can then make it feel like it's a conversation and you're also valuing and respecting the other people.

Jayne: 32:06

So if you're running a panel at a conference and Susan over in the corner in the blue coat made a really interesting comment for you later on, perhaps in your summarizing of that panel, to be able to refer we had a brilliant comment over there from Susan about X, y and Z, and Peter brought up the issue of and I bet you've been on the receiving end of that because it's really good facilitation. It makes you feel included and audiences these days don't want to be lectured at, they want to feel that it's one big conversation. You can only do that if you're properly listening.

Will Ockenden: 32:46

So how do we properly listen? You know we hear about active listening, don't we? Is there specific techniques we need to employ to do that better?

Jayne: 32:57

I think partly it's a personality thing. I do think that there are some people in the world who are genuinely curious about other people and about the world, so we can't do anything about that if we weren't born that way. The other thing that we can do in a really practical way, if you're in a meeting or online situation, is to jot down things that you hear, so in a very deliberate way. If somebody's mentioned something about, well, you mentioned listening, so I might write down the word listening and then I might add a couple of words to that and I've got it here next to me on a on a piece of paper, so that I can refer back to it later. Depends how good your memory is, um, but this also demonstrates to other people that you are paying attention getting people's names right as well.

Chris Norton: 33:55

I'm to prove that I'm a good listener Will.

Will Ockenden: 33:57

Go on.

Chris Norton: 33:57

Because in Jayne's TED Talk she said Buddha said it best when he said if your mouth's open, you're not learning.

Jayne: 34:07

Wow, that's incredible. Have you seriously just remembered that?

Chris Norton: 34:11

Just literally. I remembered that because I thought it was a great quote. So well done because it stuck in my mind. I don't know why it did so also my wife was meditating and just thought about buddha. So there you go it was good all right, yeah, yeah, brilliant the.

Will Ockenden: 34:27

The other thing I think people will find interesting, and particularly kind of junior people in various, you know, in the world of business will really struggle with this. Um, small talk, particularly in the kind of business, will really struggle with this Small talk, particularly in the kind of context of networking events.

Chris Norton: 34:41

This is personally Will asking you this question. I'm asking on behalf of our listeners. Yeah, of course you are.

Will Ockenden: 34:48

So is there kind of strategies and techniques to get small talk right, Because it can be quite awkward? Can't it Kind of sidling up to somebody at a networking event, especially if you don't really want to be there and and somebody might not be very open with you? How do we tackle?

Jayne: 35:05

that, then you are right. I'm not sure that sidling is ever a good idea. What's the definition of sidling?

Chris Norton: 35:12

yeah, that's probably not luring is the word I would use. Sidling has painted the wrong picture of how I behave at networking events hasn't it.

Will Ockenden: 35:23

He's just sort of striding confidently towards somebody you know then I need to indulge in small talk. So how do I do that?

Jayne: 35:30

Yeah, and you are absolutely right. It's a tool we all need to be able to use because it's of immense value in a business context, Because we know that if we establish rapport somebody called Deborah Tannen, who's a professor of neuro linguistics, love that job title. She calls it rapport talk before report talk and we know that we'll get a better outcome if we've established rapport and people want to do business with people they feel they've got a human connection with, do they not? And I think what people tell me they most fear? Well, there are two things actually One, starting a conversation with a stranger about whom you know nothing, and two, sustaining a conversation, particularly that moment when it grinds to a halt and there's a silence and everybody actually wants to get their phones out, but they know they can't do that.

Jayne: 36:27

So that's true, the um the tip, the tip for the starting a conversation very, very simple. It involves two things. One, make a comment rather than ask a direct question. To make that comment about something that you and the other person are both experiencing a shared experience. So if you were at a conference, let's say you sit next to somebody about to watch a talk, it might be oh wow, this looks really interesting. I've never seen this speaker before. I'm really really keen to find out more about blah blah blah. So you've made a comment. It's a shared experience by definition. They will have something to say about it. And what's different to that about asking a question is, you know, you might want to say did you watch the match at the weekend? Well, that person doesn't know anything about football and isn't interested in it. So how do you pick a random topic that they might be interested in? It's very, very difficult. So comment about a shared experience good tip.

Will Ockenden: 37:39

Okay, then, sustaining the conversation. So we've, we've, we've, um, we've established some initial rapport. We're talking about the conference. You know when, when to walk away, how to avoid the um getting the phones out. What did we do before phones as well? People must have been forced. They had no get out clause, did they?

Chris Norton: 37:58

before phones. It was. We were talking about this yesterday. It was everyone goes, oh, we look at our phones far too much now and we don't pay attention to what's really happening. No, we never did. We just used to get the metro out on the tube and not look at anybody or get out the a to z that we're carrying. Now it's just changed to a digital format. That's the only difference. So people were going. Oh, we used to talk to people randomly. If you did that on the tube.

Jayne: 38:24

People thought you were nuts.

Chris Norton: 38:25

They look at you like what you're doing, talking to me I don't know you are.

Jayne: 38:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they'd call the police, wouldn't they? Yeah?

Will Ockenden: 38:30

didn't. One of the prime ministers, wasn't it david cameron went on the tube and started and tried to talk somebody directly and they just ignored him, because nobody talks on the tube. I love it.

Chris Norton: 38:40

I love that.

Will Ockenden: 38:40

Sorry, we digress. Go on how to sustain a conversation.

Jayne: 38:44

Except you know what this business about? What did we do before phones? It is partly why a lot of young professionals fear spontaneous conversation, because they haven't grown up having to do it. You know, when I started work in even before the BBC job in agencies, I had a desk and a telephone, and a telephone that didn't even have caller display and it rang 20 times a day.

Chris Norton: 39:15

It was terrifying, the only way.

Jayne: 39:16

People contacted you. You picked it up and you said hello Jayne speaking. It could have been anybody a journalist pursuing a story. Your mum asking if you want roast lamb for lunch it could be anybody and you just had to have that conversation.

Jayne: 39:32

So we got trained without realizing it. Um, so back to your question how do you sustain? Ok, very briefly, in all the years that I've been interviewing people, whether it's on telly or radio or live events you've got to learn how to keep a conversation going for as long as you've been told, and possibly even longer. So it often happens, you'll be in the middle of a live broadcast, you've got your earpiece in, they're communicating with you from the gallery and you're coming towards the end of the interview that you'd prepared in advance, and then they say Jayne, the next VT's gone down. Can you keep going? Or you need to keep going for another four minutes, right, okay? So yes, of course you have to do that. So you've got to, you've got to sustain. So the key to this is something you mentioned a minute ago listening, Proper listening. I bet you too know the difference between somebody who's listening and waiting to speak, the difference between somebody who's listening and waiting to speak.

Jayne: 40:40

You see it in the eyes, don't you that slightly dead look. So if you're properly listening, you will hear them say something that gives you a clue about what the next topic might be. So let's say, Will you and I have been talking about holidays, you've you've been away somewhere.

Jayne: 41:00

You mentioned some fantastic food that you had in a little village and you've given me a clue there because you've told me that you're interested in food generally. So we finish that conversation about your holiday, we we wait for that to reach its natural conclusion and then I'm going to take us on to a new topic and I'm going to say food. Oh my goodness that, whatever that recipe was that you you spoke about a minute ago sounds amazing. Are you a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen? Then will you a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen? Then Will you a bit of a foodie person? Because I know you are, because you told me so. We'll then talk about food and during that you may say something else that gives me a clue about you, the kind of person you are, the things you're interested in, and I can take us on to that if I need to.

Will Ockenden: 41:54

And is it fair to say people love to talk about themselves. If you ask lots of questions about them, I read that a lot. Is that true?

Jayne: 42:01

It totally is true and you know you can. Even people often fear as well with the networking and small talk, that they end up on the edge of a conversation about something they know nothing about. I don't know anything about premiership football and if I were involved in a conversation about that I would feel a little bit exposed. But what you can do is ask questions. You can, because they know they know about this topic and they like talking about it. So you can ask intelligent questions and feel involved and leave that encounter, feeling that your voice was in in that conversation it always reminds me of that comment.

Chris Norton: 42:39

I can't remember which comedian was doing it, but all he said he used to do when he was struggling for conversations go, oh, it was off it crowd. That was it it crowd, and the two geeks that work in it crowd, and they, they didn't know anything about football, but all they'd ever do is when they were talking to blokes, go, oh god the game, eh venga. That was a strange decision, wasn't it? And they didn't know anything about when they were talking to blokes go, oh God the game, eh Wenger. That was a strange decision, wasn't it? And they didn't know anything about what they were talking about. They just used to start the conversation and they'd be like Arsenal weren't even playing. What are you talking about? So, yeah, there is key things.

Will Ockenden: 43:09

Yeah, menus, sports. I get what you're saying. Ask questions.

Jayne: 43:21

They say what is it? Uh, be interested, not interesting. Oh, yes, like that. Yeah, yeah, very much, and you know sport if you think about it, and and not just sport, but other topics as well. Sport is about leadership, isn't it? It's about betrayal, it's about competitiveness, it's about technique, it's about money. There are lots of things about sport that you might be able to take the conversation onto, even without any knowledge about teams and goals and other words that I can't think of to do with football.

Chris Norton: 43:56

Right. So this show, Jayne, is all about mistakes, embracing mistakes that we've made in our careers. So do you want to tell us about the one that you've told us about in the notes?

Jayne: 44:07

I can't remember which it was.

Chris Norton: 44:11

It was about when you presented an awards remotely during. Covid Do you want to tell the story.

Jayne: 44:18

Yeah, yeah, in fact I've been thinking about it since, and there's another one that I'll add very, very briefly because it's relevant to the continuity job that we were talking about earlier. One of the shifts that you used to do on Saturday and Sunday mornings was to put the Open University programmes on air. And when I say on air, you took the big VHSs and you put them into machines and you pressed play. And there was one shift where you were running BBC One and BBC Two at the same time. With five minutes in between there was a big switch on the desk that said BBC One, bbc Two, and you turned it and you put the programmes on air physically and announced them. It was beyond terrifying. That is so basic it was. It was the 1800s, tv had only just been invented and I once put the wrong programme on air. So that was my biggest, biggest mistake.

Will Ockenden: 45:18

Did you style it out or did you? Did you um eject it and put the right one on?

Jayne: 45:22

yeah, styling it out quite difficult because the viewers knew it was the wrong program. It wasn't what they were expecting. I, um, I took it off air early and put the next program on. Uh, but by that time we were late to the next programme.

Will Ockenden: 45:38

I mean the whole thing was just the whole schedule was. The next week Is out of kilter.

Jayne: 45:43

It was awful.

Chris Norton: 45:44

Can you remember what it was, what the two programmes you were that got mistaken?

Jayne: 45:50

I think one of them was Geography.

Jayne: 45:52

Because I remember putting it on air and then watching the first 30 seconds and looking at the paperwork, because you always have paperwork for each tape and the paperwork said I don't know woman walking through a green field. And I looked and there was a man walking along a glacier and I thought, hang on, that's not a woman in a green field, oh, no. And then I looked at all the reference numbers and it was the wrong program. Um, yeah, awful. Do you want to hear the other one? Yeah, definitely, we love the mistakes. The mistakes are great. It was the wrong programme. Yeah, awful. Do you want to hear the other one?

Will Ockenden: 46:22

Yeah, I do, yeah, definitely, we love the mistakes.

Chris Norton: 46:24

The mistakes are great. Our listeners love them.

Jayne: 46:28

So this wasn't so much my mistake, but things did go very badly wrong. So it was during the pandemic and I was asked to present an awards ceremony, but obviously we couldn't do it in person, so it all had to be done remotely and the recipients were all over Africa. It was to do with education and philanthropy, so there were speakers and there were people giving the awards and there were the recipients of the awards. I mean, you can see that the potential here for it to go wrong and they were all in different countries and they were all going to be joining remotely. I went to a studio. There was nobody else in the studio apart from two engineers, so I was completely alone, and the woman directing me was also in Africa and she was directing me via WhatsApp and I have the phone on a, on a on a stool next to me.

Jayne: 47:26

So I'm standing in front of the camera and there's nobody counting or doing anything. So I just start and I do the introduction, and the first thing is meant to be a welcome from one of the sponsors, and so I'm giving it all this lovely energy about how exciting it is joined, you know, blah, blah, blah. And here is I'm not going to say real names, obviously Peter Smith. And then I look and I've got the monitor there that should have Peter Smith. Peter Smith's not there. There is an empty chair. So I stand there like this grimacing for a few seconds and then I go oh well, we don't seem to have Peter just yet, but I'm sure we can get back to him, that we can get to hear Peter's welcome address very shortly.

Jayne: 48:14

Okay, let me now take us over to the first award and blah, blah, blah, and we're very delighted to welcome Susan Jones to present the award. Susan Susan's not there, and this went on for two hours and sometimes there would be people speaking and there was no sound. Other times there'd be sound but no picture. There was one occasion when all there was was a chair, sort of swinging round because the person had left, and then being directed by WhatsApp. The woman directing me was saying things like forget him, move on. So I'm having to look at this phone and I'm still live and take, take direction. It was so funny. Uh, eventually, about an hour in, it was so funny and I just became very authentic and, um, and I kept reading out the list of awards there were 13, so that took a while and I'd read them out again and then try to try to go to somebody who was meant to be there, but no, they weren't there either.

Will Ockenden: 49:22

With a fixed grin, a fixed grin on your face for two hours.

Jayne: 49:25

So funny yeah.

Chris Norton: 49:29

A lot of awards were like that, weren't they? During the COVID pandemic In the PR industry we had for the Pride Awards, we won a few Pride Awards and I remember during the COVID we had the BBC presenter from BBC Breakfast, louise Minchin, and she was doing it all but she did a very good job. There was a few delays, but most of it was all right. But, yeah, I've witnessed quite a few events during that period that were just shocking, weren't they?

Jayne: 49:54

It was difficult because people's internet connections and everyone's everywhere- you know, I think I think another not mistake, but I think another challenging thing about the world that I've been operating in, and particularly in the early days, being self-employed, a self-employed voiceover and presenter really, really hard, very demoralizing. I mean eats away at your soul if you're not careful. The rejection, the constant rejection. But there's one moment that I remember in particular. So I've got this voiceover job very, very early days and it was a studio south of England, so I went along to the studio, did the job.

Jayne: 50:35

It was a production company but two men and a dog did the job production company, but two men and a dog did the job were on the doorstep and uh, and he said, you know he was praising the, the work and everything. And he held my hand and he looked me in the eye and he went Jayne, get yourself ready for loads more work. And I thought, oh yes, I never heard from him again that sounds familiar.

Will Ockenden: 50:59

It's funny the number of people that say that isn't it yeah.

Chris Norton: 51:04

I think voiceover work is because we get quite a few messages from people that want to do voiceovers for videos and things like that for the video team we've got. But when you've got a really good voice, which you have, obviously it's fascinating to me that you can. If you how to do it properly? I can't even articulate it. That's a prime example right there. Um, you need some training. I need some training. I need to get my cadence correct and speak slower is what I need. You've been on the show now, Jayne. Every time we have a guest on, we always say, if you were us, who's the next person you'd interview to put onto this show and why?

Jayne: 51:44

Oh, my word, you didn't warn me about that.

Will Ockenden: 51:47

No, we never do this is where your communication skills are going to come in.

Jayne: 51:52

And be spontaneous.

Will Ockenden: 51:53

Yes.

Jayne: 51:55

Can we have Kamala Harris? Probably not.

Will Ockenden: 51:59

Oh yeah, we'll get Trump, shall we?

Jayne: 52:04

Oh God, no. Oh, camel harris, probably not. Oh yeah, we'll get trump, shall we? Oh god, no, oh yeah, go on, do that, do that, that would be funny. Uh, I'll get the two of them. I've yet to watch, actually, and I will um the debate, but I love the moment where he's saying that they're eating all the pets and her face well, yeah yeah she's done a good job.

Chris Norton: 52:19

She did a good job of that, to be fair. It was it's interesting he backed out of all the future is she not the favorite now?

Will Ockenden: 52:26

oh yeah, she is.

Chris Norton: 52:26

Yeah because his whole strategy was to belittle the other guy and say you're too old and I'm much more sharp. And of course she's a former attorney, attorney generalism, she's a lawyer, she's super sharp and, and yeah, she's not pulled any punches. It'd be interesting to see what happens there, because they've got two different total. I don't know if it'll have an effect on the election.

Will Ockenden: 52:44

Anyway, um, we can't get either of them.

Jayne: 52:46

Anyone else they're beyond our budget um, so in that case, if we can't have either of the uh presidential candidates, I'll tell you what. Why don't you get? I don't know why I'm mentioning politicians, but I'll tell you what I noticed about Keir Starmer. I don't think Keir Starmer is a naturally gifted speaker out loud, but I think he's done the very best job he can. And all of us, we have natural gifts and attributes and some have more than others, so I think he's he's done a very good job. I did notice as soon as he got into office the very next time he spoke out loud, he was different, better. I thought he was more relaxed. I thought we saw a bit more of his authentic self and I'd like to talk to him about that, or I'd like you to talk to him about that and what changed in that instant and why he suddenly felt that he was able to allow a bit more of his true personality to come through okay, we'll take the challenge.

Will Ockenden: 53:55

Andy, can you get um, kirsten, I think I can answer that I.

Chris Norton: 54:00

Why Keir Starmer's confidence will have increased is because he won so absolutely by a landslide, and that basically negates all the naysayers in his political party. Because when you run a party, you've got two sides all the time the Tories. That's what took them down, isn't it basically? And I bet that the fact that the countries pretty much really wholeheartedly voted for you, that's sort of like well, now I've got the, is it the mandate? Isn't it? I've got the mandate now to do what I said.

Jayne: 54:28

Um yeah, and then he felt that that he had to have that level of formality. I thought there was a formality about his way of speaking before and then it was like he, he relaxed into himself. After maybe it's that simple confidence and he's got a mandate and he can allow him, his authenticity to come through I've got a final favor to ask of you. Feel free to reject this. I'm going to take you back to the 1800s again.

Will Ockenden: 54:56

Can you give our podcast, the um embracing marketing mistakes podcast, a continuity announcement in the style of the bbc and coming next along those lines?

Jayne: 55:09

yeah, okay, coming up in half an hour on bbc. Well, the program that tells you what's gone wrong, why, and what you can learn from it Embracing Marketing Mistakes at 8 o'clock.

Chris Norton: 55:26

I love that that was great. That was amazing.

Will Ockenden: 55:29

All right, that was brilliant. Thank you for that.

Chris Norton: 55:33

How can people get hold of you if they want?

Jayne: 55:35

Coming up in half an hour on BBC One, the programme that tells you what's gone wrong, why and what you can learn from it, Embracing marketing mistakes. At eight o'clock by one of those sliding doors moments, I went to the BBC as a continuity announcer. It was a thrilling, thrilling, thrilling and terrifying job in equal measure. Seeing, for example, people not getting promoted because they're not communicating with maximum confidence and gravitas. I really do genuinely believe that it is the most important lives in and out of work. We did a TED talk after 20 years of working in live television and yet this particular 14 minutes was possibly one of the most stressful things I've ever done. You.