GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS WITH PUNCH
He was indeed the greatest – when it came to self-promotion.
I’m deliberately unqualified to comment on the late great Muhammad Ali as a boxer.
This is largely because I personally don’t regard an activity where the likely outcome is serious physical harm to you and/or your opponent as a legitimate sport, preferring judo (known as “the gentle way”).
But ironically – despite the violent nature of his best-known activity – Muhammad Ali did great things for human rights and the cause of peace, such as his promotion of racial equality and his refusal to serve in the dodgy Vietnam War.
And when it came to promoting himself, Muhammad Ali did indeed float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
He embraced the idea that a media interview is a chance to both answer the questions AND get a message across – whether it was a message for a specific opponent who he wanted to spook, or to the wider world to buy tickets for his next event.
Muhammed Ali took every opportunity to get his point across with punch.
Perhaps, somewhat less admirably, he did conspire with others to get amazing photos of himself apparently “training” under water to get valuable free publicity in Life Magazine.
This was early in his career in the days when he was known as Cassius Clay.
You can read on the following link the inside story about how the photographer, Flip Shulke, was duped into thinking that underwater training was a regular part of his routine, when the boxer couldn’t even swim.
But the underwater pictures he posed for were amazing and, like much of what Mohammed Ali did, they were entertaining with a serious underlying and effective purpose.
I generally advise a certain modesty in approach during media interviews, so declaring that you “are the greatest” at what you do isn’t something that I’d generally recommend.
But whether you end up, like Mohammed Ali, and doing multiple interviews with Michael Parkinson, or whether you’re talking with your local newspaper or trade magazine, there is a lesson for all communicators.
Having a pre-thought out message and getting it across every time is one way we can all learn from the greatest.
A NEED FOR GREAT ANSWERS IN THE BIG DEBATE
If you’re reading this ezine in Europe you may be aware that there is a big decision about to be made regarding the future of the continent – and one with long-lasting implications.
No, I’m not referring to the decision about whether Australia should remain in the European Song Contest – despite some geographical challenges.
It’s whether the people of Britain will vote to withdraw from the European Union in the referendum on 23 June.
While maintaining a certain professional neutrality on this big issue – with the virtue of being a neutral Australian living amidst the referendum debate – I have detected a certain shortage of, and need for, some great answers from those leading the rival campaigns.
For example those advocating so-called “Brexit” (a British Exit) have failed to come up in their answers with a convincing easy-to-picture model about how British trade would work if the country were to leave the world’s biggest trading block.
They maintain that the United Kingdom could leave the union and then re-negotiate trading arrangements as an outsider.
This may well be true – eventually – though it is hard to see the French and German politicians and Brussels bureaucrats rushing to assist a player who has just decided to quit the team.
On the other side there has been a shortage of great answers from those campaigning to remain in the European Union on how Britain can exercise more control over it’s borders and on immigration issues while it cedes so much of its power to Brussels.
THE GREY MAN ADDS COLOUR
But amidst the dearth of great answers, we have at last just had some colourful answers from a most unlikely source.
These have come from the so-called grey man of British politics, John Major.
He’s a man who, while British Prime Minister, was satirised as being colourless and wearing his underpants outside his trousers.
Perhaps Mr Major has suddenly learnt some communication lessons from Muhammad Ali.
As a leading pro-remain-in-Europe advocate, Mr Major took the opportunity of a television interview to launch a scathing attack on his fellow Conservative Party opponents who he says have been running a “squalid” and “depressing” Brexit campaign that was intent on misleading the British people.
In particular Mr Major rubbished leave campaign claims that withdrawing from the European Union would enable Britain to spend more money on the National Health Service.
Mr Major pointed out that two leading leave campaigners – Michael Gove and Boris Johnson – had both advocated charging for NHS services in the past.
Deploying some of his most dynamic language ever, Mr Major declared that the National Health Service was about as safe with Mr Gove and Mr Johnson as “a pet hamster would be with a hungry python.”
By John Major’s historic standards this was a colourful answer indeed.
GIVE GREAT ANSWERS TO TOUGH QUESTIONS AT WORK
HERE AT LAST!!!
If you want to give great answers, that live up to and maybe even surpass the best of John Major and Muhammad Ali, then help is at hand.
“Great Answers To Tough Questions At Work”, published by Capstone/Wiley, will hit the bookshops in the UK in late June and will then progressively become available around the world.
If you would like to try before you buy you can read a free sample chapter by clicking on the image here:
As a reader of this ezine, you can get a 20% discount by pre-ordering through the Wiley website.
Insert the code after you have completed other ordering details on the Wiley website.
Click on this image to
Buy it Now
You get your discount by using the special codeword “DODD”.
For those who do read it, doing reviews are encouraged on www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.com
Whatever you say in your review, if you post an early one and email the link to:
michael@michaeldoddcommunications.com
You can be put in the running for a wildcard invitation to the book launch event hosted by Waterstones in Central London at 6.45pm on Thursday 30 June.
It will be an event like no other!
And if you are interested in getting copies of the book for your team there are some amazing bulk order launch offers which are in the big blue box on the Michael Dodd Communications website at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/great-answers-tough-questions-work/
This will guide you and your team to give knockout answers – with the skills of a butterfly and a bee.
Or using John Major’s imagery it will guide you and your team to bite like a python while projecting the appeal of a hamster!