Media Skills Training Workshops
Martin Banks has over 20 years’ experience in training senior executives of major global IT vendors how to handle the press and analysts in interviews and face-to-face meetings. He has been called in many times to train entire EMEA Management Teams for companies – ensuring a consistent standard of training and consistent skills in handling press interviews.
He works closely with David Tebbutt as half of a media skills training partnership, once known as Press Here. After an irresistible offer for the URL from a US company, they continue to work together but under their own banners – tebbo.com and lian-james.com.
Courses are normally held at company offices, which means the pair have travelled all over Europe as well as California’s Silicon Valley.
As well as collaborating with David in Greybeards he is also available to train individuals or small groups on a solo basis.
If you are interested in learning more, please contact us.
Message Counselling Workshops
Every business needs to ensure that the right messages are prepared well in advance of when they will be needed.
Business managers also need to be certain that those messages will stand up to the hard, often harsh scrutiny that comes from journalists and industry analysts who will be the primary delivery vehicle for those messages.
If they are writing about your business and your products positively they can have a huge effect on your brand and your position in the marketplace. If they are writing negatively however, the impact can be instant and devastating.
This means that all the front-line management team – those expected to be speaking to the press and analysts – must be able to discuss messages in the same fundamental way. They must be able to sing from the same `hymn-sheet’. It also means that the `hymn-sheet’ needs to be well thought out and constructed, be defendable and, above all, able to generate real interest and desire to know more.
Lian James Consultancy has a wealth of experience and expertise in organising and delivering focussed Message Development and Validation Workshops that help construct the best possible hymn sheets, and test both them and the management that delivers them.
Management teams will learn: – how to construct messages that are different and interesting to the target market and that can help create positive market perceptions or shift negative ones. – How to defend messages and make them stick in the mind – How to identify lines of attack and manage the interaction proactively.
Management teams are handled in small groups that give personal, focussed attention and workshops are either half-day on whole day in duration.
If you are interested in learning more, please contact us.
Technical Backgrounders, Case Studies and other writing
Technical Backgrounders are part of the bedrock of delivering a comprehensive yet understandable technology message. A well-written background paper on the technology or business issues can set out clearly what a product, service or technology development has to offer potential users. This demands great skill in getting the individuals that know about it to talk, coupled to an ability to write the results in a way that gets to the point of the story. That way, readers can quickly understand what that point is and how it relates to them as potential users.
High quality Case Studies are one of the best tools available in getting across that vital information of what a product or service actually does for users. These are stories where potential customers can find their problems identified and solutions explained. They demand that the writer is sensitive to three needs: the customer’s position; the supplier’s position; and the reader’s need for a `compelling story’. This in turn demands more than just good writing skills, but sensitive advice as well.
Websites are now the world’s window into a company, so not only does it need expert design but also clear, crisp copy that gets the company’s stories across quickly and effectively. Websites are now a key tool in informing and engaging with customers, and customers need to get the information they seek as quickly as possible, just as they do with newspapers and magazines. That is why they need the same specialist writing skills.
If you are interested in learning more, please contact us.
Martin Banks speaking at your event
Martin Banks has spoken at many events over the years, from conference presentations to large multi-city, touring road-shows for large systems vendors.
If you are interested in learning more, please contact us.
