Who is the best actor? Someone who knows both of them well says that it is their acting skills, demonstrated in their youth, that set them apart from their political rivals.

Gordon Brown might be cleverer but it was Tony Blair who knew how to  hold an audience, who understood that it was not what you said but the way you said it that that made the emotional connection, that projected likeability. This  won over voters. Brown never seemed to get this and believed his words and conviction were enough. Performance was beneath him.

 David Cameron is a lot better actor than Brown but not as good as Clegg. That is why in that all important first television debate Clegg won the viewer vote  so convincingly. This was a highly staged piece of theatre where acting skills allied to carefully prepared ’spontaneous’ scripts and professionally directed rehearsal played to his strengths.

Both  turned in superb performances in the famous  press conference in the Rose Garden at No 10, described as ‘like a light romantic comedy with male leads played by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth’. (No acid reference to Brokeback Mountain!)  Since then in the world of day-to-day politics and spontaneous interviews Clegg’s relative lack of  political savvy and leadership are  now evident, but it was  performance  that got him there.

In business pitches one of the commonest errors  is that of focusing on content at the expense of performance. Be a Clegg, not a Gordon!

This is the title of the opening chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, What The Dog Saw. In typically exuberant style, it tells the extraordinary story of Ron Popeil inventor of the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ.

He came from a family whose descendants walked the boardwalks and the country fairs in the 1880s selling kitchen gadgets. It was Ron who was the pioneer in taking the secrets of the boardwalk to the television screen.

The QVC channel is not to everyone’s taste but it is hard not to be impressed by his infomercial for Showtime.  Twenty-eight minutes and thirty seconds in length, it was shot live before a studio audience, aired for the first time in 1998 and has run ever since.

The response was such that in the first three years sales of  Showtime exceeded a billion dollars.

Ron was pitching a product that he had invented and of course he made sure the ” product was hero”.  But there are other lessons for pitching mortals. Here are two of them.

In pitching parlance he knows how to  execute “the turn”. This turn, or simply asking for the business, is something many feel uncomfortable about and don’t plan. Think Ron.  “The pitchman must make you applaud and take your money”.

The product is good but Ron succeeds because he knows with absolute certainty that  “pitching is first and foremost, a performance”.

The scene for this pitch story is the Eurostar area at St Pancras  at 6.30am, shortly before the departure of the Paris train. Two shops, side by side, have the ideal monopoly pitch for serving passengers with very predictable needs.

The problem, for customers, was that one was really interested in their business and you could tell this at a glance. The other could not give a damn. And you could tell this at a glance. But you needed both.

The Paul coffee shop not only looked inviting, it was. At least six staff behind the counter handled time-pressured customers with energy and friendly enthusiasm as they met responses for this, that or the other cappuccino. The place was buzzing. The customers happy.

WH Smiths looked tired, messy with unopened stacks of magazines, narrow aisles with a long dispirited queue being served by a single cashier seemingly taken by surprise that the customers had a train to catch. The customers’ unhappiness compounded by the non availablity of newspapers.

The pitching point is that before actually experiencing the two you could tell instantly from the visual clues, their “corporate body language”, how they were likely to perform and which one you would like.

Pitch teams with good corporate body language are more attractive to the judges. 

Incidentally, the generally poor corporate body language of WH Smith may help explain why they came 100th in a recent survey of UK retailers. They should revisit their history when, in 1850s, their staff raced along platforms selling books to on-board passengers in the few minutes of a station stop.

It was Gregor Mendel(1822-1884) who first understood the concept of hybrid vigour as the “increased vigour displayed by offspring from different varieties”.  He might not have described the coalition this way but so far one of its key characteristics is energy, arguably more than a single party would have given us.

The cross-fertilsation of talents  in the cabinet in this honeymoon period is proving to be positive, energetic and dynamic. The signals it is sending out are all ‘can-do’ and this right now transcends political differences.

Put another way, they have got the casting right something pitch teams too often get wrong,

The team decision is vital and yet can fall into the trap of selection through convenient availablity, or they deserve a chance, or  or they won last time, or they know the prospect or…Whereas, the only criterion is who are the best team to win the business?

The team will need relevant experience, good people chemistry and pitching ability. All three skills may not reside in any one member but the team must have all three. Sometimes the way to achieve this is to apply the concept of hybrid vigour.

It works in football! Inter Milan won with a Portugese manager and no Italians in their team beating Bayern with a Dutch manager and few Germans. The English yeomen are hoping an Italian manager can invigorate them in the World Cup.

Many, including me, tipped Nick Clegg to win the debate. After all, as the ousider with less to lose and the fresher face he had everything going for him. None however anticipated the scale of his victory which was down to performance not policies.

There are many things he got right in front of the cameras  but two in particular stand out and are pointers to all who pitch or interview. 

1.Be charming

All three no doubt can be charming company but only Clegg charmed on air. He resisted the temptation to say too much under pressure of the clock, he did not rush to answer as if in a race, he paused to think, he listened-and was seen to listen- to questioners whose names he remembered.

He, more than his rivals, realised that in this debate viewers would not find it easy to take in, let alone evaluate, the content. So less worried about what to say, he made certain that we liked the way he said it. His relaxed body language and his easy eye contact with the camera/viewer set him apart.

” Nonchalantly hands in his pockets and with his humanity beautifully rehearsed and turned up to the max”. This is how the MoS summed it up.

2. A great opening.

Clegg  made that old adage work for him, ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression.’   He knew that a strong opening not only gets the audience on side it makes you feel good, boosting your confidence from word go. It worked and put the others on the back foot.

A cleverly worded opener, which he wrote himself, positioned him as if above his squabbling rivals. “Don’t let anyone tell you that the only choice is the old politics.  We can do something different this time.”

From the start his words and his manner, calm, fresh and engaging meant he came across as different and better. Not a bad outcome which must have pleased John Starkey his campaign director. When at Saatchi his mantra for assessing communication was how is it different, how is it better?

After days of  media frenzy and ecstatic speculation over the affair of John Terry, ‘legend’, and Vanessa Perroncel, serial lover of England footballers, it came as no surprise that Fabio Capello was the  man who sorted it, seemingly without difficulty, doing so in a mere 12 minutes.

Why were we not surprised since few of us actually know him or what his views are?

First of all is his  iconic body language. Upright, crossed arms, trademark spectacles and a jutting chin, the like of which last seen on Popeye. As one writer put it, ”every small phrase of body language, every facial gesture speaks of professional indignation”. Not since Margaret Thatcher has any high profile person radiated such certainty.

Second, is his power of silence, speaking only when absolutely necessary and then with brevity resisting the need to embellish, to justify. In that 12 minutes with Terry, he only spoke for a few of them. Compare this with his garrulous predecessor  Maclaren whose only memorable gesture involved sheltering under an umbrella.

Interestingly on judgement day both protagonists advised, one by the ubiquitous Max the other by an ex-News of the World editor, tried damage limitation with carefully chosen photographs projecting ‘optimum’ body language.  The normally sultry Perroncel shown demure, grieving, the normally snarling Terry heroic and saintly. Sadly, neither learnt  that silence can be golden.

Lessons from Capello for interviewees or pitchers? Talking too much, not listening to the question, gabbling are common mistakes. So too is forgetting that the way you sit, stand or move will be sending a signal of confidence, or not.

On Thursday evening there was a delightful carol service at the splendidly refurbished St Peters church in Notting Hill Gate. The traditional carol singing, fronted by the excellent Skolia choir, was as expected, a treat. Less expected was the quality of the sermon.

Many years ago, as a supposed advertising expert, I was asked by a senior official in the Church of England to advise on how marketing communication might boost attendance. The project was dropped before it began because the Cof E,  unlike some, is not an evangelising church. It welcomes people in but does not actively seek  them.

However, even in the first analysis, it was clear that one of the reasons for declining congregations was a function of communication. At the end of the 19th century,  the service, with the sermon as its heart, was for most the communication highpoint of the week. There was, apart from theatre for the few, no competition.

Along came cinema and radio and, finally, television. The communication skills inherent to these left those of the average preacher behind. Too often the sermon was seen as something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Not so for this sermon, in this church.  The vicar knew how to tell a story!

Like most sermons, and I guess this is true for most religions, it was based on a re-telling of stories from scripture.  The bible, after all has been filmed as “the greatest story ever told.” 

But what made this sermon so engaging and so effective was the way the vicar told highly personal stories, stories that made an instant emotional connection to, it seemed to me, everyone from the devout to the occasional worshipper.

The vicar was  also not afraid to have his own telling words compared with those of John Betjaman. The service included the beautiful words, beautifully spoken, of the poem Christmas……..”The sweet and silly Christmas things,   Bath salts and inexpensive scent,  And hideous tie so kindly meant……..”

Thank you St Peters. Happy Christmas.

Today and tomorrow, at London’s Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, 15 cities are pitching to become part of England’s World Cup bid. Each will have a one hour slot to include 15 minutes presenting and 45 for Q&A- which could play the greater role in the decision making.

Hefty, expensive and detailed technical proposals have already been submitted, the result of weeks and months of preparation. However, if London’s successful Olympic bid is anything to go on, and it is, the decision will come down to the panel’s emotional reaction to the live presentations.

Given this, it will be interesting to see how many have  learnt lessons from pitch master David Beckham, the man who is singlehandedly rescuing the 2018 bid itself.  His exploits were well expressed by Kevin Garside in the Daily Telegraph last week.

“Technical merit counts for little…….A bid must connect with the heart before it can influence the head.”

 Beckham lent not just his fame, but his likeability and charm. Without him, England’s bid based on tradition, facilities and romance met with ‘blank stares’ from Fifa. With him came the emotive power of storytelling.

“Then along came Beckham with a human interest story to which all could relate.”  It concerned his grandfather Joe (who had died a few days before) and how he had inspired his grandson’s love of the game. Fifa were genuinely moved.

In any  business pitch, and for all its excesses football is a business, the ingredients of charm and likeability allied to great storytelling are a potent mixture. Light the touch paper!

Last  Sunday evening in a church in Notting Hill there was a beautiful performance of Monteverdi’s very difficult Vespers. Some excellent professional soloists and an orchestra, with period instruments, together with the real stars the amateur, 45 strong, Skolia Choir.

  The choir, and I know this because  my wife was one of them, rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, probably some thirty times, for this one perfomance. It paid off. They were superb.

Compare and contrast with how so many companies prepare for their one performance, the pitch. They will spend enormous energy developing their ’score’, the content, and then little or nil on the rehearsal.

Why is this when they know that in a competitive arena the decision will, largely, be down to an emotional response to their performance on the day. Why is there such resistance and reluctance to rehearse? Here are some of the ‘reasons.’

1.  “We needed every moment to improve and fine tune our proposal.” Excuse. A ‘great’ proposal unrehearsed will lose out to the good one fully rehearsed.

2.   “It was not possible to fit in rehearsals due to client meetings.” Excuse. If you can organise diaries for the pitch, you can do so for rehearsals.

3.  “As long as everyone runs through their part, no need to rehearse together.”  Excuse. And chances of teamwork shining through disappear.

4.  “I am better conserving my nervous energy for the pitch itself.” Excuse. The more you rehearse the better you will be, and the more confident.

5.  “We always do a run through just before to check order and charts.” Excuse. This is not a rehearsal, and just before leaves no time for changes. 

Any other excuses? Please tell me.

Pitches are performances. The response is largely emotional.  Compared with the resource that goes into any pitch, rehearsal is your best return on investment. The more you rehearse the more you increase your chance of winning.

The London 2012 Bid team rehearsed 10 times. The Skolia Choir 30 times. Both won!

Gordon Brown has survived a hellish week  riding on the sympathy  wave following The Sun’s brutal and misjudged attack over that letter. One interview during the week showed him at his best. It was on radio.

In this television age, when would-be politicians are assessed on camera before getting the candidacy, Brown is not a natural. When looks count - his clumsy body language (think Despatch box), jaw movement, fatigued expression - he has little going for him. You almost feel sorry.

His voice, however, even when under pressure, remains strong, reassuring, warm even, and authorative. More like a confident leader. If there was a choice he would surely opt for the up-coming TV debate with Cameron to be on radio only.

He will no doubt be aware of the outcome of the first ever televised Presidential debate, in 1960,  when Nixon confronted Kennedy.  A Gallup poll among viewers revealed that Kennedy came out on top. However, in the same poll among those who only heard the debate on radio Nixon was preferred.

Brown does not look as shifty as Nixon but nor does the camera favour him as it does Cameron.

In business pitches the importance of voice and tone is often overlooked. Changing one’s voice is seen as too tough (although Margaret Thatcher did it to good effect).  What will help, and can be  rehearsed, is change of ‘pitch and pace’, with deliberate pauses …….. to punctuate and command attention.

Try it , pause………and sound more confident!