For the Companies and Causes
Speeches can be, and quite often are, the catalysts for immediate or long-range success. Advertising can sell a product and even an idea, such as conservation, if continued over a long period. News coverage, depending on the magnitude and degree of public participation needed, is also necessary for success in promoting causes. Speeches are the vehicles used to get the media coverage necessary to express the company’s side of an issue.
A specific example of a company using a speech for a cause is the battle between the phone companies and the private carriers that was rampant in the 1970s. Actually, this controversy involved the entire phone industry and its unions on one side arrayed against private companies getting into specialized phone service on the other side, with the FCC and Congress in the middle. There were many phone companies in America. The private companies saw long-distance telephone service as a moneymaking enterprise, which it was. They wanted a piece of the action. By setting up service between low-cost, high-volume routes such as Chicago to New York, they could keep their rates low and still make a lot of dough. The Federal Communications Commission thought this competition to lower rates was a good idea. The phone companies argued that the whole thing was unfair because they had to provide long-distance service for low-volume, high-cost routes between all the small towns, as well as between the profitable big cities. Furthermore, phone companies argued that the profits they made on the lucrative long-distance rates helped to hold down the cost of home telephone service, which was provided, according to the phone companies, below cost.
Now, if the whole argument between the regulated phone companies and the private Specialized Common Carriers (SCC) was as simple as the explanation I just used, AT&T and the other phone companies could have saturated television and radio with commercials explaining the problem, in so doing gain the public support needed to get Congress to overrule the FCC. But it wasn’t that simple. First of all, most people thought phone rates were too high and the phone companies were too big and rich. It was unlikely that public support for the monolithic industry would have come from an announcement saying competition from non-telephone companies was unfair.
Companies had to show, by comparison and by providing a brief history, how they provided the best telephone service at the lowest cost in the world. This approach required more time than a brief commercial. It required a tightly written speech giving a brief history of the system, how and why it became what it was, and how the service and cost to the consumer compared with other countries. The speech could take as little as 15 or 20 minutes to give with time left at the end for questions from the audience.
The speakers who gave talks like these used to be telephone company employees volunteering their time to tell the story of their industry. Hundreds of these employees gave similar speeches throughout the country to thousands of people and urged their audiences to write to their congressman or congresswoman about this issue. Furthermore, newspapers occasionally printed excerpts of these speeches, thereby reaching additional thousands of people. The speakers bureaus for the phone companies also had speeches on other subjects concerning the phone industry and a few speeches that were completely unrelated to the telephone.
The purpose of giving these speeches was to perform a public service while at the same time affording the public an opportunity to question representatives of what appeared to be a giant, faceless institution. It’s easy to get angry with a large company, particularly monopolized utilities; it’s a lot harder to get angry with a human being who works for one of those companies when he or she is making an effort to answer your questions and solve your problems. And that’s where speeches come in: face-to-face communications, time to present more information, and the opportunity to receive and answer questions.
No other form of mass communication can reach the public with all of the effectiveness of good speeches. There are three unique aspects about speeches:
• Unlike the “remote visibility” of television or the Internet, a speaker is present, visible, and represents reality.
• A speaker is demonstrable evidence of real concern for the audience and its needs.
• A speech before a live audience is the surest way to get a feel for what the public really thinks and how it responds to what is said.
The Message
It’s been said that Sir Laurence Olivier could read from the telephone directory and an audience would be entertained. I don’t believe that. I do believe that there are comedians who could make an audience laugh by reading from a telephone book while popping their eyes, waving their arms, and jumping up and down. But Sir Laurence was not a comedian; he was a great actor. I believe he and other great actors could take a dull speech and with voice inflections, tone quality, and other vocal and gesticulating skills, turn that dull speech into a crowd-pleasing, masterful performance. Unfortunately, most of us are not great actors, and if our speeches are to be crowd-pleasing, we need to have something to say.
Some people in this world subscribe to an opposite theory. Dr. Victor Heiser, a missionary doctor to Samoa, tells about one of the Samoan customs. More than 60 years ago, Dr. Heiser was being honored by a Samoan king. Following a presentation made by the king’s spokesman, Dr. Heiser was getting to his feet to accept it when a Samoan doctor pulled him back to his seat and said, “We have arranged a speaker for you.” The doctor then explained that in Samoa they do not believe that a man who is a good physician is necessarily a good speaker. “We have our own speakers who do this on special occasions,” he continued, “and you can be sure that he will say what you were intending to and do it better.”
Evidently, Dr. Heiser must have told that story many times because American companies picked up the habit of hiring surrogate speakers during the 1950s and ’60s. They would be given a title, usually vice president of public relations, and then go out and talk to civic groups about their employer’s business.
Worse yet, some companies hired speakers who were not even employed at the company and paid them to go out and speak on their behalf. But the public isn’t buying the mercenary approach any more. Most audiences would rather hear a less polished speaker who is sincere and knows what he or she is talking about than a smooth talking outsider telling how great his or her client’s industry is, when it’s obvious that it’s just for a paycheck. Even more damaging is the question and answer period, when it becomes obvious that knowledge about the client’s business is extremely superficial.
During the 1970s many companies began to realize that if the message was going to be accepted by the public, companies would have to speak for themselves. I think they’ve gone a little too far when bank presidents go on television to do commercials, but in meeting the public face-to-face, not only the presidents but the employees of companies are much better received and are far more believable than the speaker who talks to a group one month about the virtues of the free enterprise system, and the next month about the necessity for government intervention in certain industries. Furthermore, the public doesn’t like the idea of paying $30 for a product and realizing that $2 of the $30 are going toward the salary of a speaker to tell them how low the price is.
For this reason, some companies have a speakers bureau made up of employees who volunteer their time to address service clubs, community groups, PTAs, and any other organization in need of a speaker. These employees are given a very brief period of training in public speaking, but the rest of their time is spent doing the job they were hired to do, which may be as engineers, accountants, service representatives, or supervisors. When they are introduced to an audience, they are introduced as a telephone company employee and not as a paid surrogate. Their credibility alone more than makes up for any shortcomings they might have as polished, public speakers.
In the next chapter, I hope to show you how to eliminate