Guy Clapperton, Author at Clapperton Media

Why Internal Storytelling Doesn’t Always Travel

One of the challenges many PR professionals face is persuading clients that not every internal update makes a good media story. Announcements such as a new director of sales, a departmental restructure, or the launch of a new division can feel highly significant to those inside the organisation. But the wider world doesn’t always share that perspective.

If you’re writing for a niche trade publication, where readers may directly interact with the new team or product, storytelling like that may well resonate. In broader contexts, however, it’s often less compelling.

That’s why we encourage clients to use what we call the “window exercise.” Imagine standing by your office window and looking out onto the street. Internally, the announcement may feel vital. But if you were to stop a passer-by and explain it, why should they care? Too often, the honest answer is that they wouldn’t. Their reaction would likely be a shrug.

The Reverse Window Exercise: Finding Hidden Gems

This exercise isn’t just about tempering client enthusiasm. It’s also about uncovering stories that organisations overlook because they’re too close to their own work. Many businesses assume their day-to-day activities are routine or unremarkable. In fact, they may be sitting on powerful stories that only need reframing to shine.

A Case Study: Turning Dry Tech into a Tangible Narrative

Years ago, we worked with a company specialising in data compression – at a time when information had to be stored locally on devices rather than in the cloud. When asked about potential stories, the company insisted they had none. They could cite impressive compression ratios and technical statistics, but saw nothing newsworthy.

On further probing, however, they revealed that one of their largest clients was the US Navy. Their technology had enabled the Navy to take all ship blueprints and manuals – previously cumbersome, paper-based, and slow to access – and make them searchable on handheld devices.

This was a game-changer. Instead of crawling in and out of hazardous, hard-to-reach spaces multiple times to check instructions, engineers could carry everything with them. It saved hours, reduced risks, and made naval operations more efficient.

What the company saw as “just another contract” was, in reality, a story of innovation that saved time, money, and even lives. It was all in the storytelling – they assumed it was pretty routine. We didn’t.

Why PR Professionals Play a Crucial Role

This example underlines the value PR professionals bring when they step back and ask the right questions. Clients may fixate on what matters internally, but skilled communicators can spot the external hook – the part that connects to wider audiences and makes journalists sit up.

The window exercise works both ways:

Outward-facing: It helps curb unrealistic expectations when clients want coverage for something only meaningful inside their business.
Inward-facing: It helps uncover hidden gems – stories that clients assume are mundane but can be framed as innovative, impactful, or human-centred.

Top 3 Tips for PR Professionals

Use the Window Exercise Regularly
Ask: would a passer-by care about this story? If the answer is no, you may need to reframe it or accept it’s an internal comms piece.
Dig Beneath the Routine
Clients often undersell themselves. Probe gently with questions like: “Who benefits from this?” or “What’s the biggest change it has enabled?” The real story often emerges from impact, not process.
Translate Features into Human Benefits
Statistics and technical achievements may impress internally, but journalists and readers connect with outcomes. Always ask: how does this save time, money, or improve lives?

Final Thought

Every organisation has stories worth telling – but they’re not always the ones clients expect. As PR professionals, your role is to help them distinguish between internal milestones and external impact. By applying simple perspective-shifting exercises, you can guide them to craft narratives that resonate, inspire, and land with journalists.

The next time a client insists that a new hire or internal restructure deserves front-page coverage, invite them to look out the window – and then look inward. They may just find that their most compelling story is the one they never thought to tell.

You’ve probably heard that shorter is better when you’re speaking in public or indeed to the press. Well, yes it is – often but not always. If you just give people the bare facts or the essence of the lesson you’re trying to impart, you might end up a bit forgettable. Look at these examples:

1. It’s important to stick to your time as a speaker or MC.

That makes the point but it’s not at all distinctive. So let’s try this:

2. Lead trainer Guy once spoke at a round table lunch event at a very nice Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Lunch was due to be served before he spoke, after the MC – who was the chief executive of the client – had welcomed people. So, intro at 12.50, lunch at 1pm.

Except the CEO decided that everyone present should introduce themselves individually. There were about 40 of them. He hadn’t checked with anyone about what time the food was coming – so by the time they’d finished it was closer to 1.30 than 1pm. The fish starter, being kept warm under lights, was dry as a bone. He was the boss so there wasn’t much to do about it. The waiting staff were getting pretty annoyed as they had their other schedules to go through.

He’d broken the cardinal rule – give people a bad speech and they’ll grumble a bit but basically forget it. Throw the timing so their food goes bad, they miss a train home or whatever and believe me they’ll remember you.

Speaking needs to be memorable

Now, that’s basically the same point as the simpler instruction to stick to your timing and by all means it’s longer. But for many it’s better. First, it’s only three short paragraphs so it’s hopefully not as indulgent as all that (storytelling is great, brief storytelling is better). More importantly it is a true story, this CEO really did ruin people’s meal with his timing and Guy was there – that makes it our anecdote, Guy can truthfully slot himself into the story and share the experience.

If you’re in PR and your client is going to speak in public or to the press, they may want to get to the data for the very good reason that they find it exciting. Step in. Advise them to do a bit of storytelling. It’s likely to liven things up and make the communication a bit more memorable – and that, I imagine, is the general idea.

First impressions matter, in particular in press interviews. This means the first sentence you say when a journalist asks a question is going to set the tone for the rest of the conversation.

Journalists will latch onto what’s clear, concise, and quotable. So your opening line sets the tone not only for the interview, but also for how your organisation is represented in print, online, or on broadcast. If you start with a strong, simple message, you’ve already guided the conversation in your favour.

Think of it this way: if the journalist only had space for one line, what would you want it to be? That should be the sentence you put up front. It might be a clear statement of your position, a striking fact, or a simple, human expression of why what you’re saying matters.

Here’s a quick exercise for PR people to share with their clients: take the key point you want to get across and practise saying it in no more than 12 words. That’s your first sentence. If you can deliver that confidently and without jargon, you’ll sound authoritative and above all memorable.

Waste that first line and your client will lose their best opportunity to make an impact.

Guy and Paul had fun as always media training last week; a new CEO at an established client, the job was to put him through his paces, highlight areas that needed work and – in this case – stress test the messaging.

The new CEO was great and asked them tfor a fun bit of follow-up. “Could you,” he said, “make a list of ten bastard questions journalists might ask?”

Fun being a b*st*rd

Hah, of course we could! And we did. And we’d urge all our colleagues in the public relations industry to do the same for their clients. It’s a given that clients and journalists should produce and receive the FAQ list, it should be available on the website so editorial staff can get to the more commonplace queries quickly and easily.

But we’d suggest PR colleagues to do the other thing too – think of “ten bastard questions” and work out how the client is supposed to deal with them when inevitably they crop up. No lying, no “no comment”, journalists will need proper answers, just make sure the client is prepared.

We had fun writing a load of questions we’d actually be embarrassed to ask in person. So, what are the questions you’re really hoping the media won’t ask – and do you have a strategy for when they do?

Meanwhile we might just develop an entire half-day course and call it “Ten Bastard Questions”, it’s too good a title to use only once..!