EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Salespeople who learn how to master the art of communication can create a selling edge. This cover story shares the same communication secrets that Roger Ailes has taught presidents and CEOs who zoomed to the top.

In 1967 on a warm-up campaign stop in Philadelphia, presidential candidate Richard Nixon appeared as a guest on the Mike Douglas TV variety show. Before taping, Nixon and Roger Ailes, the show’s 27-year-old producer, got involved in a debate over the power of television. When Nixon grumbled about candidates having to resort to “television gimmickry,” the brash producer took the former vice president to task, insisting that no candidate would ever be elected without knowing how to use the medium to full advantage. Apparently that meeting altered Nixon’s perspective, because a few days later Ailes was summoned to New York City and offered a position as Nixon’s media adviser.

After taking that job, and helping Nixon win the presidency in 1968, Ailes became known as America’s premier media consultant and communications wizard. In addition to his highly publicized work with the Reagan and Bush presidential campaigns, Ailes has advised some of the most successful Fortune 500 business professionals on how to improve their communications skills.

When he left television almost three decades ago, Ailes swore he would return to the medium that had been his first love. In August 1993, Ailes made good on that promise when he assumed the presidency of NBC cable networks CNBC and America’s Talking. After 20 years spent influencing the media from the outside, Ailes has come full circle to join forces with a media that has become broader and more influential than even prophets like Ailes could have predicted.

Seven Seconds That Matter

Whether trying to influence viewers from behind the cameras or consulting with business professionals, Ailes says that the truths of good communication remain the same. Foremost among those truths is Ailes’ theory of “the first seven seconds.”

“Research shows that we start to make up our minds about other people within seven seconds of meeting them,” he explains. “Consciously or unconsciously, we’re signaling to other people what our true feelings are and what we really want to happen in an encounter. It’s a very primitive thing happening. In those seven seconds you say to yourself, ‘Do I need to be alarmed by this person?’ ‘Is this a friendly person?’ ‘What is this person’s motive?’ We go through a series of options very quickly, and then we settle on a general perception of that individual.”

Once the first seven seconds have passed, Ailes says that it is extremely difficult to reverse that first impression. This can have catastrophic consequences for people who don’t understand the signals they send out to others.

“After that initial seven seconds,” he says, “we’re just fine-tuning everything that we perceived. If later behavior doesn’t jibe with first impressions, we ask ourselves, ‘Gee, I liked him five minutes ago, why don’t I like him now?’ You try to make all later impressions fit into the decision you made in the first seven seconds. For salespeople, this can be very difficult because if someone dislikes you at first you’re going to have a tough time getting them to trust you, no matter how likable you seem later. When you come across in those first seven seconds as caring and genuine, that sends the message that you are going to deliver on your promises and that makes it much easier to buy from you.”

Presidential Comfort

As an example of a person who could send that immediate message of genuineness, Ailes cites former boss Ronald Reagan. “Ronald Reagan’s greatest gift was not his speaking ability,” Ailes says. “It was his talent for making others comfortable. Even his political opponents found him likable. I’m told despite all the massive buildup that went into their initial meetings that Gorbachev and Reagan essentially liked each other. They each believed that the other was operating with a degree of sincerity.

“I once talked to Margaret Thatcher about her relationship with Reagan. She said that she had a good relationship with George Bush, but she had a truly friendly relationship with Reagan. She loved him and he loved her. She said you could look into his eyes and know that he liked you and therefore you would know that he wasn’t going to do anything dishonest. And that was a very important point.”

The Magic Bullet

Although likability may be an indescribable quality, Ailes says there are certain indicators that point to whether someone is generally likable. This ineffable quality is so important to good communications that Ailes refers to likability as the “magic bullet.”

“If people like you they will forgive just about everything else you do wrong,” Ailes explains. “Likability is one of the hardest things in the world to define because different people all like different things. It’s also paradoxical because in general people who try hard to be likable aren’t. That said, there are some recurring characteristics – integrity, respect, trust and honesty are critical because they form the foundation for any relationship. Also, likable people tend to be optimists, which makes sense. If, when people ask how you’re doing you always respond, ‘terrible,’ people are not going to want to be around you. But I’ve found that the most important element shared by people who are liked is that they themselves like other people. They like others and genuinely care about other people’s well being, and that makes them likable.”

Four Communication Directives

While likability may lay the groundwork for good rapport, there is much more to communicating effectively than merely being liked. In fact, according to Ailes, there are four essential qualities that all great communicators must master. First and foremost, he says, is to take a page out of the Boy Scout manual and be prepared.

“Whether you’re talking to a group or to just one person,” he says, “the other party must have absolute confidence that you know what you’re talking about. This doesn’t mean you have to be the world’s leading authority on the subject, but your listeners should feel that you know more about the topic than they do and that you’ve done some preparation before addressing them. And even if you’re a top level executive, it’s important that you do at least a portion of the preparation yourself.”

Second on Ailes’ list of effective communications qualities is the ability to make others feel comfortable. This generally occurs, he says, when you are comfortable yourself.

“It’s easy to say ‘Be comfortable,’ ” Ailes explains, “but it needs to be defined a little more. Specifically, people who are comfortable and who make others comfortable don’t tend to overreact to events by getting uptight. If you find out that a package got lost in the mail and you respond by lighting into the person who told you, that response will not only ruin the messenger’s day but also everybody else’s day. When you can’t keep your emotions in check, that makes others uncomfortable and reduces the likelihood that effective communication will take place. Often the problem is that people don’t realize how they come across, so they’re not even aware that their behavior is making others uncomfortable.”

If you’ve ever lost a sale because you didn’t genuinely believe your product or service would live up to expectations, then you’ll understand the importance of Ailes’ third communications directive: Be committed.

“Being committed is crucial,” Ailes says. “If you feel strongly about a topic you are much less likely to freeze up or mumble. If you know what you are saying and why you’re saying it, and you care about what you’re saying, you will say it well. I think Lee Iacocca was a good example of commitment in communication. When he went to Congress for help in turning Chrysler around, he was obviously so committed to keeping the company in business that Congress delivered what he needed. In essence, Congress gave those loan guarantees to Iacocca himself, because they believed in his commitment to the project.”

We all know people who fail to meet Ailes’ fourth criterion for quality communication: Be interesting. Yet surprisingly Ailes says that bores do have hope of becoming, if not the life of the party, at least more appealing.

“People don’t like to be bored,” Ailes explains, “but it’s become folklore in business that no one will be fired for giving a boring speech. But salespeople can’t afford to bore their prospects. One suggestion to be more interesting is to bring analogies from outside your field into your discourse. Put what you’re saying into historical perspective, or compare it to something that is familiar to your audience or customer. This can be anything from movies and TV to history, people and other ideas that somehow relate to your topic. If that seems too difficult you may want to expand your personal reading list. I recommend to clients that at least 30 percent of their reading material should come from outside their own field. This practice gives you greater perspective and knowledge that will make you more interesting to other people.”

Making Talk Sell

As president of CNBC and America’s Talking, Ailes has hand picked both the talk shows he wanted to air and their hosts. The diverse lineup of business-related and talk programming reveals Ailes as a master of talk communication, a field that has grown to encompass both the serious and the absurd. In addition to hosting his own interview program, “Straight Forward,” on America’s Talking, each day Ailes oversees 32 hours of original programming – enough to make any other network executive blanch.

Immediately upon taking over in 1993 Ailes bolstered the network’s Wall Street coverage and added more current MTV-inspired visual effects. During the day CNBC now runs programs covering a variety of business and financial topics, including updates of world market activities, coverage of key market developments as they unfold and consumer-oriented money management advice. Come nighttime CNBC turns to its all-star lineup of talk shows featuring Charles Grodin, Geraldo Rivera and Dee Dee Myers.

But the true Ailes touch is more apparent on America’s Talking, the all-talk network that premiered in February 1994. The New York Times says that like Ailes himself, America’s Talking is composed of equal parts populist and huckster. Filled with hours of talk radio-inspired call-in shows on such topics as holistic health, government waste and new products and inventions on the market, Ailes feels that America’s Talking provides a disjointed populace the opportunity to be heard.

“There are a lot of lonely people out there,” he says, “who are not being talked to by other people, but they are being talked to by their television sets. America’s Talking just provides a variety of formats for people to talk to each other on a range of topics. We wake up in the morning and we want to know if we’re safe, if we’re crazy, if the government is ripping us off. And maybe we want one piece of information we can talk about over mashed potatoes at dinner. And so far people are responding. Our first day on the air we logged more than 26,000 calls to the America’s Talking phone banks.”

While it may be too soon to tell how well America’s Talking will perform over the long haul, that viewers are responding to CNBC under Ailes’ direction is without question. While the production budget for all of the network’s evening shows is little more than $10 million a year, within a year of Ailes’ arrival ratings increased more than 59 percent while pretax earnings tripled to $28 million. Such financial success points to one conclusion – talk ain’t cheap. In fact Jack Welch, chairman and CEO of NBC’s parent company, General Electric, has even taken notice, calling the supersonic CNBC turnaround under Roger’s leadership “astonishing.”

Sticking To The Basics

A great deal of the credit for CNBC’s success has been heaped upon Ailes’ renowned toughness and savvy. But perhaps to an even greater degree CNBC in its current incarnation reflects Ailes’ almost innate ability to understand how communication works, whether it’s between individuals or being pumped through the nation’s cathode ray tubes. As an example of good communication, Ailes refers to an interview he did recently with former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

“Mario and I disagree on almost everything,” Ailes says. “But I have a certain amount of respect for him and I believe that the feeling is mutual. Without respect people won’t listen to each other. I prepared for the interview by spending time just thinking to myself, ‘What do I think Mario Cuomo would be interested in talking about?’ So I had a game plan that allowed for him to go on and then if it stopped being interesting I could bring the conversation back around to another topic. By preparing well I helped create an environment where we could discuss topics we were both committed to and interested in, and, as I’ve said before, that’s what helps create a good conversation.”

Asked whether he keeps the viewer in mind when doing interview shows, Ailes admits that he does, but with no apologies.

“My whole life,” he says, “has been about reaching audiences in one way or another. So I don’t focus on the audience too much, because I’ve become accustomed to having an audience. I’m always aware that what I’m doing is being watched by someone, but that doesn’t have much impact on my behavior. I don’t try to be somebody I’m not – I couldn’t even if I tried. The real secret to what I do on the air is exactly what I do off the air, which is to stick to the basics of good communication – and I bet if you looked into it you would find that that’s true of a lot of people who are effective communicators.”