Fifty years. Two careers.
One pattern.

The first career

Stages and screens.

I spent fifty years as a professional performer. Theatre, film, television. I worked alongside Pierce Brosnan and Anthony Hopkins, and acted and improvised alongside BAFTA winning actors in The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, for which Nancy Banks Smith gave the work a favourable review in the Guardian, which pleased me more than I let on at the time.

I also spent years as a close-up magician, which is how I came to fool the late Michael Jackson with a card trick, using an actor's preparation principles and some clever finger flinging. People ask about that one more than anything on this page, so yes, I'll happily tell you the story.

What the profession actually taught me was this: before any actor steps in front of a camera, there's a preparation. The body first, then the voice, then finding something true to think about while you speak. It's a craft. It takes minutes, not years, once someone shows you. And almost nobody outside the trade has ever seen it.

The second career

Professional sales.

Alongside the performing, I spent fifty years selling. The proving ground was Shanghai: I arrived with a suitcase and a commission-only contract, in a city where nobody knew my name. From that standing start, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives and high-achieving expats entrusted me with the care of £13 million: their retirements, their children's educations, their dream homes.

Apple China engaged me twice to train their senior managers in charismatic communication. I've written a business book, Passion to Profit Online, and trained sales teams on three continents.

What selling taught me is the other half of the same lesson: people don't buy the best expertise. They buy the person they can see, believe, and say yes to. I watched brilliant people lose to average ones for years before I understood that the difference was never the knowledge.

The pattern

Two careers. One subject.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to notice that my two working lives were the same job. The actor learns to be worth watching. The salesman learns what makes people say yes. Put them together and you get the whole of it: clients buy the person they see.

That's what I teach now. For coaches, consultants and experts, it's called Get Clients on Camera. For leadership teams, it's Get Buy-In on Camera. Same craft, different rooms.

Howard writing in a notebook at a beach cafe — Where the methods get worked out.

Howard sitting by a stone doorway above the Mondego valley — The village. All 26 of us.

Now

A village of 26 people, beside the River Mondego.

I live and work in rural Portugal, in a village you will not find on most maps. The videos are filmed on my phone, on walks along the river. The coaching happens on Zoom. The overheads stay low and the thinking stays clear.

If we work together, this is who you get: no team, no crew, no account manager. Just fifty years of stagecraft, fifty years of sales, and a man who answers his own email within one business day.

Where to start.

If you're a coach, consultant or expert who needs clients, start at the front door. If you run a leadership team, there's a day built for you.