What do you do if your weekly sales presentation is met with glazed eyes and gentle snores? Or your best sales person is so nervous speaking in public he or she refuses to do the annual company presentation? What happens if, quite simply, the gap between managers and staff is rapidly turning into the Grand Canyon?

You could give stern warnings regarding the consequences for snoring during a meeting. You could simply insist that presenting in front of 500 industry representatives is no different to closing a sale with one person.  You could shrug and decide that the great divide will never be crossed so why bother.

Or, you could send in the clowns.

Or to be more exact a champion public speaker, a voice coach, an actress and a – well let’s call her a professional comedian.

Ivan Moss (the speaker), Linda Cartwright (the voice coach), Kate Bartlett and Lisa Brickell (the you-know-what) make up Auckland based company 2B – a company who knows better than most the importance of being dynamic, engaging and natural.

“There is a huge demand for business people to up their game and we thought, we’ve got all these skills, why not use them?” Linda Cartwright told Business to Business recently.

“Acting is about gauging your effect on an audience and that’s basic to anyone wishing to communicate.”

The company offers a wide range of services from voice coaching to team building, and have worked with some very high profile clients including Saatchi and Saatchi, Coca Cola and Prime Minister Helen Clark.

“We make assumptions about people in the first seven seconds,” says Lisa Brickell.

“So the question is what are you saying without saying anything? We’re constantly reading other people’s body language and nerves can make you come across quite differently.”

So why use drama?  Acting, Linda said, studies psychology and about being honest. “People think acting is about putting on a mask, but in fact it’s about stripping away the masks.”

Lisa and Linda believe New Zealanders are very self conscious and this can be limiting in terms of connecting with people whether its clients or colleagues. “If you have a team that’s enthusiastic about working together, productivity rises,” says Lisa.

When working with a client 2B firstly needs to identify the different communication styles present within the group – they then use their cross section of skills to address any issues that come up.

“There is a bit of fear around getting up to perform,” says Lisa. “But we do the performing, not the clients. We sometimes get them to do a bit of role playing, but its very safe role playing.”

“The way men and women approach this kind of training is very different too,” says Linda. “Men feel there is an expectation for them to take control while young women especially can be very shy about participating.”

As well as day seminars and training sessions the group also offers Murder Mystery evenings for companies, believing it is  important too for businesses to relax together and have fun.

So is this where the clowning – sorry comedy comes in?

“I don’t use the word clown in New Zealand, kiwis instantly think of red rubber noses and big shoes,” says Lisa, who trained in Paris, with a grin. “Its about comic uniqueness and spontaneous humour. If you laugh at something you are six times more likely to remember it.”

And the best part about it according to Lisa is that it helps with the thing most people dread doing at work  - making a mistake.

“Making mistakes is wonderful. If you make a mistake you can use it for comic effect and everyone relaxes. It’s great making a fool of yourself.”