Founder-led. Mission Driven. Award-winning. Discover the story of body talk

Every great journey hinges on a key moment and, for our Founder Richard, that moment was in 1995.

Rejecting university offers, he instead opted to head to a Tibetan monastery and teach English to Buddhist monks. But there was a problem: nobody could speak English when he arrived. 

The only solution? Body language and voice skills; the universal way of conveying meaning, emotion and messages. Over the next six months, Richard organically developed his unique coaching style, teaching English so that the monks, in turn, could find their own voice – and be heard.

Following his adventure with the monks, Richard wanted to understand more about communication, so he studied acting at a prestigious London drama school.
There he learned the skills of stage presence, storytelling and non-verbal expression, discovering how to connect with and engage an audience.

He learned how to overcome his shy, introverted nature, with principles of confident communication. Alongside his studies he continued to devour every book he could find on advanced communication skills.

It was the year 2000 when Richard found himself in a hairdressers, having a casual chat with the stylist, when the usual question cropped up: “So, what is it you do…?”.

Richard explained about his time in the Himalayas, studying acting and his passion for communication. By chance, it was exactly the training that the stylist needed for his team. He offered a free haircut if Richard would pop back to teach his team.

After two hours of coaching Richard was instantly re-booked to roll out his skills across the company. (Their senior team remained clients for the next 16 years!)

After a few sessions with the hairdressers, Richard received a call from an engineering company – the gentleman on the phone had just been for a haircut and heard that Richard was the number one communications expert in the country! Please could Richard train his engineers?

He certainly could. So the booking was made and Richard successfully coached the team of engineers in communication excellence, at an exhibition at the NEC.

It was completely euphoric. These timid engineers learned to express themselves confidently and loved the experience. Richard knew this is what he wanted to do with his life. 

With a mission to help people find their voice, be heard and create a positive influence on the world, Body Talk is founded. Recruiting expert trainers in communication and storytelling, Richard established a specialist team which he then nurtured and coached in the Body Talk way – crafting a high-impact  framework and methodology that would offer practical, valuable outcomes for clients. 

The goal was to deliver the best training clients had ever received, with instant results and lasting transformation.

This was just the beginning.

Going beyond business impact, we were intent on maximising the value that Body Talk could bring to the world by supporting causes close to our hearts – and this started with Afrikids in northern Ghana, helping children gain an education and reach their full potential.

Twenty years later, we are proud to continue partnering with this fantastic charity. But rather than just donate money, Body Talk has made multiple visits to Ghana and trained to the Afrikids team to help increase their impact, alongside giving communication coaching to the children in Ghana to empower their voices!

Since inception, Body Talk has gone from strength to strength, impacting the lives of individuals and teams at every level, and by 2007, our growth began rocketing by 40% per year – fuelled by word of mouth recommendations and an expanding reputation. As a result, our core team started to expand and we took our approach global, working with clients across North America, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and Africa.

Clients have included CEOs, Vice-Presidents and leadership teams across many worldwide brands, including Virgin, Expedia, Microsoft and 3M.

Staying close to our roots, in 2012 we were excited to be able to support a school set up by the monks who Richard had taught in the mid-nineties, helping to pay the salary of teachers who would be working with over 70 children in remote villages.

Almost 15 years after the start of Body Talk, Body Talk began ground-breaking research with the Head of Psychology at UCL. The project involved over 2,000 people from around the world and proved that small changes in how you speak enable you to look more confident and inspiring.

Their study proved you can increase your leadership skills ratings by 44% and convince 59% more people to vote for you by changing a few simple behaviours, with the results published in the Journal of Psychology.
In the same year Richard won the internationally coveted Cicero Grand Prize for speechwriting.

Passionate about sharing his learnings more universally, Richard spent years writing his first book ‘You Were Born To Speak’, which on launch day ranked as #1 best-seller in both hardcover and Kindle editions. He has since gone on to be covered by Sky TV, Channel 5 News, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Forbes Magazine and The Huffington Post, and regularly appears on BBC Radio London.

With the arrival of Covid, a shift to home working became the norm for millions of people around the world, meaning suddenly that being able to effectively communicate on-screen became a crucial skill.

As such, Body Talk quickly transformed our service offering to meet the new needs of our clients – in the environments that they were now having to work in. 

Evolving our approach, we empowered multiple businesses to navigate the complex world of communications in lockdown, helping them emerge as better business leaders overall.

Richard’s second book, ‘Lift Your Impact: Transform Your Mindset, Influence, and Future to Elevate Your Work, Team, and Life’ was published in April 2023. Derived from Body Talk’s work in the corporate world, the book documents key techniques that can dramatically move the needle for business leaders, both personally and professionally.

Topics covered include: how to lift yourself by adapting your physicality, how to lift your message by prioritising emotion, and how to lift your mind by honing your mindset to work at peak performance under pressure. Empowering readers to foster meaningful connections and create lasting success.

Invited to give a talk at the University of Bristol, Richard added his unique flair to their ‘Connection’ series of TEDx Talks. Distilling the Body Talk approach down to just three key points, Richard got the audience up on their feet to demonstrate his salient points on understanding the brain, storytelling and communication.

Body Talk has since grown to a team of passionate people who deliver over 2000 bookings per year, delivering coaching and workshops in many different languages, for clients all over the world. If you would like to be part of Body Talk learn more about joining the team.