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As a small business owner, I am constantly thinking about the various needs that I, and my teammates, should always be thinking about. What needs am I referring to? Whose needs? I am constantly thinking of three sets of need: 1. Our clients’ needs. We are a service provider, and we preach “knowing your audience” […]

(We originally published this post in June of 2014, but as always, there are business communication lessons here that ALWAYS hold up.) I spent the entire day yesterday with my five-year old son. We had quite a nice little Saturday. We woke up early, had breakfast together, and then went out for some man-style shopping. […]

Well… that was a great game. For those who care, and watched, I would rank that as one of the three or four best Super Bowl games of all time. And for those of you who do not care and did not watch, trust me… this is not a post about American football. Today’s post […]

Sometimes certain phrases get repeated so often, they become more than cliche. They become indisputable fact. But that doesn’t mean such statements are always correct. Like many cliches, “the customer is always right” has some element of truth to it. The customer knows what they want or need, and the customer is entitled to certain […]

At The Latimer Group, we talk and write all the time about the ability to communicate clearly. That is our purpose, our mission, our raison d’etre. To succeed in the 21st century global business environment, you need to be able to communicate with your colleagues, employees, customers, prospects, and shareholders, and you need to be […]

Last week I spent some time speaking with someone I occasionally coach. Last week’s problem was that he and a close colleague were in a tough spot, not communicating well. Apparently, the colleague was doing some things that were intensely frustrating for my client. The details are not important to the story, but there was […]

I recently spent some time conducting training workshops with one of our best clients. It was a week away from home, which is always a hard thing. I hate being away from home, but I also love my work, and this is a great client. So, yes, it can be conflicting when the work you […]

We had a great interaction this week, a story worth sharing. We heard from a guy who had been in one of our workshops in 2005, back when he was with one of our biggest client companies. He left that company in 2007, which is probably the last time we had any contact with him […]

Over the holiday, I was reviewing my client notes from throughout 2014. Last year we worked with client companies in a range of industries, including financial services and banking, insurance, mining, oil and gas, aerospace, commercial construction, and several other forms of heavy industry. And we worked with executives and professionals from North and South […]

I had an interesting conversation with my five-year-old son over the holiday. He asked me to explain something about sailing (which, of course, made his Dad smile). He doesn’t yet know how to sail on his own, but I’ve taken him out many times, and he loves it. He talks about boats all the time, […]