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Hello clients and friends, Over the last few days, we have been on the phone with many of our contacts at our client companies, and everyone we have spoken to is in agreement on the following: We are living in challenging, uncertain and rapidly-changing times. There is no denying that. Among the many aspects of […]

According to some sources, more than 30 million business presentations are created each day. And you know what? Most of them are terrible. We’ve all sat through the proverbial terrible presentation with no purpose, nothing memorable, no clear action items, too many slides, the monotonous drone of the boring presenter. There is a reason business […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. Names identify us and names connect us. When we use someone’s name, we acknowledge them, include them and show them respect. Using names is a powerful communication technique and an important element in building connection. This is not new information, but […]

Welcome to the latest episode of The Message Makeover Podcast. Recently, Kendra and I shared a conversation with Lydia Fenet about the art of persuasion, and the ways to command attention in every room you walk into. Lydia is a Managing Director at Christie’s in New York City, and is the most prominent charity benefit […]

This is one of those simple, personal stories that I love to share. Our four-year-old daughter Kate loves animated movies (who doesn’t?!?) and her stuffed animals… The Lion King movie and her stuffed Aslan from the Narnia stories are current favorites. One day a couple of weeks ago, Emily and I started to notice a […]

Frequently, one of the participants in a Latimer workshop will say something that totally grabs me. And I always will pause the workshop, write a note in my “ideas book” and then say, “That will be a blog post, and I can footnote you, if you want.” In this case, the participant politely declined a footnote. We […]

Originally published at Forbes Coaches Council, January 2020. I’ve learned from years of teaching workshops that nearly everyone starts their preparation for a presentation by planning a slide deck, whether that means opening up a new Microsoft PowerPoint, repurposing an old one or two (which often results in a Frankenstein-like creation of mismatched fonts, colors, […]

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about personal behaviors, especially in relation to how we “show up” in a professional setting. And here are five things that always seem to jump to the front of the line for me, as being the most important communication behaviors. Think about this… What would it be like if you […]

This post was written by Dan Cooney, Director of Business Development at The Latimer Group. Meeting madness! The problem has been hiding in plain sight for years and I’ve heard the stats more times than I listened to Purple Rain in the 80’s.  There are 55 million meetings a day in the U.S. alone and half of […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. I recently wrote a post about the importance of the first 30 seconds of a presentation. Starting off with a warm welcome, a genuine smile, meaningful eye contact and a basic introduction is an important way to capture your audience’s attention […]