Communication

My job with The Latimer Group is to coach and train our clients to be better communicators. And regular readers of this blog know that I will use stories or examples from any area of my life to draw out the lessons I want to discuss. Occasionally over the years, I have gently referenced real-world […]

I was recently speaking to a close friend who had just attended a conference for her industry. The conference had been on the schedule since last fall, since right after the prior annual event. So, everyone knew this event was coming. But what transpired during the day-long conference last week was, in the words of […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. In Dean’s recent post about the impact of masks, he addressed new challenges to conversational communication. Indeed, the combination of muffled voices and invisible lips makes it far more difficult to catch every word that is said – especially for those […]

Can great communication skills be taught? Or are they entirely natural? Let’s try to answer that via a story. My wife and I have two children, 10 and 5. At their respective ages, the age gap is pretty big. They like different things, play a little differently, have different expectations… exactly as you would expect […]

How do you prepare for that big sales call, or that important meeting with your boss? If you prepare at all (not trying to insult you, but a shocking number of people still try to “wing it”), and if you are like most people we meet, then your prep goes something like this… organize your […]

We are now six months into a health crisis that has changed everything we do… the ways we work, go to school, socialize, shop, vacation, walk past others on the street… there are very few things that are the same as they were in early March 2020. When we all “went home” from work and […]

The hardest thing for any subject matter expert (SME) to do is to explain his or her area of expertise in simple and clear ways. When we are “in” it, when we are living the topic every day, and when we know a lot about it, it is really hard to distance ourselves from it and […]

I love the quiet of the early mornings. One of my favorite things to do is wake up early, pour a cup of hot coffee and just listen to the silence. I start my day that way as often as possible. It centers me. And it is even more powerful on important days and anniversaries […]

In this episode we interview long-time friend and advisor Phil Bonanno on the art (and a little bit of the science) behind understanding your customer, and figuring out how to connect with them. Phil has a unique take on human connection, and how it plays into the ways we communicate and sell. And he is […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. In my last post, I presented the analogy of message as journey – a way to visualize, approach, craft, and deliver an effective presentation. The journey happens in three parts – open, content, close – and the itinerary is tailored to […]