Presentation Skills

The hardest thing for any subject matter expert (an “SME” in business vernacular) 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, when we know a lot about a certain topic, it often can be […]

Your audience will only remember a small percentage of what you say. Some studies suggest it will be less than 20%. Fact. Other studies suggest that the average adult attention span is now about 8 seconds. Bummer. So what do you do about it? We could simply surrender, and assume that this is the new […]

In our workshops, we talk all the time about making things simple. The simple answer wins the day most of the time. In a world that is increasingly fast-paced, time-starved, and overloaded with information, the person who can make complicated things simple and easy to understand rules the world. But when I talk about this […]

Does your message stand out? Do you make it easy for your audience to remember what you say? Does your message make an impact on the mind of your listener? You need to care about this, because there is so much competition for the mindshare of every audience. There are so many things that come at each of […]

It’s a common occurrence in the business world. You prepare for a meeting or presentation, expecting that you will be able to speak for a certain length of time… only to find out that you will be allotted much less time than you planned for. Sometimes we even learn our fate as we are walking […]

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 […]

Sometimes it is hard to know the right way to say or write something. Sometimes it is hard to know the correct tone to take. How should I speak to these people? How formal or informal should it be? The answers depend on lots of things: the nature and seriousness of the topic; the level of […]

One of the best parts of the client workshops we teach is that our clients are really smart people. We are blessed to be able to work with so many companies, which are full of bright, qualified, hard-working people. Sure… I am kissing up to our clients this morning… but it also happens to be true. And frequently someone […]

We have clients across a range of industries and on five continents. And no matter where we go, no matter what the industry is, everyone complains about the exact same thing. Everyone wants their colleagues, customers, vendors or partners to simply get to the point. We, all of us, have a chronic business problem of […]

Learning how to become an expert in anything is complex… mastering an athletic skill, inhabiting a character in a play, communicating in a powerful way, or anything else. Expertise, in any endeavor, is not easy to accomplish. Whenever I take a close look at the training and preparation habits of elite performers (something I do […]