Public Speaking Skills

Do you want to be an effective communicator? Be more memorable? Do you want people to follow your lead, support your idea, or buy your product or service? Of course you do. When I say “be memorable,” I’m not suggesting that you do something outrageous so that they remember that crazy person who did “x.” I mean […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group.  It’s easy to live inside our own heads. We know what we know. As a result, we sometimes start talking, telling a story, asking a question, making a statement, and then realize that the person we’re talking to has no idea […]

Over the last month, we have spent nearly every day in workshops with some of our top clients. And in every single one, the concept of terrible PowerPoint slides came up. Everyone wants to know how to make their slides simpler. Everyone wants to have a “Steve Jobs” level of simplicity with their slides. But […]

At the heart of almost everything we teach is the concept of intentionality… preparing and communicating with intention and purpose. Great communication skills don’t just happen. Not without some thought, effort, planning, and yes, intention. In addition to being intentional about your message’s main points, we also encourage being intentional about the structure, sequence and […]

Have you ever considered mapping your progress as a communicator? In short, the only way to REALLY be sure you’re improving as an effective communicator is to have some way to measure that improvement. When we work with clients at The Latimer Group, we use a three-stage rubric of Professional-, Leadership-, and Executive-Level communication… So how do we […]

(Author’s Note: I recently had a friend call me and ask for help with a toast, for an in-person wedding later this spring. He was really nervous about it because… its a wedding toast. Many people get nervous about speaking at weddings. But in addition, his nerves seemed to be coming from the fact that […]

Details matter in business, and in some industries, the details are everything. But the amount of detail we discuss in meetings and presentations, and the way in which we communicate it, is a daily source of frustration in most companies. Ask yourself this question: “What percentage of meetings that you participate in cover way more […]

We just finished an intensive workshop, designed in multiple modules and spread out over multiple days, with one of our top clients. The topic was Executive Communication Skills, and the goal was to coach a small group of ten rising executive stars in the art of persuasive, executive-level communication skills. We covered a lot of […]

In nearly every workshop I teach, I ask a question that sounds something like this: “How many of you attend too many meetings that run long?” Nearly every hand goes up, every time. “How many of you get too many emails that are too overwhelming to read?” Nearly every hand goes up, every time. “How […]

(Author’s Note: This is a piece I originally wrote several years ago. But we republish it every 18 months or so, because the point continues to be true, and because my colleagues and I continue to see evidence of the risk of PowerPoint every single day. As you read this, keep this in mind… your […]