This week marks Turpin Communication’s 20th year in business. Although we’ve had 19 anniversaries leading up to this one, most of which have gone by unnoticed, this one feels different. This one feels like it needs to be acknowledged, even if it is only in this blog. So here it is. First, I want to...
read more
Want to improve communication skills for yourself or your team?
Read our Blogs and download our Infographics for helpful tips, techniques, and advice you can put to use today.
How Can I Help a Nervous Presenter?
August 20, 2012
Managers often come to us and ask how they can help their team members get a handle on the nervousness they experience when presenting. This isn’t surprising, of course, since this type of nervousness is a real issue for a lot of people. We all experience it differently and to varying degrees, but the reality...
read moreEncouraging Discussion
July 23, 2012
This is a follow-up to the blog I wrote a few months ago, They Won’t Speak if You Don’t Listen. In that post, I mentioned that facilitators have two fundamental goals. They need to (1) encourage participation in the conversation and (2) control the discussion once it begins. As I said, facilitators often spend too much...
read moreHelping Employees Gain Respect by Improving Their Communication
May 14, 2012
As a communication consultant working with presenters, facilitators, and trainers, I have a lot of interesting conversations with business leaders about their employees. The conversations may go something like this: “Greg, I know John is smart. He has great ideas and is always willing to put himself out there, but in meetings, he doesn’t communicate...
read moreThey Won’t Speak if You Don’t Listen
One of the biggest problems facilitators have is very basic: failure to stay in the moment to listen and respond to what people have to say. When we work with facilitators in our workshops, we always say that there are two primary goals in every discussion. (1) Facilitators need to encourage the conversation. They need...
read moreEngage in the Conversation
March 5, 2012
As you know, if you’ve ever participated in one of our workshops, we talk a lot about the use of engagement skills, eye contact, and pausing. We say that using these skills to engage listeners in the conversation reduces nervousness, brings listeners into the conversation, and helps you avoid the hazards of a canned performance....
read morePresentation Baggage
January 30, 2012
Recently I had a lively phone call with a potential client. It was clear that he had done his homework on us and our competitors and had prepared some tough questions for me. Here’s my favorite question: “What’s the biggest barrier you face when working with people in your workshops?” I love this question. My...
read moreDuring Training: It’s not always about the right answer
June 27, 2011
When we’re working with trainers on their facilitation skills, one of the common issues we see is the trainer’s attempt to get to the “right” answer as quickly as possible. No matter how subtle or complex the question might be, many trainers are frantic to get past A so they can get on to B. We’re...
read moreTRUST: It’s Yours to Lose
March 4, 2011
Earlier this week, I was coaching a senior executive on a very high-stakes presentation. He told me he wanted to be perceived as trustworthy. Setting trustworthiness as a goal is common among our clients, so there was nothing new about it in this situation. But as the discussion went on, he asked me what he...
read morePracticing Your Presentation is NOT the Way to Go
February 10, 2011
For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of writing. My writing project is a book for business presenters. It began as a simple update and expansion of the Reference Guide (the booklet we give participants in our presentation workshops), but the scope of it expanded to the point where I’m now writing...
read more