• Executive Presence - Learn professional listening skills, be able to motivate employees, facilitate brainstorming sessions, know when to encourage and discourage talking.


• Public Speaking - Understand how to compose speeches, cope with stage fright, and deliver with  impact.
  


• Accent Reduction - Improve your pronunciation and intonation. Reduce your accent. Be clearly understood.
  


• Speech Rate - Slow Down!  Speak so others can understand you. Learn high tech and low tech methods to modify your speed.
  
  
• Impairments - Learn how to reduce lisps and stuttering - even for those who are not King George VI of England. Learn strategies to recall those words that are "on the tip of your tongue".
  
  Instruction for hearing impairment issues - Help reading lips. Guidance for hearing loss in the workplace


• Speech-Language Pathologists - Purchase of Alternative Career Options for SLPs and other books; professional guidance with career possibilities and email mentoring for SLPs.

                     Ten Tips for Improving Your Business Communication Skills

1. When answering the telephone,  slowly and clearly give your greeting. The other party may be in a noisy place, speak English as a second language, or may never have called your company before. 

2. Allow a little extra time for the other party to answer your greeting. He may be distracted, be a stutterer or have had a stroke  and have trouble saying his first sound.

3. When presenting a proposal to a departmental meeting, have 2 -3 others in the group critique it first and add their ideas to make it better. Then introduce it as "our" (not "my") idea.

4. If you experience stage fright before a presentation, visualize yourself being successful as you practice, practice  frequently, make sure you can give your presentation if the electronics should fail, and take some deep breaths as you walk up to the podium.

5. Hearing loss is most common among senior citizens, but 20% of those in their late teens and early twenties report signs of it too, for the first time in history.Assume that 20% of your audience in a presentation will have a hearing loss, and use a microphone.

6. Learn about body language. For example,  crossed arms and/or legs can indicate defensiveness or closed minds in the American culture. Leaning forward slightly indicates interest. A person's feet may indicate the direction he really wants to go - such as out the door.

7. Have someone record you when you are not aware of it, and listen to  your own diction. Is it clear, including at the ends of sentences? Do you use a standard American dialect if you are talking to others in another part of the country? Can your clients, patients, or students easily understand you?

8.  If you are going for a job interview, beforehand learn all you can about the company and prepare some questions about it that cannot be answered from their website. Also practice your answers to common interview questions. If you are the job interviewer,  ask the candidate what he is looking for in his ideal job. This allows you to target your responses better.

9.  Follow-up when you say you will if you are interacting with a potential client, employee or community member. Follow-up increases trust, which is vital for a future relationship.

10.  If your communication skills  need improvement and you want help, get coaching from a corporate speech pathologist. As Katie Schwartz, CCCSLP of Business Speech Improvement puts it, "Great speech makes business sense! Coaching can help you be a successful communicator faster."