Sending your child to college in the USA - but live in another country?

Many parents from other countries send their children to college in the USA, but the students and their parents don't know what to expect. Portable Parent (www.portableparent.com) is a down-loadable e-book about living on a college campus. It is in English, but it could be translated easily by going to www.translate.google.com into many languages. Chapters include ones on managing your time and money wisely, suggestions for lengthening an shortening term papers, making friends, and much more.

Help your child know what to expect in an American college! Visit www.portableparent.com!

Have a college freshman?

Many parents at college orientations for their children, or when saying good-bye to them at their dorms, feel they as parents haven't done enough. They worry their children are not ready to succeed in a college environment. At the cost of tuition today, that's a big concern.

A unique new down-loadable book, Portable Parent (www.portableparent.com) helps by providing students information they need to succeed, and it can already be downloaded onto their computers so it's available when they need it!

Portable Parent is purchased by parents. If they have a PC, they can add their own wisdom to some of the chapters, before uploading it to their children's computers.
"Instant information, with a parent's input, 24/7"!

Characteristics of an excelent customer service representative

Today I experienced an unusually good customer service experience. In this case, it was in a retail store. However, as we all have customers, it could have been anywhere.
Four factors made it so good:
1. the salesperson had excellent verbal communication skills
2. she knew her products, their features and location well
3. she heard unspoken objections and offered a guarantee of satisfaction
4. she was clearly eager to please her customers by offering superb service
My congratulations to those who recruited, trained and supervise this salesperson!

What's the best customer service experience you have had recently? What made it so great?

What Does A Speech Coach Do and What Should I Look For In One?

Can you identify with any of these? All names and some details have been changed.

1. Li (not her real name) is a professional chemist with valued professional skills. However, despite speaking English, she has a lot of trouble being understood by her colleagues here. Her company hires a speech coach to teach her American English pronunciation.

2. Sue has a strong regional American accent. When she speaks to clients in another part of the country by telephone or in video-conferences, they focus on trying to understand her pronunciation and miss her message. Sue's boss calls for help for her.

3. Sara needs to improve her presentation skills to be able to keep her job. Her company course on presentation skills was very poor, and Sara wants one on one coaching.

4. Pablo is a leader, and he wants training in how to get more ideas from his team. He
also wants to be a more effective communicator with them. He wants executive communication coaching.

If one or more of those situations describes you, you want a speech coach who is a great communicator herself, who is experienced and is professionally trained. One example of such training is a master's in speech pathology with experience in the sub-specialty of corporate speech pathology. Such a coach has scientific background in anatomy and physiology of how we talk, as well as experience in applying this to the corporate environment. Ideally the person will have the initials CCC-SLP after his or her name.

Business Speech Improvement provides intensive, targeted coaching in verbal communication skills. Visit www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com for more details!

Shy at parties? Three tips to help

Many people feel hesitant to walk up to a stranger and start a conversation. Many years ago, people would be introduced by mutual friends, who might stay long enough to make sure the conversation was going well. Now, people start talking with others often without any help.

Here are three tips to make this easier. First, consider the goal of the conversation. Are you trying to make a new friend, determine if someone is a good business prospect, or
find out delicately how a new hire feels about a potential "hot topic"?

Plan a series of 3 -5 questions around this goal. If you want to make a new friend, ask how the person feels about living so close to the sports arena or university, for example.

Then, if you want to consider staying in touch, ask for the person's card. After the person is out of sight, write something on the back so you will remember this person, and follow up with him the next day by e-mail.

Many more tips on making small talk, including how to start and gracefully end a conversation, can be found in the e-book "Small Talk: Connecting with Others" (www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com).