Biz Communication Guy Podcast II

Dr. Bill Lampton Ph. D.
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Biweekly

Every week Bill Lampton, Ph.D.–the “Biz Communication Guy”–interviews renowned communication experts about their areas of expertise. Listeners learn tips, strategies, and guidelines for sales, management, customer service, presentation skills, technology, and persuasion. Catch every lively episode, so you will jet-propel your business communication skills–and profits!

Episodes

  1. May 27

    Terry Brock Tells How AI Can Boost Your Business

    Bill Lampton: Hi there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication guy, bringing you tips and strategies on communication that will boost your business. Now in our eighth year of producing this video, audio podcast. And as you know, I do not just share my on— my own wisdom about business communication, but I bring on an expert and our conversation will enlighten you and me both with tips and strategies that will help us boost our business. Today it’s a wonderful privilege to welcome a long-time friend, colleague, associate, mentor, Terry Brock, coming to us from Orlando, Florida. Terry Brock is a communicator and I can underscore that. Since he was a kid, in fact in second grade, he has been writing. He worked as a journalist for many years and his undergraduate degree is in communications working with radio, TV, and newspaper. Today Terry and his partner and fiancé, Gina Carr— and Gina was a recent guest on the Biz Communication Show— Terry and his fiancé, Gina Carr, have a membership program called Stark Raving Entrepreneurs where they help people build their business, leveraging the daylights out of AI and other tech. Today he joins us again to talk about what is happening and how you can move your business to the next level. So, I know you’ll join me in welcoming Terry Brock. Hello, Terry. Terry Brock: Great to be with you, Bill. Thank you for having me on board. Bill Lampton: Well, your— your introduction, which you kindly provided, did not even begin to describe your uh immense qualifications, which I’m very familiar with. Not long ago, Terry, you and I were having a visit, as a matter of fact, you and Gina came to see me here in my home in Gainesville, Georgia, and I remember asking you how many countries you had spoken in, directed seminars in, or done training in. What is that latest number? I know you’re a global presenter, what is that latest number? Terry Brock: Well, the latest as of now is uh 44 countries and counting. So, they would include um places like England and Canada and France and Dubai, and even Texas. And so, you know, a lot of different places there. Bill Lampton: Well, truly, you— you— some people call themselves a global speaker because they made one presentation outside the country, but you definitely are a global speaker. And in recognition of the great impact you’ve had globally, you have received the highest honors available from the National Speakers Association. And I still remember in 1998, I believe it was, you and I met at a National Speakers Convention, and then I had other encounters with you when you lived in Georgia and we were both members of the Georgia Chapter of the National Speakers Association. This was before you set your business and your residence in Orlando, Florida. One of the great traits that you have, and there are many as a presenter, is that you involve your audience. It’s not just [laughter] it’s not just what I would call a— a mannequin with a mouth. [laughter] Just somebody who spews out a message and hope people are getting it. And also, you’re not a novice who, when you want to get your audience involved, you say, “Hey, anybody got any questions?” and there’s this [laughter] there’s this frightening deadly silence. Share with us, please— many of us are presenters, whether we’re professional or whether we’re business and professional people— share with us some of the strategies and techniques that you use, Terry, to get your audience vocally and physically involved in the presentation. Terry Brock: Well, that’s a good question because I think that’s important when you’re connecting with people. You want to find out what it is that’s on their mind. One of the things I found a change that I’ve done recently that helps, maybe this will help some of the viewers and listeners here, often I would ask for, “What would you like to hear about? What topic do you want to hear?” And that’s good, not bad, they might say, “Well this or that.” We work do a lot with AI. So, they’d want to know about using Chat GPT for this or maybe using Gemini for this or how does this tool work, etc. Those are good, but even better is when you can do your research and then lean forward and ask people, “Where are you having problems right now? What are some of the big frustrations you’re having with technology? What’s the biggest problem you bump into with Chat GPT or what are your biggest concerns or worries about it?” Something like that, those kind of questions that are tailored for the market, whatever it is that you’re serving, does a lot better. I think in terms of what a surgeon, a physician would do, when you go into this physician’s office, the physician often doesn’t say, “Well, would you like to know more about this medicine or would you like to know about this medicine?” No, they say, “How you doing? Any pain, any hurt, anything I can do to help you out?” A really good physician will do that and so, I’ve been thinking that’s a probably a good way to do it, and I think then you respond back to the people based on where they’re hurting. And by the way, as you know this very well, Bill, today, we’re in a great shape as better than ever before. That sounds like hyperbole, but it’s true because now we can do the research and find out where are they hurting. Where are they bumping into problems? With tools like Perplexity, it does great work with research. So does Chat GPT now and Gemini and particularly Grok. Grok is giving you real-time information of what’s going on right now, particularly relevant in some areas when there’s say a crisis or an emergency going on. So, I think what we want to do is be aware of what’s possible and then always be oriented toward how do we solve their problems. Nice to talk about a topic and we’ll mention that, okay fine if it’s relevant to them, but more importantly, find out where they’re hurting, where they’re bumping into real-world pain and how we can grab a tool over here that’ll help that or a tool over here that’ll solve that problem. Bill Lampton: Audience analysis is absolutely a vital key because the presenter, whether you’re an executive or whether you’re a professional speaker, the presenter, if— if it’s a solo act, audiences today are— are not um they’re not going to stick with you, and so you need— and I see perpetually, you and I both know Lois Creamer who advises us so often about what is happening in the speaking business. And one of the points that she makes repeatedly is that we must be problem solvers. We must not just be topic experts, but we must be problem solvers. And carrying this just a little bit farther, Terry, you’ve done your audience analysis and you get up to present, and knowing you, you do not talk for 60 minutes or whatever is allowed without really getting the audience involved. And as— and as I said a few minutes ago, the old way is saying, “Hey, anybody got any questions?” [laughter] and of course, usually no one will be the first one, and there— there are none. So, how do you get true involvement, feedback, maybe a Q&A? How do you get the audience stimulated to do that, guided to do that? Terry Brock: I don’t think there’s any one particular way to do it, but there’s some things we can do today that help a lot. Like for instance, I recently spoke uh out in Texas uh to a group of people that are in landscape and in nurseries, that working with those and earning with, out of the green industry, growing just wonderful, wonderful people. And I wanted to study their industry and find out what are they going through. So, I used my buddies, as I like to say, my buddies Chat GPT, Perplexity, Grok, and some other tools out there to find out what is going on, what is bothering people in those industries out there in Texas right now. And so, I knew some of the issues that were going on, and I had some fun with it, Bill. You’ll appreciate this. What I did is I looked at what was going on, and one of the issues they’re having concern with right now is with labor— getting people to come and work for them, what the prices are going to be for labor, etc., etc., and the shortage. And so, what I did is I say, “I understand that in your industry right now, here in Texas, you’re going through uh labor issues trying to find out,” and they’re kind of shaking their head going, “Yeah, he knows what he talking about.” I say, “Let me show you a way we can figure that out,” and what I did is I reached over, grabbed my phone, went over to Chat GPT, popped it into voice mode and I said, “Chat GPT, need you to act as an expert here in Texas in the area of nursery and with grooming and growing shrubs and things like that. What is going on right now that is causing problems in labor? What are— do you see happening in that?” And it came back and gave me an extensive conversation there about what’s happening, the issues, etc. I cut it off saying, “Okay, okay, that’s real good. Hang on just a minute.” And I paused, I looked at them, I say, “Is what Chat GPT told us accurate?” And they said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s true, but uh we all know that.” I said, “Yeah, that’s right. And you want to know what he can do to tell you to get around that and work around it.” They go, “Yeah.” I say, “Okay, we just confirmed though that he knows what he’s talking about. He,” because I was using the male voice at that time, “he was there, uh give me the information to that what was said. Is that correct, correct?” And they’re all going, “Yeah.” I go, “Now, the other issue is what?” And they told me some of the issues. I said, “That’s right.” And then I said, “I repeated that back into Chat GPT, and it came up with some solutions for them, some of which they had heard,

  2. May 15

    John Ray Explains The Generosity Mindset

    Bill Lampton: Hi, there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication guy. Every week, hosting a conversation with an outstanding business communication expert so that you and I can learn tips and strategies that will boost our business. Today, it’s an absolute delight to host again, as he’s been our guest several times, John Ray, coming to us from the Greater Atlanta Metropolitan Area. John Ray works with consultants, coaches, attorneys, fractional executives, and other professionals who sell expertise. He helps them diagnose and express their value, price accordingly, and build business through trust, not pressure. He’s the author of the five-star rated book, The Generosity Mindset, which redefines generosity as a professional asset, not as giving everything away. So, I know that you will join me in welcoming our expert for the day, John Ray. Hello, John. John Ray: Bill, what a delight to be with you, as always. Thank you for having me back. I really appreciate that very much. Bill Lampton: Well, I— I benefit every time, and I know that our viewers and our listeners benefit as well. You have built a wide reputation, John, as an expert on pricing. A topic that really, until you tackled it, I’m not sure that I heard very much advice about that. And I think of how [laughter] I could have used that advice three decades ago when I launched my career as a professional speaker, consultant, coach. And like many people, I was ready to take a fee, [laughter] not recognizing that there were options. So, one of my first uh questions, which I think our viewers and listeners will want to know is, what prompted you to get into the topic of pricing, to study it closely and carefully, and then to teach many hundreds through your seminars and through your book? To teach them how to maximize the rewards for the service that they provide. What prompted you to do that, John? John Ray: Well, that uh— that is an easy ans— question and answer for me. Basically, uh skinned knees and— and uh t-shirts in the drawer of— of bad pricing, bad engagements. Uh you know, I— I— I came out of corporate like a lot of people do, uh that don’t really know how to price their expertise, and they don’t know that they don’t know that. Um you know, they— they do what I did, which is kind of use others as a benchmark. And when others uh are pricing inadequately, that by definition, that makes your price inadequate. And we all suffer from that. And so, I saw this problem with my clients as well. And so, I got passionate about it. And— and the— the thing about it is, this— this is not information that— that is widely available to uh small business people and— and particularly expert service providers, like consultants and coaches and fractional executives that go out on their own, like I did, to uh and they’ve got a particular expertise, and they start their business. And, you know, there— there are just not a lot of resources immediately available. There are plenty of good ones out there, but they’re just not immediately available to uh people like us. And so, that’s what got me passionate about it. I went uh down that bunny trail, you might say, learning. And uh eventually, that led to me really focusing my practice around that and, you know, writing the book. Bill Lampton: So, as you say, you really tackled what was a needed topic, but in many ways a neglected topic. And as I said a minute ago, I really had not heard much about pricing services until I started attending your seminars and then soon after that, reading your wonderful book, which we will talk about. What, John, are some of the pricing mistakes— two or three that you see entrepreneurs, solo practitioners make? Who— um tell us what are— are some of the mistakes that you run across commonly with your clients and talking with people individually? Tell us— tell us what are some of the mistakes that you— you not only identify, but you help correct? John Ray: Yeah. So, I— I call them the red flags of inadequate pricing. Uh that’s my nomenclature for— for it. And uh you know, one of those is hourly pricing. If you’re pricing by time, pricing by the clock, uh your— your price by definition is inadequate. Um uh pricing is an input. It’s not— ha— has nothing to do with the outcome that the client receives— the transformation you bring. And it’s genu— genu— genu— generally— I’ll get that out in a second— very uh ha— ha— has no relation whatsoever and— and and much, much uh smaller than a lot of clients would be willing to pay when it’s calculated that way. Another few that I see are uh when— when an expert service provider accepts every client that comes their way. I mean, by definition, your price is too low because some of those folks that are coming your way are price-sensitive. They’re— they’re— they’re uh cheapskates. I mean, they— [laughter] they want to get something for as little as possible. And uh most clients aren’t that way, but some are. And so, if you’re pricing such that every client that comes your way, you’re accepting, what that means is uh your price is not high enough to— to drive away the price-sensitive clients. There’s a couple of them right there. Bill Lampton: Thank you for those. I— I think, John, about, for example, the profession that I know quite well because I’ve been a part of it for three decades, and that’s professional speaking. And there are so many people who cannot understand how, if a professional speaker is hired to speak at a conference or a convention, and they show up, and they’re there, and they give a one-hour presentation, why are they paid $7,500 or $10,000, or if you’re a celebrity speaker, why are you paid $25,000? And people in the mindset, that’s pricing by the hour, and they— they just don’t get it. Um But this moves us to a key point, which you make in your book and in your presentations, which I’ve been privileged to attend. And that is that we’re pricing by results. We’re pricing by benefits. For example, I— I would even take it down to— to the level of the guy who comes and fixes my washing machine. And, you know, he— he charges me $200. And somebody will say, “Well, my gosh, that guy makes $200 an hour.” I’m not paying him for the hour he was here. I’m paying him for the fact that I can use my washing machine again. So, elaborate on that and tell me if I’m on target with that. John Ray: Uh Well, absolutely. I mean, you’re paying— you’re paying him to have uh uh to get rid of those piles of dirty clothes that have been piled up, right? [laughter] Waiting— waiting to get him in there. Uh yeah, you’re paying for uh um uh peace of mind. You’re paying not to have to go down to the laundromat, right? You’re paying— there are a lot of things that you’re paying for beyond just the fix. And that’s, I think, the— the real I think, the— the— not— not secret, but the— the insight here is that clients see more value in us than we see ourselves. I mean, we look at our uh deliverables. Um you mentioned the speech. You know, the speech we give, and we don’t see the other intangibles that we bring to the table that clients willingly pay for and, for a lot— for— for most of them, are most important— most important, maybe even more important, than the deliverables themselves. Uh I mean, for example, someone that’s booking a speaker, they’re running a uh convention, a— a uh uh, you know, three-day kind of uh a workshop opportunity for their association. What are they looking for? I mean, they’re looking for happy association members. And so, when they come out of that speech uh— when those members come out of that speech with uh Dr. Bill Lampton having presented, what they want to hear is, “Wow, thank you so much for booking Dr. Lampton. He was fantastic. You know, I’m going to implement a lot of his ideas.” And uh that’s what they’re looking for, right? They’re looking to help deliver a little bit of transformation to their association members. So, it— it’s not about just the heads in the room or— or or uh the— as you say, the length of time. It’s about what does that speaker booker— what— what do they see in in terms of the outcome that’s going to occur because they hired Dr. Bill Lampton? Bill Lampton: Lois Creamer, John, is one of the— the most uh relied upon experts on what’s happening in professional speaking, since we’re talking about that. And one of the changes that she emphasizes, you know, every time I see her on LinkedIn or Facebook, is that what people are looking for now is not just a— a feel-good speaker, a motivational speaker. Right. They’re looking for a problem solver. Um And I know when I’ve talked to you before about pricing, one of the points you make is that as you’re talking with a prospect, you can help them estimate the value of implementing your services because of the problems it helps them solve and, therefore, they’re economically better off, right? John Ray: Yeah. It’s— it— it’s— it’s what you’re able to do because your problem is solved. So, I mean, let’s take an example of a fractional CFO who saves their client uh let’s say $100,000 because of a project that they have done. It’s not just the $100,000, it— it’s what the $100,000 enables a company to do that they couldn’t do before. So, what are you going to do with that $100,000? Is the question that CFO— that fractional CFO should be asking. Uh “What’s that going to enable you to do that you weren’t able to do before?” Um Hire uh maybe a salesman or two that uh are going to help your bottom line? Well, okay, that’s great. So, wh- what will that do? I mean, what will they bring in? Uh how will that change your business? “Well, you know,

  3. Apr 24

    Keith Nabb Helps Clients Decipher Medicare Jargon

    Host: Dr. Bill Lampton, The Biz Communication Guy Guest: Keith Nabb, President of Affordable Medicare Solutions Dr. Bill Lampton: Hi there! Welcome to the Business Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy. Our goal, as you know, is to provide you with communication tips and strategies that will boost your business. Today, we’re talking about a topic that confuses almost everyone: Medicare. If you’ve ever tried to navigate the jargon, the “parts,” and the “plans,” you know exactly what I mean. My guest today is a true expert in making the complex simple. Joining us from North Georgia is Keith Nabb, President of Affordable Medicare Solutions. Keith has been helping people navigate the insurance world for over 30 years and is a top producer in the industry. Keith, welcome to the show! Keith Nabb: Bill, it is an absolute pleasure to be here. I’ve looked forward to this for a long time. Dr. Bill Lampton: Keith, let’s jump right in. When people hear “Medicare,” they often think of a massive, confusing government machine. From a communication standpoint, what is the biggest hurdle people face when trying to understand what Medicare actually is? Keith Nabb: You hit the nail on the head with the word “jargon”. In our industry, we love our acronyms—CMS, GEP, SEP, IEP. When a consumer hears these, their eyes just glaze over. The biggest hurdle is that the government uses letters for everything. You have Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D. Then, to make it even more confusing, we have Plans A through N. People mistake a “Part” for a “Plan” all the time. My job, and the job of any good communicator in this field, is to translate that “government-speak” into plain English. Dr. Bill Lampton: That is so true. It’s like a different language. How do you approach that first conversation with a client who is clearly overwhelmed? Keith Nabb: I use analogies. I tell people to think of Medicare like a house: Part A is your hospital coverage. It’s the foundation and the walls. You’ve paid for this through your taxes while working. Part B is your medical coverage—doctors, tests, outpatient stuff. This is the roof. You pay a monthly premium for this. Part D is your prescriptions. Part C (Medicare Advantage) is like a condo. Someone else manages the exterior, and it bundles things together. If I can give them a visual or a concept they already understand, the “jargon” becomes less scary. Dr. Bill Lampton: That’s a brilliant strategy. It’s about finding common ground. Now, what about the timing? I hear people talking about “Enrollment Periods” and getting penalized if they miss them. That sounds like a communication nightmare. Keith Nabb: It is. There is so much misinformation out there. People get bombarded with mail—sometimes 50 pieces a day—when they turn 65. The most important thing to communicate is the “When”. You have a seven-month window around your 65th birthday to sign up. If you miss it, and you don’t have other “creditable” coverage, the government can charge you a late enrollment penalty for the rest of your life. Our job is to be the “signal in the noise” and give them the exact timeline they need to follow. Dr. Bill Lampton: Keith, you mentioned you have a team of agents. How do you train them to maintain that high level of clear communication? Keith Nabb: We focus on listening. A lot of agents want to show how smart they are by using big words. I tell my team: “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason”. We ask questions: “What are your specific doctors?” “What medications are you taking?” “What is your budget?” If we don’t listen first, we can’t communicate a solution that fits. We also use a “Teach Back” method. After explaining something, we ask the client to explain it back to us. If they can’t, it means we didn’t communicate it clearly enough. Dr. Bill Lampton: That “Teach Back” method is a classic communication tool, and it’s wonderful to hear you’re using it in such a technical field. Keith, before we wrap up, what is one final piece of advice for someone who is about to start this journey? Keith Nabb: Don’t do it alone. You don’t pay a broker or an agent anything—the insurance companies do. Find someone who is an “independent” broker who can look at all the plans, not just one. And most importantly, find someone who speaks your language, not the government’s. Dr. Bill Lampton: Excellent advice. Keith, how can people get in touch with you and your team at Affordable Medicare Solutions? Keith Nabb: The best way is our website: affordablemedicaresolutions.com. You can also call us at 770-945-5261. We’re here to help you decipher the jargon. Dr. Bill Lampton: Keith Nabb, thank you for being a fantastic guest and for shedding light on such a complex topic. And to our viewers, remember: clear communication is the key to any successful business transaction. I’m Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy. We’ll see you next time!

  4. Apr 13

    Gina Carr Describes Business Benefits of Artificial Intelligence

    Sure, here’s a script from this audio: Interview Script Host: Dr. Bill Lampton, Business Communication Expert. Guest: Gina Carr, CEO of Stark Raving Entrepreneurs and AI Specialist. Bill Lampton: Hi there! Welcome to the Business Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy, once again bringing you communication tips and strategies that will boost your business. Yet, this is not a solo act. I bring you those tips and strategies through a guest, a highly qualified business communication expert. Today, I am so delighted to introduce you to Gina Carr, the visionary CEO of Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, where she empowers leaders to harness AI-driven tools for transformative marketing and sales strategies. With an MBA from Harvard and an engineering degree from Georgia Tech, Gina—affectionately known as the Tribe Builder—specializes in cultivating passionate communities of raving fans. As a dynamic international speaker and serial entrepreneur, she’s founded multiple successful ventures, including an award-winning real estate firm and a chain of community magazines. I knew her way back then when she was in those ventures. Gina, formerly the CEO and speaker curator of TEDxDuPree Park, now resides in Orlando, Florida, with her fiancé, Terry Brock. She’s an advocate for animals, freedom, and plant-based living. Her zest for life inspires all those around her, including me, for a long time, I can assure you. So, let’s now welcome Gina Carr to the stage! Hello there! Gina Carr: Hello there! I am delighted to be here. Bill Lampton: Well, it’s terrific to have you here. As the introduction qualified, you’re a highly credentialed guest who has mastered business communication for a long time. Gina, many of our podcast viewers and listeners are entrepreneurs. Some are long-time entrepreneurs who started, as you and I did, about three decades ago. Some are new entrepreneurs—a few of those by choice, some because the business they were in no longer included them. For all of us who are entrepreneurs, I think of your MBA in business from Harvard University. Judging by what you’ve learned as a highly successful entrepreneur, what are some of the business and communication tips that you would give today to those who are entrepreneurs? How do they make it? Gina Carr: Well, that’s such a great question and something that I think many entrepreneurs ask themselves every day: what is the key? What am I going to do? What will make me successful? I would say the number one thing is that you really need to be clear about who you serve and what problem you solve. And as much as those are important, why you do that is also important to you, because there’s going to be a lot of ups and downs on the entrepreneurial road and you’re going to need to be clear so that it comes across to your potential clients as well as sustains you. You also need to be very clear about how you are going to make money, how you’re going to monetize. That may sound obvious, but it is not. Especially for people who are coaches, speakers, authors, people who are in professional services—but they’re not so much traditional professional services like an attorney or an accountant—how to price those services, I think, can be tough for a lot of entrepreneurs. And then my final main tip here might be a surprise, but it’s going to be: work out. And I say that because I know that it’s important to have that at least one nugget of your day—and I think it’s important to exercise every day—one nugget of your day that you are in total control and that provides stability and confidence to your life that comes across through so many other aspects of your business. It’s like powering up my battery on my phone; I need to charge it every day. It’s like a power-up session for your body and your mind, and I find if I do that, it really helps me in every area of my day, especially in my business. Bill Lampton: I would echo, underline, and emphasize everything you said. First of all, to be clear about what we are offering and to be able to state it with clarity. There are many wonderful consultants who can help us refine and define how we state our mission. It’s important to have help from others on that. Gina, this takes me back to the first year I was an entrepreneur. I remember so well having lunch with someone who also was a member of the National Speakers Association, and I knew that I needed some advice from him. So, I took along a draft of my website. He looked at it, and of course, with pride of authorship, I was thinking he’d say, “Oh, this looks great, this will be a real winner, you’ll attract clients.” But what he said to me was, “What you’re doing is just presenting your credentials,” which is a mistake that many entrepreneurs and even seasoned business people make. I put my degrees, I put clients I’d had, and it all focused primarily on my qualifications. But you and I have learned, and marketing experts have taught us, that as you say, it’s not so much who we are, it’s not so much what we’ve accomplished, but what really counts so much is: what can we do for other people? What is our service? How will they benefit from being with us? And I would like for you to give us some further tips on the business of pricing. There’s a wonderful expert friend of mine in Atlanta named John Ray; he specializes in helping people on their pricing. And one more note on that—I remember also, Gina, near the start of my consulting, speaking, and coaching career, I had somebody say that they would represent me in a speakers bureau. That sounded great. So I gave them my materials and then, after a year, nothing had happened. I called him and I said, “What’s the problem?” And he said, “The problem is you priced yourself so low everybody identifies you as a beginner.” So, give us some guidelines on pricing, please, and tell us how we get the courage and the fortitude to state that affirmatively without apology. Gina Carr: Oh boy, that’s a real tough one. I have certainly learned a lot about pricing over the years and generally, I tend to be too low on the pricing scale. So, I have actively worked to learn from people who are charging more and to confidently present a price that is probably higher than I am comfortable with. I think if it doesn’t make you feel like “ooh” when you say it, you’re probably pricing yourself too low. So, to your example of speaking in particular, speakers come out and they say, “Well, if I’m a brand-new speaker, yes, I should price myself on the low end.” For professional speakers—let’s just throw out some numbers here—generally, that would be in the $2,000 to $5,000 range. Even though that sounds like a lot of money—it is a lot of money for an organization to pay—for the professional speaker, for the ones who have more, it’s not just experience, it’s the background of the person who is doing the speaking and what they bring to the table. You were talking about earlier, what is that change that they help people make? What is that transformation? So, the transformation and the years of experience not necessarily as a speaker, but as an expert doing whatever it is that you do, could translate to right out of the gate a speaker could be in the $7,500 to $10,000 range or, if there’s some celebrityhood to it, in the $20,000 range for a single keynote. So, I hope that that’s helpful. It is hard to say and you really do need to do some research. I’ll tell you one of the ways that it’s making it easier for me to do the research when I’m making a proposal for a new service or to a new client: is using my AI tools, which I’m very big on, using AI tools—artificial intelligence—to say, “What’s a price range for this service? What do you think of this? What should I be asking for this?” And give me different levels, which in the past, that would have been hard for me to come up with, but because of AI, I can come up with those levels. And I do like to go back to a prospect with different levels of opportunities—a high, medium, and a low—and really give some options because you don’t know. A lot of times people will choose the higher price even though you think, “Well, that’s crazy, why would someone choose that?” It happens a lot. Bill Lampton: Well, they choose the higher price because they see the value in it. They choose the higher price because they know it’s going to make, as your introduction used the word, a transformative difference. And by the way, Gina, I couldn’t ask for a better transition to our next topic because you mentioned artificial intelligence. I know that over the past several years, you have been, along with your fiancé and business associate Terry Brock, not only learning artificial intelligence and how we can use it, but you’ve been teaching it ardently. Now, for those of us who maybe know the term and we’ve heard how some other people do it, what would you give as great starting points for really getting so involved in artificial intelligence that it not only makes your work easier, but it makes it far more productive? Gina Carr: Well, just think of AI, and let’s just talk about ChatGPT, which is one that many people have heard of and most people think of AI as ChatGPT, which it’s so much more than that. But even just ChatGPT is your new 24-hour, seven-day-a-week assistant that never goes on vacation, never needs a break, and never needs a raise. They can help you with so many things personally and professionally. Just personally, let’s just look at an example from a few months ago—maybe it was a year ago—there was a problem with our toilet. And we used our ChatGPT to turn on the mode that allows the ChatGPT phone to look into whatever you’re showing it and said, “Hey, what’s the problem here?” And it identified that it

  5. Mar 31

    Diana Damron Tells How to Build Trust Through Civiliy

    Dr. Bill Lampton: Hi there! Welcome to the Business Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy, bringing you tips and strategies that are certain to boost your business and mine. And I don’t bring you these tips and strategies solo; I bring them through a conversation with a lively, highly qualified guest. And today, we certainly have that guest coming to us from Montana: Diana Damron. Diana Damron has one goal: help individuals, teams, and organizations build trust from the inside out. She enlists what she calls the 3 Cs: Civility, Communication, and Character, to perform that transformation. Diana is a former television anchor who works with organizations to create, grow, and maintain cultures of trust. Described by her clients as “The Human Whisperer,” Diana has made it her mission to take on the toxic workplace and replace it with a culture of trust. Diana’s latest book, Civility Unleashed: Second Edition, is a “how-to” book for those who want to foster and work in an environment where talented people can thrive. Additionally, Diana provides readers with a transformative 5-step civility tool. And I want to say, a couple of months ago, I read that book, benefited from it greatly, gave it a five-star review on Amazon, and I encourage you to get Civility Unleashed: Second Edition. Along with Diana’s TEDx talk, she’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Southwest Airlines’ LUV Lines, and national television and radio interviews. She’s a former television anchor, co-host, and reporter who studied with nationally and internationally renowned speech experts. Recognized as a mental fitness coach, Diana is certified by the International Board of Certified Trainers and is a certified partner of Everything DiSC. Now, as for her sense of humor, Diana stopped taking herself too seriously the day that she walked off the runway at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel during a national modeling competition and fell right into the laps of shocked audience members. While Diana didn’t take home the Runway Model of the Year award that year, she did leave as National Model of the Year for Television. So, I know you will join me now in welcoming Diana Damron. Hello, Diana! Diana Damron: Hey Bill! It’s so great to be here. I’m laughing because I always think back about walking off the runway. It was a packed house, too. It was absolutely jam-packed. Now, the good thing was, there—the guys who caught me were these two really good-looking gentlemen who were kind of spotters. They were great, but yes, my—I was walking in air for a while. Dr. Bill Lampton: Up in the air, right? Diana Damron: Pop—yeah, up in the air, exactly. Dr. Bill Lampton: Well, I’ve had my “chivi-chays” moments, I call them. I—I think the one that I talk about most often is when I was MCing a college event with about 500 people in the audience, and they were honoring their alumni, giving four alums what they call the Medallion Award. And I had gotten the bios to read about them to introduce them, and I’d read them over very carefully, as you would do as a TV anchor. And when I was in the middle of reading one of the bios, the audience just erupted in laughter, and I couldn’t figure out why. Did I say something profane? So, I sat down, and the person next to me explained that I was supposed to have said that the lady who was being honored had written a play about the college in 1956, but unfortunately, Diana, I said she wrote the play in 1856. Diana Damron: (Laughs) Oh, I gotta tell you, when you do anything live, anything can happen. Absolutely anything can happen. Yep, yep. Dr. Bill Lampton: Yes, and— Diana Damron: She looked great for her age, right? Dr. Bill Lampton: (Laughs) Oh right, I mean she wasn’t that ancient, but—fortunately, we met afterwards and she had a great sense of humor, so it worked out okay. And you and I know, as longtime presenters, whether it’s on radio, TV, a seminar, a keynote speech, we know that we’re going to goof. In fact, one of the things I do when I’m coaching a client about speaking, on the handout I give them, I put “Don’t try to be perfect,” and I misspell “perfect.” I say “P-R-F-F-C-T,” and they say, “Hey, you misspelled that!” I said, “Yes, but you got the point, didn’t you?” And we have to learn from our mistakes, laugh at them, and just move forward, don’t we? Diana Damron: Yes, and it makes us so much more human when we’re not perfect. Dr. Bill Lampton: Yes, I don’t want to hear a mannequin with a mouth, you know? Diana Damron: Right. Dr. Bill Lampton: An absolute robot. We’re getting to your theme of civility. Diana Damron: Mhm, mhm. Dr. Bill Lampton: Was there something in your own work experience that drove you to delve into this topic, to become an expert in it, to write a book about it now in its second edition, to speak on the topic of civility, hold seminars, talk about it in interviews? Take us back to how this started for you. Diana Damron: Two things happened, Bill. First of all, I had gone through something—it’s entitled a modeling school, but it was really a finishing school where you learn, yes, you learn to walk on a runway and you learn to take photographs—or be photographed. But you also learn a lot about manners and speech. And it was so interesting, after I went through the course itself, then—I believe it was during my college years, I came back and during the summer I started teaching. And one of the courses I taught was all about manners and etiquette. I was, I don’t know, 17, 18, 19 years old, and I was teaching women who were about twice my age, who were coming back into the workforce after staying home and raising kids. And they came in and they kind of, you know, you could see they weren’t comfortable, they weren’t confident, they kind of sat back in their chair. Interestingly enough, I noticed as they learned more about manners and more about etiquette, you could see just them sit up, take notice, and there was a confidence. And I always found that was fascinating. What is it about this power of manners, courtesy, etiquette that made these women who, as I say, I was this little kid teaching them, to take notice and to really make this big difference? So, that was always in the back of my mind and I always wanted to do something with that, but at the same time, what I didn’t want to do is teach about knives, forks, and spoons. I—it wasn’t about the—like dining etiquette. So, that was—that was roaming around. And then I ended up in a situation where I was the target in a toxic environment. When I say target, I certainly didn’t know what that word meant in terms of business, but if you imagine having a bullseye on you at—at business, at work, that’s how I felt. And there was no question that I was the target, and it’d been made very obvious to—by the leader. What was interesting to me is I’m a confident woman. I’d been raised by the most amazing parents, so I didn’t have any of that baggage from a childhood. I went home to a supportive family, so I wasn’t going home to some kind of negativity. And yet, Bill, that situation affected me so strongly that I—I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t know what end was up. And I thought it was a one-off. I—I really thought, oh, this has been unique. And interestingly enough, because I was confident when people talked about toxic environments and all of this before, I actually thought, oh, they must be pretty thin-skinned. I can’t believe it’s that bad. Well, it is. And what I found, Bill, was that increasingly, when I looked at the research, it’s more often you find a toxic work environment than not. Civility was needed. Dr. Bill Lampton: Well, I—I can relate to that in a couple of ways. One is that I’ve been a professional speaker, speech coach, and consultant now for three decades. But prior to that, I was in management positions. And as I read your book and read your illustrations about the lack of civility, one of my bosses came to mind. And I’ll have to say that I really thought Hitler missed a good man. Diana Damron: (Gasps) Oh no! Dr. Bill Lampton: And I endured that for—for five years. And you know yourself, having endured a situation like that, it’s very demoralizing, it saps your strength, it—it takes away your—your desire to serve to your ultimate ability. It—it’s very difficult. And so, your going through that gave you a mission. So, let’s—let’s move next to define civility. Uh, I—I know you’ve been asked this many times, how can you tell when an organization is operating with civility? Diana Damron: So, let me go back one step, Bill, and explain also, and I’m sure this happened to you: one of the lethal aspects of incivility or a toxic work environment is—is when you leave at the end of the day, it doesn’t stay there. You drag all of those emotions home. Dr. Bill Lampton: Yes. Diana Damron: Which—which means the importance of getting this right is invaluable. I mean, because you’re not affecting—you’re not just lonesome and it’s isolated to you, you are just sending out those vibes no matter what. So, to your question: how do you define civility? I think this is—this is where we really have an issue today. I define it—my definition for civility is the consistent communication of respect. What makes that definition hard? The “consistent” piece, right? So, it’s consistently being respectful. Now, we live in a world of conditional civility. In other words, as long as you look like me, maybe you’re the same color as me, or the same age as me, or you live like I do, or you think like I do, or in today’s world, you vote like I do, then I will be civil to you. I will respect you. But if you don’t check off all those “same-as,” you don’t deserve my respect. And that’s what

  6. Mar 20

    Kristina Rhoades Discusses Communicating With the Disabled

    Bill Lampton: Hi there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host Bill Lampton, the biz communication guy, and our eighth year with the Biz Communication Show bringing onto the show business communication experts, and through our conversation, you and I can pick up business communication tips that will be very valuable for us. Today I have a guest, I don’t often know my guest, but I have a guest that I’ve known for a dozen years or so, delighted to bring onto the program today Kristina Rhoades. Kristina Rhoades is a long-time disability consultant and advocate, a writer, motivational speaker, and proud wife and mom. A former Ms. Wheelchair California, she has had a career in the disability industry modeling and marketing for a variety of products that improve accessibility. Kristina has an MS in organizational leadership and a BA in mass communication. She resides in New Mexico with her husband, who’s also her childhood best friend Jacob, and their 14-year-old daughter Cameron. In her spare time, she enjoys making art and jewelry, volunteering in the local community, and supporting live music. So I know you will welcome Kristina Rhoades. Hello Kristina, great to see you. Kristina Rhoades: Hi Bill, it’s so good to be with you again. Bill Lampton: Well I think back Kristina to how we first became acquainted and how I recognized right away as a speech coach and as a professional speaker, what a role model you are for communication. Even today a few minutes ago, you and I were talking about when you were with the radio station WBCX at Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia, where I live and where you lived at the time, and I happened to put on Twitter that I had always enjoyed participating on radio, and so you texted me back and next thing I knew, we had a very brief interview, you said let’s get going, and for two years, we had the opportunity to work together co-hosting what we called the Business Communication Corner. And so you are not a novice in the communication business. What I believe our viewers and listeners would like to know first is, how did you develop your presentation skills? I think of your vitality, I think of your diction, I think of your nonverbal messages, it all just comes together so vibrantly and you’re one of the most listenable radio colleagues that I’ve ever associated with. So tell us, I don’t think those things just happen, how did you develop those skills? Kristina Rhoades: Oh well thank you first Bill for the kind words, I appreciate it very much. Um, I think it’s a bit of a two-part answer for me. Um, part of it’s my personality, I’ve always been an outgoing person, um, very social, I enjoy people, I enjoy talking to people, but I do often wonder how much of that came from just my life experience as well. So being somebody in a wheelchair, uh, I often am approached by strangers, um, people ask questions about my situation or about my wheelchair or about my disability. Um, I’ve had when I was young, very many medical appointments and um, situations where I am, you know kind of being interviewed and grilled by um, a therapist or a doctor or a nurse or different people trying to fit me for a wheelchair. So I wonder if um, those experiences growing up helped just build my courage and my comfort in talking with strangers and being kind of in the spotlight or you know going in public and having a whole room of people look at me because I’m in a wheelchair might’ve made me a little more comfortable um, you know being having attention on me. So I wonder that. But I also have to give credit to Brenau University, which is where we met and what you were just referring to where WBCX the radio station was. Um, that’s where I received my BA in mass communication and I stayed there as well to do my MS. Um, and I guess coming in with a natural inclination and interest in public speaking and um, communication, Brenau really helped me hone my skills and develop um, really all the pieces that I need to to properly give a presentation and to put put my thoughts together in a manner um, that are that are easily digestible by my audience. Um, so I have to, yeah, I have to give lots of credit to Brenau. Bill Lampton: I think we could say that uh unlike um many of your younger colleagues, you were basically on stage for for your childhood. Now one one point I know we have talked about before, your disability was at a very young age and your mother had a wonderful way of dealing with that. And she made you feel special in ways that other people might not get the kind of encouragement and support that you did. Uh let’s go back to when you were 18 months old and there was a swim meet that you were engaged in, maybe swim competition, tell tell us about that and your mother’s role in that please. Kristina Rhoades: Oh Bill, thanks. Um, not sure if it was a competition or you know I don’t really know what to call it, but I’ll give a little background to the audience. Um, I got a spinal cord injury when I was just 10 months old, um, and so obviously was in the hospital for a period of time recovering from that. Got out of the hospital a little before I was a year and a half. Um, I come from a family that is a big water family, my grandpa at the time lived on a boat in Marina del Rey, California, all my my mom and my aunts and uncles were all all raised on the ocean, swimming and doing water sports. So uh it was it just kind of part of my family culture, it was really important to my mom that I was able to swim. Now remember that this is 1984, this is before the Americans with Disabilities Act, there weren’t as many resources and programs out there for people like me, especially a baby that young um with a disability. So probably for my mom she was unsure of what um my abilities were going to be as I grew up, but she I think wanted to give me as many opportunities and um experience as she could so I could develop whatever skills and abilities I was able to. Um, so first thing she did after I got out of the hospital and we got settled was enroll me in like one of those mom and baby swim classes. Um, and at the time because again this was before the ADA, the facility that she went to, the pool uh wasn’t wheelchair accessible, and at the time I didn’t even have a wheelchair yet, she was just pushing me around in a stroller um because I couldn’t you know couldn’t push a wheelchair at the time. And so she would just carry me carry me down these steps um just like all the other moms on her hip down to the pool and get me in the pool and we would do the class together and um there was a number of other you know moms and babies teaching their their little babies how to swim. And so she never mentioned that I was in a wheelchair, um the teacher was aware, the instructor, but none of the other parents knew um that I was any different from them. So I went through the whole course and um at the at the last day there was a little event where we did um some exercises and some races um and I was awarded the best little swimmer in the class. And so the instructor presented the award to my mom and then shared with the other parents, I don’t know if anybody’s aware but Kristina doesn’t have use of her legs and she’s been doing all of the activities and all of the lessons the entire time just with her arms. And all of the parents were just very surprised and shocked that that was the case. And I just always thought that that was such a cool um example of how my mom raised me and how she put me in situations where I would have to just do the best I could with the abilities I had, and often times that was just as just as good as my peers, just as good as everybody else if I was given that opportunity to try. Um, and so uh to this day I still love to swim and fancy myself a strong swimmer, but um it’s important to remember that often times the limitations that you put on yourself or that society puts on you can really make a big impact, but if you remove those um you can uh achieve way more than you ever ever could otherwise. Bill Lampton: Your mother deserves a lot of crowns for the that that not only that attitude but that support, I I I know I’ve met your mother I believe once or twice and she is a princess and a queen in my judgment and I’m sure in the judgment of those who are watching and listening. Let’s get back Kristina to what you mentioned about going up and all through not only your childhood but also early adulthood and even on into adulthood where you are now, people will notice your disability because of a wheelchair and as you said many people will stop and talk, strangers, let’s examine first of all what are some of the and we we need your advice on it because you’re the participant here Kristina, what are some of the things that you definitely prefer someone not say? What are some of the words you don’t want them to say and then on the other hand what kind of comments do you welcome in starting a conversation? Kristina Rhoades: Great, yeah, those are great questions Bill. Um, first of all there’s a lot of outdated terms um that have been used in the past and that were very common in the past and for past generations that some people with disabilities just find to be offensive because of just the nature of the word and the definition of the word. So if we’re talking about words like crippled or handicapped or lame um, if you use those words to describe anything else, you’re not that’s not a positive um description that you’re using. Bill Lampton: They’re too they’re too limiting aren’t they? Kristina Rhoades: They are. And so if you’re talking about anything, an inanimate object, and you you know call it lame or crippled, that means it doesn’t work or that it’s not good enough. Bill Lampton: It’s not up to standard, yeah. Kristina Rhoades: It is, you know, so if you’re a human being and being

  7. Mar 9

    Gloria Russell Gives Steps to LinkedIn Clarity, Confidence, and Credibility

    Bill Lampton: Hi there, welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz communication guy. We’re in the eighth season of the Biz Communication Show and our purpose and our service to you is to bring you communication strategies and tips that will boost your biz. And I don’t do this solo. I do it with the conversation with a highly qualified guest who will give us those tips and strategies that will benefit us and our clients. Very happy today to welcome from Minnesota, happy to welcome Gloria Russell. She’s the founder of Russell Resources LLC and a strategic marketing copywriter who helps service-based business owners and career professionals turn complex expertise into clear, confident messaging that attracts aligned opportunities across websites, LinkedIn, blogs, posts, and newsletters. Wow, that’s quite comprehensive. With 12 years in business after a demanding corporate career, Gloria brings clarity, strategy, and encouragement to every project guided by integrity and a commitment to apply her gifts with excellence. Gloria’s clients walk away with words that sound like them, spotlight the outcomes they deliver, and build credibility without hype, fluff, or feeling salesy. As I mentioned, she’s based in Minnesota and can be found at www.writer.mn. So I know that you will join me in welcoming Gloria Russell. Hi, Gloria. Gloria Russell: Hello, Dr. Bill. Thank you for the invitation. It’s delightful to be here with you. Bill Lampton: Well, I hope this will be the first of frequent times because you have so much to offer as I mentioned in the introduction and I’ve known your work firsthand and know the value of it. I am a very frequent, several times a day user of LinkedIn and as many business professionals, I want to know if I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing because if we’re on there all day long but we’re off target with what we’re trying, we’re not gaining ground, we’re losing ground. So here’s what I’d like to start with. Would you please identify and discuss two or three of what you see in your work as some of the most common mistakes we make? And I know they’re well-intentioned mistakes, but they still can be harmful. Give us two or three that come to your mind and then what should we be doing instead of each one of those two or three mistakes? Gloria Russell: Absolutely. Thank you for that. Definitely, there are mistakes. We all make mistakes, but I tend to think of it more as most of the time it’s just that we’re unaware. So the first thing that I see is that people are treating LinkedIn like an online resume. And so a resume is something in its own right. LinkedIn definitely works well with the resume because there are a lot of things you can do on LinkedIn that you can’t do on your resume. The two go hand in hand. But on LinkedIn, rather than talking about here’s what I’ve done, we want to talk more about here’s how I help, here’s the outcomes that my clients achieve. And so staying within your topics of your business, we want to use LinkedIn more as a decision tool than a resume. So that’s one thing. The next, and oh, I’ve been talking about this a lot lately, Dr. Bill. I see people just not keeping up with their profiles. We all get busy and that a lot of times is at the bottom of the list. But what I find, we all grow professionally, personally, ourselves and in our businesses, but our LinkedIn does not always grow with us. And so I’ve been noticing a lot lately that people who really have been growing over the last say five years, they have so much to offer, but their LinkedIn still sounds like five years ago or maybe seven years ago. And so that’s not telling the true story and they’re missing a lot of opportunities. And so I have been actually posting about that quite a bit lately because I really feel that it’s something to be aware of and we can update that and make sure that we are talking about who we are today. I think the other mistake is more with the content. And so this can be the content on your profile, in your posts, even on your website. But when we’re posting, sometimes it’s either too technical, too salesy, or even too scattered. And what I mean by that is if it’s too technical, sometimes we get into a lot of verbiage that’s just a lot of jargon or words that or phrases that people don’t really understand yet. So we need to write in words and language that people will understand quickly. And then too salesy, we all know what that’s like and if you do the sales pitch too soon or too often, that’s really not a good thing either. So basically, if you’re doing the sales pitch too soon, probably what you’re really getting is a mental eye roll and that’s not good, that’s not a good place to be. And then what I mean by scattered, if we’re having conversations and we’re posting about unrelated topics, that’s not really serving us well either and it confuses the reader, they’re not sure what you’re about. So we want to basically stay in that lane, stay true to our topics. And LinkedIn doesn’t like it either, with especially with the new algorithm, they really want us to stay in our lane and talk about that what the particular role is that we are taking on within our industry. Bill Lampton: All of those are very valuable points. One that I would certainly like to follow up on and give my observation on it, and that is your very pertinent point about being too salesy because people are not going to be so impressed, it seems to me by my own experience by what our credentials are, our clients. I mean this is a qualifier, but what they are going to be most impressed about on LinkedIn is how does it relate to what I need, how does it relate, how did this person’s services, how will they assist me? I’m not here just to admire somebody, I came here to really find who can can help me. And then I also want to reflect on what you said about unrelated topics. Over the last, I’ve been on LinkedIn, I’m sure maybe a dozen or more years, and over the last couple of years, I’m finding that there are many topics that are introduced there that have practically nothing to do with business or professional life and some people are thinking this is Facebook number two. And and that is not on point, as you say. I like what you said as well about this is not just a resume because a resume mostly centers on us, but LinkedIn should be pointed in the other direction. Now talking about salesy brings this up. We certainly have to present ideas and content, maybe videos, maybe podcast, that reflect our qualifications. But when you’re advising clients, Gloria, how do you help them draw the line between competence and cockiness because yes, we need to show the competence but what are some of the guidelines you would give us not to come across as as arrogant? Gloria Russell: You know, Dr. Bill, I can’t tell you how many times I run into this with my clients, especially my clients from the Midwest, because we are taught from a very early age not to brag about ourselves. And they are worried about doing that when they’re online or meeting with people and I have to let them know that that’s not what this is about. We are, we have a service to provide and we don’t want to be invisible so we need to talk about it in some way, but it can be in a very respectful way. I look at it this way and and it’s a little bit like what you were talking about earlier. Arrogance keeps the spotlight on me, like I’m the greatest, I’m the best, how impressive am I, how impressive am I. But that is, that does not impress anybody. And confidence on the other hand, is when you shine the spotlight on the other person or on the client, because we want to know what they are about, we want to ask the right questions, we want to understand their situation, and let them know how we help, maybe something they need, it may not be, but we’re that outcome really isn’t part of the equation there, it’s just letting them know what we do. So when we present confidently, it’s not braggadocious. And really arrogance I feel like is trying to win the room often with rather pushy tactics, whereas confidence is trying to serve the room respectfully. There’s a big difference. Bill Lampton: That’s a good distinction. Another point that I’m sure many of us wonder about and I’ve heard, I’ve heard different bits of advice on this. First of all, what’s the what would you say is the recommended frequency of our appearance? I on LinkedIn in the way of content or even comments. I see some people who either they’re working all night to to get their copy ready or they’re they’re just prolific during the day and they’re they’re on there almost ad nauseam. And then on the other hand, the other extreme would be somebody who publishes or comments two or three times a week. What what guidelines would you give us about the frequency? Gloria Russell: Well, we hear for certain platforms like Facebook or or others that you should be posting constantly eight times a day. To me, that’s just exhausting and maybe it works for some people that way, but when we’re talking about LinkedIn, that’s not necessary. And anyway, I don’t think any of this should be stressful for a person. I typically will encourage my clients when they’re starting, to start with something that’s reasonable and sustainable. So that might be posting once a week, and LinkedIn is very happy to have you post once a week as long as it’s consistent and you’re sharing something relevant and something that is useful for your audience. You could post once a week, you could post three times a week or five times a week, LinkedIn is good with all of that. And the other part of it is, you also want to be commenting. And that’s kind of the giving part and that I I feel like there really isn’t an equal bala

  8. Jan 7

    Deb Krier Doesn’t Let Cancer Get the Final Word

    Bill Lampton: Hi there, welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz communication guy, once again bringing you communication tips and strategies that will boost your business. And as is the case always with the Biz Communication Show, this is not a solo act. I bring you those highly useful tips and strategies through conversations with a highly qualified guest. And today we do have a highly qualified guest coming to us from the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area. In fact, buckle up, friends, because today’s guest is a force to be reckoned with. Deb Krier is an entrepreneur, outspoken cancer advocate, three-time cancer survivor, and a certified integrated cancer coach who brings equal parts strategy, humor, and sass—how about that?—to the cancer conversation. She’s the founder of tryingnottodie.live because, let’s face it, “suddenly” has never been her thing. She now serves as a strategic advisor to business owners and executives facing cancer, helping them keep their businesses, their sanity, and their spark intact. With decades in marketing and PR under her belt, Deb knows how to command a room, and she’s here to remind us that cancer doesn’t get the final word—she does. Hello, Deb! Deb Krier: Hello, sir! I am so honored to be a guest on your podcast. We’re going to have such a fun conversation. Bill Lampton: Yes, we are going to, and you’ve been referred to me by other podcasters who have discovered how well you inform and inspire, and I know that will be the case today. Deb, one of the points I think that’s so important to begin with is when someone gets a diagnosis of cancer, there’s a variety of reactions that they can have. And of course, we will talk some about mindset, and that’s what we’re really talking about now because that’s a central part of our reaction and even our recovery. When you first got the diagnosis of cancer, what were the thoughts that went through your mind? Deb Krier: I was annoyed. I really was. It was like, “Excuse me?” And I literally told my doctor, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this.” And she looked at me like, “Well, darling, you’re going to have to make time.” But the fear, the anger—all of that didn’t come until a little bit later. But yeah, I was just annoyed. It was like, “Excuse me, you must have the wrong person.” Bill Lampton: “You’re interrupting my life.” Deb Krier: I know, I know. How rude! Bill Lampton: And is the question often among cancer patients, “Why me?” Deb Krier: Oh, yeah. You know, and I think we all feel that. There’s a little bit of guilt: “Did I do something to bring this on?” And of course, we didn’t. We all know people who smoke two packs a day and don’t get lung cancer, right? And there’s all of those things. Sure, there are things that we can do to make ourselves healthier just in general, but we certainly never want to do anything that has caused us to have cancer. And so I think there’s that, but yeah, there is the “Why me?”, even though the stats show that it’s a good portion of us. But yeah, it’s the “I’m sorry, go pick on somebody else” type of thing. Bill Lampton: As I mentioned to you when we got acquainted, I empathize with you because I’ve come through successfully two types of cancer: prostate cancer and colon cancer. And I remember so well waking up from a colonoscopy and the doctor said to me, “You have a cancerous polyp that we’re going to have to remove,” and it was eventually soon, really, remove twelve inches of my colon intestine. And you do have a range of thoughts, and of course, anger comes into that as well. Your life was going along quite smoothly—why does this happen to you? Which leads me next to what came of this. There are many people who could get cured, fortunately, and that’s it. But it really led to a new lifelong mission for you. Describe that mission to us, please. Deb Krier: Well, way back when I was just a wee little person, I worked for an oncologist and I worked for the American Cancer Society. And so I tell people, “I know just enough about this to be dangerous,” right? But I have a fabulous business coach, her name is Kathleen Caldwell, and it was her idea that I do this, and I went into it kicking and screaming. When she would say, “You need to help people,” I would say, “Oh, but I don’t want to be Cancer Girl. Ugh.” And I really did just want to get back to business as usual. But I realized I was helping people. I would be in the doctor’s office and they would have me talk to students or they would have me talk to new patients. I’m actually still in active treatment even after 10 years. I go in every 21 days and I go in, I’m the person going to, “You need some water? Do you need some crackers?” I’m bebopping around the infusion room. And it’s just kind of something that I have always done. But I really did realize that I could and should use what had happened to me to help others on this journey. And so that was when I decided to start tryingnottodie.live because we all get so caught up in trying not to die, whether it’s with cancer, whether it’s just with life in general or something else, that we forget that we have to live. And so that’s really the premise behind it: how are we going to live through this process? Bill Lampton: Tell us about your “Trying Not to Die… Live!”—what is that? Deb Krier: Well, the name came from when I was initially undergoing treatment. I’m special, and so I had to develop every complication, every serious life-threatening thing, all sorts of things that you could get. And at one point, I was in the hospital for over seven weeks. And my mother—I am an only child, my mother has since passed, but I am an only child—she of course came because I was in very critical condition. And one of the times when my fabulous medical team came and went, I got the disapproving mother look, you know, the “Hmph.” And I went, “What?” And she said, “You did not say thank you.” And I said, “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Mom, I’m trying not to die here!” And so that kind of just stuck in my head that there was that. But then I really did think we need to live. Maybe it’s five hours, maybe it’s 50 years—whatever it is, how are we going to live during that time? Whether we’re on a cancer journey or not. Are we going to say, “I’m going to put stuff off. I’ll do it at some point. I’ll take that vacation whenever.” No, we need to live now. Bill Lampton: I was reviewing this morning a story that I imagine you’re familiar with. An American journalist and author, Norman Cousins, he was an editor. Quite a few decades ago, he was diagnosed with severe rare arthritic disease. And instead of just staying absolutely serious about it, he started watching television at the time—the Marx Brothers television, Jack Benny and Bob Hope—because he said laughter was a good way to handle what otherwise could be a totally grievous situation. Deb Krier: Right. Humor really is one of the things—I mean, we hear that laughter is good medicine. It’s more than good medicine; it’s great medicine. And there are very real benefits from laughing: it, for some reason, lowers your blood pressure—right? You’d think it would raise your blood pressure, but it lowers your blood pressure. There are certain chemicals in your body that are activated when you laugh, and those help you heal. And it’s one of those things where we sometimes develop kind of a weird sense of humor about some of this, but we do have to laugh. And the funny thing is, even if you fake laugh—”Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” right?—your brain doesn’t know that you’re faking it. And so the healing benefits are still released. And so they do things like laughter yoga and things like that. But yeah, watch I Love Lucy, watch—my favorite is Big Bang Theory, right?—some things like that. But how can you laugh? And one of the things that I always try to do is to make my care team laugh because they have really hard jobs. Really, really hard jobs. And so can I give them a giggle or a chortle for the day? Bill Lampton: Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors. I’ve got three of his books on my shelf. And you just reminded me of an experiment he reported by some behavioral scientists. And the experiment was this: they prompted people who were working with them to smile, even though they really had nothing to particularly smile about. But he said, “Let’s find out what happens when you consistently smile.” And what happened was their mood changed. And he said the outcome of that was that we always think that a smile or laughter comes from our mood, but he said very perceptively that if we laugh or if we smile, that can elevate our own mindset, as we’re talking about. Deb Krier: Right. And let’s be honest, this is not fun. You know, it’s—there’s just times where I just want to crawl back under the covers and not come back out for several days or weeks. And but how can we have fun with it? And I tell people, you know, we’re not saying that it’s huge. Sometimes the micro-gratitudes are enough. You know, just find something. Somebody the other day asked me, “What was I grateful for for 2025?” Right? It’s the end of the year as we’re doing this. And I said, “The fact that I’m still alive.” And they knew my story, and they said, “Well, we’d hope that would be what you would say.” But yeah, just something little. You know, I have a new puppy—oh my gosh, he is the cutest thing in the world, and getting a little puppy kiss from him, you know, just whatever that what is happening. And and now here’s the thing: you can when you smile, you kind of it’s you make other people smile too. Bill Lampton: Yes, and that’s true. And one thing I found when I was a patient diagnosed wit

  9. 12/08/2025

    Elizabeth Cottrell Champions the Value of Handwritten Notes

    Bill Lampton: Hi there. Welcome to The Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the biz communication guy, bringing you business communication tips and strategies that will elevate your business. And I don’t do this solo. I do it through a lively conversation with a communication expert who has excelled in business. And I’m very happy today to welcome Elizabeth Cottrell from Woodstock, Virginia. Elizabeth’s career path has been, I’ll definitely underscore this, anything but straight. With a graduate degree in human anatomy, she has been a leprosy researcher, published scientist, wife, mother, grandmother, community leader, and yes, there’s more. Freelance writer, desktop publisher, musician, and amateur radio operator. Since 2016, she has also served as the first woman to chair First National Corporation and First Bank in its 118-year history. Elizabeth is the author of Heartspoken: How to Write Notes that Connect, Comfort, Encourage, and Inspire. And it’s a terrific book. I’ve given it a five-star review on Amazon and I encourage everyone to order that book. Elizabeth speaks and writes widely about the lost art of personal notes through her Heartspoken movement. She encourages people to use note writing as a powerful way to strengthen relationships with family, friends, clients, employees, and donors alike. So I know that you will join me in welcoming Elizabeth Cottrell. Hello Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cottrell: Hello Dr. Bill. What a treat to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this. Bill Lampton: So have I and I know in the meantime you’ve been writing a lot of meaningful notes. Elizabeth Cottrell: I I do my best. I do try to practice what I preach. Bill Lampton: I want to ask you with that, yes, not a straight path career, with all that I just described, it certainly takes strong business communication skills. So I’m curious, where did you and how did you develop the communication skills that have put you even as a as an image breaker in the banking industry? Did you have courses? Did you have coaches or explore on your own? What what was the your path to the incredible wide range of business success that you’ve had? Elizabeth Cottrell: What a great question and and it took me um I’m I’m going down memory lane here but I mean I have to give my father tremendous credit, Jim Herbert, who lived to age 95. Um I’m the oldest of five, uh, and he came from a family of strong women, so he believed in me and my sister and that we could do anything our brothers could do. And, um, and Bill, he taught us, and I hope nobody thinks this is trivial because I think it’s extremely important, he taught us to hop up when somebody came in the room, to shake, shake their hand with a firm handshake, and look them in the eye. And he made us practice handshake because how often have all of us in business scenarios shaken hands with somebody who either had a very unimpressive handshake or broke our hand because it was so strong? So, um, I I think those are the those are the two things that immediately come to mind. But, um, I think he also had a philosophy which I think is really interesting for all of us children. He believed, he said, you don’t need I don’t need to teach you to be the best at anything, but I want to teach you how to do a lot of different things so that if somebody invites you to go water skiing, to go hiking, to go canoeing, you won’t have to say, oh, I don’t know how, I don’t want to do that. And so he gave us confidence in a whole wide range of things that I think then I took that into my later life. Bill Lampton: That’s a blessing and and so you had 96 years of valuable advice from your father. Elizabeth Cottrell: Absolutely. And and then I would have to say in terms of applying, um, that confidence later on to anybody I would any young person I would say is be yourself. We talked about this before we went live. Be yourself, um, show up, and be prepared. And those who have served me well. Bill Lampton: You remind me so much of my childhood because my father managed a department store. And he taught me, and he taught my brother, that when we came back from out of town when we’d become adults even, that it and we came into the store, we were to shake hands with every employee. Elizabeth Cottrell: Ah. Bill Lampton: We were to talk with them about what was going on with them, not what was going on with us. And early in my 20s, that was at first a little bit challenging and maybe awkward, but it it became something after a while. It was so rewarding to to renew contact with people in that store. Maybe if I hadn’t seen some of them in a couple of years, I’ve lived away. So, the the initial contact is is so valuable, and it’s as you say, the handshake is important because Elizabeth Cottrell: It is. Bill Lampton: just walking by and waving or but the handshake and and the right firmness of the handshake, that is that’s a signal of a closer relationship that you want, a closer interaction that Elizabeth Cottrell: It is. And I will add that I also, in a networking situation, will always say my name, even if I’m pretty sure they know it already, because we all have been in situations where um it just slips our mind what the other person’s name is. And my my dad again used to say, well you know you you know your name, usually they know theirs, but not always. Bill Lampton: Well, yes, I’ve I’ve uh of course in the last three decades I’ve been an entrepreneur. I’ve been to many, many networking events. And sometimes when you’ve been going to the same networking event, say a chamber of commerce for a year or so, you’ve met a good number of people. But when you walk into the room of all 100 or 150 at a reception, you just might not remember every name. Elizabeth Cottrell: That’s exactly right. Bill Lampton: But if you walk up and say, “Hi, I’m Elizabeth Cottrell,” or “Hi, I’m Bill Lampton,” they almost automatically will give their name. Elizabeth Cottrell: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great a great tip. Bill Lampton: There’s something that I came across, I believe it was in your book, where you talked about there was a surprise incident that you had that really led to what I would call your mission that you’ve been engaged in so actively, not just writing a book but speaking and leading seminars and coaching people. And that’s your mission about our writing handwritten notes and letters. What was that event that got you on this track, Elizabeth? Elizabeth Cottrell: Oh, it it makes me emotional just thinking about it. Um, so Dr. Bill, I am of an age that I was taught to write notes. It was it was considered good manners and it was considered um it was expected. And I always thought of it that way, but um the day that I got a letter from a stranger was the day that it shifted my whole thinking. And that letter came from a woman who had lost her son to suicide. And I didn’t know the woman, I didn’t know her son, but I knew her son’s fiancée and had been so um saddened to learn about it and had written to the fiancée a note. Dr. Bill, if I had $100 to know what I said, I’d like to know, because I but I don’t. But whatever it was, the the young woman shared it with her fiancée’s mother. And that woman wrote to me and she said, “I’ve read your note over 25 times and it has helped me through the toughest time in my whole life.” And and like a light bulb going off in my head, it or a lightning bolt, it made me realize that a handwritten note has the potential to be so much more than just good manners. And that really was the beginning. It planted the seed. It was a while before some of the other things happened, but that planted the seed that put me on the trajectory of where I am now. Bill Lampton: It’s a marvelous impact. And I I often I write about all types of business communication, and of course, business people are going to face the loss by death of some of their associates. It might be people they work with, it might be people they work for. And I’ve often heard people say, “Well, I would go to that reception at the funeral. I would but I wouldn’t know what to say.” And I use an illustration. There was a friend of mine who died uh about two years ago and there were over, I would imagine, there were over 400 people at his funeral. And the reception went on two and a half hours with the family greeting people. Now, did the family remember anyone thing that anybody said? No. It didn’t matter what they said because these are cases where your your presence means so much. Elizabeth Cottrell: Absolutely. Bill Lampton: And then again, in those cases, a week or two later, writing what that person meant to you, that’s that’s a great reinforcement, isn’t it? Elizabeth Cottrell: It absolutely is. And and Dr. Bill, I’ll tell you another story that is on a happier end of things, but it’s a kind of a note that some people don’t think about. My husband is a retired physician, and, um, when we first came, when he was a young physician, there was a pharmacist, um, who had been in the area for ages. And about 10 years after we my husband started his practice, that pharmacist retired. And my husband wrote him a note to congratulate him on his retirement. And he also mentioned in it, um, and it was actually a letter, um, rather than a note. But he said, um, “And I want you to know that I I know from from my patients how often you would deliver medicine to them at night and on the weekends and I and I also want you to know that I remember the time that I made a mistake writing a prescription and you called me and said, ‘Doc, is this I just wanted to check and make sure this was something that you meant to do.'” Well, fortunately, that pharmacist had many years of happy retirement before he passed. And, um, my husband and I went to the funeral home and barely walked in the door

  10. 10/20/2025

    Media Master Mike Sammond Gives Guidelines Business Leaders Need

    Hi there. Welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host Bill Lampton, the Biz Communication Guy. In our eighth season of hosting outstanding business communication professionals who share tips and strategies that will boost your business. And today it’s an extreme pleasure and privilege to welcome Mike Sammond from the greater Atlanta metropolitan area. For the past 13 years, Mike Sammond has been the President and CEO of Gwinnett Business RadioX, a company that produces, distributes and markets online radio shows and professional podcasts for businesses of all sizes in the Atlanta area. Mike Sammond is an award-winning radio and television sportscaster. It’s impossible to mention all the places he has been a headliner. I can mention CNN Headline News, ESPN, he’s been a sports highlight reporter and broadcaster, announcer for Olympic Broadcasting services, and they have heard his voice and his expertise in faraway places like Vancouver, London, Rio, Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, Singapore. In fact, there are quite a few people who say that they have worked internationally, but they may have crossed the border once. Here’s a guy who has been an international voice and presence for 13 years. Mike Sammond’s play-by-play experience, uh, covers all sports, baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. He’s announced games for Major League Baseball, Arena Football, International Hockey League, Southeastern Conference, and the list, as they say, could go on. Additionally, Mike has been a minority owner in professional minor league sports, such as hockey and Arena Football while serving as a top executive in sports management. So, I know you will be excited as I am to welcome Mike Sammond. Hello, Mike, how are you doin’? Hey there, Dr. Bill. How are you? You know, it would have probably been a lot easier just to say, he’s a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none. Uh, that would have been inaccurate, sir, because you are a master of many. I’ve had the wonderful privilege of being with you when you first started Business Radio X. I remember very well, a Gwinnett Business Radio X. I remember very well a reception that was held after your first year or so, and it was so impressive, the number of leaders that you had brought into that program, and many of them now have their own network of listeners and admirers. The the first thought that comes to me today, Mike, is with all of this and looking at the fact that at the University of Georgia, where I once taught speech communication, your bio on LinkedIn shows that you were a broadcast journalism major. So, the thought comes to my mind, and I’m sure to our viewers and listeners, exactly when did you start getting interested in journalism as a professional? I sometimes wonder if maybe in your baby crib there was a camera and a microphone. What what really stirred your interest? Was it maybe watching some highly competent broadcasters or sensing the impact of the media? What what really got you into this exciting and dramatic business? It’s it’s funny, Dr. Bill, because you see people today and like my my kids, you know, and they’re in their 20s now and, you know, when they were going to college, they didn’t know what they wanted to do or had no idea. I I didn’t have a a microphone or a TV camera with me in the crib, but I kind of knew at a very early age, growing up, uh, outside of Boston. I was a big-time hockey fan, and so back then, I used to watch the Boston Bruins. And this was back when they had, uh, the great Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito and the big bad Bruins. And then, and then I I played hockey every single day, and I loved it. And for some reason, you would think a young kid in New England, uh, who loves hockey, would wanna grow up and be a professional hockey player. But for me, watching the telecasts on TV, I wanted to be Fred Cusick and Johnny Pierson. Those were the announcers for the Boston Bruins back then. And I thought, “How cool is it to have a job where you’re paid to go see hockey or paid to go see sports?” And so, for whatever reason, I just decided as a young kid, now going back and knowing how much they get paid these days, I probably should have gone that route, but I, you know, I never had the big size or anything like that, and I was a decent hockey player, but I wasn’t good enough. Uh, so from the age of six, seven, eight, nine years old, I knew I wanted to be a sportscaster of of some way. And when I was a sophomore in high school, my dad took a job in Atlanta, so we moved, uh, down south to the Atlanta metropolitan area, Alpharetta. I’m a graduate of Milton High School. And it turns out, I didn’t know at the time, but I was very fortunate that to move down here because UGA and I’m sure you know this, had one of the top journalism schools in the the country. Uh, back in the day, back in the the late 80s, if you wanted to be a broadcaster, you would go to Syracuse was the number one school. That’s where Bob Costas and all the great announcers came from. But the other top schools were Missouri and the uh, Henry Grady School of Journalism at UGA. So I was very fortunate to move to this area with Georgia right down the road. And so I went there, got my broadcast degree. As soon as I started college there, I worked at the campus radio station, and I did as much as I could. Um, got to call a lot of sports at the campus radio station. That turned into a job with a commercial radio station in Athens, and I’ve been in sports broadcasting in some form or fashion, uh, ever since. Every time I host someone, I I find some common ties that that I didn’t know about. Mike, when I was at, um, on the speech communication faculty at the University of Georgia, my first year there, uh, they launched WWOOG, the campus radio station. So I listened to it for a year, and after a year, I went to the station manager, who was a student, and I said to him, “You’ve called this a campus radio station, but you’re leaving out a significant factor. It’s all students who are doing the broadcasting. I think they’re doing a fine job, but what about having a faculty program?” And so they agreed, and for a couple of years, I started hosting a weekly one-hour interview show. And I interviewed students, I interviewed faculty members, I interviewed some of the star football players of the time. The name of the program was “Dialogue,” because that’s what I wanted. It was it was a wonderful experience. And in those days, maybe not later on for your era, but in those days, to continue in broadcasting, we had to get a broadcasting license. I remember having to study for that and go to downtown Atlanta and take a um a written test, and I had no idea what what some of the terminology was, but I had had to learn, did did you have any entrance uh, qualifications like that into radio? We didn’t need any kind of a license or anything like that to be a broadcaster back then. Um, yes, our days of WWOOG, uh, so you’re familiar with walking up all the stairs to the top of Memorial Hall. Oh yeah. Yeah. And and and I I was fortunate as a freshman, I I came in and again it was it was a student-run station. So what a great benefit, uh, for the students that wanna be broadcast majors. And I started in news, I got to work sports. Uh, my senior year, I was the station manager of of the campus radio station, and my only goal was not to screw it up and to make sure we stayed on the air. I probably wasn’t the best general manager. Um, but I got so much great experience that when I left UGA, I was able to get a job right out of school, uh, as a sports director at a TV station, uh, because of the experience I had, the hands-on experience. So, you know, my advice to anybody that wants to get into the field of broadcasting is take any job, whether it’s news or sports, it doesn’t matter, you want to get your foot in the door and just get on air as much as you can. And it’s okay if you’re not good. You’re not supposed to be good when you start. Don’t, you know, I I we were on a campus radio station. I also worked on some AM radio stations, so a lot of people probably didn’t hear a lot of the things I did, which is probably a good thing. But the more reps you can get, the better. So you always want to do as much as possible. And, uh, it’s it’s been a great experience at my my my four years at UGA were a lot of fun, and it laid the groundwork for the rest of my career. It reminds me of a um of a subsequent radio show that that I was privileged to host. I I moved to uh, professionally, to a small town in Kansas, McPherson, Kansas. And they had a very small population. They had one radio station. So after I’d been there a couple of months, I decided that there wasn’t much else to do on weekends, and I loved radio. So I went to, um, a friend who took me to the station manager. The station manager interviewed me and we talked a little about my radio experience, and he wanted to find out, of course, how I would sound on the air. So, this was maybe on a Wednesday, and I can still remember him saying at station KINX, “Okay, you’ll start Saturday morning. Be here at 5:30.” And, uh, like many of us who start in the media, I ran the AM and FM station from for 12 hours on on Saturdays, and that was in the days of reel-to-reel tape. One of the fun things about it is thinking back to some of the early mistakes we made, not you, of course, but I I can remember some that I made, but like in any profession, we learn from our mistakes, don’t we? You’re going to make mistakes. We’re human, and that’s fine. Uh, I make mistakes to this day, but you’re you’re never going to be perfect. If you shoot for perfection, you’re you’re going to fail. Um, but those are the fun days. Uh, you know, I I did, you know, when I was at UGA, we learned how to do reel-to-reel, cutting the actual tape with a razor blade. Yeah. Yeah. At U

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Every week Bill Lampton, Ph.D.–the “Biz Communication Guy”–interviews renowned communication experts about their areas of expertise. Listeners learn tips, strategies, and guidelines for sales, management, customer service, presentation skills, technology, and persuasion. Catch every lively episode, so you will jet-propel your business communication skills–and profits!

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