What is a Communication Coach?

For 10 years, Living in America has been teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). Throughout this journey, we found most of the clients that gravitated towards us most were business professionals. After a careful analysis of why these clients prefer us, I discovered that ESL is only a small part of what we bring to them. We don't teach to test, we teach to talk.

Our clients learn how to communicate across cultures and personalities, which is a skill native speakers sometimes need support with too. Everything is so clear in our own heads, that we often omit important aspects of our business when communicating with others, whether that is in marketing, employee relations or even in sales. Written communication is even more complex because we don't get a second chance to clarify our message, our body language can't add to the story and our intonation can't say things that our words aren't.

This is why I expanded Living in America from ESL to Communication and Culture coaching last year. Our true value is in helping clients define and tell their story. Sometimes that same story needs to be told a different way to resonate with a different personality, different culture or different environment. For example, Facebook post are fun and lighthearted, but LinkedIn post are expected to be professional and educate the target audience.

So, what do we actually do? Here is a list of just a few problems we commonly solve:

Ineffective Marketing: Most marketing fails because of poor strategy. Let's sit down and discover who you are really trying to reach. What is your USP? Who is your ideal client? Where are they? When is time to hire someone to help? Our "Business Therapy" sessions compare your goals to your plans and set you on a path to success.

Need content ideas? We love idea generation: What do I say? What is content? What kind of content goes where? Business therapy is a great catch all for finding the answers to these questions. If you're not ready for an agency, let's get you started in the right direction. Once your momentum gets rolling, you'll be able to hire that agency before you know it and we have great partners all over the world to which we can refer you.

Editing: Does this sound ok? Does this make sense? Non-native speakers in marketing really like this because it's not always what you say, but how you say it. I often translate "English" from Google to real English. Phrases, phrasal verbs and cultural resonation just can't be translated yet by a machine. We check website wording, blogs, social media post, email and more.

Having difficult conversations & Employee Retention: Most small companies don't have an HR department. While we can't solve all your HR issues, we can help you manage tension in the workplace, hiring and firing conversations, and build a team culture through better communication processes. Unlike many culture coaches, our communication coaching has no minimum requirements. Once the processes are in place and issue resolution is set-up, we believe you have the tools to manage on your own but we'll always be here if you need us.

International Team Tension: Culture can be a real problem when working with international teams. Helping teams understand perspective from the other side can tremendously alleviate communication issues and improve team interaction.

Do I need to use LinkedIn? One of the basic principles of communication is expressing who you are. LinkedIn is the only social media platform we offer training for because it's really about telling your story and effective messaging. It's a great platform to make organic connections with high profile clients. We help you tell your story and design a messaging campaign customized to your ideal clients. (Group workshops and Individual sessions available)

My English skills are good but I need practice. We offer all kinds of solutions here. I teach to talk, not to test; I even wrote my own textbook because my style is so unique. We have Masterclasses for Business English that run for 4 weeks, 90 minutes each, Private Lessons (no minimum required), Group Conversation Classes (offered upon request), and are soon to unveil a self-teaching program packed with videos, activities and quizzes to evaluate your proficiency on your own time.

In summary, communication coaching is a very large umbrella that encompasses many professional skills:

? Team Building

? Public Speaking

? Cultural Awareness

? Social Media Posting

? Emails & Newsletters

? Presentations

? Networking

? Negotiations

? Difficult Conversations

? Language Coaching

? Marketing Messaging

? Storytelling

We do a lot, but we don't do it alone. Living in America has partnerships in more than 25 countries for translations, English lessons, marketing consultations, culture coaching and more. If you have a problem, let us help you find a solution.