Susan Trivers

I love being transformed by a great speaker! I deliver passion and authenticity to my own audiences and I work with hundreds of business speakers to help them transform themselves and their audiences. I know from my own experience as a speaking professional–I count at least one coach per year for the past 13 years as major contributors to my success.

I will work with anyone who desires to erase the dismal reputation of business speakers and turn their privilege of the platform (or board room, conference room or webinar) into a worthy event for every audience. Smart, talented and ambitious people should not put everything at risk by relying on speaking and presentation skills they learned in grad school or earlier.

You can make a difference through your speeches and presentations by kicking your old speaking habits and embracing new ones.

  • What content will break through all the various distractions that are competing for the audience’s attention?
  • What’s really on their minds- a problem, a search for a solution, or some pain?
  • Where are they in their efforts to address this?
  • What will happen if they don’t get some answers, or if it gets worse?

Coaching helps you capitalize on your strengths and avoid accommodating your weakness. Sports figures make great metaphors for this: whether the player you admire is a quarterback, pitcher, golfer or other sports figure, you know that after their best performances they go right back to the practices and coaching that helped them succeed. That is capitalizing on their strengths. And if there’s a weakness–an odd torque of the body or a glance away–the coach will show them how to stop doing that.

Known as America’s Great Speaking Coach since 1999, I have helped my clients in many ways:

Recent clients include:

Individual Corporate Speakers:

  • Oil company executive
  • CEO of B2B technology product company
  • CEO of health care application start-up
  • CTO of B2B IT SaaS company
  • Director of Talent Acquisiton, Government contractor
  • Director of Innovation, IT services  company
  • Sterling Health IT CEO keynote at mHealth Summite 2012 and HIMSS 2012
  • BD-CMM certified proposal professional breakout session at Bid & Con 2012
  • AOPA Director of the Air Safety Institute responsible for improving the safe flying practices of general aviation pilots
  • CEO of Clairus for the purpose of growing their data analysis business beyond the aviation industry
  • CompTIA (Executive coaching)
  • Vangent, Inc. (Business Development coaching)
  • Cornet Technologies (Business development coaching)
  • Griffin-Owens Insurance (Executive Coaching)

Government Contractors

  • MSE (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • Delta Solutions and Technologies (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • BCT Partners (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • IST Research (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • Vangent (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • Metron Aviation (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • CGI (Orals coaching)
  • ACS, a Xerox Company (Orals coaching for two state bids)
  • Sotera Defense (key person interviews; coaching that helped win an important new defense contract)
  • Serco, Inc. (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • Fedmarket (Seminar entitled “Orals: Avoid the Pitfalls that Lower Your Score”)
  • CDI Marine (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • Rainmakerz Consulting, LLC (Orals consulting and coaching)
  • Direct Proposal Resources (Orals consulting and coaching)

Workshops

  • Grimm + Parker Architects (Executive and Business development coaching)
  • Cubic Defense Applications, Inc. (Presentation Skills Workshop for high potential mid-managers)
  • Global Environment and Technology Foundation Presentations Skills workshop for all young managers plus individual presentation skills coaching for three high-performing young leaders
  • Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc. (Presentation Skills Workshop for high potential mid-managers)

Keynotes/Breakouts

  • APMP NCA Proposal Professionals Boot Camp
  • The Refractories Institute (Keynote at semi-annual Conference)
  • National Speakers Association- Virginia (Keynote)

I was honored to serve as the 2009-2010 President of the National Speakers Association-Washington, DC Chapter. I am the author of The Great Speakers Guide to Business Storytelling (audio CD). I’ve presented public speaking webinars for ExecSense lawyers and physicians practices. I am a frequent blogger for the APMP NCA blog on a variety of topics related to Oral proposals.

My bottom-line advice to my clients is this:

  1. Each audience has specific interests and needs that must be addressed
  2. Each audience has human qualities that are quite similar
  3. Use a repeatable system with unique content

To collaborate with me on your specific needs call me at 703-790-1424 or email me at susan@susantrivers.com

When not speaking and coaching others, I’m in the saddle, riding my Friesian horse “Joey” in dressage. Years of being coached has made me exceptionally well-suited to serve as a coach. I’ve made the most progress with my current instructor who always says “dare to make a mistake—that’s where the learning occurs.” This holds true for business speakers too.

I began understanding the critical importance of audience-focused speaking and presenting as an Adjunct Professor of Finance and Economics at the University of Bridgeport, CT. Engaging rooms full of adult students who were studying for Masters of Business Administration after full days at work was a challenge and my high student reviews proved that I successfully met it. After years as Executive Director of several community-based organizations and as owner and operator of a small restaurant in a competitive market, I’m well-equipped to listen to and understand the needs of my clients and provide customized consulting/coaching, workshops and platform speeches to each client.