Dear Parents,

It’s a terribly helpless feeling as a parent to watch your child struggle or suffer significant fear and stress due to a presentation or opportunity to speak publicly. As the founder of Talkstars!, and a 25+ year sales leader, it occurred to me that while there are resources to pay special attention to math, writing, reading, language—and even most sports—perhaps the most important skill that has so many ancillary benefits to so many aspects of one’s life: public speaking and presentation skills, are completely overlooked. Just like riding a bike, structuring a sentence correctly or solving a mathematical equation, public speaking can be taught with proper preparation, repetition and coaching. This specific instruction was not available to me until a few years after I had entered the business world and enrolled in a life-changing, intensive twelve week Dale Carnegie course. Little has changed from then until now in our schools, and yet we still somehow expect our children to effectively present and speak publicly with little or no coaching.

Consulting a curriculum committee made up of debate coaches, the 2012 teacher of the year from Fulton County schools, teachers from Westminster and Trinity schools in Atlanta, the core curriculum for Talkstars! was developed and is taught by certified teachers in after school programs.

I personally invite you to see what we’re about and how it can make a positive impact in your child’s future.

Sincerely,

A 25+ year veteran of sales and sales leadership, Rob has personally presented hundreds of times to audiences big and small.  While comfortable in that environment now, there is no question in his mind that some degree of instruction and coaching would have been extremely beneficial to him in enjoying school more, the college application process, eventual sales once in the business world, and career and community progression ongoing. 

Taking the initiative to enroll in an extensive twelve week Dale Carnegie course in 1989 proved to be a life-changing move and one that resulted in significant improvement in the areas of confidence, presence and interpersonal communications.  

While Rob speaks and presents regularly in the business world and is the vision behind Talkstars!, classes are taught by certified teachers far more familiar with childhood instruction and the classroom than presentations for a different audience in the boardroom.

“We spend a great deal of time and money engaging our kids in all sorts of activities. The ability to be comfortable speaking public and presenting are truly life skills that should have equal, if not greater, emphasis.” —parent