Sarah: Good morning! We are live and we are very excited for today's guests. You guys are all going to get some valuable information today, so let's get started.

Glyna: Hey, hey, good morning!

Kelsi: Good morning!

Deborah Boswell: Good morning!

Sarah: Good morning!

Glyna: All right. Welcome to the Fusion One Lounge, everybody. It's a great day here and let's point out our marketing gurus. We have Kelsi, and we have Sarah right there, I am Glyna Humm and we are so excited to have you all join us today. We love our BizTalk! We love talking to business people and getting tips for all of you to use and just some great info overall. But before we get started, Sarah, could you put up our broadcast schedule?

Sarah: I sure can. Okay guys, don't forget that every week we go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. And if you haven't subscribed, subscribe to our wonderful podcast, Marketing and a Mic. We've put out such good information and you've got to subscribe and you can always like, and follow our Instagram and LinkedIn pages. And I mentioned "subscribe", our YouTube channel. Check it out. We have great information and we are constantly churning out new videos every week. So you need to subscribe.

Glyna: We sure are, and we are so excited to have our guests today. This lady has so much knowledge about the business world and communication, and she has information that everybody can use. So we're really excited to get started talking with her. I want to welcome a leading business communication coach, Deborah Boswell.

Deborah Boswell: Thank you so much, Glyna! I'm excited about this opportunity and time to spend with you guys. Thanks so much.

Glyna: We are so excited to have you with us today, and we're not going to waste any time at all. We're going to go ahead and dive right in. So, if you could tell us a little bit about your background and how you got started as a business communication coach.

Deborah Boswell: Sure. My background is speech pathology. So I'm a speech therapist in practice and practiced in traditional speech therapy. For about 15 years, I worked in a number of settings really in about any setting you can think about, public school, nursing homes, hospitals, children's hospital, private practice. And then I taught for a couple of years in a university setting. And about 10 years ago, 12 years ago realized that the work I was doing with people with speech disorders had a lot of application to people in corporate America. In the first request was a gentleman with a tech company who wanted help with his Southern accent. And then when he called, I thought, well, I do foreign accent. Certainly, I can do Southern accent. And I did my research, created some materials and about three weeks later started working with this gentleman and realized there was a market for communication coaching and training out in corporate America. And so I moved away from traditional speech therapy. I still have a passion for people who stutter and do run a stuttering support group, which we've taken a break there during COVID but hoped to get started again soon.

Glyna: Perfect. And where can they find that? Is that online or is that in person or?

Deborah Boswell: The stuttering support group? Yeah, it's in person. And when we go back, it'll probably be virtual until we don't have to social distance as much. So I guess the broader organization, the National Stuttering Association, they are implementing virtual meetings. I just have not been able to juggle all the balls and keep that going. So we will start that back and they can go to the National Stuttering Association website and find out about the different virtual meetings across the country.

Glyna: Okay. Perfect. That's great information. While we have a lot of people joining us this morning, we call them the early birds. The people coming in, they're right at eight o'clock. We have LaVon Chaney, she says good morning. And TGIF, yes. Yes. For everybody. We have Steve Johnson. He says, good morning. Daniel Entrekin, Cindy Edmunds, and John Chambers. I don't know if you know John or not. He said a Southern accent is not an accent.

Deborah Boswell: He says what?

Glyna: He said a Southern accent is not an accent.

Deborah Boswell: That's right. I've run into a good bit of opposition to the fact that I offer that. People are offended, but the people who need it are not offended. And it's never about eradicating. I can't help you eradicate or eliminate your Southern accent because I have one. But the difference in rat, lat, nat, and then right, light and night, I mean, think about it. What y'all eaten. I would say that at home, what y'all eating? But in public and with my clients, I would say, what are you eating? And there's a big difference. So it's really just about rounding off those rough edges that we have in the South. And of course, people from the Northeast like to modify their accent as well. I just don't get as many of those clients because I'm in the South.

Sarah: If you know anything about John Chambers, he's quite the jokester so.

Deborah Boswell: And I hope you love your Southern accent. I'm here if you ever need me.

Sarah: Oh gosh. So you provide communication services for individuals, for corporations, for organizations. So can you expand a bit more on what all the services are and the types that you offer?

Deborah Boswell: Yes, absolutely. There are two types of services or delivery models that I offer. One is one-on-one coaching and the other is facilitating training. And so it could be a group of 25 to 65. I have done keynotes the past and hope to do those more in the future. So those were the three, really three service models or delivery models. The topics I cover are regional and foreign accent modification in terms of one-on-one coaching. So I would offer that I do a lot of work, believe it or not on grammar these days. You get to a certain point in your company, expertise takes you only so far. And at the point you've moved into leadership or management that's when your communication skills really make a difference. I've worked with people who are a little bit irritated. They'll say, "I've talked like this the whole time I've been with this company. So why does it matter now?" And I always say, because you're representing the company, you're management, and you are not only with your direct reports, employees, peer managers, but externally. And when you say it don't matter, me and him went to the meeting, that can be a problem. I don't think our schools are doing the best job of addressing grammatical issues. So anyway, a lot of grammar, voice work, working on developing a strong, confident voice, a voice that projects, a voice that has more resonance, more depth to it. I do a lot of work with men and women on voice. And then of course one-on-one presentation skills, big, big topic that everyone wants to be better. They want to be better at presenting information. Let's see, listening skills, one-on-one as well as group training presentation skills can be one-on-one or group. I offer a one and a one and a half day presentation skills training session for about six to seven people. I have developed a new program just recently for a specific client, but it's about how to deliver messages to your team. The name is Received Craft, Deliver: How to Manage Team Messaging. So that we're rolling that out. I'm excited. It's a short, a shorter one and a half hour training session, and we're doing it virtually. So we'll see how that goes. But a lot of times you're taking messages from managers and if you do work out in the field or you're managing people in the field, sometimes you don't have time to sift through all the email threads. And so I'm going to present some ideas on how to distill it down to the golden nuggets, so to speak, of what to offer your team, your direct reports, your crew. I'm trying to think. Feedback, a class called The Push and Pull of Feedback. And that is a group session. So how to deliver and receive feedback so that it can benefit your career. Hmm. That's it.

Sarah: That's a big one.

Deborah Boswell: Big one is hard to receive. And it's hard to give it some time too.

Kelsi: Can you kind of give us a little rundown, briefly, on how your coaching sessions work.

Deborah Boswell: Absolutely. Sure, Kelsi, so typically the first step is to set up a meet and greet. I have a phone call either with the individual or the stakeholder who's contacted me. I always start with a, one-on-one what I call a meet and greet, no charge. They come to my office, it's no longer than 45 minutes. It's an opportunity for me to get to know the person so that I can eventually write a proposal for their communication needs and for them to get to know me, to see what this is all about. A lot of people are worried. They're nervous. They feel like they're being sent to the principal's office, or they need help. And I'm not really interested in working with people that were on the last ditch effort before they lose their job. That's not what this is about. It is about leveraging the talent and skills you already have and addressing blind spots around communication. Most of our issues as we move up, the corporate ladder become behavioral around communication, nonverbal communication, is rarely about expertise. The expertise is there. That's why you're here. And so that first meet and greet, I typically will talk to the client about getting some feedback partners. They'll come up with a list. I always ask them to run that list by their manager and then their job is to go out. So there's a little bit of vulnerability here, the ability to say, "Hey, I'm considering some coaching around my communication skills. And the coach would like a conversation with you to get feedback. Would you be willing to talk with her?" So once they've done that, usually the list is six to eight people, 360, so it's peers. It's direct reports that they have them. It's leadership. Sometimes it's a customer or a vendor that they interact with. Mariah, my assistant sets those calls up, make those calls, take notes. And from there I create the proposal. And then if the proposal is accepted, we kick off the coaching. And most of my sessions are one and a half hours, once a month. The average duration is around six to eight months. It's a lot of fun. I love it. And I work with very motivated individuals, professionals.

Glyna: That makes a huge difference if they want to be there.

Deborah Boswell: That's right. That's the one thing I'm assessing when they come in is do they see this as their manager's problem? Or are they taking ownership and seeing this as an opportunity?

Glyna: That's true. And then Lance is joining us this morning. He says, "Truth being heard. If you don't hear correctly, then you don't have it'. So you have to make sure those listening skills are there." So, that's very important. And Melissa Keck is joining us this morning. She says, "What an awesome business that you have, everyone could use this kind of coaching." I agree!

Deborah Boswell: I agree!

Glyna: Deborah is up for it!

Deborah Boswell: If you think about it, our communication is never perfected. It's an ongoing lifelong process.

Glyna: Yeah, absolutely. And LaVon has a question for you. She said, do you think the popularity of texting attributes to grammar problems? It sure seems to affect punctuation skills.

Deborah Boswell: Absolutely! Good, good point, LaVon. I totally agree. And to be honest, I use texting a great deal with my clients professionally. And I make every effort to make it as professional as possible, to use punctuation, to use capitalization, to avoid the "u" for "you". Now, with family members and friends, I'll abbreviate and use some of the acronyms and such. But I do believe that has an impact. It's become too casual to some extent. And I do see that bleed over into email communication. And there are times I've worked with individuals on their email communication, how to create professional-looking emails, how to bullet instead of writing dense paragraphs, your subject line is so important. You want to get people to read your email, you need to consider the subject line. So, that's a great point. I do believe that's having an impact.

Glyna: We have some other questions, but I want to get to this question on our list here and we'll come back to the crowd. It seems like they're very interested in what you have to say. We'll get back to you guys in just a second. I know that you help people with presentation skills and that is a big job in itself. Do you have some key pointers or little tips that you can help our audience with today?

Deborah Boswell: Absolutely.

Glyna: Okay, perfect.

Deborah Boswell: Yeah. First step, almost everyone I run across, whether it's in an airport, casual conversation at the ballpark, in a meeting, people are fearful of speaking and they have this negative self-talk running through their head. And I find many people had some negative experience early on and tell themselves never again. I did the same as a college senior at Auburn University, swore I would never speak again. It was a horrible experience. I felt ashamed of my performance. And I know that many people have had that kind of experience. And then when I started my business, I realized the best way to promote your business, the best way to promote you is to speak. So if you're in corporate America and you have your head down and working hard, but no one knows who you are because you never take the opportunity to get in front of people, you'll be lost in the shuffle. And you're not the person a manager thinks about when they want to have someone represent the company. I've been a business owner I currently own another business. And I noticed the therapists who speak up, who engage, the ones that are quiet, don't speak up that don't naturally think about them for maybe leading a workshop or speaking to a group of professionals who were interested in our practice. The first step is to get the negative self-talk out of your head. Think about speaking, in presentations it doesn't have to be you speaking for 50 people. It could be one-on-one. I mean your office trying to sell you my services. That's the presentation. It could be running a meeting for 15 people. I set the agenda. I'm running the meeting. That's the presentation. See it as an opportunity. And if there's any time you want to be prepared, it's when you're going to deliver information to someone, you cannot do it at the last minute. There are other things in business you can do and prepare for it the last minute. But when my kids were growing up, that it was mother's wicked witch on a broom flying around the house because she has a presentation coming up. I was spending every spare minute, preparing, rehearsing, absorbing my content, not memorizing it, but absorbing it. I would stand in the living room, speaking to the windows at the front. My boys would say, "That's our mom. She's working on a presentation."

Glyna: Don't mind her.

Deborah Boswell: I don't want to fail. I don't want it to be in front of 10 people or 50 people. I'd rather it be privately. Right? And so preparation is key to your self-confidence. Change the way you think. See it as an opportunity and then prepare, be prepared.

Glyna: Fantastic. Gosh, such great information. And Sarah, you might want to grab-

Sarah: I'm just sitting and looking at all these questions. I mean, this is so fun. Daniel's got a good question. He said, what is the most common communication mistake you see when working with individuals on their business communications?

Deborah Boswell: Okay, good question, Daniel. Thank you for that. This probably is not something we would consider a mistake necessarily, but I would say the most common miscommunication or communication concern is poor listening, poor listening habits. The quickest way to devalue another human being is to not tune into what they're saying, to ignore them, to not make eye contact. People become uncomfortable. They usually talk more. Sometimes they'll shut down. But think about it, if you're a manager if you are listening to customers and you don't listen mindfully with a movie mindset, I teach that in my listening skills session, listening with a movie mindset. It devalues other people and they make a mental note, don't go back to him with that issue, right? If you don't answer in an inappropriate way. I had a high-level manager share about a situation he was having with a female employee. They just were locking horns pretty frequently. And so he demonstrated a little vulnerability with his manager who was a C level. When he started sharing with the C level individual about the struggles he was having, the C level individual said, "I've never had that interaction. I'm really not sure what you're talking about." So he listened, but then his response was not appropriate for the problem. And so Daniel, I think listening skills, failure to listen, the devaluing others in the company or in your business world is the biggest concern that I see.

Sarah: Gosh, yeah. Trevor's got another question he said, do you help people with cold calling techniques?

Deborah Boswell: I wish that I did, Trevor. I do not. I don't cold call. I tried that early on in my career and I feel for you in sales. It's a tough way to generate business. Yeah. I've had people try so many different ways to get through to me and I delete the emails. I'm just, you're going to have to help me get to know my need for your service some other way. Maybe a meeting face-to-face would be more likely, but cold calling via phone, or even just dropping by my office is not going to work. You have to be really, really sincere, and really passionate about your product or service. I realized it didn't work for me. And so the way I really built my sales was joining every kind of networking group. I spent more money and went into debt for networking than anything else. And of course, that was all- I wasn't paid for any of that. I paid to be a part of a BNI group. Glyna, I know you've been in a group for a long time. I joined all kinds of organizations in the Birmingham area and had my business cards and people had the way to present what I do. I used to tell people, Oh, I offer this, that, and this and that. Now I say I help business professionals develop confidence and credibility so they can achieve what they want to in their career, through their communication skills. And usually, people want to know more. What do you mean? What is that all about? So Daniel, good luck. Cold calling is tough.

Glyna: It is. He's like, well, why not? It's so much fun. And I know he's being sarcastic.

Sarah: Who doesn’t love cold calling?

Glyna: Kelsi, why don't we go ahead and jump into the ones on one to one coaching.

Kelsi: Okay. I'm so sorry. I've had to mute myself the whole time because somebody just showed up at my house. I'm gonna do this really quickly. So you do a lot of one-to-one coaching, but you've also written several books that people can purchase for more help and advice. So can you tell us about where we can go and find those books?

Deborah Boswell: Sure. In reality, I've written one book and then I've written a chapter in another book and I've pulled those out for you. One is, Live Every Day Motivated, Successful, and Happy. And it's an anthology. A lot of individuals from the National Speakers' Association contributed. So that book has been around a while. And then the next one is the one that I wrote and it's, Become A Confident Business Communicator. This book is full of examples. Like I've already given you about clients I've worked with and what I've encountered in my own career in terms of working to become a confident communicator. And it's full of tips, ideas. I just covered every aspect of communication. I do talk about grammar. Everything from grammar to accents, to presentation skills, to nonverbal communication. Even for the past five or six years, I've coached TEDx, Birmingham speakers for Ted talks. That has been really an eyeopening experience for me. We did not have Ted this last year, but I understand it should take place in 2021 here in Birmingham, but it's a grueling process and a very rewarding opportunity to be selected to speak for a Ted Talk. But I talk about my experience with that as well. So I hope people will take a look at the book and maybe build their own confidence from the tips they see in the book.

Glyna: Yes. Most definitely. You get the book on Deborahboswell.com, and where else can they find it?

Deborah Boswell: Amazon for the book. So for this book, if you'll go to Amazon and order it, that's the best way to get that book. And then the other book, as well as my Taming Your Wild Southern Accent, audio and workbook, you can get that on my website. And that of course is www.DeborahBoswell.com.

Glyna: Yes. Perfect. I know you've done a lot of presentations, Deborah, especially before this COVID 19, we call it Corona crap here.So, what kind of companies and groups do you usually do your presentations with? What kind usually contact you?

Deborah Boswell: Okay. A wide range of services. I'm in the utility services. Some publicly traded companies, healthcare, big, big area for me, medical malpractice insurance for physicians. That is an area. Companies that are in manufacturing. I do have one-on-one clients who just call me, I would call that retail, find me on the website and they're going to pay out of pocket. I would say the majority of my clients come through companies. And I have worked with companies across the country. There's one company I started with probably about 12 years ago and they have locations all across the United States. And that's been a lot of fun because I do enjoy travel, but everything from small, medium-sized to large, very large 50,000 employee companies.

Glyna: And I know you're booked out quite a bit. So yeah, I know you're very busy. So if anyone's interested in talking to Deborah about that, you better get her on the phone.

Deborah Boswell: Slow down just a little bit during COVID, but immediately Mariah, my assistant, she ramped up her knowledge of Zoom and we started doing offering virtual coaching and I've done a good bit of virtual training because there were a lot of dates on the calendar that needed to take place. And so we of course offered it through Zoom. It's been good. I think it'll always be in the mix moving forward, but I really look forward to being back in person with human beings, interacting in a learning situation.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of communication, I mean that impacted all of us. Excuse me, speaking of Corona, communication it truly impacted all of us. I mean, multiple, if not all businesses had to shift to a virtual way of communicating in some shape or form just to keep business going. And that was a little hard or a little shift for people to pivot and learn the Zoom and how to communicate. So what are some of the challenges that you've seen in people trying to adapt to this new kind of virtual communication?

Deborah Boswell: Oh, that's a great question. Absolutely. What I'm seeing is individuals who do not understand when you're on a virtual, you have a camera you're speaking to others. Here's the trick. When you want to interact with someone virtually, if you are speaking, you need to be looking at that camera. And it is tough. I mean, right now, I'm not looking at you ladies. I'm looking at the camera so that those people watching us, you included, are feeling that I'm connecting with you. When you're not talking, when you're listening to someone else that's when you look down at their faces. When you are speaking, you really need to be in that camera. And if you'll pull up that slide that I sent you, this is what I see frequently. Either we're looking down on you or we're looking up your nose. I've seen a lot of that looking up nostrils. So, he is not positioned properly. Glasses are an issue. There's a glare or reflection that is not, think about it. How do you want your virtual presence to be perceived? Because it is different from your in-person presence. And so you need to practice if you're doing any kind of Zoom or any platforms, Teams, Skype, whatever you might be using, go ahead and stage your setting. I see a lot of people with the Zoom or the contrived backgrounds, the ones that are pre-ready that you choose. And I don't know what it is. And Glyna, you might be able to address this, but it's like the only word I can think about is pixelated, your head against that background. Go some funny things.

Glyna: Looks like you're floating or something.

Deborah Boswell: Exactly. And so I decided I didn't want to use one of those backgrounds and I've definitely put together, make it look nice behind me, move all the paperwork off my desk, purchased a ring light and a camera. For a while, I had my laptop camera and I was having to put it on a cardboard box, proper level because I'm short. And so I ended up getting a video camera, webcam. And then a snowball microphone. So make sure your setting is going to put you in the best light. Make sure you're eye level with your camera. The other problem I'm seeing, and I'm really, I've been pushing this on LinkedIn is start using your video. Almost every company that I'm engaged with they tell me for our meetings for all of our inner-company meetings, interactions, presentations, we're using audio. And if we need slides, we have the slides, but no camera. And I believe when COVID first started, everybody, was excited about wearing t-shirts and no makeup heads. And we turned the corner and what's happening is people are not engaged. Miscommunication is going on. My clients are talking to me a bit about backchannel communication, which is texting. I mean, think about it right now you could be texting glancing down. I don't know what you're doing. You could be texting someone. This woman's an idiot. I cannot believe what she's saying. I'm hearing that, I mean, it was actually casual. Someone said to me, I was texting our CFO telling him, get her to stop talking. And that's really unfair. It isn't bringing clarity. It's not a team approach. And so again, you have a little bit more accountability with video. So I think video is the gold standard for virtual interactions.

Sarah: Yeah. And that's so true. I mean, it's just holding that accountability in place that can get lost with people just like, well maybe I'll join him, maybe I'll just do audio and not be, they don't know what I'm doing if I just have it on audio.

Deborah Boswell: Exactly. And then when you're the one speaking on audio and you just hear crickets, is that agreement, are they even paying attention? You don't know what it means. And then you have to ask, does anyone have a question? Yeah. Does everyone agree? And many times you still won't get a response. So you really don't know what's going on, on the other end. But with video, at least they were up writing in front of you. You can see that.

Glyna: Well, one of my pet peeves is if you are on video and you can tell that they're texting. It's like, I'm right here.

Deborah Boswell: That's the epitome of rudeness. In my opinion, it really is.

Sarah: Yeah. We did a kind of a humorous video a few months ago when all this COVID hit and it was kind of a play on that. Of that you have people that are either not prepared or they don't have good lighting or they're down here or they're in the dark or you can't hear them. And we just, it was kind of just a bit humorous, but it's just so true. It's distracting and it's just not good presentation. So the tips that you mentioned before, they are right on.

Deborah Boswell: It's worth the effort it takes to get it right. And you can go to zoom.com and just create a meeting for yourself and start working with how you are coming across.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely.

Deborah Boswell: I think it'll always be around. So it pays to invest in the materials, the equipment because I believe virtual interaction will stay. I just don't think it will be, I hope it doesn't become the norm for the next 15 years. I believe we'll go back to in-person but we'll always have this in the mix.

Glyna: So you touched on everything. Those are just some great tips about the camera and lighting, eye contact, and then how we all feel about people on audio. Sarah, we're going to let you go to your questions.

Sarah: Yeah. So you, you mentioned recently in one of your videos, which by the way you put up great videos on your social media pages, people need to check that out. You mentioned that a strong and confident voice is so important when meeting virtually. So can you expand on that and how does it make a difference?

Deborah Boswell: Yeah. If you want people to listen to you, you need a voice that attracts attention. A higher-pitched voice is not attractive, unfortunately. So high pitched squeaky, that combination is whiny. That's the name board whiny voice. So we want a voice that number one projects and so diaphragmatic breathing is very important. If you played an instrument or sing in a choir currently, you know about diaphragmatic breathing versus chest breathing. So there's information. I can send information if someone's interested, but diaphragmatic breathing is the first step towards developing a strong voice. I'm always careful not to tell clients to speak louder because speaking louder involves, you'll see strain in the neck and people try to push it out. That's yelling. What we want is diaphragmatic breathing, which in your core gives you more power in your voice. And then you want vocal variety. If you think about it, the only two characteristics of your voice that you can manipulate are pitch and volume. And so using some vocal variety makes a difference. Also to have a little bit lower-pitched voice, you don't want to go around speaking in a low voice, you can damage your vocal cords, but opening up the mouth more, increasing resonance can give you a lower-pitched voice. And we know that humans are more attracted and ready to listen to a lower-pitched voice than a higher-pitched voice. They associate that with emotion or whininess. And so I actually will work with clients using wine corks that after I drink all the bottles of wine, I'm joking, I don't. But I do have wine corks I've collected over the years and don't anyone try this without good direction but cut them up and then have the client hold them sideways, biting down on them to get a feel for more resonance for more of an open mouth. Yeah. I used to tell clients, imagine two fingers in between your teeth. That's hard to imagine. So when I actually give you a wine cork, that's been cleaned and sterilized in practice drills. Then when I say, Hey, imagine that cork is still in your mouth. They'll open up. And so it's something I've worked on for years. I learned this in an acting class. I'm not an actress, but I did take an acting class because actors and actresses know how to perform on a stage. They know how to gather attention and to project their voice and absorb and memorize lines, which I don't recommend memorizing for public speaking. But it's a really neat trick and it helps, it builds the energy in your mouth, which creates resonance. Resonance is usually lower-pitched. So, wow. That's a good tip for someone.

Sarah: What a good technique.

Kelsi: I'm going to put your contact information up on the banner here. So that anybody who wants to reach out to you can. If you need to contact Deborah Boswell, you can reach her by phone at (205) 987-8080. You can email her assistant Mariah at mariah@deborahboswell.com. And then her website of course is DeborahBoswell.com.

Deborah Boswell: Thank you. Awesome.

Kelsi: Is there anything else that you wanted to mention that we haven't covered?

Deborah Boswell: I would just encourage anyone listening or watching to get feedback. Maybe you don't know what you're not doing well. I mean, what's that blind spot or that gap in your communication style. So pick three people. People not your best friends maybe. Maybe one is your best friend. The other two would be individuals that you know care about your career and your future at your place of work and ask them, what am I doing well currently in terms of the way I communicate? What could I do better or stop doing to be more effective? And here's the key. If they are brave enough to give you honest feedback, take it, and say, thank you. And ask more questions instead of what we do typically. And that is be defensive. Well, the reason I do that is because. Oh, I knew I did that. Yeah. I'm not worried about that. Okay. Right. Instead, ask questions. Wow. And if it hurts, then say that's hard to hear, but I appreciate you sharing that with me. Can ask some questions. What does it look like when I am unapproachable? Or I sound like I'm being unapproachable. What impact does that have on others? Get some good information about it and then decide how you're going to address it. Or if you're going to address it, you might decide you don't want to. So I encourage everyone to do that. We have blind spots we're unaware of, that's why they're called blind spots and others can help us to see those so that we can become better communicators.

Glyna: I find myself really listening.

Deborah Boswell: Thanks.

Glyna: You speak so well. You definitely represent what you do.

Deborah Boswell: Thank you. It's been years of practice and work. You know that Glyna, you've seen me working on my communication over the years. So thank you.

Glyna: You are very welcome. Well, I can't believe our time is going or gone, but we still have a little fun that we're going to have before we let you go.

Deborah Boswell: You called it The Hotspot, is that right?

Glyna: The Hot Seat. We're going to hit the hot seat.

Sarah: We're going to shift gears. Let's do The Hot Seat. Okay. So we've got four games and we're going to spin this little wheel and none of us know where it's going to land on, but whatever it lands on, that's the game we're going to play. And it's only 60 seconds.

Glyna: We'll explain it to you.

Deborah Boswell: Okay.

Glyna: Ooh, fun. Fill in the blank.

Sarah: Fill in the blank.

Glyna: This is pretty self-explanatory but Sarah's going to read a statement and then you just fill in the blank, whatever the blank is, whatever comes to your mind first. So, and I'm going to have 60 seconds that I'm going to run here on the clock so that you can see, but it's just a lot of fun. So are we all ready to go?

Deborah Boswell: Yes.

Glyna: All right, let's go.

Sarah: Okay. This is fill in the blank. When I am bored I blink

Deborah Boswell: Read.

Sarah: I always have blank with me.

Deborah Boswell: Lipstick.

Sarah: Nothing annoys me more than blank.

Deborah Boswell: People who won't stop talking.

Sarah: I am always late to blank.

Deborah Boswell: I am not late. I will be dead or in an accident.

Sarah: I deserve a gold medal in blank.

Deborah Boswell: Committing to running for 10 years. And I'm not a runner and I hate running.

Sarah: That is a good one. Wow. I can't live without blank.

Deborah Boswell: Wine.

Sarah: Blank makes me happy.

Deborah Boswell: Wine! Haha no, no exercise makes me happy.

Glyna: She goes, woo. Saved by the bell.

Deborah Boswell: That was great.

Glyna: That is so awesome. Deborah. Well, again, we want to thank you so much for coming on. You gave everybody so many great tips to take with them and we just really appreciate you.

Deborah Boswell: Absolutely. This was a lot of fun. You guys do a great job, so thank you so much for having me.

Glyna: Thank you. Thank you. It was our pleasure and want to thank of you for tuning in today. And don't forget, we have our marketing mix every Tuesday morning at eight o'clock and we will be back next Friday again for BizTalk at eight o'clock sharp as well. So all of you have a great week. We'll see you next time.

Sarah: Bye.