Figure out what you want to say.
Say it well.
Loquent Strategies is a leading communications firm based in Washington, DC, that helps executives, experts and investors refine their thinking, communicate ideas, and lead teams. We offer courses and private coaching in speaking with the media, presenting proposals, moderating panels, delivering speeches, and acheiving impact.
Services
Media Training
The goal of this training is to give you and your team the tools for handling professional journalists. We will clarify, tighten up and refresh the delivery of your ideas, ensuring you are seen in your best light. Participants learn how to side risky questions with grace and develop productive relationships with reporters. Training is tailored both to the likely audience and outlet including television, social media, legacy press, web media, podcasts and radio.
Most media training sessions last two hours, with 30 minute follow ups as needed. Coaching can be done individually, in small groups of up to four people or via larger lecture format webinars.
The skills you learn in media training are widely transferable. Media training teaches you how to:
- Push your strongest ideas to the fore in meetings
- Communicate those ideas efficiently so you retain credit
- Eliminate the assumptions and jargon that alienate clients and colleagues
- Infuse humor and storytelling into your answers
Moderator Training
Executives are increasingly being asked to moderate a panel in front of a televised audience. The ability to manage expectations for both panelists and audience can be a challenge without training.
Being a great moderator isn’t all that different from running a meeting. You need to be sensitive. You need to listen. You need to prepare to pull the best from the team. Too often, moderators ask plodding questions that fail to reveal important information. A moderator’s role is not
simply to present information. Moderating requires more humility and a different kind of preparation.
Moderator training sessions last 90 minutes and are done privately or in a group session. Thirty-minute follow ups are recommended to practice skills and can be held individually or in small groups.
The skills you learn in moderator training are widely transferable. Moderating teaches you how to:
- Run a meeting by listening more and talking less
- Become inclusive by pulling in shy folks and curbing loquacious ones
- Tease out informative anecdotes and stories from your team or client
Public Speaking and Presentations
Fear of speaking in public is pervasive and relentless. It’s understandable that you or your team may be daunted by the complexity of delivering a deck or answering a client’s question. It’s hard.
Speaking well is one of the most important skills to learn, and it is infinitely learnable. No great speaker started out great.
This training lays out the pillars of successful public speaking, whether the format is a formal presentation for clients, a keynote speech, an appearance on a panel or impromptu comments made in a meeting.
Special emphasis is placed on pitfalls common to expert presentations–overly dense slides, poor storytelling, lack of context in the opening minutes, and carelessness towards the audience. This training emphasizes recommendations on how to avoid these traps.
These training sessions are tailored to your organization’s speaking needs. Worried about how your team uses voice and body language to communicate? We can concentrate on that. Worried about whether your slides and their information are landing with an audience? We can also work on that.
Related transferable skills:
- Learn important time management proficiencies
- Relearn the value of simplicity and persuasion
Crisis Communication & Corporate Messaging
Crisis management requires special communication skills. This training will pressure test your organization’s response to a hypothetical crisis and help develop messaging and scenarios useful in a real-life emergency. The session will explore potential vulnerabilities in your organization and identify members of your leadership team best positioned to speak for the company. The session will focus on what messaging works and include media and deposition training.
Working off a predetermined scenario, we will role-play communicating with the press, workers and stakeholders during an unfolding crisis. Each member of the team will be invited to discuss the relevant issue from a different angle. Feedback will be offered in real time. Deliverables will often include recommendations on strategic realignment.
About Nina
Nina Sovich has trained prominent CEOs in tech, real estate, finance, mining, energy, nonprofit, and gaming sectors. She has helped trailblazers, management gurus, economists, and creative dreamers tell the stories of how they met challenges—from next generation labor mobility to data analytics and generative AI. Nina is a former financial and travel journalist with Reuters, Dow Jones, and the Wall Street Journal. She founded Loquent Strategies and serves as its president, specializing in media
training, speech preparation and delivery, messaging, crisis communications, and moderator training.
How I Work
For media training and executive coaching, I prefer to work one-on-one or in small groups. Discussing best practices and fleshing out ideas with mock interviews and role play driven scenarios is the best way to learn.
That said, I do offer seminars to large groups. If your team needs to learn the basics of presentation skills or moderating a panel, ‘come one, come all’ seminars are available.
About Mike
Mike Sergeant is a former BBC TV, Reuters, and Sky News correspondent who works as an international media trainer, communications coach, and advisor.
For many years at CNN, he reported from more than 20 countries, covering wars, business, economics, politics, and general news.
Mike has trained CEOs, board members, and partners all over the world at major companies, including McKinsey, Allianz, Astra Zeneca, PepsiCo, Mitsubishi, and S&P Global.
Mike specializes in coaching clients for media interviews and panel appearances, speechwriting, and conference moderating.
His book PR for Humans: How Business Leaders Tell Powerful Stories was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards in the UK in 2020.
Who We Work With
Chief executives and the core executive team
Consultants
Academics and experts presenting complex information
Startup founders
Discretion is a core value of this company. If you would like more information on our clients please send an email to nina@loquentstrategies.com and we will be happy to provide specific references and case studies.
Nina’s Stories from the WSJ
Nina’s Tips & Tricks
Values
Honesty
For executives looking to improve their speech and communication skills, feedback is essential. Honest feedback is hard to come by, however, especially as executives become more senior. We will always offer clear and thoughtful criticism, tempered by kindness and humor. For us the truth is a rare and precious commodity. We value it and we know you do too.
Discretion
Learning how to speak in public, working through core messaging, and interacting with the media can be a humbling experience. You have put your trust in us. Earning your confidence and that of your company is a privilege.
Judgment
Sobriety, good judgment, and embracing a long-term view are core values of Loquent Strategies. Nina’s acumen has been built up over six years as a communications coach and strategic consultant for CEOs and their teams. Our team’s news judgment arises from 15 years spent as a financial journalist at Dow Jones and Reuters in Paris, London, and New York.