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Cues & Clues for Improved Business Communications: Steve Clements & Claudia Coplon

Steve Clements, an award-winning producer, writer and director in broadcast, video and industry, is both executive presentation trainer and academic professor.

Through the Atlanta-based Executive Speak/Write, co-owned with his wife Claudia Coplon, Steve customizes training and coaching programs that enable professionals to maximize oral presentation skills for interactions with peers, stakeholders and the media. 

Prior to arriving in Georgia, Steve produced over 3,000 national television broadcasts. In these roles, Steve trained experts to greet national audiences, including Parade Magazine medical editor Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld, chef Wolfgang Puck, fitness guru Richard Simmons, and talk show hosts Bob Goen and Pat Sajak; produced Hour Magazine with Gary Collins, the new Mickey Mouse Club for Disney, Body by Jake and others; and wrote for Welcome Back, Kotter; Three’s Company and Dinah Shore.

Since 1999, he has also sat as Cree-Walker Distinguished Professor of Television & Communications at Augusta State University (part of the University System of Georgia).

For 35 years, Claudia Coplon has developed strategic communications that effectively convey a company’s message. Today, she uses her expertise gained as a writer and public relations consultant to train professionals in generating concise, relationship-building written communications. 



As president of her Atlanta-based Executive Speak/Write, she customizes training programs to help employees, managers and executives overcome life-long phobias and poor writing habits. Her non-threatening, humorous corporate training programs improve business writing skills, inspire confidence and engender more effective written communications.



Claudia brings a broad expanse of knowledge to her training programs. Her expertise is based on having developed, organized, coordinated and prepared written materials and public relations programs for companies in public and private sectors. Company industries within which she has worked include but are not limited to engineering, high tech, food and food packaging, transportation and logistics, health care, finance, consumer, association, legal, and business-to-business. 



Her business writing seminars blend writing basics and direction within the jargons specific to each client’s industry. From correctional professionals working in New Mexico, Tennessee and Alaska prisons to CEOs in Atlanta boardrooms, she has conveyed the skills that declutter the written word and attract reader attention.

Interspersed, she still writes and edits extensively, using effective written communication techniques to prepare manuals, proposals, media kits/releases, articles, publications, speeches, video scripts, web site copy and newsletters. 



Claudia brings to her training real life experience coupled with tried and true public relations approaches and a drive to conciseness. As a result, professionals gain the skills and philosophy necessary to position their written materials for impact and success.


Leadership Challenges at the Executive Level: Brad Lurie, Healthcare challenges and reform: Christopher Gillig, ASD: Bob Eskew

Brad Lurie

Brad Lurie has 19 years of experience in both management and Senior Executive roles with Fortune 500, Privately held and Private Equity portfolio companies having managed P&L from $15m to $200m.  After earning his undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering Technology from Southern Polytechnic State University, Brad accepted his first role as an Application Engineer putting his technical degree to work.  In a short time, his passion for the business and outgoing personality rewarded him as the Regional Sales Manager – Northwest USA and Western Canada.

Over the next nine years Brad took on different challenges in sales, marketing, and business unit management roles continuing to hone his management and leadership skills while growing revenue and profits in each role. It was during this time he spent approximately 40% of his time outside the USA and learned how to build an international business, learning the cultural challenges and risks associated with doing business on all Continents. 

In 2000, realizing the need to elevate his career and improve his financial and business skills, he enrolled in the MBA program at Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business. Brad Lurie landed his first Executive level role – Vice President of Sales & Marketing for a division of a European privately held organization.  For the next 4 years Brad re-established the company as a global leader developing channels in 35 countries growing the company’s revenue by more than 200%.

His most role has been as Executive Vice President for a Private Equity portfolio company, Brad was brought in to drive organic growth and establishing an integration plan for acquisitive growth. Through his year of experience, Brad Lurie has developed a deep understanding of global business, developing and retaining talent, creating alignment across the functional responsibilities, and exceeding the corporate objectives.  This can be greatly attributed to his 6-pillars foundation that underpins his management.

Chris Gillig

Chris Gillig is a Senior Healthcare Executive who has 28 years of experience and has been successful at the Sr. Vice President and COO levels in the Medical Device, Pharmaceutical, Healthcare Services and Biotechnology & Health Information Technology Industries.

As a brief introduction, Chris is  a creative Executive with a diverse background in multiple facets of the healthcare and life sciences industries.  A knowledgeable Sales, Marketing, National Accounts, Business Development and Strategy Executive, with a track record of building teams and driving revenue and profitability in start-up, mid-size, and fortune 1000 companies.  He is  a strong leader with a strong business acumen and the ability to develop and execute strategies to drive customer satisfaction while generating revenue and improved profitability.  Chris’s areas of expertise in healthcare supply chain logistics, selling tangible products, intangible services, and emerging technology solutions, which provides a diverse background to draw upon and develop creative solutions to today’s healthcare challenges

Bob Eskew

Bob Eskew, is the founder and CEO of Automated Systems Design, Inc. (ASD®), a four-time Inc. 5000 company and the leading nationwide solution for custom turnkey information transport systems. Eskew began his career serving briefly in the Army and was awarded an honorable discharge in the winter of 1975.
 
In 1987, Eskew founded ASD and it was his passion for taking chances and innovative business approach has contributed to the company’s growth, success and changed the way that business is typically done in the industry. Most recently, has been named a Top Growth Company by the Entrex Private Company Index (PCI) for its 38 percent growth in Q2 2010 over Q2 2009.

Today, ASD® manufactures, manages and maintains high-performance iCAT-ITS™ cables and products for copper wiring and iGLO-ITS™ for fiber optic systems. The experienced team at ASD® provides physical infrastructure systems nationwide with one point of contact for all project deployment. Additional nationwide turnkey solutions include structured cabling, audio video systems, VoIP phone systems, IP-based surveillance and access control systems, digital signage, point of sale systems, network moves, adds and changes, wired and wireless networks and National Rollout Services.

Negotiating Complex International Contracts: John L. Corbitt

 

John has more than 30 years of experience in sales, marketing and engineering. That includes executive experience with leading-edge Fortune 500 high-technology companies and pre-IPO companies where he was an officer of the company and member of the senior management team. He has held P&L responsibility and managed direct and indirect sales channels in North America, Europe and Asia. His teams have consistently enabled profitable revenues, improved customer satisfaction, and increased market share.

John was the Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Enpirion, Inc. and led a successful turn-around in achieving profitability. As the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Galvantech, his strategy and management led the company to record sales and a successful acquisition by Cypress Semiconductor Corp. Prior to Galvantech, he was the Vice President of Sales at Equator Technologies Inc, where he captured the company’s first publicly announced design-win with Tektronix, and also managed the due diligence activities for private equity placement from Sony, Canon, Hitachi and others.

Mr. Corbitt holds a BSEE from Florida International University and began his career in biomedical engineering, working with implantable pacemakers at Cordis Corporation in Miami FL. Then he followed his interest in radio communications and designed digital pagers with Motorola in Plantation FL, before making a career change to sales, and joining Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Mr. Corbitt has been a frequent author and been published in Electronic News, PC Magazine, Upside, Business Geographic, Electronic Business, TechLINKS, and EDN. He is a volunteer with the High Tech Ministry, and active with the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), Executive Sales and Marketing Association (ESMA), The Indus Engineers (TiE), and the Kettering Executive Network (KEN).

Bottom line sales effectiveness : Carlos Nouche

Carlos Nouche brings 20 years of experience in the enterprise software industry, including sales, service, business development, partner alliances and business operations to ValueSelling Associates. This depth and breadth of experience provides sales organizations with dynamic and prolific collaboration leading to quantifiable results.

Nouche is a partner at Visualize, a sales and service business assisting companies in bridging the gap between marketing and sales while maximizing the effectiveness of their sales organizations and positively impacting the bottom line. Visualize leverages the ValueSelling Framework®, a formula-based sales process proven to drive long-term, consistent results. He works with companies such as Avaya, TELUS, Motorola, TheLadders.com, and Interwoven to name a few.

Prior to joining Visualize, Nouche rebuilt the sales and services organization for Amdocs Customer Management. He was an integral member of the leadership team responsible for the successful turnaround of his business unit growing sales by more than 250 percent. Leveraging the principles of ValueSelling he was able to increase license and maintenance sales. After taking responsibility for services, Nouche was able to increase services revenue by 76 percent and margins by over 43 percent.

Nouche also worked for Clarify and Nortel where he set records for driving growth in sales and service. During his tenure, he successfully established channel sales as a revenue source resulting in multi-million dollar sales growth. In addition to many successful sales campaigns, he built the financial services vertical and revitalized the enterprise business channel.

Nouche holds a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting with a concentration in Finance from Florida State University.