Hands putting puzzle pieces together. Copyright: siraanamwong / 123RF Stock Photo
Speaker. Story. Slides. Success.
It all started with a lousy speech. Our founder, Will Carlin, was the keynote speaker at an awards dinner, and when he got up to speak, he realized he didn’t know what to do. It went badly.
Determined to never let it happen again, Will started watching videotapes of great speakers. He read books and articles about great speaking technique. And he began to catalog what he learned.
Turning his attention to content, he became curious about how almost any subject could be made compelling. Before it became a buzzword, Will realized that great presentations used storytelling. He studied the elements of great stories and how storytellers brought them alive.
Finally, there was PowerPoint. Too often, presentation slides seemed to hurt rather than help. But great presentations often had stunning slides. Will took design classes and even became a designer for a while to learn techniques that made slides work.
After almost a decade of study, Will read over 200 books (not only on presentations, but also on design and storytelling) and watched nearly a thousand presentations. He codified that learning into the methodology that Speakable uses today to create winning presentations and train speakers to excel.
The Speakable system has been remarkably successful in helping individuals and organizations win. Our clients have a near-perfect record in high stakes presentations, and they leave audiences captivated.
Let us help you captivate yours.
“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.”
Staff
FOUNDER / CEO
Will Carlin
Will is the former co-Managing Partner of VShift, an interactive marketing firm that specialized in helping organizations present themselves like top tier brands, Managing Director for OgilvyInteractive where he was responsible for overseeing all of its New York operations, and Managing Partner for the New York office of marchFIRST, a $200-million, 500-person operation.
In the past five years, 46 out of 46 clients coached by Will have won or achieved their goals, often against extreme odds. He has coached NYU Wagner to two national titles and three second place finishes in five years at a national graduate school presentation competition, he has coached a start-up to win a national venture capital competition with a $500k first prize (over almost 300 competitors), and he has helped an organization go from fourth place prior to oral presentations to winning a $450 million pitch to the City of New York over Accenture, Oracle and IBM.
Education
COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL
MBA, 1993
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Post-grad advanced pre-med program, 1987
YALE UNIVERSITY
BA, Psychology, 1985
Highlights
- Managing Partner at three different marketing/advertising agencies.
- Coached NYU Wagner to two national public speaking titles, three runners-up in five years.
- Two-time US #1 and National Champion in Squash, 1990, 1995.
- World-renowned MC for four major professional squash titles