Meet Dave Scallan | Principal

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dave Scallan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dave, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
After working as a television news reporter for 15 years I went to work for a Media Training company in Houston. The founder of the company passed away and the new president and I didn’t share the same vision for where the company should go moving forward. At the urging of several clients at the time I decided that was the right time for me to go out on my own and start Spoken Word Communications. Luckily, many of the clients followed me and our new agency was born.

What should our readers know about your business?
Spoken Word Communications is a global-leader in the field of Media Training, Presentations Training and Crisis Spokesperson Training. Our principal offices are in Houston but we also have offices in London and Singapore. To my knowledge, we are the only Communications Training firm in the world that focuses exclusively on the Oil & Gas, Chemical and Utility industries. Having the in-depth knowledge of those particular industries gives us a unique perspective when we work with our clients in those fields.

As you might imagine, working in those industries, we see a lot of extremely smart engineers come through our trainings. Over our 10 years in business we have developed a methodology to help people who don’t live in the “communications world” become more effective communicators. The feedback we get after the sessions is always great and all of our students are grateful for the strategies we give them to become better communicators.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I think our go-to restaurant when we have people visiting Houston is always Lupe Tortilla. You just can’t beat their beef fajitas. We are fortunate enough to be members at Royal Oaks Country Club so we spend a lot of time out there and enjoy hosting people at some of our wonderful facilities at the Club.

Of course, if we can it’s always great to go see the Astros beat up on some poor team at Minute Maid Park.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My former colleague, Ken Haseley taught me so much about what I know today. He once had a client tell him “you should teach a class on how to give feedback” and learning his methodology in giving feedback to clients has proved invaluable to me. He’s a pretty good sailboat captain as well

Website: www.spokenwordgroup.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spoken-word-communications

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Spokenwordgroup