Interactive, Engaging & Impactful Programs

Keynote Presentations

Former MLB Pitcher, World Series Champ and New York Hall of Famer, Jim Mecir teams up with Improviser and Trainer, Ellen Schnur to help audiences take their professional skills to a whole new level with enhanced communication, collaborative team building and innovative creativity.

Ellen leads audiences to ditch fear, let go of judgment and seek new possibilities in every career role. Equipped with 25+ years in a corporate career and formal improv training from the highly acclaimed Second City, IO (formerly Improv Olympic) and many improv masters, Ellen successfully injects learning with energy, laughter and fun to produce immediate results.

Jim pitches powerful experiences of adversity, adaptability and resiliency that invigorate the core of work life. With a lifetime dedicated to overcome the challenges of being born with a clubfoot, Jim achieved his dream to be a Major League Baseball pitcher. Through Jim’s compelling stories and jaw dropping experiences, he inspires audiences to take time to integrate each other’s strengths and challenges in order to form successful teams and organizations.

Together, Ellen and Jim instill confidence, reignite creativity and open communication channels. Audiences leave equipped to help employees, teams, leaders, businesses and organizations work better together to achieve individual, team and company goals.

Keynote Topics

• Leadership
• Teamwork / Collaboration
• Innovation / Creativity
• Strike Out Adversity by Jim Mecir
• Improv for Professional Women by Ellen Schnur
• Special Requests are Welcome

Meeting Kickoffs

Be sure your audience is ready to listen, engage and learn! ImprovTalk will energize your small groups, medium-sized meetings or large conferences. The audience does a series of short engaging and interactive challenges that sharpen their listening skills and get them ready to embrace new ideas from the workshop and your speakers. Stories from the pitcher’s mound that relate directly to the audience make these kickoffs a home-run!

Custom Workshop Sessions

Looking to amplify your conference with interactive, energizing and productive workshops? ImprovTalk will have the audience laughing out loud while learning along the way.

No matter the topic, our customized workshop itinerary is designed to meet your specific needs, themes and goals.

“YES, AND,” The Communication Process of Champions  

Life is filled with curveballs. As business professionals, dealing with the unexpected is what we do all of the time, improvising as we go. Through interactive lessons, we stretch your range of behavior options to build your improvising muscles. Draw from your accumulated knowledge and life experience on the spot to handle any simple or difficult situation.

The Benefits Gained

• Enhance your emotional intelligence – build stronger connections.
• Become more resilient – some call it “grit.”
• Boost your communication skills to get your message across fast.
• Be your most authentic and powerful self, even in difficult situations.
• Think on your feet, even when 50,000 fans are screaming at you!
• Collaborate to innovate – “Yes, And!” is an amazing tool.

Are you ready to laugh a lot, have fun, and walk away with new tools and skills that are valuable in your work and home life?

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Leadership

Be the Leader You Are Meant to Be

Work out your leadership muscles with World Series winning pitcher, Jim Mecir and corporate manager turned improviser, Ellen Schnur. Benefit the entire organization when you strengthen your capacity to collaborate and innovate, build stronger relationships, and help solve problems more quickly and creatively.

ImprovTalk shares intriguing stories from the pitcher’s mound and walks you through interactive lessons that apply directly to your business. Learn how to apply new approaches and skills that effectively boost relationships and consensus building skills. Our powerful, fun and interactive activities (we promise, no PowerPoint tranquilizers) prepare you to lead today’s complex teams.

LESSONS FROM THE MOUND & STAGE

• Stay Focused
• Keep Calm
• Improve Communications
• Be the Problem Solver
• Let Everyone Share the Spotlight
• Resilience to Adversity
• Collaborate the Yes, And! way.

No matter which level of leader you are, ImprovTalk will elevate your leadership skills and style, fully impacting your organization.

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Team Building

Have you ever been part of an extraordinary team? If you have, you know how much fun and how motivating it can be. Creating strong teams can truly make an important difference in company performance, especially when different business units need to collaborate.

A Harvard study showed that the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more. How well individuals on a team build relationships and collaborate is becoming increasingly important.

Studies also show that sponsoring group events and activities can play a critical role in encouraging more of a communal spirit. Laughing together reduces stress, puts people more at ease and creates stronger connections.

In this fun and motivating workshop, through a series of challenges and stories from the mound, you and your team will experience the attributes of winning baseball and improv teams. They learn simple tools that they actually “try on” and bring back to the workplace. Here are just a few.

Lessons

• Know Thy Partner. It’s imperative to build a strong team.
• Make Others Look Like Rock Stars – instead of yourself.
• Practice Full Inclusivity. Everyone’s ideas are valued.
• Postpone Judgement, at least long enough for an idea to get some “air.”
• Disrupt. Step away from your “normal zones” and let the magic happen!
• Nonverbal Communication speaks louder than your words!
• Listen Intentively! Everyone knows when you don’t.
• Have Fun! If you are not having fun, who will?

Be the “Dream Team” who makes a strong impression and delivers productive results in your organization!

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Improv for Women – The “YES &” Adventure

“Every day, do at least one frightening thing that contributes to the fulfillment of your desires.” – Martha Beck

We all have goals that we want to achieve. Sometimes, those goals are lofty and require us to push past our “normal zone” to make the changes we really want to make. Perhaps it’s applying for a job, asking for a raise, giving a rockin’ presentation, or leaving a bad relationship.

When we find the courage to push past that zone, that is truly when the magic happens! In this workshop, we give you tools that help you take that leap, try that new thing, and take that risk!

We practice

• quieting our inner critic that doesn’t tell us the truth,
• getting past our fear of looking stupid and do it anyway, and
• being ourselves, even in uncomfortable situations.

All that and more in a safe, laughter-filled environment that encourages each of us to say “Yes, And” to (whatever) adventure you desire!

“What It Means to Lead.”
You can’t be brave until you’ve been really scared.
You can’t be courageous until you’ve faced those really big challenges.
You can’t be a leader until you know what it means to be powerless.”
– Ann McKee

Did you know that studies show women speak up to 75 percent less often than men when there are more men than women in the room? From an early age, we are trained to censor ourselves and control our impulses. For society as a whole, that is a good thing! But for many women, we have been conditioned to be “good girls,” not make waves and try to be liked (it’s actually an ancestral thing). Often, this stops many of us from doing things and from being ourselves when we are uncomfortable.

Women know how to have fun! If you’ve ever been to a girls weekend, or just out celebrating your best friend’s birthday, there was probably lots of laughter and sharing and just being yourselves and JUST BEING YOU!

Now imagine bringing that same “you” into the board room, or behind the podium, or even in a job interview. Scary, right? We try so hard to be perfect, to never make mistakes and to avoid failure at all costs. We develop a very loud inner critic that we believe is telling us the truth. But that voice, more often than not, is just trying to stop you from stepping out of your comfort zone. The fact is, most of the greatest successes come from taking risks and sometimes failing.

This workshop is for you if you want to do any of the following:

• Make a bold career move.
• Do something that scares you AND excites you.
• Feel more confident in uncomfortable situations.
• Stop feeling like you are too (fill in the blank… old, young, fat, etc.).
• Stop feeling “ less than.”
• Be able to think on your feet and embrace what comes.
• Tap into your inner wisdom and express your authentic self.
• Stop censoring yourself and confidently express yourself.
• Stop caring what others think so much.

My invitation to you… YES! Put together a group of women (minimum of 12, no maximum) or your book club or your women’s organization. I’ll work with you to put on a workshop where we practice, together, and you will all laugh a lot. AND! you will all be able to share these skills together in the future.

Step out of ‘normal,’ and take the leap. Try the new thing, and take the risk!

P.S. MANY people tell me they are too afraid to take this workshop and that they are not funny. This is NOT about being funny! It’s about becoming more comfortable being yourself in different situations and having some FUN! I promise that after we get started you will forget all about your fear of the workshop. I guarantee you will be glad you came!

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Improv for Sales Professionals

Improve the Experience on Both Sides

Do your clients leave your meetings feeling more important and confident that you can solve their problem? Is your sales staff empowered to make them feel that way?

You’ve trained your staff in all of the hard skills of their job, now build on their soft skills. Improvisers and athletes have to have all of these skills to win games and audiences, and this is your opportunity to experience how they do it!

In this workshop your sales staff will…

• Build stronger connections – strenghten your emotional intelligence.
• Look at objections as “offers” – BUILD on their suggestions.
• Be effective, no matter what happens – we call it “grit!”
• Have more fun in the sales process – your client will, too!
• Understand power dynamics – it will change the way you approach people.
• Focus on “how can I make the client look great?” instead of “how can I look great?”
• Listen with improv ears that can unlock ideas – often ones they didn’t know they had!
• Enhance their storytelling skills – tricks from the stage.

ImprovTalk is the perfect solution to allow your sales team the opportunity to “try on” new skills and practice new ways of connecting and communicating.

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Customer Service

GETTING CLOSER TO CUSTOMERS

Every day your customer service team is on the field, getting curve balls thrown at them and throwing pitches they hope will hit their mark. They may have scripts to follow, but the customers don’t, and they have to improvise. So why not sharpen their improvisation skills?

Whether they are working the front desk, on the phone, in a call center, or answering a billing question, strong interpersonal and communication skills are crucial. And that is what is at the heart of ImprovTalk training.

We help your team improve their customer service skills in a fun, interactive environment, providing tools and techniques to take back to the job. All of the learning points are enhanced by stories from the major leagues. Believe it or not, some of the same skills are key to the success of athletes, as well.

In this laughter filled workshop:

• Practice using non-verbal communication more effectively.
• Learn techniques to build trust with customers and co-workers.
• See how to make customers feel like rock stars.
• Understand how to be a better listener (and why it’s hard).
• Practice saying “yes, and” to get the customer what they need.
• And be able to think and adapt quickly.

You don’t need to be a sports fan or have aspirations for the stage. We help your staff make small shifts to make a bigger impact in a safe and fun environment.

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