When I tell people that I'm an accent reduction and public speaking coach, their first question is nearly always,

'What sort of people do you coach?'

Over 12 years of doing this, I've worked with hundreds of people; mostly individuals, some in groups.

And I've fielded enquiries from hundreds more who were curious about changing their accents or polishing their speaking skills, but who didn't go on to book a course with me (my door's always open, friends).

Several patterns have emerged - sure, everyone is different, but actually there a few types of people that I meet again and again.

Do any of these sound like you? Or someone you know?

There's some challenging ideas here for me as a practitioner of what I still call 'accent reduction' and sometimes 'elocution'

I’ve recently come back from my first trip to Northern Ireland, and I learned some things about the famous accent… especially when I tried to do it myself…

Results: why changing your speech habits isn’t like getting a nosejob