Speak Simple is a dynamic presentation coaching company based in New Orleans that assists technical professionals to improve their presentations and help them to better connect with their clients. The idea for the company started in 2011 when Erica Olson’s husband complained about professionals talking over their client’s heads and talking in a mixed code of jargon, acronyms, and buzzwords. Erica saw the need for these highly trained, technical professionals to understand how to speak simpler so their clients could understand and connect with them, thus Speak Simple was born.

Erica Olson – President & Founder

Erica is a professional speaker, interpreter, and presentation coach that helps her clients become comfortable when presenting and relate with their audience. Before founding Speak Simple, she crafted her skills working with Audubon Zoo’s Outreach Education programs including Zoomobile and Wetlands Express. Over her five years working with the zoo, she gave over a thousand presentations to audiences ranging from toddlers to retirees and everything in between. Erica is an expert when it comes to simplifying complex terminology and technical lingo. She learned the do’s and don’ts of presentations not only by doing, but by coaching youth and adult volunteers as they shared their animal knowledge to zoo visitors and audience members.

Erica’s company, Speak Simple, works with professionals, in particular, technical professionals like engineers, doctors, constructors, marketers, and technology experts to ensure they are understood by their prospects and clients and win more work through presentations using her proprietary S-I-M-P-L-E training method.

Erica completed her first book entitled, Speak Simple – The Art of Simplifying Technical Presentations, in December of 2013, and launched her self-guided presentation course, SpeakU, in 2015.

Over the past 5 years, Erica has helped numerous clients to win millions of dollars in new work via bid presentations, thought leadership presentations, and increased keynote speaker fees.

Erica is a lifetime resident of the New Orleans area and a graduate of the University of New Orleans (UNO). When she is not blogging about presentations, she enjoys gardening, “greening” her house, and spending time with her husband, daughters, and husky. She has a bit of an obsession with hawks and owls, but no worries, she makes it very interesting and simple.