In 2002 Gregg Brents retired from his successful training and consulting firm. He wanted to finally get off the road and “grow up” with his two daughters. Fast forward to 2003, Gregg and his wife were invited by their 3rd grader to watch her class present their ‘animal presentations’ from note cards.

After the first few speakers Gregg immediately recognized the age old symptoms of ‘less than interesting’ presentations. Each child simply read straight from their cards; heads down, nervous voices with twitchy hands and legs. And a recurring question from years in the corporate world also haunted Gregg. Adults would constantly ask, “Why weren’t we taught these skills in school?”

The opportunity became apparent. Offer schools and students real world tangible skills. Skills and strategies to improve not only basic speaking competency in front of a group but to also begin building genuine confidence and poise in our children today, in every communication scenario.

Several irrefutable points became obvious:

• Children in all schools are speaking and presenting now
• The same skills he taught in the corporate and professional worlds apply to our children
• Both schools and teachers could benefit by preparing our children today for tomorrow
• Our teachers don’t possess the expertise and skills to train our children
   

Gregg immediately set up a meeting with the school’s headmaster to share his revelations. Within ten minutes of demonstrating one skill the head of school stopped Gregg and said, “I get it, let’s make this happen for our students.”

From that meeting Classroom Clout—“The Anatomy of Confidence” speaking skills system was born. Gregg created a progressive skills-layering approach that encourages mastery of one skill before moving to the next level. Classroom Clout is the only system designed to integrate into a school’s existing curriculum. C.L.O.U.T. personnel train teachers to model and coach one skill per year. The firm also offers Classroom Clout—“Mastering the Anatomy of Confidence”, an after school program taught by C.L.O.U.T. coaches. This program is an intensive 10-week course providing core confidence-building skills and strategies for communicating person to person and in front of different size groups.

The after school offering of Classroom Clout also trains students to present visuals via PowerPoint with greater credibility, provides strategies for eliminating those ‘uhs’, ‘uhms’, ‘like’ and ‘ya know’ and helps with admissions interviews.

Classroom Clout works! Students trained in just one skill have presented to a city agency and won a federal grant and been successful in fundraising events on behalf of their schools.

C.L.O.U.T. (Carter and Lydia Orators Under Training) is Gregg and his wife Jan’s tribute to their daughters, Carter and Lydia, and the connection between children and the need to train them today, early and often.


© 2007 C.L.O.U.T. LLC