In this Client Spotlight blog series, we’re honored to elevate the personal and professional stories of the diverse entrepreneurs, small business owners, and solo practitioners who call our spaces their own.
Have you always wanted to improve your communication skills? Is public speaking one of your biggest fears?
If you feel this way, you’ll enjoy getting to know DMH Consulting Group, the focus of this newest Client Spotlight profile.
DMH Consulting Group offers a presentation skills training course called Speaking With Impact for teams and individuals. The company also provides public speaking training for executives, speaker coaching, leadership coaching, and keynote speaking.
In addition to training and coaching, DMH Consulting also hosts Women Express, an inspirational podcast focused on women’s leadership trends and developing women’s voices in the workplace.
DMH Consulting currently is headquartered at Carr Workplaces Friendship Heights in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
We recently had the good fortune to sit down with DMH Consulting’s principals, Denise Harrington and Nia Harrington, to learn more about their organization, what inspires them, and why our Friendship Heights location has been such a good fit for the company.
DMH Consulting’s Origin Story
DMH Consulting is a mother-daughter company that originally got its start when Denise was delivering a speech at a business club in downtown Portland, Oregon, in 1992. She had just moved to Oregon from San Francisco, where she’d provided communication skills to a large corporation.
“After the presentation was over, one of my current clients walked up to me and asked me, ‘How come you’re not working with Nike?’” Denise shared. “I said, ‘How come I’m not?’ and the rest is history. In early August of that year, Nike gave me a call and asked if I would come in and train their marketing department. I’ve been a part of Nike’s family since, which is a total of 32 years. Nike was an early adopter of our programs. Intel was a big part of our beginning as well. It’s been an incredible journey.”
Denise and Nia, who is Denise’s daughter and serves as the Senior Director of Operations at DMH Consulting, have trained many employees at Nike over the last 32-year period, from executives and managers to retailers selling Nike’s shoes and apparel.
“My mom started working with them back in the 1990s,” Nia explained. “I was there but wasn’t working with them at that point when they were really starting to make a name for themselves and to take their marketing and advertising to the next level. My mom was brought in a lot of the time to help them with crisis communication and having tough conversations with the media.”
In addition to providing training for internal teams at Nike over the years, Nia and Denise also have worked with several of Nike’s athletes, including Tiger Woods and multiple Olympic athletes. Most recently within the last year, the team has worked with Ja Morant and Nike on crisis communication.
DMH Consulting’s Services
Founder and C.E.O. Denise’s experience also includes 30+ years of coaching C-suite executives, managers, and teams from Microsoft, Intuit, Kaiser Permanente, the N.B.A.’s Portland Trailblazers, and several other Fortune 500 companies.
“Nia and I provide our clients with presentation skills or communication skills,” Denise explained. “Why are we being specific about calling what we do communication? Because there are a lot of executive coaches out there and our focus is very specific on helping people understand how to talk to the press, how to do a main stage presentation, and even how to do podcasts. We have our own podcast, but we also can get you ready for that. What do you do when you have a TED talk? How do we develop a leader who now has to go from being a manager to a leader? They’re very different. Leaders inspire and motivate employees. Managers are more tactical and show people how to get their job done.”
According to Nia, DMH Consulting’s training consists of three parts. First, Denise and Nia or one of their coaches provide holistic feedback on the client’s delivery including nonverbal communication and body language.
From there, the DMH Consulting team works with the client to build stellar content, including great speaker notes. Thirdly, the client delivers a final presentation and receives direct feedback from one of the company’s professional coaches.
“Though public speaking is tough, we make it a really hands-on, fun activity,” Nia said. “You get feedback along the way so you’re really confident by the time you leave that you’ve learned new things and can present with confidence. We have two different training options. We offer a two-day in-person training and also a three-day virtual training.”
Why Carr Workplaces Friendship Heights?
“One of the reasons for being in the Carr Workplaces family is because of what is offered,” Denise shared. “I’ve been in this office since 2011. We need to have conference room space that allows our clients to get up, walk around, and feel what it’s like to take on the skill sets that we show them and engage the audience. The conference room spaces at Friendship Heights are perfect for that. We also have a beautiful office space that we can do our podcasts from and it’s a really great place. We have a wonderful view of Friendship Heights and Wisconsin Avenue.”
Denise noted that DMH Consulting at one point actually moved locations and was headquartered elsewhere for three years. Nia and Denise ultimately moved the company back to the Friendship Heights location in part because of the large meeting and conference rooms available on-site.
In our conversation, Denise and Nia also shared that the welcoming demeanor and flexibility of the Carr Workplaces Friendship Heights’ community management team has been instrumental in keeping the company headquartered there.
It’s worth noting that that Carr Workplaces provided Nia and Denise with some inspiration to start their podcast as well. A conversation with another client working at the Friendship Heights location was the impetus for creating Women Express, DMH Consulting podcast.
“We were doing a training for a client at the Friendship Heights center and Denise was saying hello to some of our friends in the hall,” Nia said. “In this conversation, she found out that one of the other clients at Carr Workplaces was working on building his first podcast with the help of his daughter. Our podcast, Women Express, had its origin here. The first three episodes were recorded right here at Friendship Heights.”
The Women Express podcast focuses on helping women find their voices and on teaching executives and their employees how to communicate more effectively.
“One of the biggest things about being a woman in business today is being able to not only get a seat at the table but also figuring out what to say when you get to the table,” Denise said. “How do you get your voice heard when you’re at the table? How do you even allow your voice to stand up and make change? Our podcast is a really great tool for getting our message out there, certainly, but also for getting women’s messages out there — because I believe that if given the opportunity, women can change the world.”
DMH Consulting will be offering a public workshop at Carr Workplaces Friendship Heights several times in the coming months. To learn more, contact DMH Consulting at [email protected] or (301) 986-1381.
To learn more about DMH Consulting, visit https://speakingwithimpact.com.
To discover all that Carr Workplaces Friendship Heights has to offer you and your business, schedule a free tour or call (866) 983-5785.
Ready to explore our Friendship Heights location? Check out “Meet Us At Carr Workplaces Friendship Heights In Chevy Chase, Maryland.”
