TR Blog

Just how bad is the writing in corporate communications? Bad enough to make 120 major U.S. companies employing 8 million people spend more than $3 billion (with a b) annually for remedial writing training. According to a CollegeBoard survey of those companies, writing is a “threshold skill” for hiring and promoting professional employees. You can’t move in, or up, without

The Detroit skyline couldn’t have been more beautiful and the company couldn’t have been more fabulous on the rooftop of The Music Hall in downtown Detroit for Truscott Rossman’s Detroit “Wonderful Women” debut last night. Truscott Rossman held its first “Wonderful Women” event in Grand Rapids three years ago to thank the amazing women who helped us open doors, meet

There are a million ways communication missteps can make a crisis situation worse, but there are also some very specific strategies for doing it right. Tops on the list? Preparation. Have a plan and work the plan. Consider the response of the city of Grand Rapids when it faced an active shooting spree five years ago. It’s a classic example

2016 has marked two key milestones in Truscott Rossman’s growth. In January, the firm celebrated its 5-year anniversary since our principals, John Truscott and Kelly Rossman-McKinney, joined their firms together to form Truscott Rossman. Since that time, our firm has had the privilege to work on some of the most important issues facing this state. From advancing energy reform and

Crisis management is more important than ever in this era when people expect instant results or an immediate fix. Thanks to social media, a crisis situation can quickly get blown out of proportion or take on a whole new (undesired) aspect. How the first hours of a crisis are handled can determine the outcome – and the potential impact on

With presidential politics front and center in the media during a fluctuating stock market, it’s important to focus on what the electoral process means to the financial markets. I spent eight years in the banking industry, so a recent report by the Morgan Stanley Global Investment Committee – “Do Presidential Elections Impact Markets?” – caught my eye. The report found

The marketing folks at George Mason University recently got a painful reminder about the importance of due diligence in naming an entity, in this case a law school.   They learned – the hard way – that it pays to consider the acronym the new name creates. Acronyms are abbreviations that can be pronounced as a word, such as BOGO

Millions watched the Masters golf tournament last weekend and witnessed one of the greatest meltdowns in the tournament’s history. It was gut-wrenching.  Jordan Spieth, a 22-year-old phenom who has electrified the sports world, took a quadruple bogey (for you non-golfers, that’s a REALLY bad score) on the course’s shortest hole. Golf fans were stunned because Spieth was on track to

  Effective communication is our business here at Truscott Rossman, but it is critical to success in just about everything we do, from our personal and business relationships to our broader social interactions. I was recently reminded of that while serving on a criminal jury trial in Ingham Circuit Court. From the judge, to the attorneys, to the witnesses, all

Something happened recently that was rather routine yet remarkable. It was a networking event – something that occurs in Grand Rapids fairly regularly. Nearly 200 business, civic and municipal leaders gathered to meet new people, renew old friendships and tell a few stories. Nothing really new there. What was unique were the guests – they were all women. Mayors, CEOs,