How do children build the confidence to have conversations that they may find challenging – ordering food in a restaurant, describing what’s wrong at the doctors?

How can parents and indeed all of us support children in speaking up in situations where it’s important for them to have a voice?

In today’s Podcast, I am speaking with Anthony Stears who is known as the Telephone Assassin, about how in the more technology driven world of today, we can encourage and help children to build Conversational Confidence so that they can advocate for themselves in all kinds of situations instead of staying silent or relying on adults to speak for them.

This is such an important topic we hope that everyone will listen and take something away from our conversation so that we all have more conversations with our children and that they in turn build conversational confidence.

About Anthony Stears

A published author and international speaker, Anthony Stears uses training to accelerate learning by bringing people back to powerful, human to human communication. He has fast become the go to person for telephone engagement,

helping companies improve both sales and service through real conversations—while building the confidence people need to speak clearly, calmly, and with purpose.

Anthony Stears is better known as “The Telephone Assassin” and he’s on a mission to get businesses talking again—replacing digital avoidance with confident, authentic conversations. As a conversational strategist, he helps clients get in front of more of their ideal customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones by showing them how to be more human, and ‘help their customers to buy’. Having made calls for a huge range of businesses, and while acting as sales or marketing manager for five companies simultaneously, Anthony realised that many others needed the confidence and structure to communicate effectively for themselves. Working closely with an NLP master trainer, he began teaching people to “fish for themselves,” combining his natural communication style with practical confidence building techniques—leading to the creation of the Telemarketing Masterclass.

Discovering just how many people feel uncomfortable or lack confidence when it comes to direct conversation—whether calling a prospect, delivering difficult news, or handling awkward customer situations—Anthony went on to develop a series of mini masterclasses designed to help people overcome fear, avoid rejection, get past gatekeepers, perfect their pitch, and build rapport fast by sounding confident rather than rehearsed.

Working with business owners, sales teams, account managers, and customer service departments, Anthony provides clear conversational frameworks, confidence boosting techniques for making calls, strong prospect management habits, practical closing approaches, and the often overlooked art of a meaningful follow up call. His focus is on helping people take control of their conversations and trust their ability to handle whatever comes next.

Engaging customers and prospects in the right, human way creates value for everyone involved—opening more opportunities and converting more enquiries into genuine relationships and sales. Anthony doesn’t teach people how to sell; he shows them how to help customers buy, with confidence, through conversation that connects.

Contact Anthony

To subscribe to the BAREFOOT MEDIATOR PODCAST series - please visit JaneGunn.co.uk/podcasts If you would like to download a COPY OF MY BOOK together with a series of FREE VIDEOS for managing in times of Change, Challenge and Crisis – please go to JaneGunn.co.uk/Video