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Executive Communication & Client Management

Move a busy, sceptical, senior room to a decision — and keep the client after the engagement ends.

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About this course

The third course in the Consulting Mastery sequence, and the one that decides whether any of the analysis is acted on. The first two courses taught you to turn a complaint into a question and the question into arithmetic that survives checking; this one teaches you to move a room of people who did not do the work — busy, sceptical, senior, and not obliged to agree with you — to a decision. It starts with the architecture of an argument: answer-first writing built for a reader who gives you ninety seconds standing up, the Pyramid Principle actually applied with its rules intact, the situation-complication-resolution storyline, and the one-page executive summary that is, for half your audience, the entire deliverable. Then the deck: one message per slide stated as an action title, charts that prove a sentence rather than decorate a page, honest axes, and the six-slide argument that survives your hour shrinking to twenty minutes. Then the room itself, in its Nigerian reality: the pre-wire that wins meetings before they start, presenting upward across age and title where deference to the person and challenge through the evidence must coexist, the meeting that ratifies rather than decides, resistance mapped person by person, the blocker who cannot say yes but can say no, bad news delivered plainly without ambush, and your own errors announced before anyone finds them. It closes with the writing that runs an engagement — updates, same-day notes, the paper trail that makes surprises impossible — and the pattern of expensive candour that converts a supplier into the trusted adviser who is called before the decision is made. The capstone is a complete communication pack for a real recommendation: the pyramid, the one-page summary, the six-slide deck described slide by slide, and the influence plan for a named, resistant room.

The analysis is finished and correct, and none of that has been communicated yet. Here is the working condition this course is built around: the person your work exists for — a managing director, a board member, a founder — will give your document ninety seconds before deciding whether it deserves more, reads standing up or between meetings, is sceptical because being sceptical is their job, and is paying for the privilege. Everything in the next twelve lessons follows from taking those four facts seriously instead of resenting them.

What you'll learn

Course syllabus — 12 lessons

  1. Your reader is busy, sceptical, and paying14 min
  2. The Pyramid Principle, actually applied16 min
  3. Storylining: situation, complication, resolution15 min
  4. The one-page executive summary: writing it15 min
  5. Slides: one message, an action title, and room to breathe15 min
  6. From a chart to a headline: making data speak15 min
  7. The pre-wire: meetings are won before they start15 min
  8. Hierarchy, age and title: presenting upward in a Nigerian boardroom16 min
  9. Resistance: the sceptics, the silent, and the blocker16 min
  10. Bad news, delivered well15 min
  11. Writing that runs the engagement: updates, minutes, and the paper trail14 min
  12. From consultant to trusted adviser15 min

Your project

A communication pack for one real recommendation, aimed at a named room

A written pack of roughly 1,100 to 1,800 words containing: the recommendation and the named room with its sponsor, decider, beneficiaries, losers and blocker; the one-page pyramid with the question each layer answers and one named cut; the full executive summary; the six-slide specification with its titles-only sequence test; the pre-wire plan covering three people and the blocker with objections diagnosed as genuine or costume; the exact bad-news words with the chosen room and reasoning, plus the two-sentence own-error correction; and the same-day meeting note and 90-day check-in message.

Certificates on Skillnaija are earned, not issued for attendance: you submit this project, it is graded against a rubric, and passing issues a certificate anyone can verify. See the full project brief, rubric and free workbook →

Frequently asked questions

Is Executive Communication & Client Management free?

Yes. Executive Communication & Client Management is completely free on Skillnaija. You need a free account to open the lessons, and there is no charge for the course, the project, or the certificate.

How long does Executive Communication & Client Management take to complete?

6 weeks · ~4 hrs/week. There are 12 lessons, about 3 hours of material in total. You learn at your own pace and your progress is saved.

Do I need any experience to start Executive Communication & Client Management?

Intermediate. Some prior grounding in the subject will help you move faster.

What will I learn in Executive Communication & Client Management?

You will build practical skills in Write answer-first for a reader who gives you ninety seconds, standing up, sceptically, Build a pyramid whose top line could be disagreed with, whose groups are MECE, and whose every layer answers the question the layer above provokes, Structure a deliverable as situation, complication and resolution, told at three depths that never disagree, Write a one-page executive summary whose first sentence carries the action, deadline, people and payoff, Put uncertainty in named conditions with numbers instead of hedged grammar, Design slides as single units of argument with action titles that reproduce the case when read alone, Turn data into evidence: write the sentence first, build the smallest honest exhibit that proves it, and source it, Pre-wire the sponsor, the sceptics and the blocker so the decision meeting confirms rather than fights, Present upward across age, title and seniority — deference to the person, challenge through the evidence, Map resistance by interest and influence, distinguish genuine objections from costume ones, and equip the beneficiaries as advocates, Deliver bad news plainly and early, with priced options, and announce your own errors before anyone finds them, Run the engagement on paper: weekly updates, named blockers, same-day notes, and decisions filed where they can be found in a year, Build the trusted-adviser pattern: expensive candour, closed loops, honest boundaries, and advice that ages itself. Every lesson is written for a Nigerian context, with examples drawn from how the work is actually done and paid for here.

Do I get a certificate for Executive Communication & Client Management?

Yes, but it has to be earned. You complete the course project — A communication pack for one real recommendation, aimed at a named room and submit it for grading. Passing the project issues a verifiable certificate; finishing the lessons alone does not.

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