In firms, information serves to make better decisions, to persuade, and to impress. We analyze how these motives shape incentives to acquire and communicate information in a cheap-talk model with information acquisition. The executive wants to inform an internal decision-maker regarding the value of an opportunity, but has an incentive to overstate this value to persuade or impress external parties. We show that information acquisition and communication interact. Impression and persuasion motives yield limited distortions in communication, if any. Instead, they reduce information acquisition. Furthermore, we find that transparency allows for influential communication to external parties, but constrains internal communication.