The class on improving time management looked as if it would be a smart idea at first. You had every employee attend, and now months down the line schedule slippages are worse than ever. What is the problem? Could it be because your concept of how training works is outdated? According to this oversimplified view, training works like a magic potion. With this uncomplicated perspective, by attending training classes, desirable results for your company will come about automatically. Similarly, on this view, by enrolling workers in an online class and giving them access to computers for learning, it is thought that you will see gains in your workplace.

How training leads to a great business outcome on this view can be shown like this:

Trainee Attendance >> Business Results

The arrows show this idea of how an employee attending a well-designed and implemented training event creates the improved business results. Some possible outcomes for the business could be less time for a product or service to make it to market, a decrease in customer complaints, or an increase in customer loyalty, to name a few examples.

This is your preferred perspective if you view training as primarily telling workers “what and how.” Managers that behave from this viewpoint are mainly concerned with the “content” of the program. As they choose a program, they concentrate solely on the information that their workers will be provided.

You can compare this approach to seeing your trainees as pieces of hardware or robots. With this approach, training people works the same way as with programming a machine: an employee is led to the programming area, the brand new instructions are “programmed” for the employee, and the employee then returns to their task at hand.

You may not even realize that you view your employees as machinery, waiting to be instructed.

Read More

Speaking (either at other people’s events or your own) is a great way to build your business. Not only is it a good way to showcase what you do, but it also builds awareness of your business and increases your reputation. You can also sell from the back of the room or collect the names and contact details of the people you’re speaking to, to contact them later. 

But how do you get started on the speaking circuit? 

Well, the first thing you need to do is to start attending the events that you’d like to speak at. Before you approach the organisers, you’ll need to go along, find out what happens at the event and get to know the format. Once you’re comfortable with knowing what goes on, then you can talk to the organisers and ask them if you can speak. 

Now most events are desperate for good quality speakers, so if you ask nicely and they have regular speakers at the event, chances are they’ll snap you up. You might not been speaking for a while if they already have speakers for some of their events, but once you’re in the diary, your first task is accomplished. 

Don’t forget to contact the organiser and send them over some information about your business plus a photo so that they can promote the event for you. Check where the venue is and what equipment will be available. 

Nearer the time, your next job will be to prepare for your talk. At this point, it’s vital that you think about what your objective is for your talk. Is it to share your expertise; gather contacts or sell at the event?  

One of the reasons why people are disappointed by the lack of customers they get following a speaking event is that they don’t have any objective in mind for speaking – if you know what you want to get out of it and try to accomplish that goal when you speak, you’ll be much more likely to get the results you’re looking for. 

Read More

Ah referrals from business contacts – the one thing most small business owners would like more of. Why then, doesn’t it happen as much as most people would like? I have a theory and it goes somewhere along the following lines: 

“Two business owners meet at a networking event. Their businesses compliment each other so they touch base after the event and they talk about how they could refer business to one another. But, after they put the phone down, they never talk again.” 

I’ve lost count of how many times the above scenario has happened to me. So, why is it that both businesses agree that referring customers to each other would be a good thing, but it doesn’t actually happen?  

Well, my theory is two-fold: 

Firstly, I believe that the reason small business owners don’t refer to one another is that it’s hard work getting a customer. And if a customer requests something that you can possibly do yourself, you’ll keep the work instead of farming it out to someone who might be better placed to help them. 

The second part of my theory is that even if you can’t do the work yourself, you’re only going to refer the customer to someone you know, like and trust and have built up a good relationship with. Let’s face it, why would you refer a customer to someone you’ve only met once or twice at a networking event? 

How do you get around this? 

Well, if you really want referrals, you need to be thinking about how to build a relationship up with that person and then you need to work at it so that they feel comfortable about working with you and referring their customers over to you. 

Read More

For many small companies, the thought of doing marketing could definitely be classed as hard work! Where do you start? What should you do? Have you got enough time to do it? 

So the thought of using a marketing company to do the work for them sounds like the best answer in the world. Here are my top tips to getting it right: 

1. Be very clear on what you want the marketing company to do for you – is it telemarketing; is it developing your website; is it creating a brand? Too often, client will say “we just want more customers”, but that involves marketing and selling – what do you want the marketing company to do?
2. Make sure that you or your marketing company put in place a structure to have regular catch up sessions where you can make sure everything is working for you or voice any concerns. Working well with a marketing company is all about developing that relationship.
3. Don’t forget to give marketing a chance with your marketing company – marketing often takes a while to work. Having said that, make sure that you give it chance to work within reason, bearing in mind point 4 below.
4. Test and measure. What I mean by this is monitor what is happening with your marketing company and if what you’re expecting to happen doesn’t happen, stop using them. I have known people to be very unhappy with the company they’ve been using from very early on in the relationship and yet they’re still using them 15 months later! If it isn’t working (after a trial period) then stop.
5. Get references and testimonials. Check out the marketing company you’re planning to use before you use them. Find out who they’ve worked for and what the results were.

Read More

An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive business advantage…Jack Welch, former chairman, GE

No technology in history has grown as quickly as the Internet. Backbone bandwidth demand has been doubling, not every 18 months as with Moore’s law but every 3.5 months. That’s a 10X growth or 1,000% a year. The increased bandwidth is also fostering social media as well as video technology and applications to expand almost as quickly.

With it has come a complete change in who we communicate with, the way we communicate with them. It has also changed how we work and how long we work. While life in Silicon Valley is akin to working at the edge of disaster, we like to believe that the rest of the country – in fact the globe – is in much the same state of chaos.

Education Environment Has Changed
When we went to college eons ago, we sat in a classroom, listened to the instructor, took copious notes and regurgitated the information on a test. With two degrees we set forth to conquer and change the world. Unfortunately we didn’t change the world. Technology changed the world. The rapid changes in technology are so prolific that it has forced us to become lifelong learners. Rather than rigidly structured process learning is becoming a self-directed process.

There has been more information produced in the last 5 years than during the previous 5,000. A weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come in contact with in the last century in his or her lifetime. The change has been the Internet/Web as well as the value of and our use information.

Read More

Wouldn’t it be great if our bodies could diagnose and fix themselves so we wouldn’t have to worry about going to the dentist, or visiting the doctor and you’d never fall foul of the usual round of cold and flu viruses that magically appear at this time of year? 

Unfortunately, there isn’t yet a Matrix style programme that we can download into heads to sort out our health. And yet most of us, if we stopped to listen to our bodies and took some simple measures, could actually prevent a lot of the illnesses we have. 

Ok so you’re rushing around trying to meet with clients, grabbing a quick lunch and preparing an important presentation, but a small amount of time spent on yourself and the welfare of your staff could pay dividends in the future. It’s one of those investments that we should make but often don’t to our cost. 

Healthy Environment
Providing a healthy environment for you and your staff is vital to help reduce accidents and keeping people safe. It everyone’s responsibility to ensure not only that their working area is tidy but that their equipment is up to scratch. It’s also good to check they are sitting in the correct positions and are following the correct guidelines when using equipment. However, as their boss, it’s up to you to make sure they are aware of their responsibilities and that all new staff are given adequate guidelines and the appropriate training.  

Reduce Stress
A tense environment can quickly escalate causing staff to burn out and is one of the main factors why people fall ill. They may even end up leaving if this pattern keeps repeating itself, and in extreme cases this can result in staff taking their employer to court. Using humour in the workplace can foster wellness, improve stress management and increase productivity and morale.

Read More

How many business cards have you gathered since you’ve been in business? I’ve seen business owners with hundreds if not thousands of business cards stored in card boxes, in jacket pockets, stapled to diaries and contact details scribbled on bits of paper. 

Are you the same? Do you have hundreds of business cards lying around in various places?  

I’d like you to ask yourself a question…how effective are these business cards for you at the moment? 

A few years ago, I was in the same situation. I had piles of business cards. In fact, I remember I had to go out and buy two more business card boxes because I just did not have the space to hold them all. 

But I didn’t actually do anything with them. They were just sat there looking at me.  

Occasionally, if someone asked me for some contact details, I’d go through them quickly to find the right person, but rarely found the card I was looking for. 

Then I began to realise the power of contacting past contacts and it dawned on me that I would actually need to do something about my business cards. So, I painstakingly sat there and typed them all out onto a database on excel. 

Just putting these contacts somewhere made it possible for me to do something with them. For instance, I could: 

• Touch base with these contacts to find out how they were getting on.
• Make notes and colour code excel to show what was happening with each person.
• Find people quickly and easily.
• Produce reports and statistics if I needed to. 

The most important difference though was that I was able to follow up with people and start to build a relationship with them. Because I could touch base with people properly, I found it had a dramatic difference on my business and got me new customers. 

Read More

I see many organizations, both large and small, continue to communicate fragments of important policies and processes to employees through one-time emails and the like. This could include a new purchase authorization policy or a new data entry procedure. Expecting employees to forage through past emails and other transitory type documents only leads to wasted time and exasperation.

Process clarity is one of the three key foci in effective organizational design, along with people and technology. Yet with the haphazard process management common in many businesses, it is little wonder that employees struggle to do a good job. How an invoice is processed, customer complaint handled or engineering drawing approved in many organizations depends more on who does it and what day of the week it was done on rather than on sound business reasoning. Where process and role clarity is lacking, personal idiosyncrasies and political maneuvering take over.

Moreover, research indicates that less than 20 percent of product defects and service problems are due to non-random factors, such as malicious employees, machine breakdown and poor raw materials. The other 80 percent or more of problems is due to systemic deficiencies with processes. So, although mapping your business processes is relatively simple to do and involves no costly capital expenditure, it pays huge dividends in business efficiency and employee commitment. If you are thinking about mapping your processes, here are ten key pointers to keep in mind.

1. Involve employees who actually do the work in the mapping

Employees who do the actual work are in the best position to know the detailed steps in each process. They are also most familiar with the common roadblocks and bottlenecks and the key contacts in the organization to get things done. Involve your employees up front by inviting them to join process-mapping teams.

Read More

Are you looking for a change in your life? Do you feel that you’ve stopped growing as a person? Do you feel that your life and career have stagnated and you’re ready to take them to the next level? Are you dissatisfied with your current position and eager to advance to a happier and more prosperous position?

The only way to survive and rise to the top of the successful career ladder in today’s economic conditions is to become a wise, effective, and unmatched professional who cannot be replaced or laid off. You must be indispensable! You must be independent, in control, and able to find and attract the best possible position for your skill set-so that even if you ARE laid off, you can still fight your way back to success. And the only way to achieve all of that is to CHANGE.

Let’s face it – we all need to change and improve our lives for the better in one way or another. Most people do try their best to improve their lives so that they can have all the things they dream of for themselves and their families. But the fact is that very few people follow the right approach to real change. Some try to develop new habits, some quit their jobs and start their own businesses, some go back to school, some relocate to other countries where they can find higher salaries and better positions.

You might have noticed, however, that although everyone tries to change, only a select few actually succeed in that endeavor and are able to make significant changes and improvements in their lives. Those few lucky people seem to possess some hidden secrets that allow them to effortlessly advance and reach higher levels of success.

Read More

Why not take some time this year during the quiet days after Christmas to identify what you really want to achieve in 2009? Make it real, concrete, achievable and imagine what it will be like this time next year knowing you have achieved these goals. Use the following points as a way to get ready for a brilliant 2009.

1. Acknowledge the previous year’s achievements: So few of us take the time to acknowledge and amaze ourselves at how much we have done over the previous 12 months. Take the time to write down what you are proud of, how you have grown, what you have learned, and then read it over. Surprise yourself!
2. Fewer Goals: Only choose 3-5 goals at the most. If you feel as though there are so many areas of your life where you want to set goals, fine. You can focus on the other areas next year. Choose 3-5 areas where you want to set goals. This is setting yourself up for success.
3. Make it specific: It’s not much good saying you want to lose weight. If you lost one pound over the year, you have met that goal! No, make it specific (e.g.,  I want to lose 15 lbs and add a deadline.
4. Benefits of achieving this goal: You need to write down at least three benefits of achieving this goal. Keep it near you so that when you falter, this will keep you going.
5. Failure is not an option. It’s inevitable.  A Japanese proverb says: “Fall down seven times; stand up eight times.” Of course you are going to slip, make mistakes and not always do what you want. Accept that as the reality. Then, ask yourself how you are going to get back on track. Don’t waste time on beating yourself up, it’s pointless, and will not get you to your goal any quicker. 
6. Write them down, write them down, write them down.

Read More

Yep, folks, it’s that time again – a time to set resolutions which we seem to assume we won’t keep, a time to think about really getting the job of our dreams. Here are some ideas/steps for making 2009 the best year of your career. So, why not take 2-3 hours to think about how you can make 2009 the year of your career. 

Acknowledge the Accomplishments of 2008

Begin by reviewing what really worked for you in 2008. What were your triumphs? What did you do that you were really proud of? Did you get a new account? Increase your sales? Streamline the systems in your job? What did you enjoy doing during the year? Identify the parts of the job that you really got a buzz out of. Write them all down. The chances are you will begin to remember triumphs and achievements that you had forgotten. Acknowledge them. Even if you think you had no triumphs–you survived without getting fired–that counts, as well.

        
Identify Your Strengths – Know What You are Good At

What do you do really well? What do you do so well that it’s effortless for you and you assume any plonker could do it? What do other people give you really positive feedback on? These are some keys to your strengths. Another useful way to identify your own strengths is to take some of the psychometric tests available. Some of the better known ones are: DISC, Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram. Do a google for any of them, and you should be able to do one online free or for a reasonable price. Self-knowledge is a key component of finding your dream career. Knowing what you are not so good at is useful, as well.

Where Can You Contribute? Make the Present Better

Given that it’s unlikely that you will have an invite on Monday morning to your new job, what can you do in the meantime to improve your contribution to your current position.

Read More

Microsoft PowerPoint is the software of choice for many when it comes to making a presentation before students, employees, project team members and the like. As with other similar presentation packages, it offers many useful features and functions. The downside is that in all too many presentations, the technology takes center stage, shunting the presenter to the role of supporting act. We have all witnessed presentations that seemed designed to help us catch up on our sleep and others that were a whirlwind, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

Over the years of witnessing hundreds of presentations, I have seen my fair share of yawn promoters and storms in teacups. As a professional trainer, I thought: Why not condense the most common errors that I have seen and draw some useful lessons from which we can all benefit? Here are my top seven PowerPoint annoyances and what we can learn from each of these to improve our own performance.

1. Not telling the participants the purpose of the session

You know the kind of presentation I am talking about. From one slide to the next, you have little to no idea of where the presentation is going. You wonder whether you should even have turned up. Eliminate the guessing game by letting your audience know up front the purpose of your session and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Overdosing participants with information

Novice presenters often suffer the illusion that some content is good, so more is better. With this mindset, these presenters cram as much as possible onto each slide, filling it with font sizes as small as 10 point. Help your participants avoid eye strain and to stay interested by using plenty of white space and font sizes large enough to read from the back row. Add to your slides tables, charts and other graphics that will aid understanding your message.

3.

Read More

A lot of people think summer is slow and not the time to focus on their websites.

So many people are out of town, some businesses slow down. Not to mention we all have concerns about the economy right now.

I want to propose a different perspective.

1. People are sticking closer to home because of high gas prices. You’ve all heard the term “Staycation” thrown around by the media. If you watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart you heard John Hodgeman (the PC guy from the commercials) create his own new word for the “stick closer to home because gas is way too expensive” phenomenon: “Holistays”.

No matter what you call it, people are sticking closer to home. People are shopping online even more.

It’s a great time to offer a shipping special. With the cost of shipping going up, again due to the cost of a gas, a shipping special is much appreciated right now.

You can tap into this situation by playing it up. Just as The Daily Show created a segment that was funny and garnered a lot of attention; you can find a way to make the current situation work in your favor.

2. If things are a little slow, it is actually the perfect time to devote some of your time to your website.

It is suggested that you review your website and refresh it at least once a year. Just a handful of suggestions for you:

• Now is a good time to check the links and pages within your site and make sure everything is in working order. Get rid of those pesky 404 errors from broken links.
• You could also come up with a summer special.
• Jazz up the site.
• Add some testimonials.
• Look at your web stats and see if you can increase conversions.

3. Now is when you absolutely must start focusing on your upcoming holiday campaigns.

Read More

Sometimes delays are important, but if you’re not adding value, then it is not good.

Some level of friction and delay are prevalent in virtually every business. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, they are not automatically bad things. There are times when deliberately slowing down (introducing delay to) an activity is the right thing to do. But where they are a result of poorly evolved processes, lack of training or resources, or lack of knowledge – it’s time to take action and remove them from your life!

How can we define Friction and Delay? Friction is whatever gets in the way of a smooth and uninterrupted flow of events. Think of sliding along a bench covered in sandpaper versus one covered with oil. Delay is adding time without adding value.

High levels of these in any business are expensive, leading to lower productivity, and higher costs.

Why do businesses tolerate these levels of friction and delay??

They are considered a cost of doing business.
Many business owners don’t know or realize that there is another way of doing things – a way that could really improve their business

The business suffers from inertia when it comes to improvements.
Inefficiencies cause significantly lower productivity as employees create workarounds to get the job done. Over time, the workarounds become the accepted process, and the opportunity for taking action on the source of the problem is forgotten

Too much time is wasted on dealing with the symptoms.
Many owners spend tremendous time and energy dealing with the results of delay and friction in their organizations without striking at the cause of the problems

Read More

In September 2006 (for reasons too long to explain here), I had no internet or email access for 26 days. We all know how much we rely on these for running our business (and our lives), but it’s not until it’s actually taken away from you for an extended period that you realize the full extent of your dependence.

Needless to say for the first 2 weeks I was feeling very pressured about my inability to respond to client enquiries, communicate with people and generally get things done.

But what I did discover very quickly was how much actual work I was getting done because I didn’t have the email or internet to distract me! In fact, by the time 3 weeks had passed, I was really enjoying my extra freedom – yes freedom.

This experience truly opened my eyes to my own inefficiencies. Once you get over the feeling of being out of control you realize that you are actually very much in control. In today’s world we’re led to believe that we always need to be accessible – to our clients, our suppliers, family and friends. Not so. By choosing to control how frequently we communicate, and at what time, we put ourselves in the driver’s seat.

So now that I am back on line, I’ve made some significant changes. I would highly recommend them to anyone, particularly if you are strapped for time.

Turn off automatic send/receive on your email program

I used to have Outlook set up so it would check for new emails every 10 minutes. Really, I was just asking to be distracted. To turn this off (in Outlook) click on Tools, Mail Set Up, Send/Receive. Then uncheck the box “schedule an automatic send/receive every x minutes”. Now you can decide when you want to read your emails.

Download emails no more than 3 times per day (2 is even better)

Read More

People’s lives today are jam-packed with great projects, ideas, to-do lists, errands, things we should do, things we could do, duties and obligations. No surprise then, that many of us feel we barely have time to do the things we have to do (or think we have to do), let alone spare time for fitting in anything extra.

Why do we insist on keeping ourselves so busy? We have trained ourselves to believe that to be busy improves our chances of success in this world. The “no pain, no gain” mentality. Also, our minds love to be active. For many high achieving types, taking “mental time out” is tantamount to laziness!

Being busy is not necessarily a bad thing – often we accomplish a lot in our busy lives. But when we get to a point where the level of activity is running our lives, it’s time to take some action! Ask yourself:

Why do I choose to take on all the things I do? Do I really understand what is driving these choices? What are the things I can’t do that I would like to, because I am too busy?

Enter the simplification process. It sounds deceptively easy but the reality is usually different. It’s hard to let go of things that you have invested time, money and emotions into.

I suggest people look at 3 areas:

Firstly, stop doing things – just stop. Pick 2 or 3 activities (like projects, committee memberships or DIY home activities) and decide not to do them. That’s the first big step.

Second, examine all the great ideas you have in your head – the things you keep thinking about that take up mental space (financial goals that have yet to come true, becoming a size ten, pipe dreams). You’ve done OK in your life without those things so far, and chances are that you’ll continue to survive. Give them up.

Third, reduce or eliminate your errands.

Read More

Procrastination happens to the best of us. And we rationalise our action (or lack of action in this case) in so many ways.

The harsh reality is that procrastination is just a nice way of saying avoidance. Why do we avoid things? Simple – because we don’t enjoy them, or because they take us out of our comfort zone.

So instead of succumbing to the dreaded beast – try these tips for getting over the procrastination hurdle:

1. Be honest about why you are avoiding the activity. Is it fear, is it that you don’t get on with someone, is it because you have to deliver bad news and you’re not sure how to go about it?

2. Commit to doing it at a certain time. I usually do the things I like to avoid in the morning, so they are out of the way.

3. Prepare! If you need to write yourself a script, do it. If you need to have absolute quiet, switch off the phones for a couple of hours. Whatever it takes – set yourself up for success.

4. Just do it!

5. Reward yourself when you are finished – but only when you are finished. I reward myself by going out for coffee afterwards, or taking a break.

6. Appreciate the feeling of getting something done that would normally sit in your in-tray for ages.

7. Consider whether you should actually be doing this job. There are some things that we just aren’t suited to, or that we don’t have the expertise for. If the things you avoid fall into this category, consider outsourcing them to an expert.

Read More

All organizations run projects from time to time. Yet more than half of all projects started fail their objectives. Why is this so? Read this article to discover ten things you can do to improve the chances of success with your project.

Read More

GOAL SETTING

PART TWO

BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND:
Are you a goal setter? If you are not I hope you will be after you read this. Did you know that it is a proven fact that if you set a reasonable goal and read it two times a day that it is almost impossible that you will not accomplish your goal. If it is that simple why don’t we all do it? Well, who ever taught us how to do it? We have all set “NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS”. That is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about VISUALIZATION. I am talking about doing something about it not just resolving to do something about it.

GOAL SETTING – WHY DO IT:
Well first let me just give you a couple of examples to inspire you on. Several years ago there was an East German ice skater practicing at the Olympics. The lights went out and when they came back on SHE WAS STILL SKATING. Everyone asked her how she was able to skate in the dark. She said the lights made no difference to her. She and so VISUALIZED her routine in her mind that she could do it with the lights on or with the lights off. She knew every move perfect. Every time to start and stop, to slow and speed up. She could skate the routine best in her mind. That changed the entire Olympic world. After that they began to study the East German teams and realized that is why they were all winning so many gold metals. Remember that? WHY? Because they used visualization. They did it in their minds before they ever did it on the field.

Another example: In 1957 they took a survey of the graduating class at Yale University. One of the questions they ask in the survey was if they had written goals. Only 3% of the class said that they had written goals. They then looked up the surviving members of that graduating class 20 years later. Guess what.

Read More

Recently, I received an announcement regarding a symposium for mid-career professionals on “Moving Up the Ladder.” Priced at $2,500, the three-day course was sponsored by a nationally respected business school.

Rather than tie up three days, here’s a 15-minute short course. First, the Executive Summary … Someone stole the ladder.

Today’s organizations are struggling to survive in fiercely competitive global markets. They’re restructuring, outsourcing, re-engineering, downsizing, subcontracting and forming alliances with friends … and enemies.

The plugged-in, turned-on Internet-driven marketplace has issued new mandates to every organization to make dramatic, sometimes drastic, changes. Successful firms find they need to be lean, agile and quick to respond. The result has been a leveling of the corporate structure. Middle management layoffs don’t even make the news any more. The thousands who find themselves suddenly without jobs wonder what the *&%$# happened.

Companies Struggle to Survive

What happened was, we changed the way we do business, and firms must adapt to survive. Companies around the globe are eliminating excess
baggage … abandoning bureaucratic practices … dramatically reducing the amount of time it takes to get things done. Organizations that don’t or won’t accelerate their change will disappear … many already have.

The same is true for business professionals at every level who work in this Information Age. Forget about moving up the corporate ladder. Focus on making you your career. The truth is, no one owes you or guarantees pay increases, promotions, a job or even a career future.

In 1995, one in five American employees had been with their employer less than a year. Two out of three, less than five years.

Read More