Archive for the ‘Leadership’ category

Does your sales team need a service?

By David Foster, Sales Trainer and Coach

So, lets start off with a bit of an analogy, for instance the purchase of a new car… 

You spend some money (maybe a lot) and invest in a car to help you do your job. I expect, like me that you want and need to keep it running well by keeping it serviced and maintained. If you don’t maintain it, it could well let you down, usually at a crucial time: Perhaps that first visit to a potential big new client that you’ve been chasing for ages! Anyway, you don’t want it to let you down at a crucial time so you keep it maintained, serviced and updated (these days with the latest software) to keep it running smoothly and efficiently.

So, if your car needs to support you and helps you do your job.. what about your sales team? What maintenance or support do you provide for them? Do they need a service or an update?

» Read more: Sales Training should be seen as a reward, not a punishment

By David Foster, Sales Trainer and Coach

I am always amazed at the attitude that some businesses have to Sales Training. It seems that the sales profession and those working in it are seen as maybe a non-essential / non valued role and that sales will come in automatically. Maybe they are seen as just order takers and not order creators?  But I would like to challenge this possible misconception.

» Read more: Sales Training: Why bother? We’re doing ok, aren’t we?

How to build better Customer Relationships

I was asked to take part in a panel discussion recently where the key theme was “Being Better at Business”. My focus for the session was how to be better at Customer Relationships. It was a subject that caught the imagination of the participants at the time so I thought that it would be worth creating a blog post on the same subject.

So here goes; 5 Ways to be better at Customer Relationships;

» Read more: Five ways to be better at Customer Relationships

Networking is mostly about connecting with people and building effective relationships with them and since any business is reliant on connecting with people, even on-line businesses, this is a crucial subject for any entrepreneur and business owner to focus on.

If you’re short on time to read the full article, here’s some tips to help you get the most out of your next networking opportunity;

» Read more: The art of Networking – connecting with people

Emotional Intelligence and you

Emotional intelligence (EI) is our ability to understand and manage emotions in ourselves and in others. EI is a major factor in your personal and professional perceptions and interactions and is now becoming a more preferred method for evaluating employee credentials than simply looking at their IQ.

» Read more: Emotional Intelligence and what it can mean for you

In today’s competitive markets, business executive are put under an increasing amount of pressure. With so many key responsibilities and areas to manage, it leaves them with very little time and energy to devote to developing themselves as leaders and creating best management practices.

Something that is becoming increasingly more popular as a way of allowing individuals to take the step towards bettering themselves and their companies is executive coaching. Here we will provide an explanation of executive coaching and what it can do for you as a leader.

» Read more: What Executive Coaching can do for you

I’ve written a few posts over the years Evaluating Meetings, Planning a meeting using PPO and Leading Meetings Effectively. Meetings are a fundamental part of business life, whether you are a small company or a large international organisation, meetings are intended as a way of communicating, sharing information, decision making and as a vehicle for perhaps delegating tasks that need to be done. This post is meant to go some way to answer the question; What’s causing unproductive meetings in our working environment today?

Meetings take up a considerable amount of our time, but for most organisations the actual ‘cost’ of meetings is simply lost or never thought about in real terms. Have you ever stopped to work out the actual cost to the organisation of a meeting? The next time you’re sitting in a meeting, take a moment to work out an estimate of the cost to the organisation. Think about how much time is being spent. Think about the average salary sitting round the table or “on the call”. Think about the loss of productivity whilst people are in the meeting. Or maybe think about the “loss of potential customer contact” whilst you’re in the meeting. In this technological age where teleconferences and video conferencing is becoming more prevalent, providing new distractions and opportunities to not focus on the task at hand.

The truth is that many meetings that you attend are about as useful as a chocolate teapot is for making tea. (Mind you, you can always eat it!)

» Read more: What’s causing unproductive meetings?

This second of two blog entries about some leadership lessons that I drew from a trip across America via Route 66 earlier this year.

If you missed the first instalment you can catch-up with it here.

We we’re lucky enough to travel the whole Route from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California. It had been an ambition for a while and we wanted to do it the proper way, on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. We made the trip as part of a group in an organised tour run by Eaglerider in the USA.

So how did I draw Leadership lessons out of this experience you may well ask? Well, being a management trainer and coach I try to look for learning in everything that I do and everywhere that I go. Our Route 66 experience was literally ‘littered’ with them, from the people that have helped the Route to survive and prosper, and the people who fought and in some cases continue to fight to have their town, city or attraction listed as a Route 66 Historic monument. However it is our guides and support teams on our journey that I want to focus on today for they were truly inspirational. So what did I learn?

» Read more: Leadership Lessons from Route 66 (Pt 2)

This blog entry is based around some leadership lessons that I drew from a trip across America via Route 66 earlier this year. We travelled the whole Route from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California. It had been an ambition for a while and we wanted to do it the proper way, on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. We made the trip as part of a group in an organised tour run by Eaglerider in the USA.

This is a two part blog with 5 Leadership lessons in each one. The second one can be found here.

» Read more: Leadership Lessons from Route 66 (Pt. 1)

Over the last few years executive coaching has enjoyed growing popularity in the world of staff development. It’s no-longer viewed as solely the domain of senior management or simply for staff requiring remedial development (“to get them back on-track”). It is becoming regarded as an essential tool for developing both existing managers and new ‘high potential’ staff alike.

However, despite this growing popularity, many common misconceptions still exist. These mainly revolve around the nature of the work that executive coaches do and the results they’re expected to achieve.

» Read more: Executive coaching: Common Misconceptions