360 flexible training solutions

Our courses

The following courses fit your criteria:
(Click on course for full description)

• Account Management Healthcheck

  Account Management Healthcheck

  Overview

  The Account Management Health Check session is a highly practical one, following on from the previous Managing Account Growth session.As we already know 80% of sales comes from 20% of our client base and with that in mind it is imperative that these accounts are continually treated as key accounts. A clearly defined and timely approach to the planning process is critical to the success of maintaining and growing key accounts. 

  Key Focus Areas

  • Strategic thinking and strategic planning.
  • Gap analysis - Where we are now and where do we want to be?
  • Measuring progress against objectives.
  • Setting stepping stones to success.
  • Are all decision makers being contacted?
  • Managing relationships – what motivates our clients?

  • Close
• Action Learning Sets

  Action Learning Sets

   

  Overview

  Training provides many benefits; a skills and knowledge framework; an opportunity to reflect on strengths and areas for improvement; and a chance to talk to others.  However, all too often the positive mindsets and commitment to change that are generated at the end of a training programme can become diluted over time. To effectively support any training, to identify changes in behaviour, and to develop Best Practice Models, we recommend that development programmes are implemented with Action Learning Sets. This course is attended by delegates that have attended previous training sessions. It should be scheduled between six to twelve weeks after the initial training session. Delegates have the opportunity to explore specific challenges, and through questioning and support, each delegate can work through their specific challenges and commit to the implementation of a real-time solution.  Everyone leaves with agreed actions and in some instances develop Best Practice Models moving forward.  For it to work successfully, it requires commitment, imagination and everyone's participation. 

  Key topic areas

  • What will delegates gain from participating?
  • Resolution of challenging situations.
  • Confidence in and a strengthening of their communication skills.
  • Improving creativity and problem-solving skills.
  • Stronger networks across the organisation.
  • Broader organisational awareness.
  • Application of skills and techniques learnt from the session.

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• Advanced Negotiation Skills

  Advanced Negotiation Skills

   

  Overview

  You are now at the stage in your career where you have been negotiating with clients for some time. During this session you will be given a thorough refresher of the essential principles associated with successful negotiations. You will be shown how to prepare for a negotiation, how to structure and control a negotiation and how to absorb pressure and devalue tactics .The session will feature a tailored negotiation case study and role play to ensure all the principles outlined are experimented within the session itself.

  Key topic areas

  • The essential principles of effective negotiation.
  • Preparing to negotiate - the value of the top, middle and bottom line.
  • Setting objectives and the necessary research - understanding the options.
  • Identifying and valuing variables - building a strategy.
  • Building the value perspective.
  • Controlling the negotiation.
  • Exploration, opening positions, pressure, movement, settlement and closure.
  • Stimulating movement in deadlock.
  • Recognising and responding to both high and low pressure tactics.
  • Understanding different negotiation strategies/personalities.
  • Building proposals and conditional trading.
  • Agreement, confirming the deal.

  • Close
• Assert Yourself

  Assert Yourself

   

  Overview

  In a recent survey of MBA graduates, personal communication was voted the number one essential business skill. Moreover, communicating comprehensively, promptly and transparently was seen as vital to the health of an organisation. Assertiveness is a key communication skill, central to your self-empowerment. In this session, we'll explore specific verbal and non-verbal ways in which you can use assertiveness to guarantee effective communication. Drawing on both professional and personal experiences, we'll build your confidence in dealing with others, especially those whose behaviour you consider to be challenging and unhelpful.

  Key topic areas

  • What is meant by assertive behaviour? How does it differ to other forms of communication?
  • How to recognise your default communication style.
  • Exploring the impact of that style on you and on those around you.
  • The rights and responsibilities of an assertive person.
  • How to balance your needs with the needs of others.
  • Assertive language and delivery.
  • Non-verbal skills - using body language.
  • Techniques to use in difficult situations.
  • Turning up the assertiveness volume.
  • How to deal with conflict or criticism.
  • Responding to aggressive or manipulative people.

  • Close
• Barriers, Smokescreens and Genuine Objections

  Barriers, Smokescreens and Genuine Objections

   

  Overview

  Sales people will encounter resistance at different stages in the sales process. However, such resistance can mean different things depending on where in the sales process it is experienced. This session looks at the different types of resistance we face, from the opening of the call right through to closing, and helps delegates to understand the reason for the resistance and what can be done to overcome it.

  Key topic areas

  • Recognising barriers, smokescreens and genuine objections and the differences between them.
  • Overcoming resistance faced at the beginning of the call, recognising gatekeeper behaviour and learning how to deal with it.
  • Overcoming barriers during the main body of the sales call.
  • Recognising the genuine objection from the smokescreen.
  • Testing the robustness of the objection.
  • Different types of objections.
  • The price/value objection.
  • The product objection.
  • The method objection.
  • Exploring the objection, handling the objection, moving forward to the close.
  • Building commitment.

  • Close
• Building Effective Working Relationships

  Building Effective Working Relationships

  Overview

  In your role it is critical that you establish constructive, close and open relationships with not just your colleagues and team members, but also your customers. This session will help you get the most out of your business relationships by developing a considered and flexible approach to communication and relationship building. We will focus on the impact your communication style has on others and, in particular, what happens to that style in difficult and stressful situations. We’ll also help those of you dealing with challenging communication situations, providing you with the skills to help you to build relationships that ensure ongoing success. You will also benefit from taking part in a real-life case study and role-play to ensure all the principles outlined are experimented with within the session itself.  

  Key topic areas

  • The foundations of expectations.
  • Influencing and persuading – what can we learn from great influencers?
  • Understanding communication preference and the impact of such preference.
  • Developing a flexible communication style.
  • Developing awareness of your own style and the strengths and challenges associated with that style.
  • Understanding the various pressure points in business relationships.
  • Understanding the instinctive response and the considered response to conflict.
  • Avoiding fixed and antagonistic positions - stimulating communication and movement in difficult situations.
  • How to deal with conflict or criticism.
  • Responding to aggressive or manipulative people.
  • Understanding your triggers and your response to those triggers.
  • Understanding communication misfires.
  • Adapting your communication style for an effective result.
  • Maintaining your assertiveness, avoiding neural hijacking - keeping calm and in control.
  • Adapting the skills to a more formal negotiation situation.
  • Barriers to effective influencing and persuading.
  • Modelling effective influencing skills in challenging situations.
  • Stimulating interaction – handling disengagement.
  • Managing individual relationships – prevention and remedy.
  • The importance of building relationship credit.

  • Close
• Building High Performing Teams

  Building High Performing Teams

   

  Overview

  This session will give you that rare opportunity to sit and reflect on whether the team you have in place is actually the team you need to help you perform against the objectives you have set. This session offers you a series of techniques to help you understand the make-up of your team and then shows you how to get the best out of each team member. A highly practical session giving you the opportunity to work with your existing team and come away from the day with a clear idea about what needs to happen to achieve optimum performance. 

  Key topic areas

  • Different contributions, different expectations.
  • Recognising your Super Keepers, Keepers, Solid Citizens and Misfits.
  • Retaining your Super Keepers - keeping them challenged and engaged.
  • Developing your Keepers - building skills and experience.
  • Keeping your Solid Citizens motivated and engaged.
  • Turning round the Misfits.
  • Team audit - what do I have and what needs doing?
  • Identifying real-time skills gaps in your current team.
  • Plugging those gaps with proactive intervention.
  • Exploring what happens to engagement and motivation levels in challenging times.
  • Recognising your stop doing list.
  • Building a motivational environment.
  • Building the psychological contract.
  • Recognising individual motivations and pushing the right buttons.
  • Harnessing the full potential of your team.

  • Close
• Business Writing Skills

  Business Writing Skills

  Overview

  Creating engaging and persuasive written documents is a vital skill in these testing, high-pressured times. Achieving first time cut-through and standout for your proposals with clients, colleagues and management is essential.

  This session will help any of you who need to write effective, persuasive written communications, including proposals, letters, emails and promotional material. We'll look at the creative process of putting a document together, how to gain credibility with the recipient and persuade them to support your call to action.

  During our session we'll explore different ways of making an impact in writing. We'll ensure you've considered and analysed your objective, understood your audience and then we'll look at planning and structuring your communications to make sure they get results, as well as the benefits of professional presentation.

  Key topic areas

  • The importance of sales letters, emails and proposals.
  • Getting started - how to lay the groundwork.
  • Matching the copy to the target audience.
  • What's the story? How to make your proposition a good read.
  • How to persuade and influence in a written document.
  • The role for empathy and second positioning.
  • Exploring successful copy.
  • Structure, content, delivery - how to put your document together.
  • The value of good editing.
  • Look and feel - creating visual impact.
  • Dealing with clients who do not respond or who respond negatively.

  • Close
• Change Management

  Change Management

  Overview

  The trigger for change can come from a variety of sources including new leadership, mergers and acquisitions, economic and financial instability, increased competition, the need for diversification and more. Some changes are so organic they are hardly felt, but some will have a resounding impact right across the organisation. So, how do you deal with such change? How do you communicate change? How do you ensure the key stakeholders are behind the change? This session will empower you with the tools and techniques to successfully lead the strategic change itself, whether it be a quick win, short-term change or a more structured and wider reaching, longer-term change. We will give you the tools to help you model the leadership behaviours required in clarifying the need for change, selling the vision through the change management process. It will also help you to influence change across departments, managing your key stakeholders and change champions, using plans, tools and techniques through to evaluation of success. 

  Key topic areas

  • What is our role in leading strategic change?
  • What is it we need to do as leaders? The six most important styles to guide you through change.
  • Shaping change – what do we want to achieve, who will be affected and what can we anticipate as the barriers? – strategic issues, opportunities and pressures for change.
  • Creating change and making it happen – creating a culture committed to change.
  • Leading others through change – managing upwards, key stakeholders and your team.
  • Identify and engage with key change stakeholders - ensuring all stakeholders and change champions take ownership and responsibility.
  • Reasons for resistance and how to overcome it.
  • Eight easy steps to team and organisational buy-in.
  • What is involved in the process of overcoming resistance?
  • The role for modelling, consistency and communication.
  • The process of transition – leading the process of planning and implementing change.
  • The consequences of imposing change.
  • Tools and techniques for supporting change and monitoring progress.
  • How do we evaluate success? What does success look like?

  • Close
• Closing the Sale

  Closing the Sale

   

  Overview

  If you're an experienced sales person you'll already know there are differences between the traditional close used in low-value sales and the more sophisticated commitment building that happens with high-value sales. This session will take you further and show you how the close is an underlying thread running throughout the sales process - and how that thread ultimately holds the entire sale together. It will examine the importance of need identification as the first step to effective closing, and give delegates the opportunity to test their closing skills in a variety of tailored and stretching role plays.

  Key topic areas

  • Just how important is the close?
  • The role for building commitment in any sales situation.
  • Exploring the commitment staircase.
  • How to build the commitment staircase.
  • Barriers to effective closing - from reticence to resistance. 
  • The low-value, low-risk close.
  • Five most common low-value closes.
  • The high-value, high-risk close.
  • Using commitment building techniques.
  • Closing preferences and their impact on your ultimate result.

  • Close
• Coaching Skills Masterclass

  Coaching Skills Masterclass

  Overview

  Coaching is both a behaviour and a skill which when done well will make a dramatic difference to both the performance levels and the motivation levels across any organisation. This highly interactive two-day programme focuses on developing coaching skills, giving confidence to senior managers and trustees within the bureaux to try out different coaching tools and techniques. We will look at a variety of different coaching models and explore how they can be applied to maximise fully an individual’s potential.  By the end of the programme you will be able to identify coaching needs, evaluate different coaching models and how they are used, develop your own coaching style, apply coach-mentoring techniques for performance and development issues, give feedback as a coach and develop action plans for coaching in the workplace. By taking part in a real-life case study and simulations, you will get the opportunity to test out all the principles outlined within the session itself with feedback from your peers and the trainer. 

  Key Topic Areas

  Building a coaching culture -

  • How can coaching help the organisation?
  • Coaching as a tool to help achieve organisational, departmental and individual objectives.
  • The foundations of a successful coaching culture.
  • Building the coaching skills blueprint.
  • Using coaching to build performance improvement and to unlock potential.

   Appreciating difference – developing a flexible coaching style -

  • Learning styles, preference, implications for the coach and managing different learning style preferences.
  • Communication style preferences and the application of these styles in the coaching context.

   Exploring different coaching tools, methods and approaches -

  • Coaching tools including appreciative enquiry.
  • Coaching techniques for performance and development issues.
  • Building the coaching contract.
  • Core Processes.
  • The value of the Peer coaching session.
  • Developing the necessary skills and techniques for giving and receiving feedback effectively as a coach.

   Recognising repetition and stimulating change -

  • Recognising patterns of behaviour.
  • Addressing repetition and stuckness.
  • Experimentation and creative coaching interventions.

   Professionalism in the coaching relationship -

  • Articulating your coaching proposition.
  • Assessing the value of coaching relationships.
  • Differences and diversity in coaching.
  • Ethics and professional practice: issues and considerations.

  • Close
• Communicating with Impact

  Communicating with Impact

   

  Overview

  Effective communication is a life skill and one of the most important and challenging skills to get right. It's a powerful gift - get it right and everyone benefits, get it wrong and you can destroy relationships. It's a critical part of your working day but how often have you reflected on whether the impact you are making is the impact you intend to make? Interacting with both internal and external audiences can sometimes be challenging and difficult with the message getting lost or people simply not listening to what you are saying. If you would like objective feedback on your communication skills, as well as the opportunity to test your skills in a series of challenging and stretching situations, then this session is for you.

  Key topic areas

  • Powerful communication and why it matters.
  • Identifying the different ways we prefer to communicate.
  • What impact does my preference have on those around me?
  • Understanding your own communication preference and the strengths and challenges associated with that style.
  • Exploring preference difference and the effect it may have on a client or colleague.
  • The value of flexible communication - getting it right most of the time.
  • What happens when we get it wrong?
  • The role for body language - reading between the lines.
  • Setting the scene - your credibility zone.
  • Using your voice - the role for pace, pause, tone and timing.
  • Language - phrases and words.
  • Closing the communication - what do we want?
  • The 10 most common reactions and how to handle them.

  • Close
• Conflict Management

  Conflict Management

  Overview

  Dealing with difficult people or a challenging situation is something that all of us will face at sometime. This can lead to high levels of toxicity throughout the workplace, resulting in negative feelings and behaviour, loss of self-esteem, de-motivation and – could contribute ultimately to underperformance. Our session is suitable for any of you working in teams, those with responsibility for managing others as well as for those dealing with both internal and external relationships. We’ll help you handle conflict and confrontation using a variety of different communication and assertiveness techniques.

   

  Key topics areas

  • Exploring the five sources of conflict – intention, incompetence, insensitivity, intrusion and inevitability
  • Understanding responses to confrontation and conflict – the instinctive response and the considered response
  • Building an understanding of the role for communication
  • Identifying preferred communication styles and their impact
  • Defusing aggression and building rapport and stimulating communication in difficult situations
  • Maintaining your assertiveness and avoiding neural hijacking
  • The role for questions, active listening and empathy building
  • Managing individual relationships – prevention and remedy, the importance of building relationship credit

  • Close
• Delegating not Dumping

  Delegating not Dumping

   

  Overview

  All too often delegating is something we do when deadlines are looming or we're looking to offload an unpleasant task or project. But with a bit of thought and planning, proactive delegation can bring many benefits. In fact, it's a vital management skill and should be common practice within your team. It gets the job done - but it also develops, stretches and motivates your team. It builds your confidence in the competence of your team and helps you to focus on the more critical parts of your role. In this session, you will discover how to delegate with confidence. We'll discuss how to choose what to delegate, who to delegate it to, and how to gauge the level of input required from you. Most importantly, you'll find out how to safeguard an outcome that everyone will be happy with.

  Key topic areas

  • What should I delegate and who should I delegate to?
  • The role for competence and motivation in helping you decide.
  • Proactive Vs. Reactive delegation - the right time for each.
  • Take your time - the value of a simple but thorough brief.
  • Avoiding boomerang delegation.
  • Communication skills that improve the process of delegation.
  • The missing steps - coaching the task, modelling and shadowing the task.
  • The interplay between delegation and feedback.
  • Building performance through experience.
  • Communication skills that help delegation.
  • The consequences of micro-managing - cutting out the control freak and ‘mini-me' instincts.
  • Appraising delegated work - building the blueprint for future work.

  • Close
• Detox your inbox

  Detox your inbox

   

  Overview

  We live in the age of BlackBerry addiction, Wi-Fi dependence and text stress syndrome. When the latest survey reveals that PDA owners keep their favourite gadget by their bed at night, you know things are getting out of hand. Recent research shows that the typical office worker spends a daily average of 49 minutes managing their email inbox, while that figure soars to four hours for senior managers. In the last decade email has exploded onto the scene as the biggest business enabler of the digital age. But we at 360 wonder just how many working days have been lost to this all-consuming communication tool? This session offers you practical advice on getting more from email; in other words, how to let it work for you rather than against you. From organising your inbox to creating high-impact emails that are sure to be read, we'll show you how to take back control.

  Key topic areas

  • Email - the timewaster's friend.
  • Tidy inbox, tidy mind?
  • How to manage your inbox and save valuable time.
  • Develop an easy-to-use technique to manage email in just a few minutes each day.
  • The Four Ds model - Do, Defer, Delegate or Delete.
  • Understanding how your message might be interpreted.
  • The importance of subject lines.
  • Creating high-impact emails - ensuring your message gets read.
  • Structuring your emails - handy techniques.
  • Establishing and building rapport.
  • Email as a barrier to communication.
  • Is email the right tool for the job?
  • Email-free days - the office of the future?

  • Close
• Effective Appraisals

  Effective Appraisals

   

  Overview

  Everyone acknowledges the vital role appraisals play in managing performance, but for both the appraiser and appraisee to benefit, it is essential that they are run effectively. We'll help you look at how to approach and run an appraisal that motivates and directs team members, and at the same time renews the employer/employee psychological contract. We'll show you the importance of preparation, the value of control and how to stimulate two-way communication, ensuring the real issues are identified, explored and resolved. We will also look at the importance of objective setting and action planning and what is involved during the appraisal follow-up and its role in managing performance.

  Key topic areas

  • Defining a successful appraisal - the good, the bad and the ugly.
  • Defining expectations and responsibilities with a pre-appraisal meeting.
  • Conducting the appraisal - key principles of control and involvement.
  • Ensuring effective two-way communication.
  • The value of specific and meaningful positive feedback.
  • The role for active listening from both angles.
  • Addressing poor performance - giving negative and uncomfortable but constructive feedback.
  • Dealing with confrontation and emotion.
  • Developing skills and behaviour that supports stretch objectives.
  • Defining key objectives and agreeing performance direction.
  • The appraisal follow-up - what happens now from both the appraiser and appraisee's perspective?

  • Close
• Effective Client Meetings

  Effective Client Meetings

   

  Overview

  If you've ever been asked to run a client meeting then you'll certainly appreciate the value of preparation, but will also recognise the importance of structuring the meeting in a way that gives you control, helping you to achieve your ultimate objective. Our session will show you how to use a flexible meeting structure that can be adapted to most situations, whether it's a formal or informal meeting. We pay specific attention to the art of controlling a meeting plus we'll shed light on the role of rapport building and personal impact skills, as well as how to handle those challenging situations that sometimes threaten to derail or hijack the whole meeting.

  Key topic areas

  • The importance of setting pre-meeting objectives and desired outcomes.
  • The benefits of organising and planning for your client meeting.
  • Exploring essential facilitation skills.
  • Taking control - structuring the meeting.
  • Building rapport, empathic questioning and active listening.
  • Exploring your own personal impact - what impression are you making?
  • Powerful communication - tailoring your message to suit both the context of the meeting and the individuals involved.
  • Keeping control of the meeting - handling detours and hijacks.
  • Stimulating interest, feedback and interaction.
  • Exploring and resolving issues and challenging behaviour.
  • Concluding with an action plan and renewed commitment.

  • Close
• Effective Customer Care

  Effective Customer Care

   

  Overview

  The value of building and maintaining customer relationships is crucial to any organisation. Any interface with a customer - whether it be telephone, written or digital communication - should be a professional, productive and pleasurable experience. This session looks at building competence and confidence levels through every stage of the customer care cycle. It is our belief that rapport sits at the very heart of customer care, so in this session we will spend time looking at how rapport can be built and the difficulties sometimes experienced when there is no rapport in the relationship. As with any communication situation you may also come across challenging and difficult people, so time will be spent building confidence in handling difficult questions and challenging situations.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring good and bad customer service experiences.
  • The most important elements of service delivery.
  • What is our code of practice and our customer service principles?
  • Defining competence, care and behavioural standards for your department.
  • Controlling the call - building rapport.
  • Gaining the relevant information through effective questioning techniques - open, probing and closed questions.
  • Questioning techniques to avoid - leading and multiple questions.
  • Effective listening skills.
  • Voice - the use of tone, timing and volume.
  • Managing expectations - keeping the customer informed even when directing calls.
  • Providing the best possible solution to their enquiry.
  • Identifying where the answer can be found.
  • What to do if the answer cannot be found.
  • Summarising action points and checking for agreement.
  • Closing the communication.
  • Exploring the five sources of conflict - intention, incompetence, insensitivity, intrusion and inevitability.
  • Understanding the instinctive response and the considered response to conflict.
  • Avoiding fixed and antagonistic positions.
  • Stimulating communication and movement in difficult situations.
  • How to deal with conflict.

  • Close
• Effective Decision Making and Problem Solving

  Effective Decision Making and Problem Solving

   

  Overview

  How do you feel when you are faced with making an organisational or departmental decision? Do you avoid the process, not knowing where to start? Deliberate anxiously about the outcome - especially when the decisions have to be made within a demanding environment or restricted time frame? If so, you are not alone. Fear of making the wrong decision often stops us in our tracks.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring decision making preferences.
  • Instinctive decision making styles and the challenges they bring.
  • Managing your instincts - building awareness of your preferred decision making style.
  • The thinking behind the decision, building 360 vision.
  • The role for problem definition.
  • Digging deeper, separating fact from fiction.
  • Creative thinking, generating ideas, solutions and possibilities.
  • Simple choice to multiple choice.
  • The role for the Reframing Matrix.
  • Making your decision - evaluating using Plus/Minus/Interesting (PMI) Technique.

  • Close
• Effective Mentoring Skills

  Effective Mentoring Skills

   

  Overview

  Mentoring is a powerful personal development as well as a motivational management tool. It is one of the most effective ways of helping people within the organisation to progress in their careers. As a mentor, you allow for growth and development of the mentee, whilst providing guidance and encouragement. This session with explore the role and skills required to be a mentor. You will come away with the tools and techniques to run effective mentoring sessions, building performance and confidence within the mentee.  By taking part in a real-life case study and simulations, you will get the opportunity to test out all the principles outlined within the session itself with feedback from your peers and the trainer.

  Key topic areas

  • The role, responsibilities and expectations of the mentor and mentee.
  • What skills and experience can a mentor bring to the relationship?
  • Exploring the critical skills and mindset of a mentor.
  • The mentoring model including initiating exploration – developing practical communication techniques. Facilitating learning – presenting difficulties and problems. Guiding the planning process – problem solving, identifying solutions and setting clear goals and objectives. Supporting experimentation – providing constructive feedback.
  • Recognising different communication preferences and the role for these in building trust in the mentor/mentee relationship.
  • Understanding communication preference and the strengths and challenges associated with each preference.
  • Exploring Emotional Intelligence – what impact does it have on your role as a mentor?
  • The core Emotional Intelligence competencies – self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
  • Managing the mentoring relationship – initiation, development, maturity, disengagement and redefinition.
  • Exploring varying levels of commitment to the relationship – agreeing mentoring plans.
  • Exploring potential pressure points with your mentee – handling emotions.

   

   

  • Close
• Effective Negotiation Skills

  Effective Negotiation Skills

   

  Overview

  Have you ever thought you should have won more of the client's budget? Ever felt that maybe the client was prepared to pay more? Did you conclude the deal feeling the product was undersold or de-valued? This session looks at how important it is for sales people to prepare their approach, by setting objectives and understanding the variables they have to play with. You will also explore how to structure and control the negotiation, and at the same time, how to respond to client pressure tactics that can sometimes derail the whole process if not responded to assertively enough.

  Key topic areas

  • Examining the role for price and value in any supplier client relationship.
  • Exploring the difference between the price tactic and a more formal negotiation.
  • What does a price tactic look and sound like?
  • The most common reason behind the price tactic - failure to sell value.
  • Communicating value, responding to price tactics.
  • Absorbing early and negative price pressure, maintaining assertiveness.
  • Recognising when the time is right to negotiate.
  • The role for control in any negotiation situation.
  • The seven-step negotiation process.
  • The value of preparation - top, middle and walk away points.
  • Developing strategies to bring about movement.
  • Recognising and responding to high pressure and low pressure tactics.
  • The role for different negotiation styles.
  • Absorbing pressure and stimulating movement - what to do when things stall.
  • Neutralising potential conflict, the search for creative solutions.

  • Close
• Effective Proposal Writing

  Effective Proposal Writing

   

  Pre-course work

  You will be asked to email examples of proposals to the trainer in advance of the session. This will give the trainer an understanding of existing skill levels and potential areas for development.

  Overview

  Pitching for new business, along with retaining existing accounts, is the lifeblood of any organisation. But how do you achieve standout and ensure that your sales letters and proposals are what the client remembers? This course looks at the creative process of putting together a sales letter and proposal document, how to gain credibility with the client and how to communicate your credentials powerfully. The course also looks at structure, writing skills and the skills required to write an accurate and well-presented piece of communication. Delegates will work through a real-life case study as part of the course material.

  Key topic areas

  • Analysing and interpreting the brief/information - what is the client asking for?
  • The creative thinking process - brainstorming and other techniques.
  • Demonstrating a clear understanding of the client's needs.
  • The role for empathy and second positioning.
  • How to persuade and influence in a written document.
  • Structure, content, delivery - how to put your sales letter and proposal together.
  • What else to include?
  • Design - how to make your written communication look as good as it reads.
  • Effective writing styles.

  Post course work

  After attending the session, you will be asked to work on a proposal or revise the original proposal submitted for further evaluation. You will be given a two-week deadline in order to return your completed proposals by email to the trainer.

  • Close
• Facilitating Strategy Days

  Facilitating Strategy Days

  Overview

  The most productive and effective strategy days are where the group come away with a clear idea of the team’s achievements to date, an action plan for moving forward and an understanding of where they fit into the organisational strategy. It not only builds a sense of team, but it also provides the group with a platform for sharing ideas, being involved in making decisions and planning actions. However the effectiveness of the event depends on the facilitator and their ability to lead an effective, results-oriented day. The difference between a successful outcome and a disappointing one can be down to a variety of factors including preparation, goal setting, dealing with disruption and managing unhelpful behaviour. This highly practical session will show you how to prepare, the importance of encouraging diverse points of view and how to keep the group focused and moving towards the achievement of the stated objectives. We’ll also explore the important role of the action plan and the follow-up. 

  Key topic areas

  • Ensuring preparedness – what needs to be done before the strategy day?
  • Identifying the key drivers for the event – why are we running one? What are the objectives and desired outcome?
  • Agreeing who should attend the strategy day? Will they all want to attend? Who will be covering the office?
  • Exploring past experiences– what worked well and did not work so well.
  • Timing and location – when and where? On or off site?
  • Focus for the event – pre-identified issues? Problems? Opportunities? Tough decisions? Performance results?
  • Preparation - the importance of a pre-circulated agenda, informing attendees of the date, time, location, the objectives and what they need to prepare.
  • Exploring the key competencies required to run an effective strategy day.
  • The role for the facilitator - focus, momentum and control.
  • Applying facilitation techniques – setting expectations / identifying issues.
  • Questioning techniques – pure enquiry, challenging, catalytic and cathartic questioning.
  • Techniques in clarifying and defining issues, problem exploration, ideas generation, decision making and action planning.
  • Action evaluation – Plus Minus / Interesting (PMI) Technique.
  • Keeping on track - techniques for handling disruptive behaviour, difficult people and emotions.
  • How to assign action items and make follow-up plans - who and by when?
  • How to evaluate success – monitoring the plan.

  • Close
• Facilitation Skills

  Facilitation Skills

   

  Overview

  Today's organisations use meetings to share ideas, make joint decisions and plan actions. This can be a useful exercise but the effectiveness of a meeting depends on the facilitator and their ability to lead effective, results-oriented sessions. The difference between a successful outcome and a disappointing one can be down to a variety of factors including preparation, goal setting, dealing with disruption and managing unhelpful behaviour. This highly practical session will show you how to prepare groups for a focused meeting, the importance of encouraging diverse points of view and how to keep the group focused and moving towards the achievement of the stated meeting objectives. We'll also explore the important role of the action plan and the follow-up.

  Key topic areas

  • Planning for successful meetings - the importance of a pre-circulated agenda.
  • Ensuring preparedness - what needs to be done before the meeting?
  • What's the objective?
  • Exploring the key competencies required to run an effective meeting.
  • The role for the chair.
  • Applying facilitation techniques - setting expectations/identifying issues.
  • Structuring meetings - focus, momentum and control.
  • Keeping meetings on track - meeting-disrupters and how to manage them.
  • Techniques for handling disruptive behaviour and difficult people.
  • How to assign action items and make follow-up plans to conclude a meeting.
  • How to evaluate success.

  • Close
• Facilitation Skills for Action Learning Groups

  Facilitation Skills for Action Learning Groups

  Overview

  Action Learning is essentially about learning through doing. It is a facilitated group scenario where everyone brings real issues they are experiencing that require support. This can be a powerful tool for individuals and organisations; however the effectiveness of an Action Learning Group relies on the facilitator’s ability to lead effective, results-oriented sessions. The difference between a successful ALG and a disappointing one can be down to a variety of factors including the group dynamics, ineffective problem solving, dealing with disruption and managing unhelpful behaviour, but ultimately the skills of the facilitator.  This highly practical session will build on your communication and problem solving techniques. It will provide you with the confidence to facilitate a session, encouraging diverse points of view and keeping the group focused and moving towards the achievement of developing action plans to be reviewed at the next group meeting. By taking part in a real-life case study and simulations, you will get the opportunity to test out all the principles outlined within the session itself with feedback from your peers and the trainer.  

  Key topic areas

  • An introduction to Action Learning and the rules of engagement.
  • Ensuring preparedness – what needs to be done before the ALG?
  • What is the role of the facilitator within the context of Action Learning?
  • What are the ground rules as a facilitator?
  • What skills and experience can a facilitator bring to the group? - Exploring the key competencies required to run an effective ALG.
  • Structuring ALG’s – focus, momentum and control.
  • Applying facilitation techniques – setting expectations/identifying issues.
  • Questioning techniques – pure enquiry, challenging, catalytic and cathartic questioning.
  • Techniques in clarifying and defining issues, problem exploration, ideas generation, decision making and action planning.
  • Action evaluation – Plus Minus / Interesting (PMI) Technique.
  • Keeping the group on track – meeting-disrupters and how to manage them.
  • Techniques for handling disruptive behaviour and difficult people.
  • Assigning action items and follow-up plans.
  • How to evaluate success.

  • Close
• Feature Writing

  Feature Writing

  This course will build on existing feature writing skills and teaches new ones, and is suitable for both features beginners and experienced writers in need of a refresher or new inspiration. The course covers ideas on deciding on a feature subject, improving interviewing, research and writing skills. During the course you will put together a feature that will be assessed by the trainer.

  • Understanding your reader - what do they want to know? How much time do they have for you?
  • The role of the feature versus news: a feature writer's influence
  • Establishing the brief
  • What is the feature supposed to do?
  • What is the appropriate angle - and how can it be changed?
  • Effective research
  • The importance of preparation
  • Knowledge is power (sometimes)
  • Interviewing tips - planning your questions, building-in flexibility
  • Writing skills - intros, endings, pace
  • Illustrations / box outs - the total effect in the publication
  • Working with other editorial departments

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• First-Time Manager

  First-Time Manager

   

  Overview

  Many first-time managers spend a challenging first year in their new role trying to work
  out for themselves exactly what is expected of them. This session aims to take the pain
  out of those first 12 months by providing the first-time manager with a comprehensive overview of their new role and the key responsibilities associated with it. We will explore
  the challenges faced when asked to balance your new role of task manager with that of people manager. You will be given the opportunity to analyse your own instinctive management style and we will explore the impact that this style will have on your team.
  We will also explore the need for flexibility of management style when dealing with difficult situations and challenging people. Our aim is to develop a core competence framework that will build both business planning and effective people management skills, as well as introduce delegates to the critical skills associated with performance management.

  Key topic areas

  • Defining the role and responsibilities of a manager.
  • Balancing the demands of the task with the demands of the people.
  • Understanding directive and supportive management styles.
  • Exploring your own default style and the implications of such a style.
  • Developing strategic thinking skills.
  • Assessing your current position - your achievements, your challenges.
  • Defining your business objectives - realistic and unrealistic objectives.
  • Organisation, delegation and time management.
  • Preparing the team for the challenges ahead.
  • Setting performance standards.
  • Developing the skills of your team through coaching and proactive delegation.
  • Monitoring performance.
  • The role for positive and negative feedback.
  • Confronting poor performance.
  • Handling difficult situations and difficult people.

  • Close
• Harnessing Digital Opportunities to Develop Revenue Streams

  Harnessing Digital Opportunities to Develop Revenue Streams

   

  Overview

  A speaker will begin the session by giving you an overview of current trends in the digital marketplace - to gain a deeper understanding of traditional digital advertising models including advertising formats, as well as building awareness of recent digital commercial advances.

  During the afternoon, you will explore the wide variety of available online propositions with particular attention given to how you can develop and maximise your own online opportunities. You will be asked to explore the digital opportunities available in your market and identify, in particular, where you believe your own digital offering sits. The session will also give you the opportunity to work your way through a media brief, identifying a suitable proposal and learning how the proposal should best be presented back to the client. You will come away with the confidence to sell your own digital offering as part of a 360 marketing solution.

  Key topic areas

  • Digital market overview.
  • Key commercial concepts and current trends.
  • Detailed study of display, sponsorship and email opportunities.
  • Digital advertising formats.
  • Digital charging models.
  • What clients and agencies look for.
  • The importance of ad servers.
  • Case studies of best practice.
  • Digital trendwatch - what's next in digital?
  • Your own digital inventory in context of the wider market.
  • Matching digital opportunities with your client's objectives.
  • Using digital as part of the marketing mix.
  • Building a 360 portfolio proposal incorporating digital and print.

  • Close
• Influencing and Political Skills

  Influencing and Political Skills

  Overview

  A key competency associated with strategic leadership is the ability to gain commitment and buy-in from key stakeholders and opinion formers across the organisation. However, to influence effectively an individual must be aware of their own communication style and, in particular, what happens to that style in difficult and stressful situations. This session will provide you with an insight into how to maximise the impact and influence you have on those around you helping you to deliver organisational objectives. In particular, we’ll help those of you dealing with challenging communication situations and select the appropriate strategy in dealing with what can seem like potentially challenging, unstable and potentially toxic situations. We will also help you to identify, target and build relationships that ensure ongoing success. By taking part in a real-life case study and simulations, you will get the opportunity to test out all the principles outlined within the session itself.  

  Key topic areas

  • Understanding and managing complex relationships.
  • The role for leadership influencing - think, feel, do.
  • Influencing and persuading – what can we learn from great influencers?
  • Identifying when influencing skills will be most effective – appreciating timing.
  • Developing a flexible communication style when influencing others.
  • The role for Emotional Intelligence and the four key areas of competence - self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
  • Exploring preference difference and the effect it may have on influencing both internal and external relationships.
  • Understanding the motivations and behaviours of those you want to influence.
  • Identifying different stakeholder groups.
  • Mapping motivations and objectives.
  • Mapping reaction, resistance and challenges.
  • Modeling effective influencing skills and inspiring others.
  • Successfully influencing upwards, across and downwards.
  • Influencing by others – managing those that are influencing you.
  • Managing challenging relationships - nurturing a climate that gains commitment and fosters collaboration.
  • Adapting your communication style for an effective result.
  • Maintaining your assertiveness when faced with inappropriate influencing tactics.
  • Understanding your triggers and your response to those triggers.
  • Barriers to effective influencing – including political agendas.
  • Modeling effective influencing skills in challenging situations.

  • Close
• Influencing, Persuading and Negotiating

  Influencing, Persuading and Negotiating

   

  Overview

  A successful relationship, by its very nature, requires two-way communication. To influence and persuade effectively an individual must be aware of their own communication preference and, in particular, what happens to that style in difficult and stressful situations. This session will help you get the most out of your business relationships by developing a flexible approach to communication and relationship building. In particular, we'll help those of you dealing with challenging communication and negotiation situations, and help you to build relationships that ensure ongoing success. You will also benefit from taking part in a real-life case study and role play to ensure all the principles outlined are experimented within the session itself.

  Key topic areas

  • The foundations of successful business and team relationships.
  • Managing client and team expectations.
  • Influencing and persuading - what can we learn from great influencers?
  • Understanding communication preference and the impact of such preference.
  • Developing a flexible communication style.
  • Developing awareness of your own style and the strengths and challenges associated with that style.
  • The role for Emotional Intelligence and the five key areas of competence.
  • Exploring preference difference and the effect it may have on team and business relationships.
  • Adapting the skills to a more formal negotiation situation.
  • Understanding the various pressure points in relationships.
  • Understanding your triggers and your response to those triggers.
  • Managing challenging relationships.
  • Exploring the power of assertive communication.
  • Barriers to effective persuading.
  • Modelling effective influencing skills in challenging situations.

  • Close
• Innovation and Creative Thinking

  Innovation and Creative Thinking

   

  Overview

  Is creative thinking an innate skill or a state of mind? We like to think it's the latter and that any team can be encouraged to up its creative ante. But in order to break out of traditional thinking processes, it's essential to make yourself think differently about the challenges or issues you face. Here, we'll help open up new opportunities and provide dynamic solutions to commercial problems. At the end of this course you'll be able to draw on a variety of techniques to help stimulate creative thinking and turn such thinking into commercial reality, and ultimately success.

  Key topic areas

  • The role for problem definition, the diagnostic.
  • Creative thinking techniques - evolution to revolution.
  • The SCAMPER Technique.
  • Morphological analysis.
  • The Reframing Matrix, the Reversal Technique.
  • The role for the Brainstorm, the Analogy Exercise and Random Word Seeding.
  • Exploring solutions - identifying best fit.
  • Evaluating solutions using the Plus/Minus/Interesting (PMI) Technique.
  • Green light? Transforming creativity into reality.

  • Close
• Interviewing Skills

  Interviewing Skills

  This course is designed to enable journalists at any level to deliver confident interviews and equip them with the skills to interview absolutely anybody about absolutely anything.

  On the initial afternoon we will cover the theory of interviewing: what works, what doesn't, looking at body language, different kinds of questions, openers, ways to get good quote, dealing with difficult interviewees. There will be lots of practical exercises.
  
  The next day, each delegate is individually filmed conducting a 'real interview'. This is followed up with an afternoon group session where delegates watch back and evaluate each other's performances and interviewing techniques. Even though this can seem a little nerve-wracking at the time, one of the major learning outcomes of the past ten years is that the session hugely increases participants' confidence about giving future interviews.
  
  Depending on the size of the group, this course can be run in one day.

  • Preparing for the interview: setting the aims; files and sources of information
  • Different types of questions
  • Interviewing techniques
  • Body language and interpreting non-verbal information
  • Structuring your interview
  • Choosing and making the most of your interview mode
  • Openers
  • Dealing with difficult subjects
  • Difficult interviewees
  • Different types of interviews: face-to-face and telephone interviews
  • Techniques for different subjects - experts, celebrities, real people etc.
  • Writing up the interview

  • Close
• Leadership Essentials

  Leadership Essentials

  Overview 

  Getting people to perform at high levels on a regular basis, takes an inspirational leader. People are not only led by plans and analysis, they need to feel motivated, invested in and supported, along with a clear and compelling vision. This two-day session will provide you with the tools and techniques to inspire people through vision and clear direction. It will also focus on the competencies and skills required to motivate and inspire greater performance in individuals and groups and develop emotional mastery and utilise it to influence.  

  Key topic areas 

  • Organisational performance - the output of successful leadership.
  • Leadership and performance.
  • Qualities of highly effective leaders - what they are & what this delivers.
  • What do effective leaders do, consistently?
  • Developing personal behavioural flexibility.
  • Transformational versus transactional leadership styles.
  • Emotions - the currency of leadership.
  • Leadership influencing - think, feel, do.
  • Creating a compelling vision, coupled to direction – sharing your strategy and vision.
  • Understanding the people you lead & motivations of their behaviour - achieving buy-in.
  • Building confidence and self-belief in those you lead.
  • How to coach others to greatness – what can we learn from great leaders?
  • How to unlock discretionary effort and to inspire creativity and innovation.
  • Harnessing behavioural diversity.
  • Theory & practise of motivational techniques.
  • How to be a positive change agent.
  • Leadership in times of stress and crisis.

   

  • Close
• Leadership In Action

  Leadership In Action

  Overview 

  Getting people to perform at high levels on a regular basis requires inspirational leadership. People are not only led by plans and analysis, they need to feel motivated, invested in and supported, along with a clear and compelling vision. We will begin the session by developing a deeper understanding of the key attributes and behaviours of leadership and how these apply to your current role and the organisation. The session will also provide you with the opportunity to reflect on your own leadership and communication preferences. This will not only provide you with a clear focus as to how you can motivate and inspire greater performance in individuals and groups, but also how to develop emotional intelligence to manage and diffuse potential conflict. You will also be given the opportunity to test out various techniques using a variety of different exercises. 

  Key topic areas 

  • Qualities of highly effective leaders - what they are and what does this deliver to the organisation?
  • What do effective leaders do, consistently?
  • What are our leadership achievements and how can we build on them?
  • Transformational versus transactional leadership styles.
  • Introduction to SDI – managing conflict and improving relationships.
  • Revealing preferences, sharing opinion - what does this mean to me and my leadership style?
  • Identifying your preferred leadership style and its associated strengths and areas for development.
  • Understanding your own personal values and motivations.
  • Understanding your own decision making preferences.
  • Exploring preference difference and the effect it may have on others.
  • Understanding the impact of your own behaviour on others.
  • Developing personal behavioural flexibility
  • Identification of potential pressure points
  • Exploring the issues and challenges associated with these pressure points
  • How will this affects our relationships internally and externally?
  • The influence of preference in leadership competencies; Managing performance, Managing and influencing upwards, across and downwards, Motivation, Delegation, Decision Making

   

   

  • Close
• Management Essentials

  Management Essentials

  Overview

  To be a successful manager you will need to develop a diverse set of skills, some of which will feel more natural and instinctive than others. This session gives managers an overview of their role and responsibilities as a manager, and also looks in detail at what we believe to be the key skills of effective management. We will look at the value of setting realistic but challenging objectives, how to build a strategy that enables the delivery of such objectives, and most importantly, how to build performance across your team through a combination of coaching, delegation and feedback. We will also explore how to build momentum and motivation within your team in a way that really drives performance across the whole organisation. Setting up your expectations of the team, helping them grow and develop, dealing with challenging situations, as well as managing your own workload can all take their toll on the unprepared manager. This two-day session will give you a fire proof set of skills that will provide you with a thorough grounding in today's management essentials.

  Day one - key topic areas

  • Understanding the role and key responsibilities of a manager.  
  • Balancing the demands of the task with the demands of the people.
  • Understanding directive and supportive management styles.
  • Exploring your own style and the implications of such a style.
  • Identifying essential management competencies - a self-audit of competencies.
  • Making sense of performance management - the performance management cycle.
  • Self-audit - where are my performance management gaps?
  • Do I really need job descriptions and standards?
  • Setting SMART objectives and KPIs.
  • Communicating expectations and standards, the foundations of the Psychological Contract.
  • Monitoring performance against objectives.
  • Your dashboard warning indicators - recognising under-performance before it's a problem.
  • Feedback - formal and informal methods that drive performance.
  • The skill sets required to feedback effectively.
  • Addressing under-performance - conduct or capability?
  • Tracing the source of the under-performance and overcoming it.

  Day two - key topic areas

  • The role for coaching in managing performance.
  • Understanding individual motivations and the team's motivations.
  • Recognising and responding to de-motivation.
  • The process of effective team building - understanding the different stages of team development.
  • Managing a dysfunctional team with either performance or people issues - conduct and capability.
  • Developing personal effectiveness.
  • Managing your time - using the Urgent/Important Matrix.
  • What should I delegate and to who?
  • Communication skills that improve the process of delegation.
  • Proactive Vs. Reactive delegation - the right time for each.
  • Take your time - the value of a simple but thorough brief.
  • The missing steps - coaching the task, shadowing the task.
  • The interplay between delegation and feedback.
  • What is coaching?
  • Why do we coach our team members?
  • The skills required to be an effective coach.
  • Formal and informal coaching and the benefits of each.
  • Management Essentials round up.
  • Personal action planning.

  • Close
• Management Masterclass

  Management Masterclass

   

  Overview

  You have probably been managing a team for some time now and have been successful in building a team that regularly delivers against their performance objectives. Now is the time for you to really flex your skill set and develop a more strategic approach to your role, helping you and your organisation to handle challenges or issues that require just that little bit more from you as a manager. This session will look at how you can build on and adapt your current management skills to develop a much more creative and strategic approach to management. We will help you to develop your strategic thinking and creative thinking skills, showing you how to turn your best ideas into commercial reality.

  Key topic areas

  • Defining your real-time challenges, developing and sustaining 360 vision.
  • Dealing with complexity and uncertainty - the challenge for today's managers.
  • Exploring your dual role as visionary and as pace-setter.
  • The value of long- to medium-term business planning.
  • The role for innovation and creativity, understanding barriers to innovation.
  • Developing an organisational Magpie Strategy.
  • How to transform your business for sustained competitive advantage.
  • Understanding the fundamental differences between radical transformation and continuous improvement.
  • A strategic overview of the value performance management.
  • Creating an effective people management strategy.
  • Managing performance and setting objectives that support overall organisational performance.
  • Managing other managers - the challenges this new role brings and the new skills this role demands.
  • Adapting your existing leadership skills into a more empowered and creative approach to leadership.

  • Close
• Manager as Coach

  Manager as Coach

   

  Overview

  It will come as no surprise to find that those managers who get the most out of their team are the ones who spend a high proportion of their time and energy coaching and developing their team. However, we do appreciate that for some of you finding the time to coach your team, as well as deliver on all your other responsibilities may feel like something of a challenge In this session, we show you how to transform sentiment into action, demonstrating that by taking the time to develop a robust coaching climate within your organisation, you will make a significant impact on performance, motivation, retention of talent and ultimately the achievement of your strategic goals. We will start by looking at exactly what it takes to be a successful coach, exploring the competencies that will support you in your role. Then we will look at just how easy it can be to build coaching into part of your working day, from water cooler coaching to on-the-job and crisis coaching. We will demonstrate how with just a little bit of thought you can find lots of ways to coach performance across the team.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring coaching competencies - what makes an effective coach?
  • Why coach? The benefits of building a coaching culture.
  • Identifying coaching opportunities - both reactive and proactive.
  • Running a coaching session.
  • Framing the session - identifying the desired outcome.
  • Building a framework and developing content.
  • The role for action-based learning.
  • Pressure points in the coaching relationship.
  • Understanding the resistance and barriers you may face.
  • Confronting performance issues through constructive and positive feedback.
  • Measuring progress. 

  • Close
• Manager as Motivator

  Manager as Motivator

   

  Overview

  All teams are exposed to a variety of situations that generate a variety of different pressures, all of which can lead to periods of both motivation and de-motivation for team members. This session will focus on how to provide inspirational leadership that a motivated team needs. It will focus on the skills you need to develop to build and maintain momentum in the team's effort. Particular emphasis is given to how you as a manager need to provide inspirational leadership if you are to develop fully the manager/employee psychological contract, a contract which defines both output and performance. We will look at just how easy it is to put the common motivators in place but also show you how to recognise individual motivations and how such motivations can be harnessed to drive individual performance. We will also show you how to spot the early warning signs of de-motivation and what you need to do to get your team member back on track.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring the key theories of motivation - what are they and how do they apply?
  • Motivation as a context, not an action.
  • Understanding individual motivations.         
  • Recognising and responding to de-motivation.
  • Building motivation into the working day.
  • Building and structuring your team to achieve results.
  • The process of effective team building.
  • Understanding the different stages of team development.
  • Defining the features of a winning team.
  • Managing a dysfunctional team with either performance or people issues.

  • Close
• Manager as Pace-Setter

  Manager as Pace-Setter

   

  Overview

  In today's challenging times, more and more managers find themselves having to cope with conditions and issues they may never have encountered before. Maybe you are working with a reduced resource; maybe team spirit is low; results may be proving more challenging than ever; and overall momentum may appear to be stalling, or even worse, coming to a stand-still. Now is the time for you to step-up your game and demonstrate those qualities and skills that can make such a profound difference in times like these. This session will show you how to achieve focus and direction for the team, identifying your real-time challenges and developing strategies to help you navigate your way through those challenges, as well as at the same time, show you how to support and lead the team to stronger results.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring your role as a Pace-Setting Manager.
  • Situation analysis - identifying your real-time challenges and threats.
  • Developing 360 vision - the challenge diagnostic.
  • Generating options and opportunities, the role for creative thinking.
  • Bringing your ideas alive - turning disciplined thought into disciplined action.
  • Kick starting performance, building momentum, getting buy-in.
  • The role for measurable objectives and Key Performance Indicators.
  • Tracking performance against plan.
  • Responding to deviations and detours.
  • Re-igniting flagging effort.

  • Close
• Manager as People Manager

  Manager as People Manager

   

  Overview

  Your people are your greatest asset. And in today's challenging economic climate your people could be the key point of difference between you and your competition. What are you doing to make sure they make as effective a contribution as possible? This session offers you the opportunity to explore the value of building a robust people management culture, one that stretches performance and builds skill and motivation levels across your organisation. You will be given the opportunity to analyse your own management style and examine the impact this style will have on your ability to motivate and manage others. We will also explore how you can develop your ability to read others and maintain a flexible approach to managing the many different types of people you will no doubt be asked to manage.

  We begin by exploring the skills of business planning and will show you how you can align your people management strategy with the achievement of business objectives. Time will also be spent on how to build and maintain momentum in the team's effort and at the same time how to provide a motivational environment so that any dips in performance and motivation are kept to a minimum.  

  Key topic areas

  • Modern management - the evolution of the Emotionally Intelligent Manager.
  • The essential competencies associated with modern management.
  • Investing in the building of the Psychological Contract.
  • Balancing inputs and outputs, avoiding equity imbalance.
  • Appreciating difference and diversity, avoiding the ‘mini-me' syndrome.
  • Where do I start? The importance of achieving clarity.
  • Getting the right people in the right seats on the right bus going in the right direction.
  • Communicating roles and responsibilities, objectives and expectations.
  • The role for key performance indicators and the importance of achieving buy-in.   
  • Monitoring and reviewing performance against objectives.
  • Learning to give feedback that motivates and builds performance.
  • Exploring different motivations, identifying the motivations of your team members.
  • Managing difficult people and difficult situations.
  • Managing a misfiring or dysfunctional team.

  • Close
• Manager as Performance Manager

  Manager as Performance Manager

   

  Overview

  In this session you will explore what it really takes to build a high performing team by looking at the key principles associated with performance management. Our initial focus will be on mapping the different stages of the performance management cycle. We will look at the importance of attracting the right people to your organisation, and once you have the right people on board we will look at how to engage, stretch and retain the talented ones as well as show you how to handle those team members that appear to be underperforming.

  Key topic areas

  • The Performance Management Cycle - Attract, Engage, Stretch and Retain.
  • Attracting Talent not Trouble - developing a robust recruitment culture.
  • Employee Engagement - the difference between good and brilliant.
  • Engaging with the organisation, the role, the team and with you.
  • Developing the psychological contract, exploring inputs and outputs.
  • Investing in building performance.
  • The role for measurable objective setting.
  • Mapping performance expectations, supporting skills development.
  • Recognising feedback as the foundation of all performance building.
  • Your responsibilities as coach - what makes a good coach?
  • Finding coaching opportunities on a daily basis.
  • On the job and single issue coaching.
  • Your dashboard warning lights - early warning signs of underperformance.
  • Addressing underperformance.
  • Understanding motivation - building a motivational culture, understanding individual motivations.
  • Exploring different motivation techniques and their impacts.

  • Close
• Managing Account Growth

  Managing Account Growth

   

  Overview

  To make this session as pragmatic as possible, we ask that delegates bring real-life accounts as case studies to refer to throughout the day. The session will encourage you to analyse your existing relationships with your account base and identify those accounts that you see as critical accounts, responsible for generating a large volume of business. You will leave this session with the tools and techniques to work on specific development objectives, action plans and time-frames of activity for your most important accounts, which will ultimately lead to more productive and profitable relationships.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring the key principles of effective account management.
  • Understanding different stages of the client - account manager relationship.
  • Exploring the potential mismatch between expectations and deliverables.
  • Developing relationships through credibility.
  • The proactive approach to shaping and defining client expectations.
  • Developing an account growth strategy.
  • Recognising account growth opportunities.
  • Making the most of client meetings - focus, direction and momentum.
  • Building rapport and establishing credibility.
  • Selling in client-centred solutions.
  • Keeping the competition out - ring-fencing the account.
  • Identifying potential relationship pressure points - both client and agencies.
  • Managing different personalities and preferences.
  • Ensuring the investment/profitability balance.

  • Close
• Managing Challenging Business Relationships

  Managing Challenging Business Relationships

   

  Overview

  Take any working day and you can guarantee you'll be faced with difficult people or challenging situations that may ultimately have a negative effect on your ability to achieve your goals. This session is suitable for any of you working in teams; those with the responsibility for managing others; and those in a client-facing role. It will help you handle conflict and confrontation using a variety of different communication and assertiveness techniques. You'll learn how to deal effectively with the problems associated with difficult relationships, difficult personalities, challenging behaviour and demanding business situations.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring the five sources of conflict - intention, incompetence, insensitivity, intrusion and inevitability.
  • Understanding responses to confrontation and conflict - the instinctive response and the considered response.
  • The role of the toxin handler within today's organisations.
  • Building an understanding of the importance of resonant communication.
  • Identifying preferred communication styles and their impact.
  • Defusing aggression and building rapport.
  • Avoiding fixed and antagonistic positions.
  • Stimulating communication in difficult situations.
  • Maintaining your assertiveness avoiding neural hijacking.
  • The role for questions, active listening and empathy building.
  • Managing individual relationships - prevention and remedy.
  • The importance of building relationship credit.

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• Managing Challenging Relationships

  Managing Challenging Relationships

   

  Overview

  As a manager there are bound to be times when you will be faced with difficult people or challenging situations. Get it wrong and you can fracture relationships, trigger negative feelings, contribute to levels of toxicity throughout the workplace, cause de-motivation and ultimately, chronic underperformance. This session is suitable for anybody working in teams, those with the responsibility for managing others, as well as for those in a client-facing role. We'll help you to understand the five key sources of conflict and show you how conflict and confrontation can be handled using a variety of different communication and assertiveness techniques. You'll learn how to deal effectively with the problems associated with difficult relationships, difficult personalities, challenging behaviour and demanding business situations, turning them into a much more positive experience. Skills such as how to defuse aggression, how to neutralise emotion and how to build rapport will become much more instinctive once you understand how to tackle these issues with confidence.

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring the five sources of conflict - intention, incompetence, insensitivity, intrusion and inevitability.
  • Understanding responses to confrontation and conflict - the instinctive response and the considered response.
  • The role of the toxin handler within today's organisations.
  • Building an understanding of the role for communication.
  • Identifying preferred communication styles and their impact.
  • Defusing aggression and building rapport.
  • Avoiding fixed and antagonistic positions.
  • Stimulating communication in difficult situations.
  • Maintaining your assertiveness, avoiding neural hijacking.
  • The role for questions, active listening and empathy building.
  • Managing individual relationships - prevention and remedy.
  • The importance of building relationship credit.

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• Managing Change

  Managing Change

   

  Overview

  The trigger for change can come from a variety of sources including new leadership, mergers and acquisitions, economic and financial instability, increased competition, the need for diversification and more. Some changes are so organic they are hardly felt, but some will have a resounding impact right across the organisation. So, how do you deal with such change? How do you communicate change? How do you ensure the key stakeholders are behind the change? This session will empower you with the tools and techniques to support both you and your team through the change management process, whether it be a quick win, short-term change or a more structured and wider reaching, longer-term change. We will give you the tools to help you model the behaviour required during a period of what feels like ‘uncertainty' to others, and help you to influence change across departments, managing your key stakeholders and change champions.

  Key topic areas

  • Shaping change - what do we want to achieve, who will be affected and what can we anticipate as the barriers?
  • Creating change and making it happen.
  • Managing others through change - managing upwards, key stakeholders and your team.
  • Ensuring all stakeholders and change champions take ownership and responsibility.
  • Reasons for resistance and how to overcome it.
  • Eight easy steps to team buy-in.
  • What is involved in the process of overcoming resistance?
  • What is it we need to do as managers? The six most important styles to guide you through change.
  • The role for modelling, consistency and communication.
  • The process of transition.
  • The consequences of imposing change.

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• Managing Through Challenging Times

  Managing Through Challenging Times

   

  Overview

  The current economic climate is affecting us all at varying levels and in various ways. The impact on your organisation will have become visible and very real. Those organisations who have streamlined resourcing or improved efficiency will still be expected to maintain productivity and performance levels but with a smaller head count and possibly reduced motivation. This can be a very demanding and stressful time for you as a manager and you will need to develop different skill sets to keep motivation and performance levels at the level you need. This session will provide you with the confidence to inspire, lead and motivate your team through turbulent times. It will give you not just the strategic skills, but also the interpersonal skills to deal with negative emotions and periods of uncertainty.

  Key topic areas

  • Survive or succeed? The current management challenge.
  • Understanding the impact of recent events on your organisation and its people.
  • The role for revisiting existing plans, strategies and objectives.
  • Managing and maintaining high performance levels.
  • Understanding the effects of pressure and stress on team motivation.
  • Managing upwards and outwards - effective influencing and persuading skills.
  • Communicating under pressure - developing communication strategies for dealing with difficult situations.
  • Dealing with negativity and tough questions - handling fear and uncertainty.
  • Retention - strategies for managing and retaining talented people.
  • Personal effectiveness - managing and prioritising your own workload.
  • Dealing with cutbacks - best practice tips and techniques.
  • Managing others through change.
  • How to keep individuals and team members focused during difficult change.
  • How to overcome resistance associated with change.
  • Coping strategies for individuals and teams who are being affected by negative change experiences.

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• Managing Your Clients

  Managing Your Clients

  Overview

  This session is one which relies on identifying and working with real-life accounts. You are encouraged to analyse your existing relationships with such accounts and share your experiences. You will leave the session with the tools and techniques to work on specific development objectives, action plans and time-frames of activity for your most important accounts, which will ultimately lead to more productive and profitable relationships. 

  Key topic areas

  • Exploring the key principles of effective account management.
  • Understanding the different stages of the client / supplier relationship.
  • Exploring the potential mismatch between expectations and deliverables.
  • Exploring the potential mismatch of preference and the impact this can have on your relationships.
  • The proactive approach to shaping and defining client expectations.
  • Making the most of client meetings – defining, guiding and steering expectations in a formal and informal context.
  • Building rapport and demonstrating credibility.
  • Identifying potential relationship pressure points.
  • Managing different personalities and preferences.
  • Ensuring the investment / profitability balance.
  • Recognising the dangers of over-servicing.

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• Maximising Client Relationships

  Maximising Client Relationships

   

  Overview

  A successful relationship, by its very nature, requires two-way communication. To influence and persuade effectively, an individual must be aware of both their own and their client's preferred communication styles. Our session will help you get the most out of your business relationships by developing a flexible approach to communication and relationship building. In particular, we'll help those of you dealing with challenging communication situations and help you to build relationships that ensure ongoing success.

  Key topic areas

  • The foundations of successful business relationships.
  • Understanding communication preference and the impact of such preference.
  • Developing a flexible communication style.
  • Developing awareness of your own style and the strengths and challenges associated with that style.
  • The role for Emotional Intelligence - exploring the 16 key competencies.
  • Exploring preference difference and the effect it may have on client relationships.
  • Understanding the various pressure points in relationships.
  • Understanding your triggers and your response to those triggers.
  • Managing challenging business relationships.

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• Media Law

  Media Law

  This course is ideal for journalists who have little or no knowledge of Media Law and the perils of libel. It also acts as a good refresher for those who need to keep up to date with legal developments.

  This one-day session looks at the affect British and Welsh Media Law can have on journalists writing for newspapers and magazines. From defences to libel to various other aspects of defamation. A highly informative course, practical sessions are run throughout the course to reinforce the theory.

  • What is Libel?
  • Defences against Libel
  • Justification
  • Apology/Amends
  • Accord & satisfaction
  • Handling complaints
  • Writs
  • Malicious Falsehood
  • Copyright Law
  • Penalties
  • Confidentiality Law
  • Official Secrets Act
  • Contempt of court
  • Defence Advisory Notice System

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• Motivating through Meaningful Feedback

  Motivating through Meaningful Feedback

   

  Overview

  As development specialists, we have learnt the fundamental contribution that well timed, well thought through and well delivered feedback can have on raising organisational performance. Feedback is a constant thread that should run through every task, but people often put off providing feedback to those they work with because they are too busy or are not too sure how to say what needs saying. Our experience has shown us that many employees identify a lack of feedback as a major cause of job dissatisfaction, often contributing to increased staff turnover and poor productivity. Balancing critical feedback with the right amount of praise is a challenge. In this session, you will explore how to communicate feedback in a constructive manner and learn just how effective and motivational this can be for both your team and yourself.

  Key topic areas

  • The role for feedback within any organisation, developing a feedback culture.
  • Recognising feedback as a performance builder and problem solver.
  • Improving your feedback skills - developing interpersonal and communication skills.
  • Planning your approach, sharpening your message.
  • Considering the role for language, tone and timing.
  • Setting the context where openness, constructive criticism and feedback are the norm.
  • Successful motivational feedback when confronting performance issues.
  • Structuring your message - feedback, example, impact and change needed.
  • The role for positive and constructive feedback, avoiding prescriptive feedback.
  • Stimulating interaction - handling disengagement and shut down.
  • Recognising and managing the most common feedback disrupters.

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• Networking that Brings Results

  Networking that Brings Results

   

  Overview

  Networking isn't just schmoozing. The art of networking is to build relationships and contacts that make both you and your business "attractive" to others, with the ultimate objective being to build your profile and your business. But it comes more easily to some than to others. Our session will explore the concept of networking, the dos and don'ts, and offer you some tried and tested techniques to make you confident and effective.  

  Key topic areas

  • What is networking and is it necessary?
  • Where are the networking opportunities that are available?
  • What is it you are trying to achieve? What are your hard and soft goals?
  • Building the foundation skills, building your confidence.
  • What are the potential pitfalls?
  • Managing your credibility zone - personal presentation, voice and non-verbal communication.
  • Building rapport - engaging your target.
  • The three most important techniques - opening, steering and closing.
  • Improving your influencing skills especially when dealing with people in authority or industry leaders.
  • The power of the follow-up, realising the potential of the connection.

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• New Business Development

  New Business Development

   

  Overview

  This session will provide delegates with the tools and techniques to successfully find and develop new business.  We will focus on how to identify and develop new business opportunities using four distinct stages. Stage one focuses on the role for market analysis, involving how to identify the most fertile areas for new business development, and in particular, those targets that could be developed into high yielding accounts. We will then explore the benefits of preparing a strategic approach using a comprehensive sales and communication plan. With the message defined and the approach shaped, we then focus on the most challenging aspects of new business development - making the initial contact, building rapport and establishing credibility. Finally, stage four involves the role for the follow-up and how to keep momentum in the relationship once initial contact has been made.

  Key topic areas

  • Analysis of existing market and opportunities.
  • Exploring potential markets, identifying the best targets.
  • Identifying your key message and communicating your message.
  • Building rapport and establishing credibility.
  • Exploring needs, concerns and challenges.
  • Identifying potential areas for synergy.
  • Responding to and overcoming initial barriers and resistance.
  • Ensuring the investment/profitability balance.
  • Defending and developing new and established accounts - keeping the competition out.

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• News Writing

  News Writing

  This course will put the emphasis on the basic, but essential principles of news journalism. We define what news is. We look at copy tasting news. We look at ways of finding unique and exclusive information, and the questioning techniques to use. We practice the best ways of delivering that information.

  On the course journalists gain a solid grounding in the news process and come away with some proven tips on how to help your news pages remain a "must-read" element of your publication.

  • What is news? (Discussion group)
  • Defining news, angles and bias
  • News weightings
  • Know your reader
  • The need for accurate copy tasting
  • News writing - The basics
  • Sorting and presenting your information
  • The importance of the intro
  • Sources of news
  • Contacts, PR & spin, business trends
  • Finding quality information
  • Preparation
  • Interviewing basics
  • Questioning techniques, building a rapport
  • Writing skills
  • Structure, language, pace
  • Checks and balances
  • Making your story stand up
  • Measurement
  • The power of the news photo
  • Using visuals to strengthen your story

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• Performance Management

  Performance Management

  Overview

  In this session we’ll explore what it really takes to build a high-performing team by looking at the key principles associated with performance management and managing underperformance. We’ll initially focus on the value of setting and communicating objectives, how to develop the psychological contract and how to ensure that we manage the contribution and development of our Super keepers, Keepers, Solid Citizens and Misfits. You’ll then examine your role as coach and the implications this has for driving performance, motivation and performance feedback. 

   

   

  Key topic areas

  • What is performance management and how does it work?
  • The Performance Management Cycle
  • The role for analysis in the setting of objectives
  • Setting SMART objectives and communicating objectives
  • Developing the psychological contract
  • Monitoring  and reviewing performance against objectives
  • Identifying our Super Keepers, Keepers, Solid Citizens and Misfits
  • Managing the contribution and development of each group
  • Your responsibilities as coach - what makes a good coach?
  • On the job and single issue coaching
  • Your dashboard warning lights – early warning signs of underperformance
  • Addressing underperformance
  • Feedback as performance builder
  • Monitoring performance – formal and informal methods
  • Motivational performance – beliefs and behaviour
  • Exploring different motivation techniques and their impacts
  • Understanding motivation
  • The four steps to performance management

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• Personal Development Reviews and Objective Setting

  Personal Development Reviews and Objective Setting

   

  Overview

  Personal Development Reviews (PDRs) should be seen as a performance blueprint to enable employees to achieve stretch objectives and high performance. Balancing critical feedback with the right amount of praise is a challenge – in this session you will explore how to communicate feedback in a constructive manner and learn just how effective and motivational this can be for both your team and yourself. You will also come away from this session equipped to make the PDR varied, live and above all effective in the achievement of agreed objectives. This is a highly interactive, practical and lively session. 

  Key Topic Areas 

  • What a PDR should be and what it shouldn’t be.
  • How PDRs fit in the performance management cycle.
  • Benefits of people owning their own development and PDRs.
  • Ensuring effective two-way communication.
  • Planning your approach, sharpening your message.
  • Structuring your message – feedback, example, impact and change needed.
  • Considering the role for language and tone.
  • The role for active listening from both angles.
  • The value of specific and meaningful positive feedback.
  • Successful motivational feedback when confronting performance issues - giving negative and uncomfortable but constructive feedback.
  • Recognising and managing the most common feedback disrupters.
  • Identifying development needs.
  • Getting specific about development needs.
  • Exploring the differences between training, development and learning.
  • Breadth of options to consider as solutions to development needs.
  • Setting development objectives.
  • Discussing which skills and behaviours will be necessary to reach these objectives and complete the day-to-day work at a high level.
  • Making the PDR live – a commitment to the PDR.
  • Making the PDR varied, motivating and effective.
  • Reviewing the PDR regularly.

   

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• Personal Effectiveness

  Personal Effectiveness

   

  Overview

  As your role becomes more demanding and resources become even tighter, it is critical that you manage your time and resources more effectively. This session will give you essential tools and techniques to help you build self-management systems and action plans that help you to find the time to spend on the high value tasks that will make a significant contribution to your overall performance. It will also give you the tools and techniques to manage your time more effectively when dealing with those time bandits and monkey givers that may derail the achievement of your objectives. This session will also explore the key principles associated with effective delegation. We will help you to identify what to delegate, who to delegate it to, and how to effectively communicate the task to get the desired outcome.

  Key topic areas

  • What do we mean by personal effectiveness?
  • Defining your job role and responsibilities.
  • Identifying your key performance indicators - what is expected of you?
  • Essential planning skills - identifying the high value, high impact tasks.
  • Setting realistic yet challenging objectives and deadlines.
  • Identifying resource pressure points and developing a strategy for dealing with them.
  • Making use of your resources - you, your team and technology.
  • Learning the value of effective prioritisation - using the urgent/important matrix.
  • Identifying skill sets and motivations of those who support you.
  • What can I delegate and to whom?
  • Communication skills that help delegation.
  • Managing interruptions and reactive tasks.
  • Identifying your time bandits and monkey givers.
  • Avoiding procrastination, creative procrastination.
  • Pushing back - the role for assertive communication in personal effectiveness.

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• Pitching for Success

  Pitching for Success

   

  Overview

  You've one chance to get it right and see off the competition - so how do you make sure it's your pitch the client plumps for? What and who are you going to be up against? Preparation is everything, but how do you know what to prepare? This session is aimed at anyone who wants to bring a fresh approach to winning new business. We'll look at how you can dig deeper into the brief and make your efforts pay off. Learn how to break free from the traditional pitch formula and make your presentations memorable for all the right reasons.

  Key topic areas

  • The purpose of the pitch - are you clear?
  • Winning a competitive advantage over the other agencies.
  • Interpreting the brief - filling in the gaps, how much research is required, pulling together your team.
  • Making your credentials more relevant and interesting to the potential client.
  • Creative stage - put yourself in the clients' shoes - what do they want to see and hear?
  • Crazy ideas for pitches that worked - and those that didn't.
  • A pitch planning process to ensure you cover all bases and hit your deadline.

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• Presentation Skills

  Presentation Skills

   

  Overview

  In your role you may have to present to both internal and external audiences, so it is critical that you communicate your message clearly and confidently, guaranteeing the encounter is engaging, motivational and memorable. During the session we will focus on what powerful communication looks like and how we need to adapt our communication style to meet the needs of the audience. We will look at the role for preparation and design in helping you develop your confidence, with an emphasis on the importance of defining the key message, building a logical and persuasive structure, and the use (and abuse) of visual aids, prompts and cue cards. We will also pay particular attention to the delivery of the presentation focusing on the use of language, your voice and body language. As with any presentation you may also come across difficult people, so time will be spent on handling difficult questions and challenging situations. You will also be given the opportunity to test out various techniques using a variety of different exercises.

  Key topic areas

  • Defining your current skills level - delegates deliver a presentation to the group.
  • Exploring the fundamental principles of effective communication.
  • What can we learn from great communicators?
  • Where do I start? Defining the objective of the presentation and building your case.
  • The role for preparation - researching your target group.
  • Structuring and shaping your message for maximum impact.
  • Setting the scene - your credibility zone.
  • Effective openings and closes - inform, engage and motivate to act.
  • Techniques to improve the impact of your presentations - using ideas, storytelling, use of visuals and more.
  • Building effective visual aids - avoiding death by PowerPoint.
  • Bringing your message alive - making dry material stimulating.
  • Identifying your links and pause points - presenting fluently.
  • Developing your ‘natural self'- how to loosen up your style and feel at ease.
  • Choice of language - communicating your message with passion, connecting with your audience.
  • The role for body language - adding energy to the presentation.
  • Voice - how tone, timing and volume can affect your credibility and impact.
  • Calling for action, closing the presentation.
  • Communicating with confidence - controlling nerves, channelling adrenalin.
  • Handling difficult questions and challenging situations.
  • Re-visiting the presentation - delivery of a re-worked presentation.

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• Presenting with Impact

  Presenting with Impact

   

  Overview

  You know how to build the content for a presentation; you know what you need to do when faced with your audience; and you have previously run a number of presentations. However, you feel that you would like to take your presentation skills to the next level. This session is suitable for those who have experience of presenting and want to refine those skills - whether it be a sit-down or group presentation. We will focus on the delivery of presentations, specifically looking at fine-tuning your body language and voice, getting the message out with maximum impact, and in particular, how to develop your ‘natural self'.

  Key topic areas

  • Defining your current skills level - delivery of an introductory presentation.
  • Delivering concise messages with maximum impact.
  • Body language - fine-tuning your body language.
  • Voice - how tone, timing and volume can affect your credibility.
  • Developing your ‘natural self' - how to loosen up your style and feel at ease.
  • Choice of language - communicating your message with passion, connecting with your audience.
  • Presenting fluently - knowing your links.
  • The use of rhetorical questions - adding impact to your presentation.
  • Dealing with challenging audience members and answering their questions.
  • How to deliver bad news in a presentation.
  • How to deliver unexpected news.
  • When it is okay to go off-piste and how to manage it effectively.
  • Re-visiting the opening presentation - delivery of re-worked introductory presentation.

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• Project Management

  Project Management

   

  Overview

  Most of us know how to get a project off the ground and will be familiar with the tools and techniques to help put a project plan together. However, most projects run aground because we fail to appreciate the many challenges that are quite often faced during the project life span. During this session, you will gain a detailed understanding of the structures and framework that support project management, as well as looking at the softer skills needed to ensure that projects are delivered on time and on budget. You will come away with the foundation, experience, techniques and tools to manage each stage of the project lifecycle and have a better understanding of project management, the role of the project manager and the related skills to be developed.

  Key topic areas

  • Best practice in project management - sharing of experiences.
  • Identifying opportunities - which projects will really deliver value for the organisation?
  • The role for the challenge diagnostic.
  • The role for creative thinking, recognising barriers to innovation.
  • Taking charge - the roles and responsibilities of the project manager and project team.
  • Managing the project lifecycle - deciding what needs doing and how to get it done.
  • Ensuring consistency of approach and recognising the value of blueprints, templates and guidelines.
  • Project sizing - managing and deploying resources.
  • Building your influencing skills across the stakeholder group.
  • Keeping people informed - communications management.
  • Carrying out the work - implementation.
  • Monitoring performance and initiating change and a change of pace if necessary.
  • Successful completion - project close-out.
  • Difficult project situations.

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• Proofreading Skills

  Proofreading Skills

  Peppering your written business materials with typographical errors and grammatical mistakes is no way to impress your clients. We’ll give you the skills you need to be an expert proofreader. Kicking off with the basics of grammar and punctuation, we’ll move on to look at the different techniques and methods that can be used. We’ll introduce you to the industry-standard British Standard proof reading marks, giving you a professional edge. And once we’ve covered the theory, we’ll start putting your learnings into practice.
  
  

  • Understanding the proofing process
  • The challenges of proofreading and its responsibilities
  • Working on paper and on screen
  • How to use proof correction marks
  • A refresher on grammar and punctuation
  • Spelling and choice of words
  • Establishing an effective proofing process
  • Tips on spotting mistakes
  • Consistency and house style
  • How to improve the effectiveness of proof reading
  • How to make proof reading less tedious!
  • Signing off the final document
  • Strategies for the future

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• Raising the Game - Sales Masterclass

  Raising the Game - Sales Masterclass

   

  Overview

  This session will give you an opportunity to reflect on your sales skills and identify those areas that may need a bit of an overhaul. We begin by revisiting the skills associated with successful selling and look at how important it is for you to prepare your approach, by setting clear hard and soft goals, and the role for explicit need identification and solution selling. You'll also explore how to structure and control a negotiation, and at the same time, how to respond to pressure tactics that may derail the whole process if your response is not assertive enough.

  Key topic areas

  • Developing relationships through credibility and servicing.
  • Setting hard and soft goals for each account.
  • Building rapport and credibility - the cornerstones of any business relationship.
  • Identifying explicit needs through open, empathic questioning.
  • The value of the solution sell - demonstrating the return on investment.
  • Tailoring your solution for each individual client.
  • The role for creativity in today's competitive market.
  • The role for control in any negotiation.
  • The seven step negotiation process.
  • Absorbing pressure - what to do when things stall?
  • Recognising high pressure and low pressure tactics.
  • Responding to high pressure and low pressure tactics.

  • Close
• Recruitment and Selection

  Recruitment and Selection

   

  Overview

  Have you ever read a CV on your way to an interview? Not felt confident that a candidate can really do the things they claim they can? Or conducted a third interview to help you make up your mind? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then you need our help. We'll show you how to prepare for an interview, how to structure it and how to thoroughly test competency claims. We will also give you a thorough grounding in the processes for recruitment and selection, with focus on the employment legislation that relates to recruitment and selection, and the importance of documenting all decisions within the process.

  Key topic areas

  • How does employment legislation relate to recruitment and selection?
  • Embedding a system and framework.
  • Building the skills profile - what are we looking for?
  • CV assessment - gaps and motivations.
  • Getting what you need to get the most out of the interview - testing skill sets and achievement statements.
  • Exploring attitudes and motivations - what really makes this candidate tick?
  • The role for hypothetical questions.
  • Making the decision - do their skills match and can I work with them?
  • Documenting all decisions.
  • Exploring challenging recruitment interview situations.

  • Close
• Remote Management Skills

  Remote Management Skills

  Overview

  Research has shown us that there are many benefits to staff working remotely including reduced absenteeism, however it also presents a number of challenges for managers. This half-day session is aimed at those who manage both individual staff members and teams located in different places – either who work from home or at a different office. We will begin the session by exploring both the challenges and benefits associated with managing remotely, with particular focus on overcoming the distance barriers to effective communication. We will focus on techniques in developing high performing teams, including increasing motivation, team spirit and empowering team members to improve initiative, support and control. You will come away from this session with practical tools to increase morale and lead your staff and teams to success. 

  Key topic areas

  • The role for remote management and the remote manager.
  • Defining your remote team and the benefits and challenges associated with this.
  • Identifying strategies for successful remote working – including the need for change.
  • Understanding your team and what they need from you as a manger.
  • Understanding individual motivations and skills development.
  • Developing clearly defined roles and action plans.
  • Understanding the changing dynamics.
  • Creating the right environment and a supportive culture.
  • Adapting your delegation techniques to remote working situations.
  • Developing confidence and competence through remote coaching.
  • Empowering remote staff to achieve success through initiative and control.
  • Identifying and overcoming the distance barriers to effective communication.
  • Maintaining remote team spirit and momentum.
  • Measuring success – commitment, buy-in and remote action plans.

  • Close
• Sales Essentials

  Sales Essentials

   

  Overview

  You will explore the key principles of effective selling and demonstrate how to use a structured approach, giving you control and direction in all sales calls. We will show you how to use open questions to help you identify client needs, how to pitch your product or service, how to overcome objections and how to close. You will go away with the essential skills required to build relationships, secure revenue and ultimately enhance your sales performance. You will be required to supply a real-life role play scenario which will be used during the session. You will be taped role playing with the trainer for feedback from both the trainer and colleagues.

  Key topic areas

  • Preparing for the call, knowing your client and their products.
  • The value of a structured approach.
  • Getting past the gatekeeper - speaking to the decision maker.
  • Exploring the client’s needs through different questioning techniques; open; closed; and probing questions.
  • Solution selling and the role for the portfolio sell.
  • Matching client needs to your product.
  • Competitive selling, what makes you unique?
  • Recognising barriers, smokescreens and objections.
  • How to overcome resistance and objections.
  • Building commitment and closing the sale.
  • Deciding the next appropriate step.
    

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• Selling in Stories to the Media

  Selling in Stories to the Media

  Your client thinks it’s a great story, you think it’s a great story – so how do you convince that influential journalist it’s a great story? Selling-in stories to the media can be one of the most personally challenging aspects of PR. Journalists are notoriously sceptical, under pressure to hit deadlines and bombarded with approaches from PRs every day of the week. We’ll look at how to anticipate and overcome a hostile reaction and improve your hit-rate of placing stories.
  
  

  • The importance of building constructive relationships with the media
  • Understanding the journalist’s perspective
  • Selling a story on the phone; how to engage the media
  • Developing a style that is positive, direct and productive
  • Overcoming apathy, ignorance and resistance
  • How not to take 'no' for an answer
  • Role plays drawing from delegates’ experience

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• Selling Through the Stall

  Selling Through the Stall

   

  Overview

  All too often we feel we have concluded a piece of business only to endure the frustration of seeing it sit on the client's desk for months on end. We'll examine the different reasons why a piece of business may stall, how to assess how genuine the stall is and, most importantly, what we need to do to manage the situation through to a successful conclusion. You will also explore different closing and commitment building techniques, and all practical work will be built around specific, real-life situations.
  
  Key topic areas

  • Revisiting the structured sale.
  • Understanding the role for commitment building in the sales process.
  • Your closing check points.
  • The three different barriers to closing.
  • Exploring the final and most challenging barrier - the stall.
  • Identifying the reasons behind the stall.
  • Recognising a genuine stall from a smokescreen.
  • Managing the stall - the four stage process that works in every situation.
  • Establishing commitment, getting sign-off.

  • Close
• Strategic Communications and Presentations

  Strategic Communications and Presentations

  Overview

  In your role as leaders it is critical that you communicate your message clearly and confidently, guaranteeing the any communication encounter, formal or informal is engaging, motivational and compelling. During this session, we will focus on what powerful communication looks like and how we need to adapt our communication style to meet the needs of the audience and the message being sent. We will look at the role for preparation in helping you develop your confidence, with an emphasis on the importance of defining the key message, building a logical and persuasive structure. We will also pay particular attention to the delivery of your message focusing on the use of language, your voice and body language. As with communication situation, you may also come across difficult people, so time will be spent on handling difficult questions and challenging situations. You will also be given the opportunity to test out various techniques using a variety of different exercises. 

  Key topic areas

  • Employing the right communication channel for different situations including cross-cultural interpretations.
  • Nurturing a climate that promotes mutual trust and fosters collaboration and respect.
  • Exploring the fundamental principles of effective communication.
  • What can we learn from great communicators?
  • Understanding communication preference and the impact of such preference.
  • Developing a flexible communication style.
  • Developing awareness of your own style and the strengths and challenges associated with that style.
  • The role for preparation in formal communication situations and the delivery of quality presentations.
  • Structuring and shaping your message for maximum impact.
  • Setting the scene – your credibility zone.
  • Effective openings and closes – inform, engage and motivate to act.
  • Techniques to improve the impact of formal communication situations - using ideas, storytelling, use of visuals and more.
  • Body language – fine-tuning your body language and reading between the lines.
  • Voice – how tone, timing and volume can affect your credibility.
  • Using your voice – the role for pace, pause, pitch and timing.
  • Active listening – understanding the message being sent.
  • Active listening - eye contact, hand movements, facial expressions, body movement and placement.
  • Developing your ‘natural self’ - how to loosen up your style and feel at ease.
  • Choice of language – using simple, concise and direct language.
  • The use of rhetorical questions – adding impact to a formal communication situation.
  • Facilitating group sessions – how to get the best from a given situation.
  • Dealing with challenging audience members and answering their questions.
  • Techniques to use in difficult situations - turning up the assertiveness volume.
  • How to deal with conflict or criticism.
  • Responding to aggressive or manipulative people.
  • How to deliver unexpected or bad news in a communication situation.
  • Barriers to active listening and how to overcome these.
  • Stimulating interaction – handling disengagement.
  • The role for questions, active listening and empathy building when dealing with unexpected or hostile responses.
  • Closing the communication – what do we want?

  • Close
• Strategic Management

  Strategic Management

   

  Overview

  Strategy is a term that's often used, but less often considered. What does it mean and how can we define it? If your role involves the need to think and act strategically, then we're here to help. We'll help you produce business plans and think ahead about the opportunities and threats facing your departments or organisations. We'll show you how to take a balanced, objective overview of your organisation; and unveil the pitfalls for those of you who feel that ‘urgent' work all too often takes priority over ‘important' work.

  Key topic areas

  • What do we mean by strategy?
  • Reasons for having a strategy - and the consequences of not having one.
  • Elements of strategic management.
  • Analysing opportunities and threats from the business environment.
  • Analysing your organisation's strengths and weaknesses.
  • Strategic appraisal and organisational problem diagnosis.
  • Choosing the appropriate strategy generation.
  • Criteria of successful strategies.
  • Strategy implementation - moving forward.
  • Managing stakeholders and resistance to change.
  • Monitoring the effectiveness of strategy.
  • Project planning for strategy implementation.

  • Close
• Strategic Sales Planning

  Strategic Sales Planning

  Overview

  As you become more experienced within sales and you can distinguish between simply selling a commodity to a client and managing an account to its full potential, you will need to develop strategic selling skills to help you develop maximum profitability from your key accounts and sell against the competition.  

  Key topic areas

  • Understanding the client – how much do you need to know?
  • Understanding the market / culture / people / politics
  • The strategic approach -  planning / tactics / competition / objectives
  • Securing internal resources to build momentum
  • Dealing with multiple decision makers
  • Presenting proposals / creating solutions
  • Building the relationship – understanding gateways and pressure points
  • Managing and delivering levels of expectation
  • Maintaining profitability  - recognising the investment to pay back formula
  • Building and maintaining satisfaction levels
  • Identifying further new business gateways
  • The follow-up process

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• Stress Management

  Stress Management

   

  Overview

  Stress is one of the key causes of lost working time and is frequently cited in workplace grievance procedures. Some stress is good, and human beings thrive on having a healthy level, but when it passes the tipping point it can affect performance, your health and well-being. This highly practical session takes a look at your current experiences within the context of real-life issues and experiences, and explores the common causes of stress, the common reactions and the key differences between constructive and destructive reactions to stress. You'll be encouraged to explore your own stress triggers as well as your instinctive response to stress. Plus, we will give you an opportunity to explore a variety of different coping techniques. The case-study work within this session will give you an invaluable opportunity to try out alternative solutions which will put you in a better position to tackle stress when you return to the "real world".

  Key topic areas

  • Understanding our different responses - an opportunity for disclosure based around further case study work.
  • Exploring the pay-off/negative impact for each response.
  • Identifying ‘unhelpful' choices.
  • Can we change our instinctive responses?
  • Taking the necessary steps to remodel behaviour.
  • Discussion - identifying ‘unhelpful' behaviour.
  • How is my behaviour and my response to stress shaped?
  • What behaviour do I exhibit?
  • Taking ownership/accepting responsibility for your behaviour and the outcome of your behaviour.
  • Minimising stress risks.

  • Close
• Sub-editing

  Sub-editing

  
  Sub-editors (or subs) are some of the most powerful people within the national media. Their skill is to edit the copy to make it as punchy as possible, check the facts and create the all-important headlines and captions. Here we’ll help you understand how their role works, what skills you’ll need to be a good sub and how you can get them. We’ll use a series of practical exercises, from headline and standfirst writing to proofreading and feature structure.
  
  

  • What a sub does
  • The skills required to be an effective sub
  • The challenges of the role
  • The importance of knowing your readership
  • Where does the writer and the reader fit into what we do
  • A refresher on grammar and punctuation
  • Effective headline writing
  • Effective standfirst writing
  • Effective caption writing
  • An outline on structure – news and features
  • The importance of house style
  • Tips on successful proofreading
  • Tips on successful page handling
  • Making the page fit
  • Handling pages both on screen and print

  • Close
• Talent Management

  Talent Management

   

  Overview

  According to a study by McKinsey & Company, the most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent. Unfortunately, it's also the resource in shortest supply. So, what are you doing to make sure your business attracts, develops and retains the talented people who are capable of making all the difference to your success? This session will help you explore some of the latest thinking on managing and nurturing talent within organisations.

  Key topic areas

  • The key components of an active talent management strategy.
  • Attracting talent - recruiting the most talented people.
  • Spotting the talented employees - the role for performance management systems and processes.
  • Identifying your Super Keepers, Keepers, Solid Citizens and Misfits.
  • Developing talent - the role for training, coaching and mentoring.
  • Understanding the changing psychological contract.
  • Retaining talent - exploring both small company and big company retention strategies.
  • Talent management self-audit - how are we doing?

  • Close
• The Agency Sell

  The Agency Sell

   

  Overview

  Building productive relationships and selling effectively to advertising agencies can be a confusing and challenging task. This session aims to give you an insider's guide to how it should be done. You will explore the key roles and responsibilities within an agency and how they work together with the client to construct the media brief. You will be shown how a media plan is put together and in particular look at the variables driving media selection. As an added benefit, we invite a speaker from an agency to run through their perspective, in terms of the structure of an agency and explain what they look for in a sales pitch. You will also be shown how to recognise and counteract agency buying tactics - sometimes the most challenging part of managing your relationship with the agency.

  Agency speaker covers

  • What does the agency expect from the media owner?
  • How is the modern agency structured?
  • Roles and responsibilities - who does what?
  • Understanding the dynamic of the client/agency relationship.
  • The media brief - what is it and how is it put together?
  • Questions and answers clinic.

  Trainer covers

  • The different types of agencies.
  • How an agency is structured - who does what.
  • Who should you be speaking to?
  • The contents of the media brief.
  • Understanding the media brief.
  • Building the media schedule - what factors does a media planner consider?
  • The challenges facing a media planner and the resulting opportunity paralysis.
  • Influencing the media plan - making your case.
  • What to expect from the media buying process.
  • Recognising and responding to agency tactics.

  • Close
• The Competitive Sell

  The Competitive Sell

   

  Overview

  This session gives sales executives and account managers the opportunity to spend time analysing and refining how they sell against their major competitors.  It examines the competition in detail and identifies the problems they pose, especially in the current economic climate. Having looked at the competition, it then examines specific techniques associated with the competitive sell. And then gives delegates the opportunity to test out their newly acquired skills through a series of stimulating and tailored case studies.

  Key topic areas

  • Identifying the competitive landscape.
  • Primary, secondary and peripheral competition.
  • What do we know about our competitors?
  • What particular challenges do we face?
  • A SWOT analysis of all primary and secondary competition.
  • Identifying the competitive pressure points.
  • Rules for selling against the competition.
  • Handling competitive objections.
  • Using consultative sales techniques to head off the threat.
  • Techniques for handling the competitive pitch.

  • Close
• Train-to-Train

  Train-to-Train

   

  Overview

  It shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that those managers who get the most out of their teams are the ones who spend a high proportion of their time and energy training and developing others. We aim to show you that by taking the time to develop a robust training climate within your organisation, you will make a considerable impact on performance, motivation, retention of talent and ultimately the achievement of your strategic goals.

  Key topic areas

  • The case for developing a learning and development organisation.
  • Understanding the resistance and barriers you may face.
  • Exploring trainer competencies - what makes an effective trainer?
  • Identifying training opportunities - both opportunistic and remedial.
  • Running a training session.
  • Framing the session - identifying the desired outcome.
  • Building a structure.
  • Developing content.
  • The role for action based learning.
  • Pressure points.
  • Confronting performance issues through constructive and positive feedback.
  • Measuring progress. 

  • Close
• Understanding Finance

  Understanding Finance

  Do you know your revenue from your profits? Can you work out the depreciation on your assets and find your way around a balance sheet?

  In this session, we’re not aiming to make you an accountant but we can debunk financial jargon and give you more confidence when talking to people in the finance team or when discussing financial issues. We’ll give you the low down on common terms and what they mean as well as explaining how you can use this information to help you in your role.
  
  

  • Financial terms and jargon
  • The role and functions of the finance team
  • Understanding profit
  • Why is a profit needed/how much profit is enough?
  • Is profit cash?
  • Accounting Conventions
  • The principles applied when preparing accounting information
  • Key financial documents – what they are, what information do they provide
  • Balance Sheet
  • Profit and Loss Account
  • Cash Flow Forecast / Cash Flow Statement
  • Financial Accounts vs Management Accounts
  • The role of budgets
  • Key Business Ratios and KPIs

  • Close
• Writing and Editing for the Web

  Writing and Editing for the Web

  This session looks at the skills necessary to write effectively on the internet. It covers the main difference between print and screen, what information the reader requires, a user-friendly format, along with the skills needed in grabbing and holding the reader’s attention.  A highly practical and informative course.
  
  

  • The challenge of the internet
  • The problems of web delivery
  • Do they read or do they scan?
  • Information, information, information
  • Meta-tagging
  • Website strategy - hold users to your site or provide hyperlinks?
  • Delivering the message - What do your users require?
  • What a good writer/sub-editor can bring to content
  • Focus on keywords
  • Editing tightly
  • Selling the story with a good heading
  • Headings as information resources
  • The all-important introductory paragraph
  • Holding the user’s attention
  • Content review checklist

  • Close
• Writing Better Releases

  Writing Better Releases

  The press release is the most tried and tested element of the PR’s toolkit. But journalists complain that they regularly receive poorly-written releases, the vast majority of which are “spiked” – in other words – binned. This session will guide newcomers and recently-established PRs through how to create a professional and effective press release. Learn what separates good copy from bad and how to have the greatest impact. This is a very hands-on session where delegates will develop their writing style and turn out well-written releases relevant to their day-to-day roles.
  
  

  • Basic principles – how to plan, structure and polish your release
  • Style and grammar – avoid the classic pitfalls
  • What to include and what to leave out
  • Match your style to the audience
  • Grab the reader… and keep them engaged
  • Effective headlines
  • The role of Notes to the Editor / boilerplates

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• Writing with Impact and Professionalism

  Writing with Impact and Professionalism

  Overview

  Creating engaging and persuasive written communications is a vital skill in these testing, high-pressured times. Being able to grab your recipients’ attention and then get your message across powerfully with clients, colleagues and management is essential.  This session will help any of you who need to write effective, persuasive written communications, including proposals, letters, emails and promotional material. We’ll look at the creative process of putting a document together, how to gain credibility with your audience and persuade them to support your call to action.

  During our session we’ll explore different ways of making an impact in writing. We’ll ensure you’ve considered and analysed your objective, understood your audience and then we’ll look at planning and structuring your communications to make sure they get results, as well as the benefits of professional presentation. We’ll look specifically at the challenges of modern communication, particularly the impact of emails.

  Key topic areas

  • The importance of writing with impact.
  • The communication hierarchy – what’s the right tool for the job?
  • Matching the copy to the target audience.
  • What’s the message? How to make your communication a good read.
  • Structure, content, delivery – how to put your document together.
  • How to persuade and influence in a written document.
  • The importance of subject lines.
  • Creating high-impact emails – ensuring your message gets read.
  • The detail: salutations and signing off, getting the grammar right.

  • Close
• You as a Leader

  You as a Leader

   

  Overview

  Leaders don't just become leaders overnight. We believe that leadership is both an innate and learned behaviour that develops over time and in doing so develops through three key stages. The Emerging Leader demonstrates very early on in their career some of the essential behaviours associated with leadership and it is the demonstration of such behaviours that open the gateway to the next step on the leadership ladder.

  Once the essentials are in place, the Modern Leader must then learn to navigate their way through the many challenges associated when asked to work as part of a larger management team. Working alongside different stakeholders with different priorities and responsibilities can make this a very testing time for the Modern Leader. But if you make it through this stage of leadership development then you are well on your way to being a Summit Leader, where leadership once again takes on a different form.

  This session will encourage you to consider how far you have come in the acquisition of leadership skills and how far you still have to go.

  Key topic areas

  • Layered leadership - building behaviour from the bottom up.
  • Exploring the different levels of leadership - Base Camp Leadership, Matrix Leadership and Leadership at the Summit.
  • The Essentials - self-awareness, influencing skills and mind set.
  • Leading from the middle - to survive or to succeed?
  • Exploring classic survivalist styles - Cave Dweller, Boy Scout, Expert, Politician and Autocrat.
  • Why do we use such styles?
  • The positives and negatives of each style.
  • Successful Matrix Leadership.
  • Motivation and moments of truth.
  • Leading from the Summit  - smart and not so smart leaders.
  • Exploring the role for Situational Leadership.
  • Recognising what your team needs right now.
  • Understanding different leadership styles and the impact of these different styles.
  • Creating and embedding values - the leaders ultimate challenge.

  • Close

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