Ten facts you need to leverage the awesome power of social media

Hi

Last week saw the launch of the Ecademy Digital Business Britain Manifesto. This manifesto is supported by Mark Prisk, the Minister for Enterprise and Business.

It aims to highlight the importance of why companies, regardless of their size, need to embrace a digital mindset to increase their and their country’s economic output.

As one of the UK’s first Ecademy accredited digital coaches I have recognised the importance of social media and digital knowledge for my own company development.

I know that many people will need to shift their mindset radically if they are to integrate social media and digital thinking into their operations as fully as possible.

But I also know its potential. And I know the risks organisations are taking if they get left behind by relying only on traditional ways of thinking. So, if you are influential in your business, and fear being out in the cold in the social media revolution, here are some stats -
on Twitter alone
- and ten facts to get you thinking…

Some figures to ponder…

• In 2010 25 billion tweets were sent
• 100 million new Twitter accounts were set up in 2010
• As at September 2010, 175 million people were using Twitter

And some facts…

So, Social Media is transforming the way the world does business, today. The implications are huge. The possibilities are endless. The risks are important to consider.

Some people say it’s all a game. If you don’t know what to do, or you aren’t doing it, then you are not even in the game. Can you afford not to be?

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Have a question about a development or training issue? Email us your questions and we’ll answer them in the next issue.

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The power of social media is awesome. Don’t ignore it, and don’t dabble with it.

Remember, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing…

Take a strategic approach, and get expert advice.

Alison Miles-Jenkins

Managing Director

Training To Achieve (UK) Ltd

0845 165 6269

www.t2achieve.com

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SMARTER Resolutions

It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that we are a couple of weeks into January 2011?

Everyone’s talking New Year’s Resolutions – and some people will have made and broken these already!

The really committed among us may well have applied the acronym SMARTER to our resolutions, treating them as we do our work objectives, and so standing more chance that we’ll achieve them. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-related… and don’t forget the newly added Evaluated and Reviewed).

Look back and celebrate

I don’t know about you, but at Training To Achieve we didn’t just do the welcoming in of the new Year. We celebrated 2010. We didn’t see the year as deserving to be shrugged off or discarded. It was a time to look back and celebrate our achievements.

As learning and development experts we know how important it is for people to be motivated, to feel comfortable in their own skin, with a balanced understanding of strengths and development areas. This will help them to flourish and to achieve. We understand how powerful it is for people to acknowledge and be proud of past achievements. This provides a strong platform for taking on further challenges, to go beyond the comfort zone, take risks, learn new things and become even more successful.

When I think back to the year that’s just gone, I get a great source of pleasure and pride when I think about how our company has helped our clients and their employees to achieve, especially during such challenging times.

Ask the Editor

Have a question about a development or training issue? Email us your questions and we’ll answer them in the next issue.

Would you like a daily tip? Just send us an email and we’ll send you a fresh tip every day.

Here’s my top ten – in no particular order:

1. Launching our Brown Bag Lunch courses, bringing real value, a powerful learning experience and lunch to clients who were struggling to afford full day courses
2. Setting up a scheme to support Cancer Research UK. We mainly grow through referrals and repeat business and so to thank all clients who refer us on to others, we donate £100 each time to the charity
3. Training to be an accredited digital coach, so we can help our clients who are struggling to understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of using social media for business
4. Going into a joint venture with a provider of a fantastic online 360 feedback tool that has worked wonders for many of our larger clients
5. Launching our free Privilege Club offering clients free support, advice and preferential rates
6. Offering free coaching sessions to clients whilst we were being trained further in corporate, executive and personal performance coaching – now another string to our bow
7. Meeting Sir Bob Geldof in July which was truly inspirational and encouraged us to expand our horizons even further with our clients
8. Travelling to Australia to agree a joint venture with a Sydney-based consultancy, enabling us to provide our great services to Asia Pacific clients. Plus a fabulous meeting with Willis in Sydney will hopefully enable us to help them in London as well with 2011 Learning and development events
9. Getting to the finals of a Businesswoman of the Year competition and being given the opportunity to talk to groups of aspiring career women and working mums
10. Winning the Education and Lifelong Business Award in November, and being able to thank all the clients who have supported us over the last 20 years.

What were your highs?

As we close our first newsletter for 2011, all that remains is to wish you well for the coming year and hope you achieve everything you set out to achieve.

And don’t forget to get in touch to ensure you meet your training needs and guarantee that you keep your New Year’s resolution! We look forward to hearing from you.

Alison Miles-Jenkins

Managing Director

Training To Achieve (UK) Ltd

0845 165 6269

www.t2achieve.com

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Personal Effectiveness Health Checks

Dear Reader

I’m sure you take your health seriously. Regular health checks are important to make sure you’re fit and healthy. They also help to highlight potential problems before they arise.

But it’s not just your health and wellbeing you should monitor regularly. You should also review your business skills.

How good are your communication skills?

As part of our range of complimentary services to celebrate our 20th Anniversary, we are offering you or your organisation free Personal Effectiveness Health Checks in one of the following areas:

• Written communications
• Presentation skills
• Interview skills

Do you write right?

First impressions count, and often the first contact people have with you is a written communication.

Make sure your writing skills are up to scratch – send us an example of your corporate letters or emails and we’ll critique it. You’ll receive a report on your layout, punctuation style, presentation and grammar and a few suggestions on how to improve – for free.

It is with great pleasure that I present to you…

Presenting may not be your favourite job, but it is an essential part of business. How you go about your presentation will determine whether it is a success or not.

To boost your presentation performance, send us a presentation on PowerPoint and we’ll critique it. Our feedback will offer tips to improve the overall effectiveness of your message – for free.

Are you ready to interview?

Conducting an interview to find the candidate who is right for the job can be daunting. To make sure you’re not committing any interview cardinal sins, email us for a checklist. Then, as part of our Personal Effectiveness Health Checks, contact us for advice on how to avoid three of your guilty sins – for free.

Ask the Editor

Have a question about a development or training issue? Email us your questions and we’ll answer them in the next issue.

Favourite Quotes

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” Aristotle

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Confucius

“The secret to happiness is not in doing what one likes to do but in liking what one has to do.” Anonymous

“Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.” Euripedes

Tips for Achievers

Three things to stop doing to boost your personal effectiveness:

• Check emails too frequently – this can be distracting, will affect your concentration and lower your performance; so turn off your email notification and build into your day regular slots to check emails.

• Gravitating towards urgency rather than importance – important tasks need more brainpower, skill and time. Neglect them and they’ll become urgent too. Then you really will be stressed.

• Holding meetings without action-centred agendas – you’ll just waste your time and that of others and get poorer outcomes.

Would you like a daily tip? Just send us an email and we’ll send you a fresh tip every day.

Make sure you’re in tip-top health

Writing, presenting and interviewing are all important skills to master. With our help you can become a black belt in all three disciplines and boost your effectiveness.

Email us today and take the first step towards greater personal effectiveness.

Kind regards

Alison Miles-Jenkins

Managing Director

Training To Achieve ( UK) Ltd

0845 165 6269

www.t2achieve.com

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A guide to getting the most from your training suppliers and consultants

Dear Subscriber

Are you finding you have to make your budgets stretch further this year? Do you have more training needs than you can cater for? How well are you able to support and develop staff in this current challenging environment? Are there lots of changes and ideas but minimal resources to drive them forwards? Are you ensuring that the training you do provide has an impact, adds value and a demonstrable return on investment?

Most importantly, how much are you making of the varied and often free services that are out there?

To save you time and money, our first newsletter, launched to celebrate our 20th anniversary, focuses on just some of the options that you should expect from your training suppliers. These should help you guarantee the best possible returns from any investment you make in training and development.

If you are not asking for or considering some or all of the following, you could be missing out:

Needs analysis

Tick box training gets everyone a bad name. Make sure your supplier is willing and able to take your corporate training needs analysis that bit further. What exactly are the goals you need to achieve? What are the key objectives – improvement, development or maintenance for example? How does your supplier know? What about asking prospective learners to secure their buy-in? Make sure there is at least a pre-course questionnaire, circulated and reviewed by the supplier before the event. What about an on-site meeting to discuss options?

Tailored training is good

How bespoke is it really? How do you know? Has the supplier done sufficient research and taken the time and effort to get to know you, your people, your culture, your language, your priorities? This is all part of the tailored service – you should not need to pay extra for it. And what exactly are you paying for? Are the fees representing quality of service and expertise or something else?

Innovative approaches to training delivery

Shorter courses – expert delivery

Budgets are not just the problem. How difficult do you now find it to release staff for even a day? Experts should be willing and able to package their delivery into shorter, intensive yet participative sessions, run at times to suit operational pressures. This should not cost you extra. To have to pay a premium for lunchtime, evenings or weekends hardly seems appropriate these days when everyone is working together to survive and prosper.

Powerful methods to supplement workshops and courses

Look for the variety of methods suggested. Action learning sets, training of internal facilitators to cascade or provide continuity, guided projects and business challenges are often more powerful than stand-alone courses. They should be work-related and are more likely to deliver sustainable results. These methods should actually cost less than traditional training delivery.

Coaching and Mentoring

Targeted support for individuals and teams, particularly powerful for senior staff, could well be a more cost-effective and results-orientated solution. You may have issues around change management, career development, conflict, team building or effective leadership. Ensure your provider is qualified, identifies key stakeholders, clarifies expectations and boundaries – oh, and understands the difference between coaching and mentoring!

Does the intervention end with an evaluation form?

What are you doing to monitor impact and value? What about the transfer of learning to the workplace? Consider what post-training support is on offer. At the very least there should be free on-line and/or telephone support and email updates for learners for a period, to support their action planning. ‘Virtual at desk coaching’ goes one step further. How willing is the provider to get involved in medium and longer term evaluation and support if you need this?

Your supplier should be designing your solutions around needs and critical incidents. These can be measured afterwards. You need to know if you are getting ROI, and this is feasible for soft skills training, too. Don’t let your supplier tell you otherwise!

Freebies

These days we all appreciate a ‘significant free’. Check what else is included in the fees. Will your delegates receive free journals to encourage reflective practice? What about refreshments provided on workshops – or are you having to organise these? Would you benefit from free advice, articles, checklists and even a complimentary training event now and again?

So… the good news is….

As a client you are in a great place at the moment to ensure you get everything …and more that you want and need from your suppliers. Choose one that makes you and your organisation feel individual, special and valued. Make sure they have a ‘guarantee’ policy, just in case.

You should get a great, long-term productive partnership that saves you time and money and gets the results you need.

Things change. Our free training and development review meeting is for anyone wanting to get the most from their training resources. Just give us a call on 0845 165 6269 or email:
enquiries@trainingtoachieveuk.com

Kind regards

Alison Miles-Jenkins
Managing Director
Training To Achieve ( UK) Ltd