Tips of the week

Leadership –  

Effective teams build your organization.  Instilling team spirit, creating a cooperative climate and channeling group effort are keys to productivity and success.

Three ideas to increase success with team cooperation include:

1. Ensure that team members understand the total problem.
2. Ensure that team members understand how they can contribute toward solving the problem.
3. Make team members aware of the potential contributions of the other project team members.

Our Toronto based Leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our leadership skills training and other management skills and communication courses workshops and seminars can help you build your professionalism.

Negotiating Skills – 

Much of what you accomplish is the product of negotiation.

Four ideas to increase success include:

1. Know “when to fold ‘em” i.e. when to walk away… set specific limits. It’s OK to say, “That’s more than I‘m prepared to do.” or “That’s more than I‘m prepared to spend.”
2. Use silence as a technique to gain more information and more power.  The other person will fill the silence with information that will be potentially useful to you.
3. Think of compromise …the 50/50 split, as your secondary strategy.  A collaborative effort where you both uncover common ground and mutual benefits is the best approach and will produce a better outcome for both of you.
4. Ask questions like:

• What will it take to close this deal?
• What will it take to resolve this conflict?
• What will it take to earn your trust?
• What will it take to satisfy you?
• What will it take to fix this?

Our Toronto based Negotiating skills training workshop takes the mystery out of negotiating.  Focus on understanding five negotiating strategies and counter strategies and developing techniques to handle negotiations.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based Negotiating skills training and other management skills and leadership seminars, courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Leadership Skills – Providing Feedback – 

Feedback can accomplish three important objectives:

• Provide recognition
• Boost morale and motivation
• Correct performance problems

Feedback answers the question, “How am I doing?”  Feedback requires no complicated forms and shows you’re there to help.

Our Toronto based Leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based leadership skills training and other management skills and communication courses, seminars and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Communication Skills – 

First impressions count.  In minutes, a person forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, body language, demeanor, mannerisms.

Three ideas to increase your communication success with a first impression include:

1. Make eye contact and remain focused on their face until you know the colour of their eyes.
2. Build rapport by using their name.  Be careful not to overuse this practice.
3. Use the headline technique; keep your sentences short.  You will be asked to elaborate if they are interested in more detail.

Our Toronto based Communication skills training workshop provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training and other management skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Customer Service – Handling Complaints – 

Complaints can sometimes provide valuable feedback and an opportunity to improve.  We need to be appreciative of those who take their time to bring problems to our attention.

Three ideas to increase success include:

1. Don’t attempt to justify actions or blame anyone, within or outside of your organization.
2. Ask questions to get all the facts; make no assumptions.
3. Mutually agree on a course of action.  Sometimes the course you identify is not satisfactory to the person complaining.

Our Toronto based Customer Service skills training workshop provides the skills to create winning interactions with your most valuable resource.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based customer skills training and other management skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Negotiating Skills –

Everything is negotiable.

Three ideas to increase success include:

1. Determine your primary objective?  Clarify what is important to you.  Be specific.  Also consider your secondary goals.
2. Try to anticipate the other person’s objective.  Prepare questions to help discover their objectives.  Never assume….always seek to clarify and confirm.
3. Establish mutual benefits and be prepared to communicate these to motivate the other person to see the value of your position.

Our Toronto based Negotiating skills training workshop takes the mystery out of negotiating.  Focus on understanding five negotiating strategies and counter strategies and developing techniques to handle negotiations.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based Negotiating skills training and other management skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Communication Skills – 

You have 90 seconds to make a positive first impression by the way that you communicate.

Four ideas to increase your communication success with a first impression include:

1. Dress respectfully.  This means be as formally dressed as they might be.  It’s always easier to dress down than to dress up; to remove a jacket or roll up your sleeves.
2. Get feedback from people you trust on your handshake.  Too firm or to lax can easily be corrected.
3. Be on time.  Allow extra time and anticipate potential delays.
4. Start with a smile.  Let your warm personality melt any initial resistance..

Our Toronto based Communication skills training workshop provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training and other management skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Communication Skills – Handling Complaints – 

As long as there are customers or clients there will always be complaints.  Respect and thank those who bring complaints

Four ideas to increase success include:

1. Sometimes just having an opportunity to be heard is enough.
2. Empathize… put yourself in their shoes.
3. Apologize only once.  This does not necessarily mean you are accepting responsibility for the problem; merely regretting their inconvenience.
4. There is no need to apologize for your rules or policies.

Our Toronto based Customer Service skills training workshop provides the skills to create winning interactions with your most valuable resource.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based customer skills training and other communication skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Business Writing

Get your message across with clarity, brevity and increased success.

1. Establish an appropriate tone by focusing on the reader.  Replace some of your “I’s andwe’s“ with “you”
2. Accentuate the positive by telling what you can do.  Always state your ideas in positive terms.
3. Use bullets and numbers to make your writing easier to understand and easier to read.

Our Toronto based business writing skills workshop provides strategies and techniques to sharpen your business writing skills.

Contact us today to find out how our business writing skills training and other communications skills courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.  Our public workshops take place in Toronto.

Presentation Skills – 

Demonstrate your leadership ability; earn respect; get results

Three ideas to increase success include:

1. Slow down your breathing so that your whole body becomes relaxed.
2. Focus on your objectives and plan to overcome their objections.
3. Remember, the larger the audience the more dramatic the presentation with respect to voice inflection, body movement and gestures.

Our presentation skills training seminar provides strategies and techniques to ensure that your message achieves results and influence others.  Workshops can be delivered at your location or in our location in Toronto.

Contact us today to find out how our presentation skills courses workshops and other communications skills training courses can help you build your professionalism.