Employees who laugh more than cry, and use sick days more for illness than hangovers, aren’t just happy—their impact, and why they feel the way they do, is scientifically proven. According to “21st Century Well-Being, Commitment, and Productivity,” workers with upbeat moods—and those without—affect the dynamics of your whole office. Here are some key findings from the Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital study, led by Nancy Etcoff, Ph.D.:

• Bottom line, the study states: “Key elements, such as purpose, trust, and the quality of human relationships, influence levels of well-being, commitment, and productivity.”

 Source: Training Day > Business Intelligence

Now at Impress Training, there are more ways in which you can contact us to receive information or request for some of the best training programmes available in the market today.

Skype: mail@impresstraining.com

Email: mail@impresstraining.com

Office (Tel): (65) 6401 3238

Mobile: (65) 9850 9058

We look forward to hearing from you.

Ever get frustrated that you’re not generating enough leads, or that the leads coming in from the marketing department are just insufficient to close the gap on your sales target? Well, you’re not the only one and many people endure this same problem around the world. Singapore, being geographically smaller means that some lead generating ideas work better than others. With advertising becoming less effective as a lead generator and greater brand eye-opener. There seems to be fewer opportunities for sales individuals to turn to someone and ask “how can I generate more leads?”

Well here’s just a few, but bare in mind with so many people coming from different backgrounds, different business and different product and services to sell, all of these may not be applicable, but see what’s in this sample and see if they can work for you!

10 Quick Sample Tips: -

1. Go through the Recruit and Classifieds and select all the HR and company email addresses and use them for e-blasting.

    

2. Request your marketing department to develop a corporate blog to invite and participate with customer (both new and existing).

    

3. If you’re in insurance, property and are working independently, start up your own website, put yourself on to you tube – create your own free mini viral ads about the property your selling.

    

4. Go through Today and Straits Times and look out for all the Free preview and networking sessions going on. Aim to give away 5 of your name cards in every session and receive 5 back. In a month – you could have claimed over 100 new names.

    

5. Selling by cold-calling doesn’t work – make appointments by cold-calling. See them in person and build the relationships. Get out from the cubicle. Meeting people in person also has a lot of new tangible benefits for a sales person to fine-tune his presentation and people skills.

    

6. Take part in the local news forums such as on channelnewsasia to subtly advertise your wares.

    

7. Direct mailers work in they have some other small value – like calendars. Print name cards with calendars on the back and distribute out at extremely low cost.

    

8. Email Blasts should make an attempt (if not too large) to visualise and tangiblise your product and services – don’t make them too text based.

    

9. Email addresses on Yellow pages and the green book are a waste of time – but their addresses are not. Send off your marketing collaterals and ATT it specifically to the HR Manager, Purchasing Manager, Marketing Manager or who ever is relevant to you and mark it as IMPORTANT!

    

10. You can find leads by watching the news, reading Trade journals, Google alerts, the newspaper, radio, or TV on opening of news business, major deals that are happening. Take for example the Marketing and HR magazines that showcase top Marketing and HR persons – now you know their name – try to get a appointment, email or call through.

     

Jeffery Gitomer, a leading author and Sales person shares his quick bit of advice: -

Goal setting is a process for defining targets you plan to achieve. It is one of the essential functions of management. When you set goals, you commit to outcomes that you can accomplish personally or through your direct reports. Goal setting makes it possible to focus limited resources and time on the things that matter most. It sets the course for action. By setting goals and measuring their achievement you can focus on what is more important, waste less energy on non-critical tasks, and achieve greater results. As a manager, you are responsible for setting goals for your unit and for yourself.

Your challenge as a manager is to sort through and identify those goals that are achievable in the department and remained linked to the organisational goals and are likely to create the most value.

So every quarter, or six months you should review your business unit, department or division to direct your activities, and try to identify opportunities to make a big difference in performance. And since several brains are better than one, bring in your team of direct reports.

Ask yourself questions such as these: -

• What initiatives need to be accomplished to ensure success?
• What standards are we striving for?
• Where can productivity and efficiency be improved by 10% or more?
• What are the customers expecting from us? And where can we add value?
• Are customer specifications changing? How can we respond?

  Other questions you may like to ask yourself are:-

  • Which goals does your organisation value most?
  • Which will have the greatest impact on performance or profitability?
  • Which are the most challenging?
  • Which goals are your team best suited – by talent or training – to tackle?

At the end of the day, in most companies there are two defining factors which dicate goals – can you think what they may be?

What is the eighth habit? “Find your voice, and inspire others to find theirs.”

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold over 15 million copies in thirty-eight languages since first publication, which was marked by the release of a 15th anniversary edition in 2004. The book lists seven principles that, if established as habits, are supposed to help a person achieve true interdependent “effectiveness.” Covey argues this is achieved by aligning oneself to what he calls “true north”; principles of a character ethic that, unlike values, he believes to be universal and timeless.

The 7 Habits has sold 15 million copies and continues to sell 50,000 to 100,000 a month.

A survey by Chief Executive magazine chose 7 Habits as the most influential book of the 20th century. Time magazine in 1996 named Covey one of the 25 most influential Americans.

No. 8 is a half-ton habit that invites the merging of talent, passion and conscience that few mortals accomplish — otherwise we would be populated with Gandhi’s. Simply, Habit 8 asserts that everyone has an inner longing to seize the day and live a life of contribution. It requires heavy lifting, and Covey challenges readers to get there.

Here are the 8 habits:

• Be proactive. (Take initiative, be responsible.)

• Begin with the end in mind. (Develop a mental image of how projects, including your life, will turn out.)

• Put first things first. (Use discipline to put off today’s pleasures for greater future pleasures.)

• Think win/win. (There’s plenty for all.)

• Seek first to understand, then to be understood. (Listen more, speak less.)

• Synergize. (The whole is greater than the parts.)

• Sharpen the saw. (Improve physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.)

• Find your voice, and inspire others to find theirs. (Don’t ignore that longing to make a difference.)

Motivating your team can seem to be one of the hardest things to do. Many use the wrong methods and tactics whilst others have simply no clue how to go about it. In most cases, motivation will have to come from with the aid of external factors helping that person become infused about doing something.

This is one of those soft skills that are really the hardest skills. Concepts and frameworks, like leadership, are easily learnt – but the application is very different and will depends a lot on the character, charisma and interpersonal skills of the new manager.

Some of the biggest problems faced by managers include:-

• Don’t know how to motivate
• Use their authority
• Use money as incentive or make empty promises
• Not very good at motivating employees

Herzberg’s hygiene factors in the worlplace described many items such as pay, status, safety, etc as essential motivators that need to be place. And whilst these may not necssarily motivate staff, they do prevent dissatisfaction.

Here some practical ways you can attempt to increase the motivation levels of your staff or other individuals in the workplace: -

• You can raise motivation in your staff by increasing their responsibility and thus “enriching” their jobs.
• Your mood will either motivate or de-motivate your staff.
• Give reinforcing and positive comments throughout, even when there are mistakes.
• Recognize your staff  through personal touches.
• Lead by example.
• Stand up for your department people when need be even if it is to some dissatisfaction elsewhere.
• Communicate daily with them on job tasks.
• To enhance personal responsibility, provide more direct employee contact with customers, both internal and external.
• Motivation to achieve more than the ordinary requires long-term commitment. Employees are more motivated when they perceive their work as serving a meaningful purpose.

Impress training conducts courses geared towards new managers facing a range of issues facing them taking on the role o working with direct reports.

In this video, you’ll learn a radically new way of thinking (or forgetting) about motivation and moving on to the next level of Inspiration.

Green is now the must-do issue in many businesses. Sparked by more recent media coverage of the topic over the last couple of years, more scientific study and popular culture. The enviroment has once again come to the forefront of everyones attention.

Back in the late eighties and early ninties, when much was being said and as with all things, if not backed by the masses (business masses mainly), it was essentially relegated to a trivial thing, i.e. people with long hair, shouting slogans and marching up and down alot of streets (not that this is always a bad thing when its called for). But the green issues didn’t really make a dent.

Remember the O-Zone - How many people talk about that now? It’s still an issue, but we acted enough to repair it. Now it’s Climate Change - this is bigger and has much more potential to do harm.

A decade later, the enviromental issues are being taken seriously by businesses and the social masses. Businesses have been slowly educated that by going green can mean real cost savings - and more importanly, has real revenue potential. Just look at the number of new businesses coming up which are soley green-based. Even exisiting companies, large and small, are cashing in.

Customers too are dicating who and what products they wish to purchase based on the company having a green policy. In fact, many businesses are fighting over each other, even in Singapore, to wave the green banner.

No matter the motives, this is still a good thing, because the issue is real.

At Impress Training, we try to use electronic transmissions as much as possible and our curse notes are only printed on recycled paper. We have significantly cut our power bills by switiching the mains off when not in usage - and whilst they are small savings month by month, this will add up over time.

You might like to think about the following: -

• What new or augment product and services could you launch within your business area?
• What internal initiatives are being meansured to ensure the ‘green’ policy is being maintained by your employees?
•  Are there real measures or rewards inplace - are there disincentives in place if they don’t keep to it?
• Marketing your business as ‘green’ must be more than lip service or a PR exercise - it doesn’t take much these days to dig for the trueth. And Word-of-Mouth advertising is powerful (both ways).

One major voice for this issue has to be Ex-Vice President Al Gore who was in Singapore recently for the Global Brand Forum to talk on issues such as this.

This video excerpt is Al Gore explaining how business and individuals can do more regarding the issue of climate change.

With ever more singaporeans taking up Wine as a preference for drink and perceptive climb in social status (remeber the 5 C’s), the two founders of Impress Training recently attended Lianhe Zao Bao Wine Review 2007 Challenge

It is Singapore’s first independent wine competition as well as Singapore & South-East Asia’s most important wine competition.

Each year, 300 to 400 different wines from >30 to 40 countries & wine regions all over the world; including France, Italy, Germany, Spain, South Africa, US, Australia, New Zealand etc, participate in the Award. 

Whether you’re having lunch with well known business associates or you’re sitting down to a formal dinner with friends , knowing dining etiquette will help you put you and others at ease. Wine enhances food. The only concern is knowing that your knowledge is so limited that you won’t order the right one. The key to choosing a wine is to find one that won’t overpower the food or be overpowered by it. In general, the following are examples of wines that compliment certain food.

RED: goes with light meat dishes

WHITE: Lighter fish and shellfish dishes

SPARKLING: Another words is Champagne is use for celebrating and is normally served before a meal or with dessert.

DESSERT: These rich-flavoured sweet wines go well with dessert of cheese, nuts and fruits and served best at room temperature

Because like the first word and first looks, your body language will give a lasting first impression.

The way you move means 3 things:

1. Conveys meaning

2. Influences the audiences attention and judgment of you

3. Establishes spatial relationship

Simply put – positive body language will provide a perception of confidence and poor body language will the perception of nervousness or lack of confidence. In sales, poor body language is a career buster!

Source: BBC News Report on Body Language (2006)

You can tell when a politician is lying, according to the old joke, because his lips start moving. But according to psychologists a much more reliable give-away is the position of his hands. Hidden palms, clenched fists and - worst of all - hands kept deliberately out of view, send out the clearest possible signal that a person has something to hide.

Blair does it… It is no surprise that modern image-obsessed politicians would therefore rather be seen dead - or covered in egg - than allow their hands to drop out of view of the picture.

The party manifestos - carefully groomed to give the right impression rather than minute detail over policy - are full of pictures of the party leaders striking dramatic gestures with their hands.

Gesture politics “As much as 80% of communication is in the body language,” says Robert Phipps, a specialist who advises salespeople and politicians on effective communication.

Another of Mr Phipps’s rules is “Nothing Crossed”. He tells clients that they must keep their arms and legs relaxed and uncrossed. If possible they should leave their jacket open and unbuttoned: “It relays the message ‘I am being open and honest with you’.” If the palms are turned too far upwards or the arms raised too high, this is a sign of surrender and therefore weakness.

Take a look at this video from Terri Sjodin, a top Sales Presenter on the world of body language.