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Transactional selling. There was a time when saying that phrase out loud seemed like swearing at a Wiggles concert. Everything sales-related seemed to be slanted towards relationship-building, partnering, consulting etc. Personally, I’ve never really seen much of a distinction between one-off/one-time selling, and selling to lifetime customers. No matter what comes before or after it, … Read More about Selling is all about Learning, Teaching and Exploring – with any customer!
I trained 11 members of a national HR team the other day in presentation skills. It was a lot of fun and, using some simple tricks of the trade, the group were well on the way to being what I call ‘Ted Talk entry ready’. What I took away from the day was how critical … Read More about How to manage workplace bullying and other sticky situations
Who likes talking about organisational change? I’m working with a new client at the moment on how to communicate change via one-on- one conversations. Let’s say for example, that your organization is re-shaping something operational due to the impacts of COVID-19. Some of the change will no doubt be communicated to your organisational zeitgeist via … Read More about Here’s 5 suggestions for making your next change conversation better
Who likes talking about organisational change? I’m working with a new client at the moment on how to communicate organisational change via one-on-one change conversations. Let’s say for example, that your organisation is re-shaping something operational due to the current impacts of COVID 19. Some change will no doubt be communicated to your organizational zeitgeist … Read More about 5 suggestions to make your next change conversation better
The phrase ‘soft skills’ has always made me snigger. It just sounds so judgemental. The word soft is often used as a put-down: ‘I hated the new Terminator movie. I mean, for an action flick, geez it was soft!’. Then there’s the origin of the phrase. Wikipedia suggests it was created by the U.S. military … Read More about If communication skills are hard, why do we keep calling them soft
Courageous conversations – an interesting term. I suspect the reason we call them this is because of the opposite of what courage is – fear! If we fear having a particular conversation, whether professional or personal, then by default we see it as an interaction that requires courage. But what if we learn to be … Read More about How to have Courageous Conversations
The origins of our flagship communication methodology, Learn Teach Explore, stemmed partly from my ‘3 essential communication choices’ idea, which couldn’t frame up communication any simpler: At any given moment in a conversation we really only have 3 choices: stay silent, ask a question or make a statement. Pretty simple, right? What has been grabbing … Read More about 3 steps to building rapport and connection: one word, one choice and 5 minutes
Something’s been driving me a bit crazy lately. Most communication skills training I’m seeing that covers things like effective questioning and active listening is being written and delivered in a way that suggests people don’t already know how to communicate effectively. It’s driving me crazy because I’ve spent the last few years proving repeatedly that … Read More about Communication: Train less to achieve more!
Let’s face it. Communication skills is a training area that is always in high demand and it’s been accepted for a very long time that such skills need to be trained using some kind of face-to-face method. The trouble is, the demand for shorter workshops and lower training investment is increasing. So, this is the … Read More about What if just three words could improve everything you’ll ever need to say?