Here are the course details….
For thousands of years, writing and speaking have been powerful ways for us to share our thoughts and ideas. Even in the technologically saturated 21st century, we still express ourselves in writing almost every day. To dramatically build accelerated growth in your business results, the most effective ways are writing and speaking when it’s built on fundamental skills that transform your words from good to great.
I’ve long inveighed against the extraordinary amounts of time people require to express themselves in print or to prepare a speaking engagement. When I’ve told them that it should take only 45-60 minutes to write an article, the best have reduced their time from weeks to days (and, happily on occasion, hours). I’ve repeatedly but infrequently demonstrated how this is accomplished.
The ability to write with influence, facility, and speed is critical in creating articles, position papers, proposals, web material, blog entries, client letters, and reports. Imagine being able to write a superb article within an hour, a winning proposal within two hours, and an enticing booklet within a day.
And consider the power and ROI of learning all of this within one day? One outstanding, memorable day, that could change your career, your prospects, and your life.
I’m inviting you to join me in August, 2012 for an intensive day of learning The Business of Writing & Speaking. Here’s a sample of what you’ll walk away with:
The ability to change passive, uninteresting language into dynamic, stirring commentary.
A thorough understanding of how to organise an argument, which will help position you as a learned, respected source and expert.
A completed article, position paper, or blog entry which you will start and finish during the program, having had it evaluated and refined. This will serve as one of your templates.
Invention and arrangement; the rules of rhetoric; finding what you need; and using it well.
Speed writing, where you don’t have to second-guess, review, and regret what you’ve done.
How to include pithy, laser-like examples which not only prove your point, but sell it every time.
Techniques to improve your vocabulary and grammar.
How to prepare a speaking engagement to present your business ideas that successfully sells your message.
How to speak to a small group or an auditorium with confidence, finesse and mastery.
A video of you delivering a powerful presentation.
Two months of my personal review of your written material—one document of any kind per week.
The day will be from 9 to 5. Lunch and refreshments are included. I’ll name the CBD venues soon. Because of the nature of the learning we are limiting attendance to only 10 people!
Investment:
Tuition paid prior to 25 May $700 +GST
Tuition paid prior to 22 June $800 +GST
Tuition paid after 22 June $900 +GST
Past and present members of the Mentor Program: Tuition is $500 +GST
Pre-purchase the book now at 20% discount for delivery in August[/caption]
Many professionals get blindsided with writer’s block or have difficulty with language when writing proposals, letters of agreement, prospecting approaches, media releases, and the like. And, it can have an adverse affect on your business and your time. In this book--including a CD compatible with any platform--you have access to examples you can copy of:
Cold Call Letter
Business Proposal
Seminar Promotion
Letter of Agreement
Customer Satisfaction Survey
Focus Group Rules
Overdue Payment Inquiry
Media Interview Request
Media/Promotional Kit Components
Future Business Template
Thank You Letter
Testimonial Request
Media Release
Visiting the Neighbourhood Letter
...and over 60 other communications and formats for business use.
This book is perfect for those in:
Accounting
Banking
Business Coaching & Consulting
Financial Services
Law
HR, Recruitment, & IR
Counselling & Therapists
Professional Speaking, Training & Facilitation
Purchase before July 31, 2012 and receive a further 20% discount by using this code at the checkout:DC-SBWTBK
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The book is in final production and will be dispatched to you the first week of August 2012.
What are the chances of a small-town boy becoming captain of the Australian Cricket Team? One in a million?
What are the chances of a Welsh immigrant becoming Australia’s first female Prime Minister? One in ten million?
What are the chances of a black man becoming President of the United States of America? One in a hundred million?
The chances of any specific job are long odds. Really! What are the odds of becoming the National Manager of New Business – Banking & Financial Services for Asgard? Probably about one in a million. Every good role is a one in a million chance and, talented people win these opportunities and the generous rewards that comes with the position.
But the odds of you attracting a great role and being well rewarded is not one in a million because there are plenty of well-paid jobs on offer. It’s only one in a million if you target a specific role.
It’s perfectly fine to be focussed, passionate and single-minded about what you want to do or become in life. There’s been a few who’ve done it: Gates, Buffet, Branson, Jobs, Tolkien, Dickens, and Clinton are examples. If your pursuit of a specific job, goal or enterprise can offer you other opportunities it makes sense. If you aim to be Prime Minister but end up being Governor-General because all those steps towards the Lodge paved the way for you to get the keys for Admiralty House, then you’ve still succeeded, just not exactly as you may have originally planned. If you aim to be an Olympic gold medalist and world record holder for the 100 meters freestyle but end up being a highly successful swim coach, then you’ve still succeeded.
But if you spend all of your time and money on a losing horse in a single race, you’ve opened yourself to failure, misery and destitution. If your happiness, career and livelihood depends on a one in a million punt, with no alternative options that await off the side of this single bet, it’s too high a price to pay.
If your only plan is to become Australia’s Next Top Model you’re relinquishing responsibility of your life to someone else.
The Successful Business Writing Templates Handbook
Many professionals get blindsided with writer’s block or have difficulty with language when writing proposals, letters of agreement, prospecting approaches, media releases, and the like. And, it can have an adverse affect on your business and your time. In this book–including a CD compatible with any platform–you have access to examples you can copy of:
Cold Call Letter
Business Proposal
Seminar Promotion
Letter of Agreement
Customer Satisfaction Survey
Focus Group Rules
Overdue Payment Inquiry
Media Interview Request
Media/Promotional Kit Components
Future Business Template
Thank You Letter
Testimonial Request
Media Release
Visiting the Neighbourhood Letter
…and over 60 other communications and formats for business use.
This book is perfect for those in:
Accounting
Banking
Business Coaching & Consulting
Financial Services
Law
HR, Recruitment, & IR
Counselling & Therapists
Professional Speaking, Training & Facilitation
Purchase before July 31, 2012 and receive a further 20% discount by using this code at the checkout: DC-SBWTBK
____________________
The book is in final production and will be dispatched to you the first week of August 2012.
The stairway to success in professional services requires market leadership, operations excellence, reinvention and innovation, deliberate delivery, performance management, and an intelligent command of marketing.
The thorn of many professionals are the words: “Send me a proposal”.
The truth is most proposals should never be written. The proposal does not win the business for you. Most are written as explorations, seeking to discover some (any) interest from the prospective client. Hardly ever will the proposal be the deciding factor on whether the customer will choose to do business with you.
If you have not had real discussions with the prospective client around how you might do business together; if you have not reached conceptual agreement; if you have not established the genuine needs; and if you have not established that your methodology, value, and expertise resonate with the client, then the proposal will not win new business.
My observations of accountants, business coaches, consultants, financial planners, recruiters, trainers and the like are that they mistakenly believe that a proposal can convert tyre-kickers, deflectors, and window-shoppers into serious buyers.
Manage your mindset and understand the proposal should be a summary of conceptual agreement reached during conversations with the client and you will find that not only will the proposal write itself, but they will read it, summarily agree with the content, and engage with its message, because they have in essence co-written the proposal with you.
Some of the key components in establishing conceptual agreement are:
You must be speaking with the true buyer, the actual decision-maker who can say “yes” to you without seeking further authorisation and can also write your cheque.
You must clearly establish the client’s objectives, understand their needs not only the wants, and realise you may need to make them aware of the real problem.
Your role as a professional adviser (whether you’re an accountant, coach, consultant, recruiter, etc) is as a collaborator. There are joint accountabilities, and the client needs to know their responsibility in the project as much as they need to know yours. You possibly may not succeed in achieving the objectives without their commitment and consent to partner with you to achieve the outcomes.
Rather than exploring the possibilities via the lengthy and time-consuming process of writing a proposal, it’s far more expedient to sit with the client and ask intelligent questions to assess your value to them and how best to proceed.
When the next prospective customer uses those ominous words very early in the discussion, “Send me a proposal” – pause, relax, and calmly respond, “I’d be delighted. So I don’t waste your time, there are some things I need to hear from you, personally. Let’s arrange for coffee on Tuesday and share 13 to 15 minutes with each other so I can ask you a few questions and guarantee that my proposal does not waste the time of either of us?”
There’s a plethora of people on social networking sites discussing offering incentives to influence people into referring business.
Stop it!
You’re at a family picnic and your uncle says he needs to find a new accountant. Do you refer him the accountant you use because you believe he’s good or do you refer the accountant on LinkedIn who’s offering a “finder’s fee”?
Your niece is in need of a local dentist since coming back from college in the United States. Do you refer her to your dentist who you think is terrific or to the dentist who follows you on Twitter offering a voucher to a sports store for every new introduction?
Reward those who refer business to you in the best possible way:
Do the very best you can for the person that you were referred to
Thank the referral source for the introduction, whether you do business with that person or not
Inform the referral source as to what happened
“Yes, I’m now treating Jenni for her problem wisdom tooth” or
“Thanks for referring me to your uncle, and I’d appreciate referrals like that from you again. In this instance however, he and I have mutually agreed I’m probably not the best accountant for his needs right now.”
Reciprocate with referrals back to the referral source where possible and appropriate
If you are grateful, pleasant, communicate, do a great job and, make it a two-way street, referral traffic will increase, dramatically.
Mediocrity is the comfortable curse that some in recruitment seem to be willing to live with. The downside is that you cannot grow from being comfortable with mediocrity. For every star performer in the recruitment sector we have hundreds, who hang on, faint outlines and echoes of erstwhile resonance, or of managers they once hoped of emulating.
I’ve watched too many recruiters at all levels embarrass and demean themselves in futile attempts to remain what they once were a decade or more prior; or what they hoped they may have become. In the meantime, desperation causes them to behave in ways that negatively impact upon themselves, their organisation, their clients and their peers.
As soon as one recruiter discounts a fee, the ripple effect is swift and all-consuming. As soon as one of your competitors cuts corners and doesn’t complete all the necessary checks and balances – and it comes undone – you get tarnished by the fallout.
The critical factor for recruiters is the competency and expertise to continue to perform, professionally, at your best level, or to exceed that level. Once that level is no longer rising, the laws of entropy enter, and the plateau will ineluctably erode.
The challenges facing recruiters are immense:
LinkedIn is now a recruitment tool
The job boards have been a competitor for years
Many organisations are now handling recruitment internally
People can set up on their kitchen bench with little overhead costs and then discount fees and continue to have margin
Panels and preferred supplier agreements are eroding fee levels
Accounting firms are now including recruitment as a service
and, on it goes
The recruitment sector, to survive, must become the recruitment profession. The recruitment profession must be cognisant that innovation and reinvention are two key imperatives for success and survival. The recruitment profession must eschew the limited thinking of “sales-based” recruitment and discounting fees. Once one starts, your competitors will follow and it becomes a doom-loop. This approach will ultimately render the people and organisations without deep pockets, obsolete.
What do we know for sure about reinvention and innovation?
Well, for starters, planning, most of the time, is activity over results; kind of like bureaucracy! Most recruitment consultants don’t like cold-calling. Most clients don’t appreciate cold-calling. Clients will always think they can do their own recruitment, successfully. Candidates will always assume that you need them and owe them something, even though they don’t pay you. Does this make them any less important? No.
How can the recruitment profession become more innovative and what are some of the ways we can gain inspiration from reinvention?
Stop benchmarking; rather form alliances with organisations and entrepreneurial thinkers.
Use Ric’s Reverse Thinking (RRT); whatever you think, think the opposite and then consider the merits of that thinking.
Forget your own personal history; you’re never as good as your last victory, nor as bad as your last defeat.
Have a “Be/Do” philosophy.
Be willing to walk away from business. A lousy prospect never makes a great client. And, the client will always expect premium service even though they’ve only paid you a deep-discounted price. Charge what you’re worth and expect to be paid.
Celebrate successful failures and punish mediocrity.
Diversify just for the heck of it.
Change your pricing strategy to include project fees, retainers, payment in advance, etc.
Thrive on ambiguity, because if the answer is known, then it’s no longer innovative, is it?
Maintain accountability by cultivating your recruiters (and yourself) to be “Dreamers with Deadlines”.
The recruitment sector is most definitely facing serious and concerning challenges; the time is now to behave differently, appreciate and respect your value more, and re-educate your clients as to the return on investment they receive by engaging and appropriately paying for your professional recruitment services.
However, the first sale is to yourself, if you don’t believe it, then nobody else will, either.
How marketers can take advantage of consumers’ innumeracy
WHEN retailers want to entice customers to buy a particular product, they typically offer it at a discount. According to a new study to be published in the Journal of Marketing, they are missing a trick.
A team of researchers, led by Akshay Rao of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, looked at consumers’ attitudes to discounting. Shoppers, they found, much prefer getting something extra free to getting something cheaper. The main reason is that most people are useless at fractions.
Consumers often struggle to realise, for example, that a 50% increase in quantity is the same as a 33% discount in price. They overwhelmingly assume the former is better value. In an experiment, the researchers sold 73% more hand lotion when it was offered in a bonus pack than when it carried an equivalent discount (even after all other effects, such as a desire to stockpile, were controlled for).
This numerical blind spot remains even when the deal clearly favours the discounted product. In another experiment, this time on his undergraduates, Mr Rao offered two deals on loose coffee beans: 33% extra free or 33% off the price. The discount is by far the better proposition, but the supposedly clever students viewed them as equivalent.
Studies have shown other ways in which retailers can exploit consumers’ innumeracy. One is to befuddle them with double discounting. People are more likely to see a bargain in a product that has been reduced by 20%, and then by an additional 25%, than one which has been subject to an equivalent, one-off, 40% reduction.
Marketing types can draw lessons beyond just pricing, says Mr Rao. When advertising a new car’s efficiency, for example, it is more convincing to talk about the number of extra miles per gallon it does, rather than the equivalent percentage fall in fuel consumption.
There may be lessons for regulators too. Even well-educated shoppers are easily foxed. Sending everyone back to school for maths refresher-courses seems out of the question. But more prominently displayed unit prices in shops and advertisements would be a great help.
The above article is from: The Economist, June 30th 2012
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If you haven’t seen some of my previous posts on pricing and discounting, here are the links:
Selective talent acquisition is where you identify and find the best person for your available role; persuade them to surrender what they’re doing now, and come and join your team.
Hiring is where you place an advert on an internet job board and let the entire universe know that you’re happy to receive resumes from people looking for a job.
Selective talent acquisition requires planning, preparation, and a purposeful approach that is strategic and specific in nature. It requires time and discipline. It’s a form of strategic marketing.
Hiring is easy, process-oriented, mass marketing. It’s commodity-based.
Selective talent acquisition hits a higher mark and raises the bar because it necessitates you have a role worth changing for. It offers such value that the best person is sold on how this is right for them, right for their career, right now!
Usually, the best people already have a job. So, is your available role so valuable that you can recruit the best people and attract them away from what they’re doing now to come and work for you?
If you cannot emphatically answer: YES, then maybe you need to think a little more about what you need to do rather than bemoaning there’s no good people out there!
