CPD Business & Coaching Conference 2013 (Midlands / North): workshops
CPD BUSINESS WORKSHOPS
11.15am – 12.15pm (European Suite)
Building strong customer relationships – telephone V email V face to face
Nadeem Shaikh, Managing Director, SMART Way Forward
Building strong relationships with customers is vital if you want to maintain a healthy partnership and a successful business. Therefore, using the correct manner in which to communicate your message is of paramount importance, especially in business.
Technology is there to help us, but it should not mask the fact the ‘people buy from people’. Using the right communication at the right time, with the right level of detail can make a huge difference to the final outcome. The way in which you and your team communicate with customers over the phone, email or face to face, can have a huge bearing on how your company ethics is perceived. After all, we all want to experience a successful outcome rather than a steep learning curve of disappointment!
This workshop will provide some handy hints and tips to ensure you always relay your messages correctly and communicate in the right way, so that you and your business is perceived correctly in the marketplace.
12.20pm – 1.20pm (European Suite)
Managing and exceeding your customers’ expectations by recognising behaviours
Annie Page, Essentii
We all want to provide the best levels of customer service to exceed all expectations. However, this is not always possible if instructions, requirements or procedures have not been explained properly or made clear from the outset. The end result usually causes a lot of inconvenience to customer and business, all due to simple miscommunication, misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Therefore, it is vital to ask the right questions, at the right time, in the right manner and check for understanding before proceeding any further.
Being able to read between the lines and recognise your customer’s behaviour is sometimes all it takes to turn a problem into a solution, or a negative into a positive.
Recognising a learning style so that you can adapt your delivery and body language accordingly can be extremely useful in business. Knowing how to communicate with someone when they are an Activist, Theorist, Pragmatist or Reflector will not only help you determine facts quickly and efficiently, it will also help to build your relationship stronger.
2.30pm – 3.30pm (European Suite)
How to save money by managing overheads and operational costs effectively
Kim Harris, BCR Associates
In this current economic climate, it is fair to say that most businesses and organisations are continuously reviewing their overheads and operational costs to see where possible savings can be made.
Identifying hidden profit by reviewing spend on areas such as electricity, gas, telecoms, insurance, staff, finance, vehicles, and green services can usually save businesses hundreds, if not thousands of pounds! However, this process needs to be managed and controlled properly if businesses are to take full advantage of this additional revenue.
As Director of cost reduction consultants BCR Associates, Kim Harris will explain how easy it is for businesses to save money, if they take a few simple steps and allow their existing procedures to be reviewed. The process to help identify savings within a business does not need to be time consuming or laborious. Internal departments need to communicate with one another more openly, take a flexible approach and act on the information when it is highlighted that savings can be made. Kim will run through the process and explain how easy savings can be identified.
3.45 – 4.45 (European Suite)
How to use Social Media effectively for business
Ian Wakefield, Sport Nottinghamshire
Every day, more and more Social Media networking websites provide people and businesses with the means to interact in real-time. Social media marketing offers a two-way relationship between your business and potential customers – it is much more personal than traditional forms of marketing and can provide instant feedback.
The secret to making the most of social media marketing is to produce interesting and engaging content in order to engage and interact with your potential customers. Ian will highlight the features and benefits of social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn along with how easy it is to plan an effective social media strategy.
Social media does not have to be a daunting. Simple everyday marketing and general administration can ensure that you offer your customers another form of interactive communication. You can then either share information or simply tell potential customers about you, your products and services or future plans.
CPD COACH DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS
11.15am – 12.15pm (Tiger Bar)
How to develop mental toughness during training and competition
Alasdair Donaldson, UK Athletics Endurance Coach, High Performance Athletics Centre (HiPac), Loughborough University
As well as being very talented, successful sports men and women tend to be fitter, faster and stronger than the average person. Not only that, they also have total commitment to their sport, positive attitude, complete focus and an uncompromised determination to succeed. So how to they develop this?
Elite level athletes and international sports men and women understand that they need to push themselves to the absolute limit, whilst keeping full control of their senses and emotions, if they are to perform at then highest level. Having the mindset that ‘pain is temporary – success is forever’ is an attitude only few people can comprehend. ‘Want’ is everything – so how to you train the body and mind to work in unison to achieve this?
It is not all down to the individual athlete or player. There is usually a team of sports psychologists, mentors, medical teams, physios, coaches, managers and performance directors who help deliver the end result.
12.20pm – 1.20pm (Tiger Bar)
An insight into your eyesight (keeping your eyes on the ball)
Gavin Rebello, Sports-Vision and Dr Zoe Wimshurst, Performance Vision
Whether you are an elite athlete, amateur or simply enjoy sport to keep fit and socialise, your eyes have a big say on how well you play. Having 20/20 vision means that you should be able to see the ball well, but what if your opponent sees the ball before you? What if your opponent can follow the ball better than you? You’re immediately on the back foot and they have that all important edge.
A fitter and well trained athlete will generally play better because their eyes have faster focus, which in turn means that they have quicker reaction times. Most people judge their vision by how clearly they see. However, vision is much more complex than this. There are many processes contributing to vision, clarity of sight is merely just one of them.
Other areas to consider could be things like speed and accuracy of focus, depth perception, peripheral awareness, stability of eye dominance, how efficiently the two eyes work together as a team, etc… to name but a few.
Elite athletes understand that they need to keep their bodies at a peak level of fitness in order to perform successfully under pressure at the highest level. With vision being the dominant sense in most sports, it is vital that sports men and women maximise all aspects of their vision to ensure a championship sporting performance.
2.30pm – 3.30pm (Tiger Bar)
Effective Communication skills for sports coaches
Nadeem Shaikh, Managing Director, SMART Way Forward
A successful sports coach or team manager must have excellent communication skills otherwise the whole process becomes extremely difficult. Communication must be open, honest, regular and consistent if coach, athlete and player are to build mutual trust and form a healthy working partnership.
Developing effective communication skills will help you recognise the different characteristics adopted by each athlete and player before, during and after training or competition. Therefore, communicating appropriately is vital when you are working towards success at international and elite level. Coaches must be able to relay instructions clearly and express urgency in a calm controlled focused manner. Coaches and managers must be able to communicate effectively to groups, as well as engage with athletes and players on a one‐to-one basis.
This workshop will give you a brief overview on how to use verbal, visual and written communication effectively. It will also highlight the importance of being aware of your own body language and perception on and off the sport pitch.
3.45 – 4.45pm (Tiger bar)
Installing a winning mentality and delivering championship performances
Bryan Steel, Olympian, British Cycling
Bryan Steel was a key member of the British Cycling team at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the Athens Olympics in 2004. Therefore, he knows a thing or two about what it takes to successfully perform at world class championships and Olympic Games.
In this workshop Bryan will share some of his experiences of the Games, along with the techniques and processes adopted by the team in the lead up to competition. He will also explain how the specific performance programme designed by British Cycling helped the team progress from a World ranking of 17th to 1st in just under eighth years.
To achieve a world-class performance you need to work as a highly effective team, whilst understanding the individuality of its components. A team is only as strong as the people within it; therefore people within that team have got to be right. Having a team which believes in its ability, with complete focus, total commitment, passion and self belief, will be the team which stands on the podium.