Seminars Topics
- Marketing on a Shoestring. A dilemma: marketing during lean times is even more important than during fat times…but money is tight. How do you cope? This seminar will introduce you to design and layout concepts to improve the effectiveness of your marketing by producing eye-catching brochures, collateral material, and newsletters with inexpensive desktop publishing. From layout design basics to using images for visual effect to the right digital imaging and layout software, you will learn it here. Create a “Park Avenue” image on a “Main Street” budget!
- Enhancing Customer Service. Employees are one of the first connections customers have with a business; therefore, it is critical that the customer/employee interactions are positive so customers will continue to return. This seminar will help you create a positive communication environment that will keep customers coming back and provide tips on everything from how to answer the telephone to how to deal with difficult personalities… and will provide you with the single most powerful measure of merit to determine whether you are succeeding!
- Positioning For Profit and Growth in Tough Times. In tight markets, companies must be nimble enough to adjust their approach to traditional market segments and/or cultivate new segments. This seminar will cover the new opportunities that arise in every downturn and highlight ways business owners and managers can strategically position their products amongst their competitors to achieve maximum growth and profit.
- Planning for Marketing Success. A successful marketing plan comes from deliberate thought, careful planning and thorough implementation. A suggested process for developing a formal marketing plan for a product or service will be provided, with tips on how to take full advantage of new business marketing initiatives. Topics will include the 4 P's of the marketing mix, branding, and image positioning.
- Profiting Through Quality Improvement. The primary goal of quality improvement is increased profitability. Learn how quality affects profits and get practical tips on how to implement solid quality initiatives and production cost-cutting for your organization.
- Sales Techniques That Work (Basic). Do you understand the notion of “permission” marketing? The “gap?” FABs? Filling the sales funnel? By combining understanding of these basic concepts with an understanding of the principal reasons customers buy, this seminar prepares the entry-level sales person for early success. Great foundation building for the new sales professional or good ‘touch-up” review for the established rookie.
- Sales Techniques That Work (Intermediate). Proper selling is critical in a tight market. Learn the key components of the selling cycle, tips on better sales forecasting, and how to take full advantage of the entire process to close the deal. Insure you have a sales system that builds value while your sales person or other personnel are in touch with the customer.
- Sales techniques That Work (Advanced). This seminar is designed for the intermediate salesperson who is ready to step up their game. With a thorough discussion of complex sales, “value selling,” relationship selling, and high probability selling, this seminar will add new dimensions to the game of the sales professional who understands that persuading and convincing are not good enough to get the deal closed.
- Creating a Business Plan. This seminar is designed for the prospective entrepreneur who is writing a business plan for the first time or the first term business owner who wants to validate their own business plan. We will focus on the fundamental reasons for a business plan, the critical business elements that must be addressed, ways to construct a business plan, and sources of data to go into the plan. Seminar attendees will receive a complimentary basic business plan outline.
- Building Loyalty in Business. From multiple perspectives, this seminar examines the powerful force of loyalty in building business. We identify the three most critical elements in every business and discuss how to use loyalty to bond them into a successful enterprise.
- Working on Business. Work “on” your business, not “in” your business! This seminar is designed for small business owners seeking insights for greater success. We start by identifying the single greatest problem in most small businesses, pinpoint the three critical factors for success in business, and conclude by providing tips on how to combine these factors into a successful business plan.
Extreme Marketing: How to Attract New Business and Generate Leads. If you want to achieve breakthrough growth and out perform your competition, you need a well thought-out, marketing approach to get the job done. This workshop focuses on developing a multi-pronged marketing system that gets results, with emphasis on five proven techniques to succeed in a tight market.
- Time Management. As a manager, sales person, line chief or an executive, time is your most valuable asset and in most sole proprietorships, the owner is often pressured to fill all roles, making time even more critical. It’s been said that successful people get ahead during the time others waste. Find out how to build more success into your organization by squeezing the most out of your time!
- The Future — Are You Ready? Are you in a housing related trade of business? This presentation is for you! Using key predictive indicators and statistics, we forecast the future of the housing market in the U. S. and identify expected “sweet spots” in the housing mix.
- Effecting Organizational Change. Are you satisfied with the status of your business? Do you want to make change? Want to improve profits, but you are at a loss of where to start? This presentation will show you where to look for the answers and will provide tips on how to put positive change actions into play.
- Sales Compensation. A proper sales compensation plan is one of the keys to a healthy top line for any company, but most firms “muddle through” the process without a clear sense of purpose. This presentation outlines a better approach, with emphasis on the two principal types of compensation, the three major roles of compensation, and the key traits of a successful program.
- Total Quality Management. “Do the right things, right the first time, every time.” That is the commendable objective of Total Quality Management, but what are the steps to getting it done? This introductory seminar illuminates them, from an intense focus on the customer to employee empowerment, management commitment, and fact-based decision making to achieve continuous improvement.
- Lean Manufacturing—The Basics. This is an introduction to the main precepts of lean manufacturing concepts, the optimal way of producing goods through the removal of waste. We will identify the eight sources of waste in most production facilities (many of which are unrecognized) and discuss ways to eliminate the waste by implementing the five “s” process.
- Business Ethics. This seminar examines the concept of ethical business practices in the broadest sense, from practical legal considerations to projecting an admirable public image, as viewed from the perspective of the owner/stockholders, employees, and customers. Includes a quick litmas test to keep employees on the correct track and offers an ethics “Honor Code” for employees.
- Facilitation Skills. Are you sometimes called upon to be a meeting leader in a situation that requires the group to reach a decision or recommendation in an objective manner? Then you are facilitating! Facilitation The art of leading people through the process of sharing, discovering, and defining issues and solutions. A good facilitator will draw all participants out, will remain objective while providing positive reinforcement, and will know how to use the “parking lot” technique to keep detractors from sidetracking the main issues. Learn how to master this art the first time, every time to achieve better outcomes for your meetings!
- Negotiation Skills. Do you know how to overcome objectives to get what you want? If so, you are a good negotiator, a prerequisite to success in sales. If you or your sales force could use some help in winning your way more often, this seminar is for you. We cover the basic principles of negotiation, how to deal with customer concerns, and how to counter “price grinders.”
- Value Selling. Are you getting full value for your product or service? This seminar will show you how to get full credit by focusing on all the components of value for a customer and offering tips to ensure you address those value factors in a manner that does not leave money on the table. Learn the nine sources of meaningful value to customers and how they can enhance your bottom line. Are you getting credit for all of them?
- Team Building. Are all the employees on your team pulling together with a shared vision of a promising future, or are they mired in tradition and competing habits of turf protection that is inhibiting progress? In this seminar, you will learn the single most important way to improve decision making and the 7 “C”s, motivational factors that can mold a disparate group into an effective team driven to success. You will also learn how to extend that concept beyond your company to get outsiders to join your team.
- New Product Launches. At the basic level, many companies believe that the launch of new products will improve sales. But, that is wrong – only a successful launch of new products will improve sales… and an unsuccessful launch (or too many failures in a row!) can actually hurt existing sales by tarnishing a company’s competency image. To be successful, new product launches must be carefully planned and executed with the coordinated participation of several elements: Marketing’s Promise, Sales’ Expectation, and the Customers’ Experience. If these three are not properly integrated, the result is an unhappy customer and an unsuccessful product. This seminar examines the three critical elements in detail and identifies steps to insure success on your next new product launch.