The Secret

This you just have to watch.

http://thesecret.tv/secret-to-riches/

then go here for the whole experience . . . The Secret

Brian Tracy and new book!

wow someone is fast. Just had a message saying "Why is Asia's Sales Coach going to see Brian Tracy?"
Well I figure you can always learn more. And I am going to be asking Brian to review my new book.

And anyway, I know he is far too busy to get "down and dirty" and help you people in Asia with detailed sales performance transformation.

That's my job.

To discover the latest in cutting edge sales performance programmes and find out what has been getting some of the regions largest Private Bankers and other top flight sales professionals so excited check out REALLYBIGIMPACT.COM

p.s. you can also get a free copy of the first book "5 Steps to Guarantee ROI from Training" PLUS sign up for our new HR Bulletin, and get regular articles on Executive Performance from leading experts in the field.

OK I'm stupid

So much for moving the blog to another location! You clever people out there will laugh, but I have found wordpress a little more difficult than expected. Maybe I'll just keep going with blogger while I figure it out.

News?

Going to see Brian Tracy this week in singapore, if the sponsors website can be made to work and allow me to book tickets! Image having a faulty website when selling someone like Brian!

And when you email their help line, you get a bounce saying the mailbox is full!
Is there a message here? Ties in nicely with the latest issue of Tony's Opinions, the most interesting sales newsletter you can get!

NEW! FASTER! BETTER! FREE!

Ok, yes I have been seriously influenced by the Soap Adverts from my childhood.
BUT, the Sales Coach's Diary has a new home!

All the old posts are still going to be here, but on the new site they are organised better and week by week I will be adding more useful stuff for you.

Why? well I told you some time back that I am working hard to keep delivering new stuff of use to those of you who want to get more sales. To make some of these things technically possible, without spending all my spare time on the computer, we had to move. I will keep you posted on some of the technology we are using because I know the self employed out there would be interested to discover how to do some of this stuff. You might as well benefit from the time I have spent and mistakes I have made.

The new site will have posts categorised for easier access, so if you love techie stuff, go straight there. If you are only interested in motivation topics, go there!

For those of you who saw me featured in the Guru For Hire section of Human Resources magazine in December, don't forget you request your copy of the 2006 White Paper "5 Steps to Guarantee ROI from Training" by going to The Really Big Impact Company

When Customers disturb your staff

I have been tasked to write an article for one of the local (national) newspapers. Had a great idea about picking up on the latest government campaigns about giving better service. To be honest my planned approach was going to be all about how the service level is just as much the customer's responsibility, but being a diligent chap I decided to do my research first.

So against my better judgement I headed off to the shopping malls this weekend with some genuine shopping needs in mind. (birthday coming up soon, so why not?)

I confess I have come back with a fresh perspective. Having genuinely gone into a few shops with the intention to select presents for myself (yes, ready to buy and money in hand) I was stunned to discover that in some shops I was obviously a complete irritation to the staff! How dare I disrupt their peacful (non)working day by actually expecting help and information!

Stand by for some rants as I vent my irritation over the rest of this week!

We won't give names, the guilty will know who they are!

Now this first example is a particularly big store. On previous visits I have noticed how rare it is to see a member of staff. When you want information about how to find an item I guess you are expected to wander the store for hours looking for it yourself. That being the case, why do they keep moving things around?

Anyway it is now CNY. prime buying time. So the shop is full of "staff" wearing cheerful red t-shirts. Great, I thought, now I can get help. But no! Wearing a company t-shirt and sporting a company lanyard and id tag, we are informed "Sorry I don't work here, I'm just a promoter. you had better ask a member of staff" no kidding. The promoters (presumably that means temporary sales staff for the festive period) and I quote "Don't work here"

So if you ever spot an employee (sic) wearing a t-shirt with the logo "We are pleased to help" on the back, laugh derisorily and run a mile. The only thing they are pleased to do is go home at the end of the day!

If they don't know you exist . . .

I talked a few weeks ago about raising your profile. Something I have been working on myself in a fairly focused manner for the past year or so. Before that I was just kidding myself. Why? Well, I reckon for me it had something to do with being born British! It's just not nice to brag - thats the way I was brought up.

But over the years I have discovered a key principle about selling. "If they don't know you exist, they can't buy from you!"

My heart was warmed tonight as I noticed a blog entry from one of my individual clients. (I don't work with many as the focus of The Really Big Impact Company is on transformation of sales results in corporates). He not only got some great breakthroughs in our coaching session last night, but has already started putting into practice what he discovered. The very same night!

So if you are looking for information and regular updates on the Singapore property market, I advise you to keep connected with his blog

I am told he is also going to start a property info e-newsletter soon, so don't miss it. Watch for Ace Wong, that young man is going places!

If you are interested in what personal performance coaching can do for you read this blog or go to our website and sign up for my sales tips newsletter.
There is an article running in five parts about how coaching can help individual or corporate sales teams there. Alternatively go to The Really Big Impact Company and request the free report 5 Steps to Guarantee ROI From Training.

A final tip, If you are serious about raising your profile, visit Suzanne Falter-Barnes at Painless Self Promotion. She has some great insights available. I am very fussy about the newsletters I subscribe to, but I have been an avid reader of Suzanne's for a while. It is worth the time spent.

So go on. Don't be British! If you are good at what you do - let them know.

Tony Latimer

Coaching as a Key to ROI from Training 2

Article Two of a five part series

Coaching Enhances Learning

Over many years of training and coaching, a few key truths have emerged for us. These are my favourites.

Key Truth One:
People only learn what they believe they need to learn.

Key Truth Two:
People only learn and apply what they discover for themselves.

Real learning can only come from self discovery. By "real learning" I mean something that has hit me with a blinding flash of light. A revelation! Something I can see solves one of my problems. Experiential and accelerated learning processes are very powerful in training workshops, to overcome this, (if done well) but if you go one step further and combine a coach-centric approach to workshop structure, you will engage the participants at a subconscious level.

Have you ever sat through a two or three day course and suddenly awoken to realise that you didnít hear a word that had been said for the past ten minutes (or more). When the training is conducted by someone standing in front of a projector, this is a common experience.

The coach-centric approach solves this problem. The nature of the approach means your coach is focussed on what is going on with people at all times, not on their material being presented. The coach will be "tuned in" and spot any brains that are going off into deep thought and utilise that thinking for the benefit of the individual and the group.


Tony Latimer
Asia's Sales Coach

The Really Big Impact Company
3 Raffles Place #07-01, Singapore 048617
+65 6329 9688

info@reallybigimpact.com

More Useful Resources

For a copy of the full 5 Steps to Guarantee ROI from Training
visit www.reallybigimpact.com and enter your email at the bottom of the page.

For your sales team
www.tonysopinions.com

For HR Professionals a new L&D newsletter with expert guest articles
via report signup at www.reallybigimpact.com

Coaching as a Key to ROI from Training

Article One of a five part series

Had an interesting call from a local client last week, they could hardly speak for laughing. Very excited at the progress they had made in a first coaching session (client is a very energetic property agent here in Singapore), they went out and told friends down at the coffee shop they were getting a coach. “Wah! Going Genting so early in the year. Hey you better make sure you keep enough money for Ang Pow, you know. New Year very soon you know!”

OK, I just made that story up. And my overseas readers won’t even get the joke (explanations later) But I do find a lot of people are still unclear about what we are talking about in the world of business and personal coaching. So I thought it would be worth putting my views forward. Then at least you all know where I am coming from. Keeping it short and sweet, there will be 5 parts to this, so watch out or the next bits over the coming weeks.

Coaching Defined (My way)
It is worth some clarification of our definition of what we mean by coaching. In the 1980s everybody became a “consultant”. It became a fashionable term and therefore adopted by all as a positioning. This led to much disillusionment in the marketplace and frustration for companies who thought they were buying a level of expertise and process knowledge that just wasn’t there. A similar trend is emerging with the term “Coaching”.

There are different types of coaching. The original term comes from sports, where it refers to an expert with a body of knowledge who TELLS people what to do to improve their performance. This is fine. Sports had the term first, our industry has simply borrowed it. But in business, that is consulting, not coaching. However even in sports there did emerge some differences. Starting in the world of tennis, Tim Gallwey developed a non-directive approach to sports coaching. By the eighties was being utilised as an approach to teaching business leaders to coach their teams for performance. In the business and personal coaching arenas, the various professional bodies around the world such as the International Coach Federation define coaching very clearly as a true non-directive process.

The unfortunate development has been the adoption of the term “coaching” by a growing number of consultants, mentors, and advisors. This has led to much confusion in the minds of the “buying public” corporate or private.

So when we are talking about coaching or a coach-centric approach, we means we are leveraging non-directive coaching, the single most powerful communication process available to human beings.

Coaching is an interactive process that helps individuals and organisations to develop more rapidly and produce more satisfying results. Coaches work with clients in all areas including business, career, finances, health and relationships. As a result of coaching clients set better goals, take more action, make better decisions and more fully use their natural strengths.

Professional coaches are trained to listen and observe, to customise their approach to the client's needs and to elicit solutions and strategies from the client. They believe that the client is naturally creative and resourceful and the coach's job is to provide support to enhance the skills and potential the client already has. While the coach provides feedback and an objective perspective, the client is responsible for taking the steps to produce the results he or she desires.

My simple definition of non-directive coaching is: Help people get clarity on where they are, get clarity on where they want to be, then work with them to develop and execute a plan of how to get from here to there.

When managers in an organisation add the skill of non-directive coaching to their management tool-kit, the entire organisation can leverage the power of this process for immense communication and performance improvement.

Tony Latimer
Asia’s Sales Coach

The Really Big Impact Company
3 Raffles Place #07-01, Singapore 048617
+65 6329 9688
info@reallybigimpact.com

More Useful Resources
For a copy of the full 5 Steps to Guarantee ROI from Training
www.reallybigimpact.com

For your sales team
www.tonysopinions.com
www.salescoachdiary.blogspot.com (no link, you are already here!)

For HR managers newsletter via report signup at
www.reallybigimpact.com

The Race is ON, and they're off !!!

OK that is it. Xmas is officially over. Well here in Singapore anyway. On New Year's Eve we popped into town for a quick bit of shopping (back to school stuff) and went through Takashimaya, a rather large building with more shops squeezed into it than the average British town has scattered along the high street. They had a very (and that means about seven storey high) xmas tree just before the event. Nice. But by New Year's eve, it was gone! Whatever happened to the 12 days of xmas? Lunar New Year, thats what. For the first time in a number of years, it turns up at the end of January, so the commercial interests all over town are ripping down the cheery red xmas banners and are busy replacing them with . . cheery red new year banners! (wouldn't you think they could reuse?)

And why should you all care? Well if you are doing business here in Asia, you have a few nano-seconds when you get back to work tomorrow to get cracking with your customers before the all slump into the "Ah, sorry, busy getting ready for Chinese New Year" and don't want to talk to you.

So get your running shoes on. If there was ever a year when it is time to come off the starting blocks at a sprint, this is it!

I know we are. That's why I'm up at just after midnight putting the finishing touches to my running shoes. Well actually not, but I have just finished tweaking our new website so you can sign up for our free report on Getting Return on Investment from Training. Go on. Drop in and sign up, you know it will make sense. And later this week there wil be even more useful info and stuff for your sales team to learn from, but you will have to come back next week to find out about that!