Making Positive Affirmations work for you

Have you ever tried using positive affirmations before? Did they work for you? Or did you give it a shot and finally conclude that they don’t work!

I know some people who swear by them and have seen some wonderful results using them. I unfortunately, belonged to the other set! I did them ever so obediently for 3 years and then came to the conclusion that they don’t work. And was therefore not ready to buy the explanation that many people give. They say you must not have done them enough number of times!

My colleague on the other hand, has had great success with them. Which intrigued my interest a few years back. I wanted to know why they work for some and not for others. And you know what, I found a number of reasons which I am going to share with you today! Ready…

Why Positive Affirmations Don’t Work

It’s actually got a lot to do with your Personality. I realised there was a stark difference in my and my colleague’s personality. He was a happy go lucky kind of guy and somehow his mind would believe what he told it. I, on the other hand, had a mind which loved to refute every positive affirmation I gave it. And instead of helping me, it actually aggravated the already raging war inside me!

Previously I had to manage a mind which kept repeating like a tape-recorder how I was ‘not good enough.’ But now I also had it tell me how I was even worse as I was trying to believe a silly statement like ‘I am fine the way I am’ which I knew was untrue. Also, I was a failure as I was unable to make use of positive affirmations when the rest of the world was doing it so well. Along with, I was wasting my time for continuing the positive affirmations that don’t work. All of which was too much to handle!

How to make Positive Affirmations work for you

I have been experimenting on how to create change in our lives since some time now and make it a point to share what I have learned in the soft skills training programs that I deliver. I have tried a number of different techniques on myself and have had some inferences:

1.      Positive Affirmations can work. How? By first dealing with the voice in your head that refutes them. This can be done by a number of tools that help you get aware of and accept your beliefs. My favourite techniques are Mindfulness and the Emotional Freedom Technique. I use them all the time. And I’ve seen that they work like a charm especially for emotional people like me!

2.   Instead of only using Positive Affirmations also use Affirmations. Confused? Let me explain. Positive Affirmations are, well, positive. They are positive sentences which are supposed to include only positive words. And this you affirm by repeating a number of times. I have realised that if you affirm a statement in the format ‘Its ok to feel (sad/angry, etc.)’or ‘Its ok to be (anxious, disappointed, etc.)’ it helps create acceptance. This helps process and settle the negative emotions that fuel the voice in our head that opposes the positive affirmations. It’s about clearing the negative to make way for the positive.

3.    Now use positive affirmations. Now once the awareness and acceptance bits are done, you can safely use positive affirmations. This is important as it means you now have the right energy to move into them. Its like removing the brakes that was retarding your forward motion. Which also accelerates the motion the positive affirmations can now create. And you’ll find that you move ahead with motivation and minimal effort towards your desired goal.

3 Simple Time Management Tips for Sales Managers

Salespeople are always put through a lot of sales skills trainings and negotiation skills trainings. But to be the best at selling they also require other soft and behavioural skills trainings too. One such training is time management training.

Managing time is a problem for a lot of people. And if we talk about sales managers, most of them struggle with that skill. Sales executives and managers have a lot on their plate at all points of time. You may have even noticed that many of them stay in a firefighting mode most of the time. Hence, time management training is a very important program for salespeople.

There are few things that sales professionals need help with while managing time. And if I were to give them some time management tips, they will be as follows:

To Do List:

This is something that they miss out on big time. Creating a to do list is a very good habit, not just for sales professionals but each one of us. It helps in having all the tasks that we need to accomplish in the day in front of us rather than being left to memory. That way we don’t miss out on any and can plan our day accordingly. So, for all those salespeople who have tried to create to do lists and dropped it because you realised you never followed it, I urge you to try again. And be sure you make use of the next step to strengthen it and increase your chances of going by it!

Prioritisation:

Once the to do list is made, the next logical step is to prioritise these tasks based on their urgency and importance. There are many prioritisation tools that one can learn and use. I highly recommend the time management matrix. Prioritisation helps in figuring out which tasks need your attention first and which ones can be eliminated. This helps focus on what’s important and giving the time wasters a miss. Be sure to also keep some buffer time. You never know when a meeting can get extended or your travel time between meetings increases! Also remember to apply prioritisation to your e-mails. It will help you save a lot of time.

Focus:

A big issue many salespeople tend to face is lack of focus. Although I would say it’s pretty much become a worldwide phenomenon with the levels of connectivity that we have! This means many of us spend more time surfing on the internet or on social media just to get a break from our over connectedness at work! In general also, technology and our fast paced life has made us impatient. This makes it difficult for us to pay attention to anything for too long and we land up moving to the next customer without giving enough attention to the current one. And we know how dangerous and detrimental to our sales that can be. So, be sure to take time off your screen and disconnect from work. Practice techniques to keep you in the present moment and watch how they magically increase your focus and in turn customer delight!

Tips to identify best soft skills training companies in Pune

Pune is steadily become a large corporate base. And to cater to the ever-growing need for manpower training, there are a large number of corporate training companies in Pune. On one hand this variety is great for organisations and gives them a large spread to chose from. On the other hand, it increases confusion. And choosing a good company from the large pool available can become quite a difficult task!

So that’s my topic of discussion today. I’m going to help you understand how to choose a good corporate training company in Pune. I’ll give you some tips that will make that ever so difficult decision a little easier.

Here goes…

1. Experience - Pune has a diverse corporate population. On one hand it is an IT hub and has a number of youngsters who have just entered the corporate world. On the other, it has many factories in and around it which have a large number of blue collared staff. And as we all know, the skill set required off the trainer is very different in both these cases! Therefore, it’s important to go ahead with a corporate training company in Pune that has the experience of handling your audience. Always ask the company whether they have trained ‘such’ type of people before and the approximate number of times. This will help you gauge how capable they would be in handling the specific crowd.

The same applies for the industry. Check which industries the training company has trained for before. If they have trained for your industry before, it will be easy for the trainer to give industry specific examples. This will make the training more relatable to your employees.

2. Location – Try to choose a company that is either based out of Pune or has a local trainer from Pune. This again increases relatability for the participants as the trainer can speak in their local language and cite local examples that participants are aware of.

This also helps in reducing overall costs as the trainer will incur local travel expenses rather than outstation travel along with lodging and boarding.

3. Responsiveness – This is another important one considering the previously seen laid back culture of Pune. Go for a soft skills training company in Pune that is quick to respond, is eager to work and is passionate about what they do. This will help motivate your employees and have an impact on productivity too!

These were some points coming to my mind. I would love to hear some more from our local Puneites😊

What to expect in a corporate training session?

The Yellow Spot is a corporate training company in Bangalore.  We offer a number of soft and behavioural skills trainings, functional training, leadership training, sales training and some technical trainings too.

Some of our clients are highly experienced in the training domain and have been arranging for corporate training companies in Bangalore to conduct sessions for their employees since a long time. Others, on the other hand, are quite new to the field and require help. They often ask us what a corporate training session entail. And am writing this blog today especially for their benefit.

While I am of the opinion that I can’t really give them a feel of a session unless they sit in one, I can make an effort to give them a sense of it. And that exactly what I’m going to do. So, here goes…

Practically the aim of all corporate training sessions is one of the following:

1. Creating Awareness – This is what almost all training sessions aim to do. They help create self-awareness amongst the participants as to their thought processes, feelings and emotions or simply their behaviour. This helps participants get a sense of where they may need to work so that they can improve themselves, their interactions with people around them and the work they deliver.

2. Improving Acceptance levels – This is a crucial step which I would say most corporate training companies in Bangalore and even those in other cities forget to focus on! Awareness can never be converted to action unless a person accepts that they need to create a change. You know how difficult it is to take action to lose weight even though you are aware that it’s good for you!

The problem lies in acceptance. Sometimes acceptance is relatively easy as the resistance towards it is only at a conscious level. However, more often than not, its at a sub-conscious level and may take a lot of effort to get passed! Training programs need to help participants identify their subconscious resistance and provide them ways to go beyond it.

3. Planning Action - This is another extremely important step that training companies cover in their action planning modules. Once they have created awareness on what needs to be changed and helped participants accept the fact that they need to change, the next step is to take action on it. Corporate training companies in Bangalore are well equipped with a number of action steps that can help participants successfully create a change in their lives.

Do you know how these companies actually cover these steps? Experientially. They use many different methodologies like games, activities, simulations, role plays, demonstrations, group discussions, videos, etc. And that’s how they make learning fun!

How Personality Development is equal to Empowerment

Personality development training are still often misunderstood as just trainings for making a person look good. Yes, we still live in a world where people are judged on the basis of their appearance. However, a person’s personality is lot more than what he or she looks like on the outside. In fact, its more dependent on the inner landscape of the person. And therefore, any good personality development training needs to focus on not just the outer but even more on the person’s inner world!

Both the inner and outer personality make a person confident. While some people appear great on the outside, they are often a mess in their inner world! And that’s the reason why many of them have moments where they lack confidence and land up reacting to situations, even though they chose to hide it from the world. On the other hand, there are others that do not look so good. Many of them suffer from a lack of confidence and feel like they are not good enough simply because of their ‘normal’ looks! A good personality development training focuses on both these aspects. It can improve how a mediocre person looks on the outside and can help build a strong and positive inner personality.

Apart from how we look; other important aspects on our outer personality are our behaviourl skills along with our body language, facial expressions, gestures and our voice. Our bodies are constantly conveying information about how we think and feel through these mediums and therefore have a large effect on our personality. It’s not new how body language can show confidence or nervousness, right?

Therefore all these factors empower us. They give us the confidence to go out in this world and do things that really matter. And that’s the reason why so many people come out of a personality development training feeling confident and empowered. Through the training, they have understood themselves and their areas of development well and are committed to making themselves even better. And that’s when they are able to take charge of their life. So, what are you waiting for. Go and attend a good personality development training and see the difference it creates in your life! https://theyellowspot.com

Top 3 new age personality development skills for millennials

personality development skills training

Do you think millennials really require personality development training? They all seem to be well groomed and carry themselves well in the new age corporate attire. They are smart and confident and know exactly what they want in life. They have big dreams and have already paved out the path to reach them well before they leave college. Then why do you think we would still be talking about personality development training for them?

Well, the fact is that personality is made up of two aspects. The outer personality which is made up of how we look and behave. And the inner personality which is made up of our attitude, motivation, values, fears, complexes and other thoughts and emotions. And while the inner personality is typically the one that we tend to ignore while working on changing our personality, its actually the one that contributes to 90% of our personality.

Now let me give you my top three areas which every personality development training for millennials needs to focus on. By the way, I am a millennial myself. So, I’am writing this through my own experience as well as feedback from others.  

1.       1.Openness to others

Though we are in a generation where we expect the world to be open to new ideas and opinions, very often we ourselves struggle to be open to other people’s ideas. We all want a society that is open to diversity and in fact often land up quarrelling with our own parents on their old school thoughts. But how open are we to accept their opinions and ideologies. After all, it’s a two-way street where openness has to be at both ends. Isn’t it?

                                                 

Openness is difficult and can be elusive for many. But if you really want to improve in this aspect, attend a good personality development training and soft skill training. It will show you the mirror and help you get aware when you’re not. 

2.     2.  Being ourselves but considering others

Yes, in this new generation we want to be ourselves and not be judged by the society. But sometimes there needs to be consideration for others. For example, consider the situation on the roads today. More and more young drivers are rash and break traffic rules. While we need to enjoy our drive and get to our destination fast, we also need to ensure that we are not causing inconvenience or danger to others. A quick check to ensure we are being sensitive and not hurting other’s feelings or bothering someone else can really help.

3.      3. Behaviour and focus

We live in a technologically advanced world. We all carry smartphones and smartwatches. No one can deny the influence they have had on us. While they have made life easier, they have also led us to move around in society with literally no clue who is sitting next to us or who has passed by! We no more smile, shake hands, offer seats or talk to each other. Everyone is engrossed in their respective phones. And that’s the precise reason why we no longer feel heard and our suffering from huge complexes. We need to realise what technology is doing and break out of its grip. Come back to being human and corporate training help to fully present in every instance that life presents to us.

So, these are my top 3 skills which are extremely basic, but I see missing in millennials today. And hence, I feel personality development training is definitely an option for them.

RISE OF CORPORATE TRAINING PROGRAMS IN METROPOLITAN CITIES

The number of corporate training programs that are being held across the country, especially in the domain of soft and behavioural skills, has risen tremendously. And that’s a change that we have been observing since when we started off around a decade ago.

Previously, organisations used to focus more on equipping their employees with technical skills. Therefore, most of the corporate training programs held were on hard skills. Now the scenario is changing. Companies have started realising the importance of soft skills and how they can make a huge difference to the success of an employee and the company. They have therefore started arranging soft and behavioural skills training programs at all levels, right from the blue collared staff at the bottom to the top management.

Another change we have witnessed is the increasing number of start-ups arranging corporate training programs for their people in the metros. Previously start-ups would focus more on work to bring the organisation up. Training would be a frill that an employee would get after the company had made good profits. Nowadays start-ups don’t wait for that stage to come. They realise that to reach success faster, they need to keep arranging corporate training programs for their employees. For its only when you have a well-trained workforce with you that you can become stable and successful faster.

Therefore; due to the rise in the number of start-ups in the metros and the changing mentality of organisations when it comes to training, there is a sharp growth in the number of corporate training programs held. Newer companies are now adding programs like communication skills, personality development and managerial skills to their training basket. Companies which have full fledged training departments are going on to conduct more advanced topics like situational leadership, transactional analysis, neurolinguistic programming and various others.

Training is finally coming of age and we are happy to see organisations moving towards development and having learning cultures. Employees are also becoming more tuned to keeping their learning going. They realise how this is that one thing that’s going to keep them relevant, creative, curious and on the top. It’s definitely the recipe for success!

5 points to select ideal corporate training company in Pune

Corporate training company 

Pune has been an IT hub for quite sometime now. And has now also become home to a number of other industries. Many national and multinational companies have either established or shifted their base to Pune. This is also the reason why there are many corporate training companies in Pune that are currently on the roll.

If you are a company in Pune and are looking forward to finding a corporate training company for your organisation’s development, you have no dearth of options. In fact, it’s now become difficult to figure out which corporate training company is the best and will be able to cater to your needs! And that’s also probably the reason why you clicked on this article! So today I’m going to try and give you the top 5 things you should look for in a corporate training company before hiring them for fulfilling your training needs.

Here we go…

1.       Experience is important. There are very few corporate training companies in the market that have actually managed to sustain and survive over the years. Therefore, always check how long the company has been in the market. More the time, better will be the experience of having worked with different kinds of clients for different needs. You can ask the company to share the training sessions they have conducted in your sector if that is important for you.

2.       Quality of trainers and consultants. This is really important. At the end of the day, the trainers are the ones who will actually be catering to the developmental needs. Hence, always evaluate the trainers and consultants; their experience and the kind of work they have done in the past. And if you can, speak to some participants the trainer has trained in the past. That should give you some good insights.

3.       Presence across the country. If you have many offices at different locations PAN India, this will be important for you. If the corporate training company also has trainers across the country, it will be beneficial for you. They can provide you with local trainers at each of your offices; which saves travel, lodging and boarding costs. It also gives you a trainer who can speak the local language and connect at a better level with your employees.

4.       Doing a pre-work. Pre work is a necessity. Even if you have done your internal training need analysis, check if the corporate training company will do pre work for the sessions too. It adds a lot of value to the overall intervention. It helps participants connect to examples of their daily interactions at work, which the trainer learns of during the pre-work.

5.       Lastly, the post training support. We all know that in a one or two-day training, creating a vast change is difficult.  Such sessions are therefore more focussed on creating awareness.  Post training support is therefore important to increase retention and tackle challenges that may crop up during implementation. Post training support therefore helps carry forward the learning at the workplace.

Hope this helps you chose a great corporate training company for your organisation!

Why business etiquette is important

I’m currently busy preparing for a business etiquette training. It’s for the manufacturing unit of a large Indian brand. And guess who the audience is? A set of engineers. Yes, my favourite. Being one myself, I do relate to them the best.

                                                    

I’m sure you must be curious as to what topics I’m going to cover in this business etiquette training. Well, it’s going to be a mixed bag. A little bit of face to face etiquette, meeting, telephone and email etiquette.

So, what is business etiquette and why is business etiquette training so important?

Well, business etiquette it simply our mannerisms in a business scenario. The way we present ourselves in our communication with various people we interact with like customers, colleagues, superiors, subordinates, vendors, suppliers, etc. The way we talk when meeting people, shaking hands, greeting, introducing ourselves, being polite; to how we talk while on the phone, opening and closing a call, putting it on hold, etc. It also covers how we start and end emails, how to write in clear and concise words what we mean, etc.; to how to behave while attending a meeting.

How does it help?

1. It firstly helps us improve our interpersonal relationships skills by treating everyone with respect. Whether it be a customer, vendor, supplier, subordinate or superior; who doesn’t want to be treated with respect and feel like an equal. We all do. And following business etiquette is an excellent way to ensure that.

2. Business etiquette training provides us with guidelines while communicating. And many of us would be at a complete loss if we had to communicate without them! It provides a direction and gives us a set of dos and don’ts that can help us in not only starting a conversation well but also completing it in a polite and courteous manner. Just imagine what it would be like to not know what to do when you go to meet a prospective client for the first time!

3. Professionalism is another area that business etiquette training really works on. Don’t you feel great when you receive a call from a vendor who never forgets to greet you and also conveys his message in a well-articulated manner! Truly, business etiquette is what really helps you create a great impression on people.

And what happens when professionalism and interpersonal relationships improve? We become more successful as individuals. And it becomes easier to achieve our desired goals and success faster.

And you know the best part? Not only does it affect us, it also rubs off on those around us. We actually start becoming a role model and people start following our ways. This not only improves them, but also takes the organisation to the next level and gives customers a whole new experience.

Yup, one training, multi-fold advantages!

Improve work place safety with right induction training

I was reviewing the induction training of a client the other day. We were going to deliver only the soft skills and behavioural part of their induction training, but they wanted us to review the entire training and see if it needed any improvements. And guess what I found. The part on process training was incomplete. It did not lay much focus on workplace safety.

Workplace safety training is extremely important for organisations that have environments that could be unsafe for their staff. However, the question is, how many of us actually ensure that we cover safety training in the induction training itself in the required depth?

While there are some organisations that definitely give a lot of importance to it in the induction training, some actually do it after a few months or even after some kind of tragedy occurs! My question is, why do we wait for something to go wrong. Why can’t we tell our employees exactly what needs to be done before they touch the floor?

Apart from the timing of such sessions, I also believe that such induction trainings need to create the right environment for learning. For example, consider a session which is simply a download of information. Do you really think it can have the impact that it needs to have? Do you really think employees are going to absorb completely what has been taught and remember it when the time comes for application?

Induction trainings need to be made more experiential in nature. They should be able to simulate the unsafe environment and make employees get an experience of why safety training is so important. It should be interactive and make employees come up with the actions that they need to take to ensure safety rather than the trainer feeding them with ready-made information. This increases their buy-in levels, seriousness as well as retention levels.

Precaution is a top priority. And if understood clearly as to why it’s needed, will definitely reduce or even prevent future disasters. And how best to do it? With experiential, interactive corporate trainings that covers all the required aspects in the correct way and detail.

So, I urge all of you to relook at your induction trainings. Are you covering all that needs to be covered? Are you using the right methodologies? After attending the session, are your employees going to be fully equipped to set foot on the floor safely?