5 steps to effective goal setting

A lot of people have goals, but not everybody spends time actually thinking deeply about their goals. And that’s the precise reason why we have goal setting workshops. They provide a dedicated time and space for you to reflect on where you want to go and how you can get there.

Unfortunately, most people don’t take goals very seriously. And that’s one major reason why these goals never get achieved and just remain as dreams. Therefore goal setting workshops are very important and one’s that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a part of corporate training. Just thinking of what your goal is in your head is not enough.  One needs to stop and spend time with the goal. Check and see whether this is truly what you want in life and ask yourself what you’re ready to give for it.

Goal setting is therefore an extremely important exercise and not setting proper goals can compromise their achievement. Therefore one needs to follow certain steps to get their goals right and maximise their chance of fulfilling them:

Step 1: Believe and Visualize

The first and most important thing to do in order to set a goal is to believe in yourself. One needs to believe that he or she is capable of achieving the goal or else you’ll lose the motivation to work towards it on the way.

After that, visualize what you want. Picturize yourself in the situation when you have achieved what you want. How does it feel? Do you feel motivating enough to pull it through? If yes, then you’re on the right track. If no, you probably need to change or modify your goal. If you however still feel that you want to go ahead with that goal, reflect to understand the internal resistance you may be facing. Check what fears you have or what challenges you may face on the way that are affecting your motivation levels. 

Step 2: Create a SMART goal

Make your goal SMART; specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. If it isn’t SMART, work on it until it is. Making your goals SMART also provide you with insights on how to achieve the goal.

Step 3: Put it on paper

Only 3% people put down their goals on paper. And these 3% people have higher chances of achieving their goals as compared to those who don’t. Writing your goals down on paper indicates your seriousness towards your goals. It also helps your mind see things more clearly.

Step 4: Start Now and Stick to it!

To start working towards your goals, the best time is now. Start working on your plan as soon as possible and stay focused until you achieve it. Goals cannot be achieved over night and what you achieve over night may not a big enough goal. So stay patient, stay focused!

Step 5: Review

Make sure you are reviewing your goal on a timely basis. While in the process of working towards it, you might realise that your goal needs alterations. It may cease to motivate you anymore or you may even realise that you have the potential to achieve much more. And that’s when you will need to alter your goal and action plan.

As you can see, it’s important that you set your goals appropriately. And this is exactly what goal setting workshops help you do. A goal setting workshop provides you with a guide who takes you through the process of understanding the importance and implementation of these steps in depth. They can also give you good insights on the quality of the goal set by you and the challenges you may face on the road to achieving them.

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?

Be a high ticket closer with right sales training program

Sales Training is an absolute necessity for every sales professional. And it can make a huge difference to the service that they deliver to their customers. I got a live example of it last week during a sales call, and I thought I’d tell you about it today.

So I went on a doctor visit for a client from the healthcare industry last week. And believe me it made me all the more certain of why sales training is so important!

I was accompanying a sales executive who was trying to explain to the doctor why his products were good and why the doctor should recommend them to his patients. By the way, I must say the executive was wonderful when it came to his knowledge on the products. He knew each and every product along with all its specifications like material, size, price etc. and frankly I was really impressed with his technical knowledge. However, even after so many years of selling the same products, there was a very apparent gap. A gap that only the right coaching by his Manager or Sales training could fulfil.

While the executive was top notch when it came to hard skills, he had a lot to learn on the soft skills front. Basics like building rapport, talking to the client with confidence, etc. were completely missing. I realised that it was partly because of the personality type of the executive, him being an introvert. And also the fact that I was observing him, which made him conscious. But when I asked his Manager about the same, I came to know that that’s a feedback his Manager had been giving him since quite some time now. But one that had failed to reap any benefit.

Once the sales executive got a little more comfortable with me, I also asked him whether he enjoyed his job. He said he did and also said he did not face any challenges while doing so!

And that brings me to one of the important things that sales training does. It creates awareness.

Many executives are not aware of how they come across to a client when they are selling. They have no clue that they may come across as being low on confidence through their facial expressions and body language, even if they know their product like the back of their hand. Sales training sessions act as a mirror for participants and make them aware of the areas, verbal and non-verbal, that they need to work on.

Typically, building rapport and being friendly with a client comes very easily to a person who naturally has that kind of a personality. However, it may be difficult for executives of other personalities. Sales training makes people aware of the differences in personality development that exist. They discuss the positives and areas of development of each personality, along with how you can go beyond the limitations that these pose.  In fact, apart from exploring facets of your own personality, they also throw light on the different personalities that customers may have and how you can adapt to these to build rapport easily. So a sales executive with an introvert personality can also get to know how to crack a very extrovert personality!

These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what is covered in sales training. There’s a lot more than just awareness that gets covered in the same. Will discuss those in some later articles. For now you can start with these. These itself will take you from closing small accounts to much bigger one’s while creating relationships with customers for life!

3 major differences in the impact of Slang Communication & Business Communication

I’m sure you all know what slang communication is, right? I may still have had to explain it a few years back. But with the advent of so many means of communication, I’m sure everyone understands it even if they are unfamiliar with the term. And believe me, it’s one reason why organisations are having to conduct more and more communication skills trainings for their employees!

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, let me give you an example to make it clear. For example, consider the term ‘FOMO.’ Have any of you heard it before? I happened to hear it for the first time in a session that I was conducting a few months back. And only I know how I was looked at with wide eyes when I said I had never heard of it! I was very sternly told by my participants that it meant ‘Fear of Missing Out!’ It seems that’s what the youngsters use nowadays to explain their incessant need of following the pack, or else they feel left out!

So, what do you think could be the differences in the impact that slang communication has versus business communication back at the workplace? And with the advent of Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. why are more companies opting for communication skills trainings?

As you may have concluded from my example, slang communication is the communication used typically by a group of people. In my case, the entire younger generation, as I was told! So, what do you think are some of the dangers of using slangs over business communication?

·         Not understanding it – And that’s exactly what happened with me! I could not understand what the term meant until the group using is took the effort to explain it to me. And this is something that commonly happens especially when we travel. Local people use local terms that are beyond our understanding. And this causes huge gaps in understanding. Gaps that large, that even communication skills trainings can’t repair! And some terms can even cause misunderstandings. For example, the term ‘trainers.’ To a person from the learning and development sphere, it means someone who gives training to others. On the other hand, for some youngsters, it means sports shoes!

·         Wasting Time – Yup, this one’s pretty understandable too. If you use such terms that others don’t understand or may be confused with the meaning of, you’re going to waste your as well as their time in re-explaining what you mean. Now don’t you think its better to use a commonly used term in the first place!

·         Groupism – Now this is one I realised when I was in the training room that day. Not knowing the term, when everybody else was aware of it, actually made me feel like an outsider to the group. In fact, my self esteem took a hit and I for a minute actually felt like I must be really dumb to not know the word!

The solution to all these issues…Simply sticking to business communication at the workplace. I know we tend to use slangs all the time at home and especially with our friends. But let’s make an effort to be more aware of the words we use to ensure that it makes communication easy for us and the people around us.

And if you’re having difficulty with that, you can attend a communication skills training. It will help you get aware of what you speak and replace those words with more commonly understandable terms. We are so used to using some slang terms that we don’t realise we are using them. And getting aware of it, is the first step to changing the habit.