There is still the need to develop your staff and teams of course. But there is little money available to pay for it. Sound familiar?

Is this your training budget?

Many companies are in this situation and therefore many managers and company owners want to motivate their teams and help them develop new skills in both customer service and sales, but on limited or non-existent budgets. Many companies are forced to do some form of training, but using in-house staff and materials. However if the training is to be effective it is important to gather new ideas from other sources. Gleaned from the experts. The type of people who’ve been there, bought the t-shirt etc.

We can help, honestly. We provide a range of easily affordable audio CDs packed with top tips, years of experience and plain old good common sense. Our CDs and tips booklets are based around a number of key growth areas ;

• Customer Service
• Telephone sales
• Self-development

With prices starting from £34.99 for one audio CD, and packages of 3 for less than £70, you wouldn’t need many good ideas to make it self-financing would you?

All our products are supplied with a full money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the product. If you’re in the UK, simply return the  product for a refund of your purchase price. http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/products.asp is the link that will take you straight to our products page. You can buy all our products online, with payment by credit card or directly through PayPal.

Associated Learning Systems is a UK, Midlands based company specialising in products for the development of customer service, telesales and telemarketing skills.

It shows us persistence and is a tale for modern times. I read recently that the contestant Jade Richards who performed Adele’s Someone like you had auditioned for the show on five separate  occasions. But she’d never quite managed to get through to the next stage. Can’t believe how, but that’s what happened apparently. However 6th time lucky – talent will out more like. She wowed the  judges with her rendition of this song, and the rest, as this old cliche goes is history….

You can catch it here Jade Richards – keep at your dream – don’t quit. Simply click on the link to the left here.

If you saw the show it’s hard to believe that this is true as Jade reduced Kelly Rowland from Destiny’s Child and Louis Walsh to tears and Gary Barlow said he thought her performance would “change” her life.  It really was an amazing audition.

It just goes to show that even the most brilliantly shining stars sometimes have a tough time making it through challenging times and this is not unlike the struggle that many talented individuals and businesses are goung through at the moment in what are challenging times. 

Work on your talent, hone it, develop it, polish it, refine it. Be the best you can be. Take pride in that and then make sure the world knows about it. Be a master of something, the world pays more for that than a jack of all trades.

http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_list.asp?Section=SELF DEVELOPMENT is where you’ll find our range of audio products CDs to help you grow that most valuable resource – you.

• 1816 – His family was forced out of their home. He had to work to support them (aged 7).
• 1818 – His mother died
• 1831 – His business failed
• 1832 – Defeated in Legislature. Also lost his job. Unsuccessfully tried to get into law school.
• 1833 – Second business failure. He was bankrupted. He’d borrowed the money to set it up from a friend. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying off this debt.
• 1835 – Was engaged to be married, his fiancée died. It was said his heart was broken.
• 1836 – Suffered nervous breakdown (hardly surprising) and was in bed for 6 months.
• 1838 – Defeated for speaker in state legislature
• 1840 – Defeated for Elector
• 1843 – Defeated for Congress
• 1848 – Defeated running for re-election to Congress (having got in, in 1846)
• 1849 – Rejected for job of land officer in his home state
• 1855 – Defeated for Senate
• 1856 – Defeated for Vice President nomination. Got less than 100 votes at party’s national convention.
• 1858 – Defeated for Senate (again)
• 1860 – Elected President of the United States

One of the famous quotes attributed to Abe was “having chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.”

Slightly strange language by modern standards maybe, but given all the set backs he met in his life, you have to admire his resolve and determination to see his ambition through. A shining example to us all.

If you want to start this journey and develop your own life plan and personal goals, have a look at our self-development CDs.  http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_list.asp?Section=SELF DEVELOPMENT.    At just £34.99 each they could just get you going on the path to achieving your goals. And we hope you don’t have to face anything like the challenges that ol’ Abe had to face!

Good luck!

Personal development is the key to happiness ?!!

Many are American of course, so it is great to find some great ideas that will benefit British people and British organisations right here in Britain. The work of Peter Thomson is something we think you should check out.

His work provides ideal content for those of you running businesses or interested in personal growth and development. We’ve attended seminars and sessions run by Peter and can highly recommend him. He is down to earth and friendly and yet you can tell he’s well rehearsed. What else could be more important in a trainer or speaker?! click on www.peterthomson.com/ to find out more about Peter’s work.

His area of specialism is around helping organisations develop better selling. He refers to himself as the UK’s leading strategist on business and personal growth. But have a look, have a listen and tell us what you think.

Unsurprisingly most of our enquiries, orders and websites come from the English speaking world. The United States is our second biggest market. As a result and in order to make it easier for our American customers to work out the prices in dollars you will see we’ve added a click through currency converter against each of the products here.

Training CDs - ready to ship to United States

So if you’re in California,Wisconsin, New York state, Florida, Ohio, Washington, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, or Canada or any of the 50 U.S. states and you’re after some best practice advice from the U.K. on customer service, telesales or general telephone communication skills, try us out. A few clicks and the products are on their way to you.

The case for training. Admittedly we sell training products so we might be seen to have an opinion on this. As customers become ever more sophisticated and demanding about what they want, so customer service becomes more important.

We came across a quote recently from the highly influential management book from the 1980s “the One Minute Manager” by Kenneth Blanchard & Spencer Johnson.

“You really have three choices as a manager. First you can hire winners. They are hard to find and they cost money. Or second, if you can’t find a winner, you can hire someone with the potential to be a winner. Then you systematically train that person to become a winner. If you are not willing to do either of the first two (and I am continually amazed at the number of managers who won’t spend the money to hire a winner or take the time to train someone to become a winner), then there is only the third choice left – prayer.” This books comes highly recommended. It is easy to read, it is written almost as a children’s book and so you will get through it in no time at all. Amazon is a good source for this book.

Follow this link to find out more http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_0_14?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=one+minute+manager&sprefix=one+minute+man

The One Minute Manager - recommended by Associated Learning Systems

You recognise that training is important – perhaps MORE important than it’s ever been, but you’ve not got money to throw at it. Perhaps you’re reading this looking for some new ideas and new material.

Have you ever found that you understand something, only to try and then explain it yourself, only to discover you’re not clear on it at all ?

Alternatively sometimes you can explain something to someone who then asks you some straightforward questions – which then makes you realise you are not clear on all the details.

This is all part of the learning process. If you really want to understand something, get yourself into a situation where you can explain it to someone else. You will often find that in doing this, you will have learnt more about it along the way. It really does work. To understand you have to teach !

Don’t you just hate it when people say “sorry I didn’t do that for you, I didn’t get time.” Sometimes followed by “I’ve just been so busy” or “I don’t know where the time goes – I really don’t ” ?

And it’s rubbish anyway. It simply means that it wasn’t important enough to them. You see time management is partly about motivation. If it’s important you will find time to do it. If someone says they didn’t get time your retort could be “well, if there was a million pounds for you if you’d done it – would you have had the time then ?!” To which the answer is “Ooh yes.” So it’s simply that we choose to do other stuff.

Be realistic, set realistic time frames, and acknowledge the fact that this task may or may not be that important to you, just don’t say to another human being “I didn’t get time !” There will never be enough time – get over it !

Time management is one of the important topics covered in the audio CDs on the Associated Learning Systems website, follow this link http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=24 Buying is easy through PayPal and it will only set you back a few pounds – so click a few buttons and it could be with you by tomorrow.

Consider the main thing holding you back at the moment. It could be that your job is unfulfiling, or you need more money or you want some help and advice, or guidance on overcoming an obstacle.

The only materials you need are peace and quiet, a piece of paper and a pencil.

Then all you do is turn the problem for solving into a question. That makes it action orientated. So for instance I need £3,000 saved up for my summer holiday and it’s now February becomes “how do I save £3,000 before my summer holiday in August ?”

Then of course as soon as you start to answer the question you start to have your answers. It is a great and simple device to stimulate your brain to think. As a solo brainstorming technique it is fantastic. You’ll also find that within 10 minutes or so you’ll have 90% of the answers. So stop there – don’t force yourself to sit there for an hour – it probably won’t contribute much more anyway.