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.

Time management - read up on Stephen Covey's 7 habits of highly effective people

The work of American psychologist Dr Stephen Covey is worth reading. His book the 7 habits of highly effective people is one of the leading self-development books of its time.

It features an exercise on time management where you put tasks and jobs into 4 quadrants based on the 2 key variables importance and urgency. Q1 is urgent and important, Q2 is important and not urgent, Q3 is urgent and not important and guess what? Q4 is not urgent and not important.

He shows how the secret to good time management is Q2. The things in your life which are important but not urgent deserve your greatest attention. Once they’ve become urgent and moved into Q1, they become stressful and pressurised. And the way to generate more time to spend in Q2 is to steal it from Q3 and Q4.

This is one of the key time management principles covered in our time management training CD. It is available here for just £34.99 and we recommend it – but then we would wouldn’t we?!

Time management - audio learning CD

If you want to find more information about Dr Stephen Covey’s work on time management, we suggest you buy his book, or listen to his audio programme. In the meantime you can read more by following this link to a British website http://www.businessballs.com/timemanagement.htm#urgent_important_grid_time_management. This site is a useful reference site for many kinds of business and self-development ideas.

Telephone account management - growing business area

As one of our latest batch of audio products, we have a CD that guides you through all the things you need to know to add more customers and clients and equally importantly – keep the ones you’ve currently got.  How often do sales business models focus and reward exclusively new business accounts. You can find the audio training CD by following this link http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=32

It guides you through understanding what the function of account management is, how to do the key parts of the job effectively, and how you are the single biggest factor in determining outcomes !

Interestingly, 5 out of the last 7 people who have bought this audio CD, also bought the audio CD on time management too. Running your customer portfolio is partly about being well organised yourself of course too. Find more details here http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=24 All CDs are currently £34.99 + VAT and payment is easy through PayPal. You can use your credit card too.

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.

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.

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.

At the weekend I was reading about Michelle Mone the former model turned business woman who runs the Ultimo brand. She is 37, and since 1996 has built up a company now worth £45 million according to the Sunday Times.

And yet, it wasn’t always so. In the Sunday Times piece she said “setting up the business was hard and I had to find a lot of money to get it going. Iwas in debt by about £420,000 when the company finally launched. I had to remortgage the house and also take out a number of business loans. I also had debts with every credit card company known to man.”

So what kept her going ? She had overwhelming faith and conviction in her ideas. Now surely for every Michelle Mone there are 100 people that gamble and lose, but what an inspiring story.

While we don’t have audio CDs available yet on how to build a £45 million company, remember that Mao Tse Tung said “the longest journey begins with a single step” and we can help with that. Click through to see the audio CDs on self development and goal setting at  http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_list.asp?Section=SELF%20DEVELOPMENT

But what we can learn is that self-belief and commitment is what she, like other entrepreneurs have.

Perhaps what you want as well as the second best tip is the best tip. Both of them are covered on the time management CD which you can find by following this link http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=24. And who knows I may write a blog with the best tip !

Anyway the second best tip is credited to a time and motion consultant who advised Andrew Carnegie a Scot who made his fortune in steel in the U.S. He became the Bill Gates of his time. The tip is this.

Before the start of each work day, write down your 6 main work priorities. Then number them in order that you intend to do them. That becomes your key list for the day. ONLY 6 mind – you can have other jobs written down, but only number the 6 most important. That way it keeps your focus on what is important (because you’ve decided it.) OK so other things will get in the way and emergencies may demand your immediate attention, but then once that’s dealt with – get straight back to the list.

You may feel that you won’t necessarily get through all 6, but if you don’t get through them using this method you wouldn’t have got through them using any other method either ! The best of luck  

There will be a book review on the first of each month for the next few months. These are easy to access – just dip your hand in your pocket and for less than £15 generally you can pick up a wealth of information.

Today’s guru tip is the Birmingham based sales trainer and motivational speaker Peter Thomson. http://www.peterthomson.com/ is a link that will take you directly to his site. You can even sign up for his little weekly tips TGI Mondays at www.tgimondays.com.

I have seen him ‘perform’ at a number of different events, and particularly if you’re a business owner or senior manager, you will find his material inspiring ! Our advice check it out !