Success may be about dogged perseverance. It certainly worked for this icon. It is easy to give up when it seems things are stacked against you, or that “it’s just not meant to be.” However this famous icon of the 19th century endured, and kept on enduring. ………… This is Abraham Lincoln’s story.  Consider this alternative CV of the great man ;

• 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!

Free business seminars from your local Business Link. Still – it seems. We’re aware there are many cuts in government spending, but there are still business development opportunities and new ideas to be had for free – paid for by the government.

Certainly here in the Midlands Business Link is continuing to offer the excellent range of Transformational ICT seminars. OK, not the most catchy of titles (what do you expect from marketing in the public sector?!) But the seminars on a whole range of website building, e-mail marketing and other social networking are well worth attending.

You learn about some really interesting stuff, from some good, knowledgeable speakers and of course, you meet other business people facing the same challenges as you.

All in all thoroughly recommended.

You will find many self-appointed gurus all over the internet offering their wares and their wisdom. And we’re sure that with some time you could consider all of them. Most people who are experts in any area of self-development will probably have something that will benefit you. But how do you choose which ones to listen to? 

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.

We’ve recently read the Marketing Launchpad book. It is clearly aimed at small business. And we recommend it. 

The Marketing launchpad - easy to read book for small business

It is based around 6 key principles including how to build your brand, low cost advertising, and the secrets of effective direct mail. It inevitably touches on the benefits of search engine optimisation and how niche marketing is far more lucrative to you than trying to be all things to all people. It is available through Amazon at a discounted price, follow this link 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marketing-Launchpad-Areas-Business-Heights/dp/1906852057/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276605243&sr=8-1 for more details.

 Training audio CDs for United States despatch.

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.

Fish! is a great training video, and one of the best we’ve seen in recent years.

It is a great training DVD or video and it is expensive. This is the bad news, but it is worth it, especially if your organisation is paying, and or you are able to get a fair bit of use out of it – such as using it in training programmes with many people.

Fish! dvd - the top selling training video of all time

You can watch a short clip of it around 2 minutes or so at Video Arts by following this link http://www.videoarts.co.uk/Title.aspx/FISH/FISH/FISH/

It is about the 4 key principles of good customer interaction. The 4 principles covered in the 17 minute video or DVD are

1. Play
2. Make their day
3. Be there
4. Choose your attitude

It is general good business sense and so is highly suited to customer service, telesales, customer service, contact centre, call centre, internal sales or in fact anyone who deals with customers.

Fish! is a highly recommended training product. We can also help you track it down at the best price (UK only). e-mail us info@associatedlearningsystems.co.uk for more help.

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

Developing in-house training material for customer service and telesales is important for you and your company if you still have restricted training budgets at the moment. The temptation is to cut costs and look for increasing ways of being self-sufficient.

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.

Now is the time for you to set up your own business. It really is. With the economy showing signs of slow recovery, and the job market changing beyond all recognition, now is the time to take the plunge – if you’ve always harboured the desire to work for yourself and generate your own income.

It doesn’t even need to cost you anything to get started. The rise of the internet makes this possible. In fact you can cast your net (to use a fishing analogy) and see what bites. You can even do this while working in a job if necessary. You might have an outside hobby or interest that you’re wondering if you could make any money out of.

Our top tip is create yourself a business profile on a site such as HotFrog. It is completely free and you can add searchwords and build your own business listing.  Follow the link http://www.hotfroguk.co.uk/ So if you’d like to try your hand at jam making, or buying and selling cameras or floristry or palmistry, you can do all this for free. Then of course if you start to get some responses it will tell you whether you have a viable business idea.

Never has the opportunity for starting out on your own been so good. Most markets are likely to get more buoyant so if you can build an effective small scale business model that works now, your prospects should grow over time.

Everyone has skills, things they’re good at. Now is the opportunity to tap into your entrepreneurial spirit and give it a go. Best of luck !