Another Interesting Book by Philips Delves Broughton

I've just finished reading "Life's A Pitch - And then you Buy - What the World's Best Sales People Can Teach Us all" by Philips Delves Broughton and have taken the following key learning points :

* Success, according to Nightingale's definition is "really nothing more than the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. The successful person is the one who wakes up in the morning and knows what they are doing, why and where their actions are leading. It could be anything for an exam, teaching, to running a small business or a very large one. The idea itself does not matter". Nightingale claimed that only one in twenty of us achieves this broad definition of success."Most of us are just drifting, composites of others we don't particularly admire but by whom we would rather be liked than not. He argues liked Gitomer, that convention is an ass. "Whatever the great majority is doing in any circumstance, if you do exactly the opposite, you'll probably never make a mistake as long as you live. The tragedy, Nightingale said, is that people die without ever making full use of their abilities and lie on their death beds consumed by regret.

* Nightingale argues there are seven items necessary for living a full life:

1. Goals - without them a man is no better than a "starfish or amoeba" living hour to hour day to day always reacting, never setting his own course
2. Attitude - because it determines others' attitude towards us
3. Thinking deliberately and with a purpose - not being buffeted by circumstance and biddable by others, but thinking for oneself.
4. The Law of Laws - the notion that we get what we give
5. Truth - for it will be reciprocated.
6. Invest in one's own development - just as a company would invest in its own training then so should we
7. The importance of thoughts - Our thoughts determine our fate. Whether we become dictators or gas station attendants, it is what we think of most of the time that leads to these outcomes. It is why, Nightingale says, that thinking and have a goal are so important. Without them we are nothing.

At the moment, we are currently busy marketing our new upcoming event. It is the 

Northern Ireland's Mediation Symposium 2012.

Three Great New Websites

Recently, I came across 3 great new websites. New to me at least. They are:

 

* Opensiteexplorer.org This provides pretty much everything you want to know about your website and your competitors in terms of google ranking, authority and linking. It's easy to use and it's the sort of thing you just want to keep playing with when you should be at the tea table and your food's going cold.

 

* Mysupermarket.co.uk compares the prices for you of thousands of items across six of the main supermarkets. I guess it's best if you have a one off big purchase to make and want to know who is doing it cheapest. The test I did on a litre of Smirnoff vodka told me that I'd save a fuller £10 by going to Tesco over Sainsburys.

 

* Beatthebrochure.com - it claims to give you the lowest holiday prices guaranteed - and my first experiments with it returned impressive results.

 

How did we ever manage to survive before the Internet?

At the moment, we are currently busy marketing our new upcoming event. It is the 

TUPE Update for Schools and Colleges - A Legal Update with Practical Exercises.

"The Jelly Effect" by Andy Bounds

I've been reading "The Jelly Effect" by Andy Bounds this week and it has some great pearls of wisdom in it. They include:

 

* Never compare your inside to somebody else's outside. Because you'll always lose" Marie Mosely

* When networking "Be interested (in them) not interesting (about yourself)

* The grass isn't greener on the otherside. The grass is greener where you water it.

* Customers don't care what you do; they only care what they're left with AFTER you've done it

* There are only two things customers are interested in. If they know with 100% certainty that they will get the AFTERS they require, they will buy

* "Do or do not. There is no try". Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

We're currently busy marketing our latest event. It is the Comparative Employment Law: NI, GB and ROI

Latest Seminar Event

Recently, I attended a seminar in which one of the speakers was Dr. Hugh Cormican, founder Andor Technology and he made the following very useful points:



1. The best time to eat a frog is first thing in the morning. In other words, get the difficult unenviable tasks over with first.


2.  Question: five frogs are in a log, four decided to jump. How many are left? The answer is five, just because you decided to do something it doesn't follow that you will do it.


3. Measure everything. Encourage risk taking but control it. You should worry about what your team will worry about next.


4. Realize the power within yourself.


5.Men don't multitask but they do segment very well. 


Finally and very importantly please repeat the following. To be more effective as a leader, be yourself but with more skill.


At the moment we’re all working hard on our big event coming up soon. This is the 

Discipline and Underperformance at Work

Leadership Event

Recently, I attended a leadership experience event in Belfast and picked up the following points relating to leadership:



1. Ask yourself, "Have you delivered what your followers want?". Followers want community, recognition, excitement, authenticity.


2. Work out what is it about you that excites others.


3. Display significant, real and perceived differences. Know yourself and show yourself.


4. When you reveal weaknesses you reveal yourself.


5. Effective leaders use their emotions to liberate the energy of others.


6. You need to communicate by telling stories. Great leaders are very good story tellers.


7. Great leaders choose their channels well.


8. To be effective as a leader, be yourself more and with more skill.


At the moment we’re all working hard on our big event coming up soon. This is the 

Equality Screening Guidance.

Invest NI Seminar

I attended an Invest NI seminar on 26th of June 2012 and picked up the following key points.





In relation to organizations:


1. When you don't know what you don't know an opportunity is lost. Therefore, benchmarking in organizations is critical.


2. Those organizations that export generally are better managed.


3. The higher the level of perceived competetion in an organization, the greater efficiency in that company.


4. Great organizations build leadership in as many places as possible.


5. Great organizations give people early experience of leadership.


At the moment we’re all working hard on our big event coming up soon. This is the Section 75 and the New Guidance Conference.

Common Purpose - Broadening Your Vision

One colleague of mine underwent a lot of courses last week and one of them was entitled "Common Purpose – Broadening Your Vision". She learned 5 important points from this course:

1.       Paul Rooney from PWC gave an interested session on Leadership and who he looked to for leadership and vision both in his career and personal life.

2.       Baroness May Blood also demonstrated how humour and humility can take you far in life.

3.       Heard from Peter Dixon from Phoenix Gas, provided a very interesting insight into how a business needs a vision in order to achieve results. Results cannot be expected without the vision behind them.

4.       The day itself raised questions on our own visions – do we have a personal vision? and do we know what the true vision of the organisation we work for is?

5.       Heard from Baroness May Blood, truly inspirational woman who clearly had a vision for what she wanted to achieve and showed the energy and determination to match it.

We're currently busy marketing our interview rooms for Northern Ireland