Month: November 2021

What do people say about you, when you’re not in the room?

Jeff Bezos asked that question along with this statement “a brand for a company is like a reputation for a person, you earn reputation by trying to do the hard things well”

If you consider his own mammoth all-encompassing brand, Amazon, most of us have a strong opinion and thoughts about what it is, what it does and how positive (or negative) we feel when we think about it. That’s the power of a brand like Amazon.

So, what about you? What do people say about you when you’re not around? How does what you do impact on others to leave a positive lasting impression?

That’s where your personal brand comes into play.

We’re not saying you create something new or pick and choose the attributes you want and market a whole new persona. We’re talking about the truth, the real you, and learning to market what you have so that people know what they get when they deal with you. A little bit like Ronseal (you get what it says on the tin).

Today, it is easier than ever for people to get information on you to help them decide what your brand is. Your CV and the job you do is already a great start, but social media allows insights into the real (well as real as social media can be) versions of you as well.

An example of how social media can drive a brand into success. Kylie Jenner. Yes, she had a fame kick start with the Kardashians, but she used her social media to drive her cosmetics empire to create a beauty brand that’s worth over 400 million dollars in a little over 18 months whilst longstanding brands in the USA are still trailing behind here.

How? It’s mainly due to the fact she created a brand, and that her brand power, with many millions of fans following across her channels, allowed her to make people buy into the make-up she sold, but more importantly, into brand Kylie. Now recognised by Forbes as one of the youngest self-made billionaires – she clearly did something right. Love or loathe her brand – it’s working for her.

We offer Build your Personal Brand courses in a variety of formats, from those just starting their career journeys right the way through to senior execs that want to make sure their brand is matching what they stand for. You can get in touch with us to talk about this here.

We thought we’d share some simple tips with you about what it means to us.

What is a personal brand these days anyway?

Your brand is your reputation, just like Jeff Bezos told us, but it’s something which you build continuously through your actions, behaviours, values, interactions and the way you tell your story to those around you. This is that ‘feeling’ we started this article with.

What, if anything, would people say when you’re not in the room. Is it – fantastic person, brilliant energy, gets things done? Or is it, great person, sometimes delivers, can take too long to get back to you? We are all in control of what image someone has of us.

Guess what, the more they know about you, and your journey or story, the more likely they will see the real you and be able to tell a better narrative. There’s a moral in there somewhere about the power of building genuine trusted relationships.

Does everyone have to be ‘brand focused’?

In business, brand is so important, and as the world gets smaller, we tend to know more about our work colleagues and clients than ever before. So yes, branding is important. It’s what makes you select a certain product in the supermarket (or online if you have already abandoned real life food shopping). Clients pick you because of your brand, not the brand you work for, but the brand you offer them in the way you deliver it.

Your brand is what makes you stand out from the crowd, so they choose you over anyone else.

How do I get started?

There are 4 things we’d suggest considering.

1. Consider your values – do you know what the core principles that drive everything you do are?
2. What are you really really good at?
3. How do you work? What makes you stand out?
4. Consider booking yourself or your team onto a Building My Personal Brand course.

The We Are BRAVE Training Team

Without doubt COVID-19 has created huge levels of worldwide business uncertainty which has cascaded into all our lives, leading to self-doubt, anxiety and most likely a teensy tiny element of fear.

The world just isn’t the same anymore and as we turn the corner towards a new normal, those with the responsibility of designing and delivering Learning & Development will have noticed the rules of the game have already changed.

If you work in L&D you already know that pink and fluffy training already had its day and if you aren’t able to prove some form of return on investment it’s unlikely you’d be around for that long!

That leads us to now. Halfway through 2020 and recent research shows that while up to 40% of L&D professionals have been furloughed, 38% of people still working now have more time to learn than ever before. New ways of working has allowed for some self-analysing and people are realising they don’t have the internal skills need to achieve their goals. What’s that cry from the front line…? “L&D, we need you now!!” 

We think that there’s a few simple things you can do to help the business you work with see the benefits of Learning & Development now. You’ll also find out why we used a butterfly as this blog’s cover photo.  

Have a little faith

You got where you are because you have an innate ability to help others learn. It’s okay to have a mini crisis in confidence (who doesn’t have these?) but you need to get all Taylor Swift over it and ‘shake it off’. Remember that good leadership comes from those who believe in and continually develop themselves. And even those need some help to do that for themselves and for their teams. 

Get into the data

Now’s the time to get your head into the data and start shouting about the impact you’ve made. Data rules the world and right now budgets are being slashed so you must be able to remind those holding the purse strings what L&D can do in this time of need. Think about promotions, retention, feedback, compliance, engagement, coaching, mentoring and the power of onboarding and inductions. Get feedback from leaders from your last programme and quotes from your managers demonstrating how your initiatives added strength in their workplaces. L&D helped make all those things happen.

Everyone loves a quick win

Everyone at work will have similar challenges and concerns now so have a think about the quick wins that help people to remember the value of L&D. Your job here is to help people with the skills they need now like remote working, wellbeing, mental health, virtual skills, 121’s and coaching. This doesn’t need to be War and Peace. Think bitesize, eLearning or micro learning instead. 

Build trust and recommend 

Being present and available as L&D support can help to build trust and confidence in you and your role. Listen carefully and make recommendations that you think will equip leaders, managers and their teams to be the best they can be in the current climate.

Adaptation is essential

Your old content might not hit the mark anymore. Don’t be a stick in the mud. Review it. Refresh it. Adapt it. Make it fit the world we are in right now and show that you’re forward thinking, not recycling old materials and hoping for the best. 

Usher in the new

It’s often the job of L&D to help your company learn to trust new delivery methods – from the influx of new virtual communications right through to the implementation of new styles, models and programmes. L&D always brings change and they need you now. 

Use all your learning methods

For most companies there is naturally a huge swing towards virtual training now. Embrace this revolution (many of you will have been fighting for this anyway!) and use your skills to take what you have and use it in a different way. 

This doesn’t need to be in isolation. Too many are sticking purely to digital innovations. Encourage people to use traditional methods as well! Pre-read an article, listen to a podcast, read chapters of books (yes, real, old fashioned paper books) and discuss, get on YouTube or set up a discussion forum.

Face to face isn’t gone forever, it’s just in ‘hibernation‘.

Use this time wisely and consider where and when it’s essential, desirable and heaven forbid, perhaps even not required at all anymore.

Be like an L&D caterpillar, take some time now to change and grow and come out as a brand-new shiny butterfly when you’re needed the most. 

Don’t go it alone 

Reach out. Talk to your peers, friends, colleagues and contacts and get a well-rounded view on what you’re doing. Advice from these people is free and will help you see the full picture for your recommendations. There’s tons of useful data out there about L&D and the impact from COVID19 so just get searching to expand your horizons. 

Trust in your suppliers

If you need additional support and skills from external suppliers, then reach out as they’ll want to help you too. Ask them what they’ve been helping other clients with and what they can do for you. It’s worth a video call to get inspired and if you do need to spend money it’s important to make sure it’s going to return a result. 

Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. 

Unfortunately for you, the world isn’t under your control and whilst L&D are often expected to have all the answers, we don’t have all the power! Focus on everything you can do, including looking after yourself so that you can help those around you learn and develop. You’re doing a great job. ?? 

At Well Prepared Training we can support you and your businesses and are happy to help. To reach out for an initial chat click here to start the conversation. 

Many of us are managing a team remotely right now, but how well are we actually doing? We know that building your skills in this area will be vital over the coming months.

We’ve created a simple downloadable guide for you with some key tips for success.

The Well Prepared Training Team

We’re sure by now you’ve noticed the biggest shift in both where, and the way we work in human history. COVID19 has changed the landscape of work in a way no-one ever expected. The world of work has suddenly shifted, and flexibility will become one of the keywords of 2020. 

For many organisations, this was simply no big deal, with the right technology, ethos, culture, and people that had already embraced home working it must have felt like just another day at the virtual office.

But, for millions of people, this was the biggest shift in flexible working they have ever experienced in an incredibly short period of time.

Businesses without the right technology suddenly couldn’t work, employees who were used to a set start & finish time, a familiar desk, drawers and a favourite seat in the canteen had their world turned upside down. The answer? Work at home. Now. Done. Overnight millions of people relocated their work to the kitchen table, office, dining room and sofa.

After the initial pain that comes with rapid change it has undoubtedly shown them, their businesses, and the clients that yes, the rumours were true, we can actually work at home and still get the job done.

Right now, your people are working flexibly in a way you never imagined, and guess what? They’re getting used to it and that is going to be a very difficult thing to take back. The working at home flexibly genie is already out of the bottle.

What’s happening now, after 8 weeks of experience is many of these employees are becoming aware of just how, where and when they can work in the most effective way, and for many, they now want to change their working lives to suit this.

This is leaving many organisations that didn’t have them, scrabbling to create or adapt policies, in order to build a more flexible working culture that’s now needed, plus meet the demands of the future employees they may need to hire as well.

Organisations around the world will be reviewing their structures, office rents, equipment costs and some have already made some snap decisions. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter has already told thousands of people who are now working brilliantly at home each day – You don’t need to come back to the office. Ever!

So, are you starting to think about the future of flexible working for your people? If the answer is not yet, then this is something that needs your attention now.

It’s important to recognise that flexible working will only really be successful if it is available to everyone, allowing anyone to use and adopt a flexible working pattern within their organisation. Yes, there are certain roles that will always need to work in an office, we all know that, but for millions of people, they can work perfectly well at home, and the jobs are getting done even though they’re juggling kids & homework, housework, cramped conditions, lockdown and unusual hours. Imagine how much more productive they can be as some of those factors start to become more normalised.

Moving from your traditional, 9-5 working pattern might seem like a huge, and uncertain step, but the benefits of embracing a flexible culture for both employees and for your business are huge. If you ever wanted to do a study or get some data on how this could work for your business, that time is now, you have a real life pandemic that’s providing you with everything you need to see how flexible working will suit you and your people.

A recent study completed by Timewise found that 87% of all full time employees either already work flexibly or have said that they want to and for those that are looking for flexibility in a new job the number jumps to 93%!

Most of the current workforce in 2020 is increasingly made up of multiple generations; from those in first jobs in a resurgence of apprenticeships, those who are career focused, some who may be starting to have children right through to the baby boomers who are looking to ease into their retirement. The spread of employee experience has never been higher.

As a  business, moving through these crazy times you can get a head start on the change that is, without doubt coming, by already starting to create a flexible working culture which will allow you to manage and successfully support different teams with different needs and still grow your business.

If you start doing this now, difficult as it may seem, your people will move with you, as they can see what’s coming too, and when you do this right it dramatically affects not just the welfare and overall happiness of your employees, but also, it has a direct impact on retention, performance and motivation – which all, in turn, affect the bottom line.

Your people are the heartbeat of your company, and by allowing them greater control over their work-life balance, you’ll create a culture of value, trust and respect.

We’ve all moved ahead, in the space of a couple of months, into a new era of working (that has been gradually building in the background) and for the foreseeable future flexible working will be the norm.

Right now, there is probably some kind of home-working corner in every home, most people have multiple devices, most have unlimited minutes on mobile phones and super-fast fibre pulsing through their home. Right now, travel and accommodation costs are reduced, and you’ll be wondering why you didn’t do meetings via video call before? The environmental impact will be massive as the amount of travel by cars and planes will reduce significantly, and it’s all making businesses look back at what they had, minus the rose tinted glasses, and say, “was that actually the best way to do things?”

Pretty soon, it’s likely we will exist in a world where it doesn’t even cross your mind about when, how or even where to work. That future is closer than you think, for some of us, it’s already happening, and the sweet spot to all of this, most people really are more productive when allowed to work flexibly. 

With dramatic change like this, you need to help your people along the journey. Whether its change management, coaching, resilience, remote leadership, soft skills, management programmes or even webinar training at Well Prepared Training can help. Reach out to us today and see how we can help you make your business flexible working ready.

Get in touch today.

Are you working from home AND schooling the kids? We feel your pain! While most of us are developing a new found admiration for teachers we went and created a FREE Download to give you some tips on how to successfully work from home with kids. 

Get your copy now!

The Well Prepared Training Team

Has it happened to you? Tired unblinking eyes glazed over and rolled skyward?

You’ve hit the ‘Virtual Meeting Fatigue’ wall.

If the answer is yes then get clicking and grab a copy of the FREE download or get in touch. 

Start the conversation today.

We know that adapting to working from home can throw any team into chaos, so we’ve created 3 useful guides that work together as our Working from Home Toolkit.

Use these with your teams to address the most asked about topics:

How do I manage a remote team?

How do I help my team adapt to home working?

How can I help my team work from home with kids?

All three guides are free and fully downloadable now.

The Well Prepared Training Team

• Working from home Kit 1
• Working from home Kit 2
• Working from home Kit 3

In this series of Well Prepared Training articles we pay homage to the people we admire when it comes to the way they speak in public.

That last sentence probably doesn’t even do them justice. Our choices for these articles have truly found the purpose of their voices and speak so that everyone is listening to them. They inspire. They engage. They create passion. They can evoke tears. They tell compelling, human stories that make you feel something with every word. These are the inspirational speakers that blow our minds.

Our next speaker is Amy Cuddy. Yes, the woman that made the ‘Power-Pose’ famous. Amy is a social psychologist, author, public speaker, famous for confidence building body language and she’s a previous Harvard Business School professor. Wow.

Oh, and her TED Talk, on Body Language, has been viewed over an astonishing 54 million times. She’s clearly saying something people want to hear.

It took us some time and debate to decide which of Amy’s speeches we wanted to talk about but in the end, we decided on her performance, and we call it that because it’s literally a work of art, at Inc 5000 Conference in 2019 where she talked around her research into the power of body language.

We love the power that Amy brings to the stage but she doesn’t threaten the listener or viewer, she makes them feel engaged. Her power pose doesn’t intimidate, it simply boosts her confidence and our confidence in her as the speaker. It’s clever stuff.

There are so many parts of this speech which really inspired us, but we especially loved the pace, the clear and easy way she explains something that has so much depth in her research.

She helps her listeners to engage and understand by using real life examples and stories so you can almost hear the penny dropping as the audience realise she’s making complete sense. It’s an amazing thing to watch.

When she moves onto a sensitive topic and one that might ruffle feathers, gender stereotyping, it’s done with such confidence, heartfelt knowledge and passion that people just listen and nod. We particularly loved one message she left the session with.

“When you feel personally powerful, you are more likely to be able to empower the people who work for you”

We were so impressed with her stance, her clear and direct communication, the confidence, the way she practised what she preached and the way she has the audience in the palm of her hand as they realised that this speaker, was talking to them and making them want to be more like her. Incredible.

You can watch Amy in action in her multi-million streamed TED Talk by clicking this link.

Now we can’t guarantee to make you speak like Amy, but we can help you become an awesome public speaker through our own SPEAK programme so if we can support you get in touch.

We’ve been celebrating Black History Month highlighting those who have inspired us at We Are BRAVE. This choice is for many reasons (he’s kinda done a lot of stuff) but we adore his style when it comes to the way he speaks & engages in public. It’s Barack Obama.

Originally an American attorney at law and democratic politician and senator, Barack Obama went on to become the 44^th President of the United States holding office from 2009-2017 and the very first African American President.

Once again, we are not making political statements here, that’s something we never get involved in. What we do want to talk about is the public speaking skills that made this POTUS one of the most engaging presidents to ever hold office.

At the very nature of his most high profile job was public speaking, and whilst we know that he will have received coaching and support, he without doubt has a set of natural skills that he uses to inspire and engage his audience to go on his journeys with him.

There are so many choices when it comes to his speaking resume, but we decided to choose his presidential victory speech. It contains almost all of the factors you could wish for when considering how to rally a crowd and leave them knowing that something great is coming and that they need to act. Something that many public speakers wish for as a success measure for their own presentations.

His speech needs to be watched to understand its power, but we’ve selected some of the elements that really stood out for us because of the ways it either engaged, inspired or grew interest and passion from the audience. There are many to choose from!

He starts by congratulating the audience, not himself, on going out and voting, on having the will to change, on letting their votes do the talking and trusting in him to be different. He never once congratulates himself. His passion and sincerity when he does this are masterful.

Within minutes he manages to engage everyone around the USA when he is inclusive in his storytelling. Old, young, black, white, Hispanic, gay, straight…the list goes on. He skilfully is thanking those that are around him and letting you know that you’re a welcome part of his success and team too. He unifies all those people. We are the United States of America.

A skill many speakers struggle with is being humble. Confidence and arrogance run a very close line and he manages to be humble when he talks about those around him, despite just being elected to President of the United States. Instead he used his time to congratulate those around him and those who ran against him mentioning his campaign manager, supporters like Joe Biden, opposition like Senator McCann and Sarah Palin and of course, tugs at the heartstrings when coming back to thank his wife and beautiful daughters.

He also skilfully pays respect to his grandmother who dies just 3 days previously whilst also reminding the people of America that his commitment was to them and the election. Everyone deals with grief and this helps the audience to empathise with him. Evoking empathy, in a presentation, is a rare skill.

He masters the use of his voice, the tone, the eye movements, the hand gestures and ends as he started, talking about the people who voted and supported him, carefully making sure to recognise those that donated $10 and $20 along with those who supported with millions.

He tells them “it’s your victory” and I know that you did it not to win an election, but you did it for me. He has told the audience what he stands for, and now I’m going to stand up for you.

And then, of course, like any good speech, he needs a call to action. What will we do differently? Well in this case it’s all about attitude and for Barack Obama, he simply wants the American public to remember one thing from his election to President. That when it comes to growth, the challenge ahead, any actions and future change there is only one response he wants to hear. “Yes, we can!”

You can watch Barack in action by clicking this link.

Now we can’t guarantee to make you speak like Barack did, but we can help you become an awesome public speaker through our own SPEAK programme so if we can support you get in touch.