Category Archives: Training Room

3 Tips to Make People Attend Your Event

Persuasion techniques are all the rage these days. Yet only a few event planners can actually draw a large crowd to their events!

Seemingly, all the planners focus on the same things, such as, choosing a good topic, booking a perfect training room rental, and inviting acclaimed speakers. But winners do the same things the different way.

When it comes to persuading more people to attend your event, small changes can make a huge difference. Here are some useful tips.

1. Find the root cause

First things first, you need to find out why people are not interested to attend your event. The reason could be anything, but often not what you thought. For instance, maybe your seminar room rental is located far away from them. Or perhaps, your entry fees are high. Some of your potential attendees are perhaps too busy to attend an event at this time of the year. Once you identify the root causes, finding a solution would be easier.

2. Make them feel important

Often, emotion is the key driver in decision-making. If people don’t feel connected to you, they are less likely to attend your event. So make them feel special. Respond to their queries fast and show them that you care for their presence. If you’ve loyal followers who attend most of your meetings, give them special discounts. Also, ask for suggestions. Listen to their advice sincerely, even if you don’t think that’s valuable.

3. Use digital marketing

Just having a website and a Facebook page is not enough. There is immense power in digital communication. You need to know how to utilize it the right way. For instance, use social media to create buzzes about your upcoming event. Post videos of event preparation on YouTube. Listen to your audience on social media. Be proactive in audience engagement.

These simple steps can go a long way to make more people attend your events. Just try them!

3 More Ways Salespeople Can Improve Active Listening

Let’s face it. Most salespeople are extrovert, outgoing and talkative. In fact, recruiters consciously seek these traits in a salesperson right at the time of hiring them. While it’s true that the job of a salesperson is to convince or persuade others, but talk without substance is cheap.

As a business owner or sales manager, you must teach your salespeople how to listen actively. Talking without listening can turn off your prospects. In fact, you should rent training room or rent classroom to train your salespeople on active listening. Here are 3 more ways your salespeople can improve their active listening.

1. Feel the emotion

When the customer is talking, do not just listen. Try to feel the emotion behind the talk. Minutely watch for the use of words. For instance, if a customer says words like high budget, expensive, low cost, etc., you can safely assume that the person is concerned about cost. On the other hand, if someone says words like brand, quality, impression, reputation, top-class, etc.; you can assume that they care more about quality. To understand the emotion and pitch accordingly. These are certain things you can teach your salespeople.

2. Focus on personalization

Maybe the customer called you before visiting the store. Maybe they told you something about their kids. Or perhaps, they happened to tell you the name of their pet. You must remember these things and use them later in your conversation with that customer. This will help give the conversation a personal touch. Personalization works wonders in sales.

3. Give feedback

Another way your salespeople can improve active listening is by giving feedback to the customer. When the customer is talking, the salesperson should look for opportunities to react or give a quick feedback. This not only improves their active listening skills but show your customer that the salesperson is on the same page with them. For instance, if someone is talking about a recent achievement, your salesperson can say, “What a great achievement!” This simple gesture can go a long way to establish trust and bonding.

How to Help Salespeople Improve Active Listening

In this age of readily available information, your salespeople need to change the way they used to interact with their prospects. Studies say most customers read online reviews and comparisons before coming to a physical store. That’s exactly why they don’t need a salesperson to know the product features and pricing. Instead, they might require customized help. But providing customized assistance to customers is not easy. It requires active listening. If your salespeople don’t listen to your customers actively, they won’t be able to offer tailed help. Here are some ways you can help your salespeople improve their active listening skills.

Focus on listening

One common problem with salespeople is that they listen but don’t hear. They wait for their turn to speak so that they push their agenda on the customer. This technique has to change. So tell your salespeople to concentrate on what the customer is saying. If required, they can ask questions to understand the customer’s thoughts, needs or concerns. Active listening is a skill and it can be improved with training. You can consider booking training room rentals or classroom rentals to organize training events for your sales team.

Hold the urge to interrupt

Salespeople are often tempted to interrupt the customer in the middle of their talking. This shows that they don’t value the other person’s opinion. If you don’t take the time to listen to your customer’s pain points, you are not sincere about solving their problem. So ask your salespersons to stop interrupting the customer. Instead, they should allow them to speak more.

Validate your understanding

Even when you listen carefully, you may miss certain points or have gaps in your understanding. In that case, it is important to ask follow-up questions to the customer. One good idea is to paraphrase the points in your own words so that the customer can validate your understanding instantly.

3 more Ways to Help Your Employees Build Soft Skills

Soft skills are like invisible assets. Some examples of soft skills include work ethics, communication skills, time management skills, emotional intelligence, and the ability of set goals. Anyone having these skills is likely to climb the career ladder faster. However, not everyone is born with soft skills. Employers can play a major role in cultivating soft skills among their employees. For instance, they can rent training room or rent seminar room to organize meetings and seminars on personal development. Here are some more ways to help your employees build soft skills.

1. Train the managers first
To hold a managerial position, one has to have some good communication skills, leadership and team management skills, conflict resolution skills, networking skills, business development skills etc. Sometimes, it may be tough for the organization to train each employee directly through several means if the employee strength is large. Hence, the entrepreneurs or directors need to ensure that the managers are trained first so that they can then pass on that knowledge to employees working in their team.

2. Create videos for training and development
Micro-learning video content is an effective tool for agile training and development. It helps employees access the training materials instantly from almost anywhere. Also, videos help demonstrate an idea or training material easily and convincingly. However, some types of training are best done through in-person training sessions. For such things, you can rent training room and organize training sessions for your employees.

3. Encourage employees to accept constructive criticism
Those who are open to constructive criticism and use that feedback to learn and grow are more likely to succeed in life. As a manager or employer, you can play a major role in helping your employees learn how to accept constructive criticism. One good idea would be to use the Feedback Sandwich method, which involves opening the feedback with some positive comments. In other words, the managers should use praising or encouraging words followed by corrective feedback.

3 Benefits of Hiring an Organizer for Your MICE Event

Whether you manage a company, a school or an NGO, one way to boost the morale of your employees, students or colleagues is by taking them on a vacation. You can also organize a MICE event. MICE refers to Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions. However, organizing a MICE event is no easy job. You need to plan everything – starting from your training room rentals and seminar room rentals to your budget and location preferences. Here are some reasons why you should hire a professional organizer for your MICE event.

1. They make hotel bookings simple and easy

When you are organizing a MICE event, hotel bookings for the entire group needs to be finalized in advance. When you engage a professional service provider for the purpose, they understand the basic purpose of the meet. They are also aware of the headcount and the maximum budget you have in mind. Depending upon these conditions, they can book hotels and resorts that suit the purpose. No time would be wasted in formalities when the guests arrive since all arrangements would be completed in advance.

2. Food arrangements are likely to be perfect

Catering to the food arrangements for a large group of attendees with diverse preferences and choices may not be an easy task. This is where professional help matters. They will perform a meticulous job of seeking preferences from every member in a regulated manner and will be arrive at a menu with plenty of choices for all.

3. Flawless logistics management

Engaging a professional will also help in flawless logistics management. For instance, you may need transport to and from the airport and also the hotel in order to transport staff members to specific locations. A professional is ideal for providing safe and dependable logistics support.

Professionals can also help you choose a training venue. Make sure you choose one that is equipped with all the necessary tools and devices.

How to Help Your Employees Build Soft Skills

Recent researches and studies have reiterated that development of soft skills in employees goes a long way in enhancing the company performance at large. It is not the skill sets but cultural alignment in employees that spell success. So, if you are planning to rent training room for a session on the importance of improving soft skills, you are surely on the right track. Here are some ways to help your employees build soft skills.

Attempt a holistic assessment

Most business leaders commit the mistake of assessing employees only on the basis of their performance at work. What they don’t understand is that performance of employees does not depend only on hard skills but also on soft skills. For instance, an employee with leadership mentality is more likely to take ownership at work. Hence, employers should do a holistic assessment of their employees, and provide them training for both personal and professional development.

Plan periodic improvement programs

When you rent classroom and spend your time, money and resources for the overall development of your employees, it makes them feel important. But, to get the real results, you need to organize your soft skill training sessions at frequent intervals. Ideally, you should prepare a proper plan on how many sessions you want to organize per year and what topics will be covered in your respective sessions.

Lead by example

The best way to help employees in improving their soft skills is to lead by example. You will need to establish a work culture and environment that can act as encouragement for your employees. Leading by example is extremely important for a manager. If you wish to foster a spirit of collaboration and flexibility in your organization, you will need to show them how to do it by fine-tuning your own approach.

Soft skills go a long way in fostering success. It is important to chalk out a comprehensive growth and development plan for ensuring continued improvements.

3 more Employee Training Tips for Small Business Owners

Organizing training programs for small business employees doesn’t have to be stressful. However, there are a few important things to keep in mind right from the planning stage. For instance, when you rent training room for your training program, you should consider the location and other facilities. We provided some tips in the previous article. Here are some more tips.

1. Attend seminars and events happening in your City

Training programs and seminars occur frequently. They generally cater to a wide range of subjects, and you are sure to find one that fits right for your employees. If you have a small group that you plan to train, facilitating them to attend these training sessions can be a smart idea. This way you are not required to rent seminar room of your own and make the necessary arrangements. All you need to do is pay for the event your employees are attending.

2. Begin with a mentorship program

If you are keen on periodic and continuous training and development of employees, starting a mentorship program always helps. For instance, when someone joins your sales team, you can place them under the mentorship of a senior salesperson. This will help them learn faster. Going forward, that experience could help your employees absorb any further on-the-job training more easily.

3. Set measurable goals

Simply planning training sessions is not actually enough. You need to have a measurable goal and take the time out to meet your employees and discuss the same with your employees. Make your expectations clear and come up with a plan for measuring their progress. Use quarterly reviews for identifying training gaps. This will give you a fair picture of the loopholes and progresses alike.

A proper plan can help you take care of your training requirements without overshooting the expenditure.

3 Employee Training Tips for Small Business Owners

Ask any small business owner, and most of them will tell you they know the importance of training their employees, but don’t have the budget to organize training sessions on a regular basis. This is a common problem. When SMBs have to cut their budget, the first thing they target is the training budget. However, with a little planning, it may be possible for you to not only save money on training room rentals but also make your training programs a success. Here are some tips.

1. Choose in-house specialists

If you are running a small business, the number of employees would be limited. As the owner, you are likely to be well versed with the strengths and weaknesses of each employee. Therefore, instead of hiring experts from outside, it will always be a good idea to choose someone from your staff to conduct the training sessions. For instance, if you have an employee with excellent computer skills you can ask him to conduct a session on the same. This will enhance engagement and will be cost effective too.

2. Incorporate employee interests in your training programs

There is indeed no point in organizing training sessions and paying for classroom rentals unless your employees are motivated to learn. You can plan programs but cannot force them to pay attention! This is why incorporating employee interests in training programs is important. Consider circulating a questionnaire enquiring about the same. Incorporate them for best results.

3. Keep in mind the generation gap

This becomes a challenge while planning training sessions for small businesses because the employee strength is less. Owners often have the tendency to club together different age groups in one session! This is a gross mistake! The older generation might not be privy to fresh ideas or technologies as the modern generation!

Training sessions conducted for small or medium-sized businesses need to possess a personal touch. After all, small businesses often function like a large family unit and it is this sense of togetherness that keeps them going.

How to Measure the Impact of Your Employee Training Program

Companies today, spend a lot for employee training programs. They need to rent training rooms, invite professional trainers, set up the required infrastructure and so on. Besides, they also need to adjust the loss of man-hours towards training attendance! Naturally, there would be a keen interest towards measuring the effect of these training programs on employees just to show how successful the program was.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Training Programs

The most common means of evaluating the impact of training programs is through the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model, which adopts a 4 step approach.

• Step 1: Checking on reactions – This is done by enquiring about the relevance and level of difficulty of the course content, asking questions about takeaways and learning. You can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the program and try to understand if the training accommodated the learners pace and style.

• Step 2: Measure learning – Learning can be measured with the help of test scores, evaluating the projects for applied learning, influencing formal KPIs, certifications post course completion and through the supervisor feedback and report.

• Step 3: Assess the impact on work – Assessors need to ask questions like how the learning has been implemented at work and understand how confident the learners are in sharing new knowledge and skills. Common tools include self-assessment questionnaires, informal feedback from seniors and peer groups, focus groups, checking KPIs, comments, complaints, customer surveys and so on.

• Step 4: Measure the outcomes – Tangible results of the training program should be measured by reduced costs, prompter project completion, enhanced quality, enhanced productivity, improved employee retention rates, more marketing leads, elevated morale and so on.

An assessment of the entire training program can be made with the help of these steps and required changes can be brought it when planning the next program. So, right from the time you are planning to rent classroom or a space for conducting a training program, make sure you also chalk out a complete evaluation program.

How to Turn Your Employees into Leaders

Employee development is one of the key responsibilities of employers these days. Developing employees into good managers and more importantly, great leaders, is a smart way to keep them motivated and retain them within the system. Of course, one of the best ways to help your employees acquire fresh skills is through training. You can plan your training room rentals in advance for optimizing the cost. In addition, there are more ways to transform productive employees into great leaders. Here are some ideas.

Help your employees to learn networking

As a senior colleague, it is important to help your juniors to pick up networking skills. Encourage them to attend networking events. Leaders need to be confident communicators. They should be able to initiate conversations with strangers, appear comfortable in seeking favors, getting a job done, and landing a mutually beneficial deal. Conversations play an extremely important role in branching out and collaborating within the industry.

Give them the required space for learning

As a boss or a mentor, your normal tendency towards your employee would be to help and guide, as and when he or she requires. However, it is always important to allow space for self-learning and a bit of struggle. When you are grooming employees for leadership roles, you should allow them to figure out things on their own. For instance, if he is struggling with a balance sheet, the best thing to do is to introduce him to the finance person who is in-charge. Allow him to take it from there.

Foster ownership

The primary responsibility of leaders is to make timely decisions. If you are coaching your employees to be great decision makers it would also be important for you to trust them unflinchingly and allow them to make some decisions on their own.

In addition, you should organize training programs for skill development. Make sure you have your classroom rentals for training purposes finalized well in advance.