April 2007 Newsletter

Hello again.

Now the sunshine is finally here, we have a spring in our step and smiles on our faces, which is why this month we’ve taken a look at happiness.

Here's what we've got for you – our simple formula for happiness and advice on how to reach your all important goals, some great tips on excellent customer service to help you put smiles on your customer’s faces and an interview with the lovely John, as Client Relationship manager he’s keen to get to know you, we asked him some questions so you can get to know him.

Our “ Goal- Getter”

our simple 7 point plan to help you achieve your goals and bring you closer to the happiness we all crave.

Can you train someone to be happy?

Everyone is chasing happiness; it seems to be life’s quest. So why is it that some of us are happier than others and some manage to achieve happiness but to others it’s elusive?

Perhaps it’s simply that some people just choose to be happy. It’s thought that by simply focusing on the positive and not the negative – you can be happier.

"The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances." Martha Washington.

Many people go through life focusing on the negative and writing off the good times as "flukes" or as "one off’s" - or they become afraid of focusing on the good times because they "know" something bad is going to happen at some point. So they filter out the good and look for the evidence to support their bad feelings.

So this unhappiness becomes a state of mind. We start to listen to the negative and talk ourselves into unhappiness. This negative loop then links into our belief system and these negative words and thoughts turn into self fulfilling prophesies.

In short - whatever we believe comes out of our mouths in the words we say, the words we say turn into our actions and our habits and these can eventually become our character if we are not careful.

So personal happiness depends on the attitude you have decided to have towards life, towards others and especially towards yourself. Appreciation of what we possess is vital to this element of happiness.

Archie Mundegar, MD, at you:unlimited views happiness in a simple way.

"For me happiness is a formula that balances a number of simple, key elements. It takes time, hard work and persistence. You need to have goals and bucket loads of positivity.

I have found that the most truthful and useful advice from the best models of happiness boil down to some pretty simple ideas, which at first may strike you as a little unspectacular. They are so simple in fact that you may not feel much excitement at the thought of implementing them.

But this is to miss their value. They are powerful because of their simplicity.

In my experience of coaching clients for various outcomes, personal and professional, the first question I ask is the simplest but it’s often the hardest to answer - "What do you want"?

This is then often followed by "ok, now what do you REALLY want?" and "And what would that do for you?"

It's simple but its powerful. It connects the things people are doing with the reasons they are doing them. If your actions and your intentions are misaligned then you will never be happy. Only incongruent, the feeling that you are not wholly committed to what you are doing and how you are doing it."

As we know, reaching your important goals is one of the keys to achieving happiness. We have developed a 7 point plan to help you to achieve those all important goals and bring you closer to the happiness we all crave.

you:unlimited's "Goal - Getter"

• Decide & Define it - Decide on your ultimate goal in whatever context you are considering whether that's work, a hobby or a relationship. And then define it. Give it context and a realistic timescale. Saying "I want to be happy" is not nearly as useful as "I want to be enjoying my job by July 1st 2007". or "I want to be fitter and will run a 10K race by September 2007"
• Be Positive - Write your goal down on a piece of paper and make sure it uses positive language. Don't write "I want to give up smoking" but "I will to be healthy and free from addictions by July 1st 2007". Language is important here, it's not about what you are "giving up" but what you are "gaining".
• Believe it - Write down what you believe about this goal. Is it achievable? Is it in keeping with your sense of who you are? Is it something you deserve? Why is it important? What does it mean to you? This will help you to really focus on the goal and bring it to life in your mind, generating energy around it.
• Plan it - Next think about the actions you will have to take and by when to achieve your goal. Be specific. Details matter. But also be realistic, small bite sized chunks are more realistic. One thing at a time - Looking at a 6 month training plan is daunting for anyone. Pick the most important items for the next 4 weeks - tackle them one by one. Then move onto the next stage and so on.
• Score it - Write down how motivated on a scale of 1 - 10 you are to complete the actions needed to reach your goal. If you have a low score then it’s likely you don't want the outcome enough to make a go of achieving it.
• Stick it - Post a list of the actions and your goal on the inside of your wardrobe door, the front of the fridge or somewhere you will see them every day to remind you of what you are doing and why.

Keep it up! If you get stuck, keep trying. There can be many reasons why your progress has slowed; just talking it through with a friend, colleague or a trusted loved one can help you to build up your motivation. There are plenty of professional coaches these days who can help dig you out and find out what it is that's holding you back.

Good luck.
you:unlimited

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Here’s one we made earlier.

Make your customers just plain delighted. We put UK2 in their customer’s shoes.

Service First

This month we visited UK2 to help them improve on confidence and competence when dealing with customers.

What did we do?
The challenge was to equip a young dynamic team with the skills needed to deal with customers on the telephone in as helpful a way as possible, when sometimes the messages they need to convey are not what the customer wants to hear.

We tweaked our "Service First" programme for UK2 adding some specific tools and techniques to ensure the training was focussed to the individuals attending. The workshop was interactive and directly involved each individual for maximum personal impact.

How did we do it?
What is customer service?
Building on participants own experience we looked at the impact of poor customer service, when we’ve experienced it and how it made us feel. We then took a look at excellent customer service, when we’ve had a positive experience and how it felt different. Next, we invited participants to put themselves in their customer’s shoes and decide which type of customer they wanted to deal with - satisfied, happy or just plain delighted. We then looked at how customers might be different and might require different types of information and how we might deliver that.

Setting personal intention
As with all our workshops, we invited participants to think about their "intention" and what it is they really want to get out of the session. By encouraging personal engagement we could deliver individual benefit to attendees as personal intention ensures that participants take responsibility for their learning.

Delivery techniques - Needs, Wants, Desires
The key to excellent customer service is in understanding the needs, wants and desires of our customers. Once this is understood we are in a position to provide them with the appropriate level of service. We identified and then examined the needs, wants and desires of the UK2 customer’s and thought about how it felt to be them, setting realistic actions to help participants get the customer’s they want.

Delivery techniques - understanding people and ourselves
We looked at the importance of understanding our customers and why some are easier to get on with than others and how we can improve our communication skills with the trickier ones by thinking about our body language and our tone of voice.

Delivery techniques - Just say no!
Delivering great customer service is not all about saying yes. One of the most challenging aspects is learning the art of saying No. We can all articulate the word "no" but some find it really difficult to get the message across. We spent some time looking at those things that stop us saying no, and then worked on how we can become better at doing it.

The real situation
We then looked at some of the difficult customers the team had dealt with recently and thought about some of the techniques we had learnt in the workshop. Looking back, we examined how we could have approached them differently to get a different response.

Top Tips - The Magnificent Seven
Next we shared our 7 steps to service excellence. Armed with these tips and with a plan to take them forward, participants decided on the actions they were going to take straight away.

Buddies
Finally we encouraged attendees to partner with a "buddy" who they arranged to meet 3 weeks after the workshop. Setting up this simple support structure with a pre arranged meeting time to ask questions and swap experiences promotes action and helps to embed the learning.

If you would like to talk to us about customer service training for your teams contact : - john@you-unltd.co.uk 

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What am I doing here?

John, he’s tidy and he likes cats.

Every now and then we thought we’d tell you a little more about some of the team. And we thought we’d make a start with John.

We love John, he keeps us laughing and you lot talking on the phone. We asked him some questions this week.

John Wilkes, Customer Relations Manager
You:unlimited

So, what are you doing here John?
I am the Client Relationship Manager at you:unlimited so am responsible for generating new business and then looking after and developing client relationships once we agree to work together.

Describe a typical day at you:unlimited HQ?
It’s a pretty full on job. First thing in the morning I respond to any enquiries sent to us by either telephone or through the website. I like to chat with people while they are looking at our website, it gives them a much better idea of who we are and how we can help. From the contacts made during the morning there are normally workshops to start preparing, sales presentations to plan or meetings to attend. I also spend time looking after our current clients and ensuring they have everything they want from us, and that I am aware of any new training requirements they may have, I also keep them up to date with developments at you:unlimited, new workshops and new ways to deliver training to their teams.

What's the best thing about your job?
The journey from a speculative telephone call from a customer where they really don’t know where to start to get the result they need or how best to approach a training problem, to developing, designing and coaching them through to a solution, is very rewarding. And when you work in a team that have a genuine passion for training combined with expert knowledge to get the right result, it’s quite fun too.

And the worst?
Being the thirstiest member of the team usually means I crack first and end up making most of the tea!

What’s your top tip for avoiding stress at work?
LPD! List, prioritise and do!

I spend 10 minutes planning my day every morning and prioritising what must be done by the end of it. The skill is in being brutal and only doing the things that will make the biggest difference, those that must be done. The list focuses me and I get a real sense of achievement ticking my activities off the list as I go.

I always strive to manage people’s expectations so I try to give a realistic deadline for when a task can be completed. If I can, I’ll add the activity to tomorrow’s list. People then develop a real confidence in you, they know the job will be done. I hate letting people down.

LPD, does take discipline and practice but its well worth it. Another tip is to try and leave the office on time occasionally. There is always more to be done. Some of it can wait.

What do you like best cats or dogs?
Definitely cats. For years I have wanted a big white Persian cat. I’ll call her Zsa Zsa (as in Gabor not Binks!). I like the sophistication and independence Cat’s have and their ‘don’t you know who I am’ attitude. They amuse me.

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And finally, some useful stuff...

on excellent time management.

Here we regularly reveal some of our top tips for better performance at work.

This month we’ve taken a look at time management.

Time is a limited commodity. We only have 168 hours in a week or 87,960 hours in a year. Although we talk about saving time, that doesn’t mean we can deposit excess in a bank and spend it later - once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Here’s our 10 point check list of the proven tactics and strategies of excellent time managers.

1. The to do list! - Dead simple and can reduce stress by up to 25%, writing it down stops you worrying and forgetting.
2. Bite the bullet! - stop worrying about the things you are not looking forward to doing, it doesn’t get better as you put it off.
3. Prime time v dead time - you know when you are at your most energized in a day and when you’re not. Choose appropriate things to do at these times to make the most of your natural highs.
4. Blocks of time - break your day into chunks or blocks and allocate specific things to each.
5. Creative bursts - Research shows that generally we are good at 20min bursts and then a break can be beneficial.
6. Start and finish time! - make an appointment for yourself - keep it in the diary and commit to it the same way as you would with anybody else.
7. One thing at a time - forget the gags about multi-tasking. Pick the most important items - tackle them one by one.
8. Salami sausage - Slice up any larger activity into smaller actions or steps. List them and take each one in turn.
9. Introduce competition - Juice things up a little by creating little contests and adding rewards.
10. Reward yourself - remember to treat yourself when you succeed - maybe even go home on time.

Feel free to find out more about our Time Management Training.

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