2157 Courses in Sheffield

This course has a simple objective: to help gain appointments with potential clients. In most consultative selling situations clients won't commit to purchases over the telephone. This means setting up a meeting to discuss the options with them face-to-face. But getting 'face time' can be tricky. This practical workshop can help. Participants will acquire essential tools, skills and methods; discuss specific organisational issues; and identify areas for improvement. They will discover how to: * Increase their effectiveness through proper preparation * Construct attention-grabbing opening statements * Help potential clients feel comfortable agreeing to a meeting * Develop tactics for responding to difficult excuses and objections * Stress the benefits of a face-to-face consultation * Develop and enhance their questioning and listening skills * Prevent customers cancelling booked appointments 1 INTRODUCTION TO APPOINTMENT SETTING * Key trends that have changed the way people buy today - and will buy tomorrow * Why many sales people avoid picking up the phone * The difference that makes a difference - what makes a good appointment-maker? 2 BEFORE YOU PICK UP THE TELEPHONE * It all starts with a plan... * Who and what to focus our attention * How much research should we undertake and why? * Setting primary and secondary objectives 3 MAKING YOUR APPROACH * Key considerations * Every call is an opportunity - creating a positive mind-set * Using a structured approach * Using partnership language 4 GAINING AN INSIGHT INTO THE CUSTOMER'S NEEDS * How to quickly 'tune in' to your customers, so that you can serve them more easily * Developing speech patterns that put customers at their ease * Using effective questioning and listening skills * Finding and building pain points 5 DEALING WITH EXCUSES AND OBJECTIONS * Pre-empting potential excuses * Developing techniques for responding to client objections * Keeping the door open for future contact 6 SECURING THE APPOINTMENT * Selling the benefits of a consultancy meeting * Techniques for avoiding cancelled appointments * Gaining commitment 7 ACTION PLANS * Course summary and presentation of action plans

How to protect your cash flow In the current economic climate more and more companies are finding that their customers are taking longer to pay - or are not even paying at all. As cash flow is key to the survival of any business, effective debt collection tactics are vital for all businesses. This workshop concentrates on the telephone skills and techniques you can use to achieve the most positive outcome in any debt collection situation - payment of money owed, as soon as possible, whilst keeping the collection cost as low as possible. The course will help you: * Understand your debtors and communicate with them accordingly * Develop a strategy for more effective debt collection * Make every call count * Handle difficult calls * Reduce the amount of time you need to spend on chasing payment * Increase your collection rates 1 THE DEBT COLLECTION PROCESS * Understanding the reasons behind payment default * Looking at the debt situation from the customer's point of view * Developing a strategy for effective debt collection 2 ADVANCED TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION SKILLS * Techniques for speaking to the person responsible for paying the debt * How to gain the customer's trust when discussing debt * Telephone collection skills best practice * Key phrases that keep the conversation positive and open 3 QUESTIONING AND LISTENING SKILLS FOR GATHERING INFORMATION * Different types of question * Using high-gain questions to uncover key information * Active listening that will help you understand what customers are really saying * Leading with examples and high-impact questions * Summarising and restating 4 OVERCOMING OBJECTIONS AND EXCUSES * Identifying objections * Preparing suitable responses * Probing objections and ways to overcome them 5 GAINING COMMITMENT AND ENDING THE CALL * Learn how to negotiate an agreement to suit both parties * Summarising actions for you and the customer * Ending the call professionally 6 DEALING WITH DIFFICULT AND CHALLENGING SITUATIONS * Understand different personality types * The correct way to respond to an upset customer * Ways to calm angry customers (and handle verbal attacks) 7 ACTION PLANS * Course summary and presentation of action plans

Maximising the team's sales capability is the key aim for any sales manager. When sales people struggle to hit their targets, it falls to the sales manager to provide support and help colleagues to find their way again. One of the most effective techniques for sales managers to improve and maintain sales performance is by providing live sales coaching. Sales coaching encourages sales people to find their own solutions and take responsibility for their own development. This course will help participants: * Develop people to fulfil their sales potential * Provide motivational feedback * Identify strengths and weaknesses of their team members * Understand personal learning styles * Identify and adapt for different personality styles * Prepare and conduct on-the-job observations * Motivate sales people to greater performance 1 HOW IS SALES COACHING DIFFERENT FROM SALES TRAINING? * What is coaching? * Discover how coaching empowers sales people * Learn the best time to use sales coaching * Decide which people should be coached first * Creating a development plan 2 UNDERSTANDING LEARNING, BEHAVIOURAL AND COMMUNICATION STYLES * Use practical tools to help you assess individual styles * Tap into the essence and energy of the person you are developing * Understand your own learning, behavioural and communication preferences * Develop a strategy to adopt for each member of your team * Discover what motivates you and your salespeople to perform * Appreciate how this knowledge will improve your sales conversion 3 USING THE GROW COACHING MODEL * Learn the secrets of a successful coaching session * Discover the importance of SMART objectives and instructions * Understand and capture what coachees are currently doing right * Develop their problem-solving and decision-making skills * Help your colleagues crystalise their plans and actions * Provide follow-up opportunities to embed the learning 4 GIVING MOTIVATIONAL FEEDBACK * Understand why effective feedback is so powerful in sales * Learn key models for motivational feedback * Discover how to manage and structure more difficult conversations * Understand the power of positive reinforcement * Encourage sales people to coach and support colleagues 5 PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE * Use realistic scenarios to provide opportunities for practice * Discover what it feels like to be coached * Receive immediate feedback on your coaching style * Share common performance issues with fellow sales managers * Create a personal development plan 6 PREPARING ON-THE-JOB OBSERVATIONS AND JOINT VISITS * Build a strategy for coaching and team development * Prepare an observation template for effective coaching * Learn the key elements of preparation for your next coaching session * Agree common areas to focus on with coachees 7 ACTION PLANNING * Personal action plans

An insightful, enjoyable and experiential programme to help you analyse data and information and make a balanced decision based upon sound commercial reasoning. It will enable you to identify options, make decisions and take actions based on a thorough analysis combined with instinct and intuition to make a positive effect on profitability. This programme will help you: * Identify ways to analyse data and sort relevant from irrelevant information * Develop analytical and numerate thinking, and consider the financial implications of a decision * Make decisions based on sound commercial reasoning - a mix of intuition and analysis * Select from a range of tools to analyse a situation and apply these effectively * Understand how costs and profits are calculated * Use tried-and-tested techniques to manage and control your budgets * Appreciate the fundamentals of financial analysis * Focus on the bottom line * Identify the basics of capital investment appraisal for your business * Evaluate results and seek opportunities for improvement to your business 1 THE COMMERCIAL ENVIRONMENT * What do shareholders and investors want? * What do managers want? * Profit v non-profit organisations * Investor expectations 2 FINANCIAL AND NON-FINANCIAL INFORMATION * Risk and reward considerations * Drivers of commercial decisions 3 RUNNING A BUSINESS * A practical exercise to bring financial statements to life * Different stakeholder interests in a business * The impact and consequences of decisions on financial statements 4 WHERE DO I MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO THE ORGANISATION? * How can I contribute to an improved business performance? * Key performance indicators - measuring the right things * A 'balanced scorecard' approach - it's not all about money! 5 A 'BALANCED SCORECARD' APPROACH * Analysing and reviewing my contribution to the business direction * What is the current focus of my commercial decisions? * Developing the business in the right way - getting the balance right! * Where should/could it be in the future? * Do my decisions support the overall vision and strategy? 6 MAKING COMMERCIAL DECISIONS * Left-brain and right-brain thinking * Convergent and divergent thinking * Analysis and instinct * Interactive case study exercise - emotional and rational decisions * Reflection - what is my style of making decisions 7 LET'S CONSIDER THE CUSTOMER! * Identifying target markets * Differentiating propositions and products * Customer service considerations * Marketing considerations and initiatives * Pricing strategies and considerations 8 STRATEGIC ANALYSIS * The external environment * The internal environment * LEPEST analysis * SWOT analysis * Forecasting * Group activity - analysing markets and the competition * How do these improve your decisions? 9 COMPARING PERFORMANCE * Analysing key financial ratios * Ways to compare performance and results * Break-even analysis 10 PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNTS AND BUDGETING * Managing income and expenditure * The budgeting process * How does this link to the profit and loss account? * Managing and controlling a cost centre/budget * The role of the finance department * Different ways of budgeting * Incremental budgeting * Zero-based budgeting 11 UNDERSTANDING THE BALANCE SHEET * Purpose of balance sheets * Understanding and navigating the content * What does a balance sheet tell you? * How do you affect your balance sheet? * Links to the profit and loss account * A practical team exercise that brings financial statements to life 12 BUSINESS DECISIONS EXERCISE * How does this improve your decisions? * A practical exercise to apply new knowledge and bring commercial thinking to to life * The impact and consequences of decisions on financial statements 13 WORKING CAPITAL * Why is this important? * The importance of keeping cash flowing * Business decisions that affect cash * Calculating profit 14 CAPITAL INVESTMENT APPRAISAL * Capex v Opex * Payback * Return on investment * The future value of money * The concept of hurdle rate 15 LESSONS LEARNED AND ACTION PLANNING * So what? * Recap and consolidation of learning * The decisions that I need to consider * Actions to achieve my plan

The aim of this course is to provide an overview of the key principles and techniques for leading and managing project work. It will focus on the core principles and generic methods of project management, showing how these can be applied to typical projects. The scope of the programme includes: The course also emphasises the importance of the leadership and team-working skills needed by project managers and team members in carrying out their roles. The principal training objectives for this programme are to: * Explain and demonstrate the key principles of successful project management * Demonstrate a range of useful project management tools and techniques * Define the role of, and help participants understand the skills required by, the project leader * Illustrate the use of project skills through examples and case studies * Identify ways to improve project management, both individually and corporately DAY ONE 1 INTRODUCTION (COURSE SPONSOR) * Why this programme has been developed * Review of participants' needs and objectives 2 KEY CONCEPTS AND REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESS * Projects and project management * Lessons from past projects; the essential requirements for success * Differences between projects; characteristic project life cycles * The challenges of project management; the role of the project manager * Project exercise * A team exercise to demonstrate the challenges of project management 3 DEFINING PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE * Identifying the stakeholders; key roles and responsibilities * Getting organised; managing the definition process * Working with the 'customer' to define the project scope 4 PROJECT CASE STUDY: PART 1 * Defining the project objectives: syndicate teams define the objectives and scope for a typical project 5 PROJECT PLANNING * The nature of planning; recognising planning assumptions * Planning the plan; the importance of team involvement * Developing the work breakdown structure * Estimating task resources, timescales and costs * Developing the project schedule * Analysing the plan and identifying the critical path 6 PROJECT CASE STUDY: PART 2 * Creating the project plan * Syndicate teams begin development of their project plans (for completion after session 7) * Team presentations and group discussion (after session 7) DAY TWO 7 MANAGING PROJECT RISKS * Understanding and defining project risks * Classifying risks and adopting an appropriate risk strategy * Identifying, evaluating and managing project risks * Agreeing ownership of project risks; the risk register * Integrating planning and risk management 8 PROJECT CONTROL * Pro-active and re-active control; striking the right balance * Pre-requisites for effective, pro-active project control * Avoiding unnecessary 'scope creep' and controlling change * Selecting the data needed to provide early warning of problems * Monitoring project performance: 'S' curves, slip charts, earned value * Getting good data and assessing project status * Defining the roles and responsibilities for control * Setting up a routine process for keeping up to date * Managing and controlling multiple projects 9 PROJECT CASE STUDY: PART 3 * Controlling the project * Teams control their project as new developments take place 10 COURSE REVIEW AND TRANSFER PLANNING (COURSE SPONSOR PRESENT) * Identify actions to be implemented individually * Identify corporate opportunities for improving project management * Sponsor-led review and discussion of proposals * Conclusion

In the fast-changing world of business, and especially IT, everyone in the organisation should be involved in sales. One of the best ways is to give the customer an outstanding experience. The customer experience is the competitive battlefield of today. Sales may be won or lost here. You can either close a sale for a quick buck, or open a long-term relationship to create a high lifetime value customer. By developing excellent communication skills, rapport and, most of all, a desire to serve and listen to the needs of the customer to the best of their ability, both sales teams and other IT professionals will create trust, nurture relationships and develop awareness of other opportunities with the customer. By the end of this course, participants will be able to: * Understand the power of a positive customer experience in developing sales opportunities * Recognise and develop a sales opportunity when it arises * Engage with customers and develop rapport and trust * Use verbal and non-verbal communication skills and pick up on signals * Ask powerful questions - and listen to the answers * Create 'magic moments' for the customer * Turn a complaint into an opportunity * Know when to ask for referrals and testimonials * Pass on leads to the relevant people 1 INTRODUCTION * Aims and objectives * Beliefs about sales 2 BUILDING RAPPORT * First impressions * Short cuts to rapport * Finding common interests 3 SELLING OR SERVING? * Managing emotions and behaviour - Transactional Analysis * Moments of truth - creating 'magic moments' * Speed sells - the follow-up 4 MEETINGS * Planning a successful meeting * Pre-meeting connection and assistance * Sales meeting failure reasons * Right v wrong mindset 5 COMMUNICATION - VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL * The 3 Vs - Visual, Verbal, Vocal * Picking up on signals * 7 power questions * Questioning techniques * LISTEN - 3 types of listening skills 6 INFLUENCING * 6 levels of influence * Framing to change perspectives * Turning complaints into opportunities 7 REFERRALS * The power of referrals * How and when to ask for a referral * 5 steps from rapport to referral 8 PRESENTATION AND PITCHING (OPTIONAL SESSION) * Basic presentation structure and delivery * Creating powerful impressions * Creating a 60-second pitch * The elevator 10-second pitch - answering 'What do you do?' * Sales presentations * Emotion v Intellect - how to engage * Using visuals

The principles of effective time management are applicable to all aspects of life. When successfully applied in a sales environment they can lead to improved performance, higher sales and increased customer satisfaction. All salespeople would benefit from learning the tools and techniques to introduce impactful time management to their working lives. We have developed this programme to be practical, fun and interactive. Participants will better understand how to increase the amount of time spent on high-value sales activities, be able to improve their self-motivation and ability to get more done, and be better able to plan, delegate and speed up routine tasks. This course will help participants: * Learn key principles of managing sales priorities, meeting targets and getting 'everything' done! * Learn proven techniques for structuring your day, week and normal routine * Develop effective sales time management at the office and on the road * Learn a seven-step process for setting goals and objectives in your work and personal life * Understand how to make time for sales prospecting, designated call days * Understand practical ways to improve your time management 1 KEY PRINCIPLES OF SALES TIME MANAGEMENT * Course objectives and review of time log * Essential principles of sales time management * How do you use your time now? * Reviewing your working day (from pre-course survey) * Beliefs and feelings about time 2 MANAGING SALES PRIORITIES AND PLANNING SYSTEMS * Managing priorities and planning systems * Use organised persistence to plan your sales activity * Planning your territory and prospecting activity * How to use priority ratings not urgency to react to tasks 3 DEALING WITH DISTRACTIONS AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS * Know your time 'bandits' and creating more positive habits to overcome them * Making time by saying 'no' assertively and managing expectations * Assertiveness techniques for handling colleagues and clients * Making meetings worthwhile - preparation and planning 4 SALES GOAL SETTING AND ACTION PLANNING * Set clear, concise, and motivating sales goals and action plans * How to set and use goal setting as way of managing your time and increasing results * The principles of linking SMART objectives to action plans and daily activities 5 CREATING RESULTS FOCUS - EVERY DAY, WEEK, AND MONTH * Batch sales tasks together, starting with emails * Planning your day and week and protecting sales 'prime' time * Apply the 80/20 to your sales contacts, clients, and prospects 6 OVERCOMING PROCRASTINATION AND STRUCTURING YOUR DAY * Understanding procrastination, what it is and how to recognise it in yourself and others * How to stop procrastinating and start making progressing * Build a power prospecting hour into every day * Smart stuff to make more sales time: five automated tools * Live the $64,000 dollar question

Telephone selling can be a challenge. It can be a pressured environment and sales professionals need to be able to maintain peak performance in order to meet - and preferably exceed - their targets. This programme will help make it easier for them. The expert trainer covers the whole process, to help participants see it from their customer's perspective. The focus is on how to use a practical understanding of sales psychology, and of the nature of the telephone sales conversation, to help make it easier for customers to buy. This programme will give your team the skills to: This course will help participants: * Understand why people buy - and how that makes it easier to sell * Manage the sales process better * Steer their sales calls to a more positive outcome * Recognise - and respond to - customer buying signals * Meet and overcome objections * Choose the most appropriate techniques for closing with confidence * Enhance their resilience * Improve their communication skills on the telephone 1 INTRODUCTION * Aims and objectives * Overview * Self-appraisal of current skills and development areas 2 THE SALES APPROACH * What selling means * Why selling is like nature 3 THE TELEPHONE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF COMMUNICATION * Qualities of the telephone * How telephone communication differs from face-to-face * Advantages and drawbacks of the telephone * How to optimise selling over the telephone * Communication techniques to help you stand out from the crowd 4 CREATING A RELATIONSHIP * Professional telephone etiquette * Building a rapport * Connecting with the customer so that they feel you are on the same wavelength 5 THE STRUCTURE OF A SALES CALL * Opening the call - creating a positive first impression * Effective questioning to gather information and establish need * Identifying and presenting the features and benefits of the product or service * Matching the benefits to customers' needs * Recognising and responding to buying signals * Anticipating, meeting and overcoming objections * Closing the sale and asking for the order - different closing techniques * The importance of testimonials - how to obtain them and when to use them 6 LISTENING SKILLS * The challenges of accurate listening * How to enhance listening skills * Ensuring the customer feels heard and understood through empathetic listening 7 SHAPING AND USING A SCRIPT * Developing a script to increase levels of confidence * Leaving the door open 8 MANAGING THE CAMPAIGN * Organisation and call planning * Identifying your target market group * Planning who and when to call * Logging constructive information 9 PERSONAL MANAGEMENT * The importance of persistence * Is there a time to back off? * Stamina - optimising energy levels * Bouncing back 10 PRACTISING THE NEW INFORMATION * Pulling the details together * Practising in a supportive environment 11 ACTION PLANNING * Personal learning summary and action plan

This course starts with data transformation strategies, exploring capabilities in the Power Query Editor, and data-cleansing practices. It looks at the Advanced Query Editor to view the M language code. This course focuses on advanced DAX measures that include filtering conditions, with a deep dive into time intelligence measures. Like the M query language, DAX is a rich functional language that supports variables and expression references. This course also looks at the creation of dynamic dashboards and incorporates a range of visualisations available in Power BI Desktop and online in the AppSource. The course finishes with a look at setting up end user level security in tables. 1 THE QUERY EDITOR * Split by row delimiter * AddDays to determine deadlines * Advanced query editor 2 FUZZY MATCHING JOINS * Matching inconsistencies by percentage * Matching with transformation table 3 LOGICAL COLUMN FUNCTIONS * Logical functions IF, AND, OR * Using multiple conditions * Including FIND in functions 4 EDITING DAX MEASURES * Make DAX easier to read * Add comments to a measure * Using quick measures 5 THE ANATOMY OF CALCULATE * Understanding CALCULATE context filters * Adding context to CALCULATE with FILTER * Using CALCULATE with a threshold 6 THE ALL MEASURE * Anatomy of ALL * Create an ALL measure * Using ALL as a filter * Use ALL for percentage 7 DAX ITERATORS * Anatomy of iterators * A closer look at SUMX * Using RELATED in SUMX * Create a RANKX * RANKX with ALL 8 DATE AND TIME FUNCTIONS * Overview of functions * Create a DATEDIFF function 9 TIME INTELLIGENT MEASURES * Compare historical monthly data * Create a DATEADD measure * Creating cumulative totals * Creating cumulative measures * Visualising cumulative totals 10 VISUALISATIONS IN-DEPTH * Utilising report themes * Create a heatmap * Comparing proportions * View trends with sparklines * Group numbers using bins * Setting up a histogram 11 COMPARING VARIABLES * Visualising trendlines as KPI * Forecasting with trendlines * Creating a scatter plot * Creating dynamic labels * Customised visualisation tooltips * Export reports to SharePoint 12 USER LEVEL SECURITY * Setting up row level security * Testing user security

M&O of engineering plant and services is becoming more important to the success of the core business. To select the right M&O technique for specific plant and equipment it is necessary to know what options are available, what they deliver and how they should be implemented. This course will help you consider options and techniques that provide best value based on that thorough understanding of the business need. M&O will increasingly be required to demonstrate it is delivering the optimum of cost and value and the main purpose of the course is to show how this can be achieved. Note: this is a purely indicative list of topics that can be covered. The content, duration, objectives and material used would all be adapted to match your specific requirements. This course will help you: * Determine what the business needs from the M&O service * Determine the cost and value of the various M&O options * Prepare and present the business case for the selected M&O strategy * Introduce meaningful KPIs based on performance-based service by the M&O provider * Undertake a review of current M&O and make recommendations for improvement * Introduce energy and carbon management performance criteria in M&O * Better deal with project risk and uncertainties * Motivate others to deliver a reliable and cost effective M&O service Note: this is a purely indicative list of topics that can be covered. The content, duration, objectives and material used would all be adapted to match your specific requirements. 1 WHAT IS MAINTENANCE AND WHAT IS OPERATION? - THEIR RELATIVE IMPORTANCE TO THE BUSINESS 2 COMPARISON OF THE VARIOUS MAINTENANCE OPTIONS AND TECHNIQUES, INCLUDING: * Planned preventative * Run to failure * Condition monitoring * Business focused * Business critical * Total productive * Reliability centred maintenance 3 FORMS OF CONTRACTS AND SERVICE, INCLUDING: * Comprehensive * Input driven * Output driven * Limited replacement * Performance based M&O 4 SELECTING THE RIGHT OPTIONS AND MAKING THE BUSINESS CASE 5 CONTINUOUS COMMISSIONING AS A TOOL FOR DELIVERING BEST VALUE 6 CASE STUDIES