Making Business Matter (MBM)

Sticky Learning Lunches #25: Give Your Presentations Oomph

Today's topic, Online Presentations Lack Oomph part 1. Use the 'ONLINE POWER' mnemonic to be a more powerful you online and a great online presenter.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Monday. Welcome to this week's start of sticky learning lunches. We're just waiting for the last couple of people to get into the room. We've got a few more seconds until we start for today. I've just seen a typo on my front screen. So if you can spot the typo. There are no prizes for this, just for entertainment. If you can spot the typo, put it in the questions box. Let me know that you've seen it, 'cause I've just seen it at the 11th hour. Welcome.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome everyone. Make sure we're, as we're doing this, we're just waiting for those last people to arrive. Setting everyone up for success as normal. Should there be audio sound with this as well? Have we started? Yes, there should be sound. Can everyone hear me? 'cause Luke can't right now. Can everyone hear me? Yes. I've got, yeah, Luke, this may just be you. You may have to do a restart. Let's get that in there.

Nathan Simmonds:

So making sure we're setting everyone up for success today. So, phones out. Let's make sure we're seeing the phones live. He says, let's get this on flight mode. Zero distraction, a hundred percent attention on yourselves and your development right now. Let's get into this drinks at the ready, making sure everyone has a drink available. You're gonna stay hydrated. And then making sure you've got a blank page ready to get your keepers down. So you're gonna write keepers at the top of the page.

Give your presentations back their oomph

 

Nathan Simmonds:

And keepers are the things that you want to keep hold of the bits of information that you wanna be reminded of when you go back and reread those notes and come up with new ideas as you start to embed that. Good. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter. The home of sticky learning idea of these lunchtime micro learning sessions is to help you be the best version of you right now in this situation.

Nathan Simmonds:

Whether you are working from home or whether you are returning back to the office and also preparing you for the return back to the office as well. Today is all about online power. It's about the power of presentation, it is about the the power of presence when you are delivering online content and you are speaking whether you are presenting or whether you are engaging with your team. We've been doing it for a few weeks now,

Nathan Simmonds:

But that doesn't necessarily mean that we've been doing it to its best or to our best yet. And we may have got either complacent or picked up bad habits along the way. And this session is gonna be about helping to put some new skills in because this is the reality. This is the new state of play. This is part of the toolbox we're gonna be using more often than not to support people's mental health fulfillment and job satisfaction.

Nathan Simmonds:

And that's what this week's these next two sessions today and tomorrow are gonna be about. First of all, last week we did four sessions around the mind coaching model. It's a model that I designed in the MBM lab to help leaders have better, stronger, and more robust mental health conversations. Fully aware, this is Mental Health Awareness Week I believe.

Nathan Simmonds:

Correct me if I'm wrong, last week's tools. Were all about having the right conversations this week and in fact, every week, okay, if you haven't seen last week's training around supporting mental health conversations as a leader or a HR professional, we're gonna share the link to last week's sessions in the chat box so you can go back and watch those later on. Again, to support you and your leaders having the right conversations at the right time with the right people this week. Presentations.

Nathan Simmonds:

How's everyone feeling after doing eight weeks, nine weeks of video conferencing of Zoom calls? How are you all feeling right now as a result of the number of video conferences that are going on in the questions box? Let me know how you're feeling right now about this. One Word answers two word answers. Tired. Yes. Thank you, Susan. Zoomed out. Tracy, if only we could get zoomed out and get a little bit of distance connected. Nice. But Christopher, good to see you again.

Nathan Simmonds:

Darren boring presentations are frigging boring. Yes, agreed. Stuart excited about learning some best practices. Yes. Getting used to it. I'm not sure we're supposed to be getting used to it, but we also need to exhausted and personal and work too much. This is my third today. Yeah. Interest. Tracy, do you know what? Thank you to you, Tracy, for being here for your third one day when you could have quite easily cup of tea back garden.

Nathan Simmonds:

Interested? It's starting to be up and down. Yes, agreed. Colin, do you know what? Last week was the first week that I had had enough, quite frankly, you know, I, I've reached my, my limit and Darren referred to this in a, in a LinkedIn post. My social battery was completely depleted. I I was, I was zoomed out. I really know it's, I'd had enough of the interaction and the contact that way because we're, what we're doing is we're tired eyes, absolutely is. We are attempting to connect, but actually we can't really connect.

Nathan Simmonds:

So there's a, there's a dissonance of what's going on. And part of this presentation and the content today is, is helping you to understand that a little bit more. What we're seeing is we're seeing an image of somebody and our brain, although we can see them, we can't touch them, we can't smell them we can't interact physically with them. And there's a dissonance in your brain that is, is having difficulty computing this. And as a result of that, it's starting to make us feel tired.

Nathan Simmonds:

And we've, we've seen this at the beginning of, of the lockdown process and we're seeing it throughout at different points in the day. And as Tracy said, this is a third zoom meeting or or web conference today. So when your brain is doing this, you're making your brain work at least twice as hard trying to connect with people. The other thing to think about is actually where your eyes going. So getting into the mnemonic that we've got on online power the first one is on my eyes.

Nathan Simmonds:

What we mean by this is as we're presenting or we're presenting to people, it's starting to get really clear on where people are looking at and how we're helping them to relax their eyes and use their eyes in a better way. So the first thing that we can do is, there's a 20 20 20 rule on this. When we are working online and we're working in computers, like this is taking 20 minutes, sorry, every 20 minutes, taking 20 seconds to look at something 20 feet away. So we're adjusting our focus and that's helping just the rest eyes a little bit coming away from the screen.

Nathan Simmonds:

If you've got a window that's overlooking your gun, go and look at green, not blue. And if you know what I mean, when it comes to technology, really helps to replenish and refresh. The other challenge that we've got is when we are presenting online, is if we are working with people, especially in a Zoom environment, how many people can you see at one time? If you are in a zoom, if you've got it in gallery mode, how many people's faces can you see at one time when you are doing it? What's the, what's the most we can see? This is, I mean, this is, it is been a while since 1225. Crikey, 20 to 25.

Nathan Simmonds:

And that's at one time. So the other part of what your brain is doing, and I don't know the age range of the people in the room here, we get people on Zoom and it's like the beginning of the Muppet show. Do you remember the credits on the Muppet Show When it zooms out and you can see all the individual characters no way can you see all those people. So although I'm looking at the screen and I wanna see the person who's talking, if I'm all I'm presenting, I'm trying to gauge everybody's reactions.

Nathan Simmonds:

And so my eyes are going all like this and I'm trying to take on too much data, too much information. And of course as the presenter, it's making it more difficult for me to concentrate on me and to, and to keep my energy up because I'm using that extra brain power. I'm trying to check everyone else's expert expressions. So that's the first part. Number two is not back to back.

Nathan Simmonds:

Talked about this in time management, in, in, in better planning meetings is making sure that your meetings are not back to back. It's absolutely vital that when we're doing any meeting, let alone online meeting and it's, it is more of a trap with online meeting is that we're leaving the space between each of the conversations we're having. Why one, so we can back up this and give our eyeballs the rest of our brains at a decent break.

Nathan Simmonds:

But two, so that we've got chance to decompress mentally from the last conversation, update our notes, update what our actions, and then prepare ourselves for the next conversation. Prime example is these training sessions at 12 o'clock. I make sure that I have a break and I've got everything ready for this conversation. At quarter two quarter to 12, we come online and we make sure that we've got all the right links to share with you.

Nathan Simmonds:

We've got the right actions, I've got the right notes, everything set up in the right places, microphone, all of these elements. But I'm doing that in the first 15 minutes to make sure that the technical stuff is in place so that I don't have to think about anything. If we're doing back to back sessions and the trap is 'cause oh, I'm at home,...

Sticky Learning Lunches #24: Having a Mental Health Conversation Bothers Me

Use this 4-part model of M.I.N.D to have an effective mental health conversation. This is especially important when working from home.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon. Welcome to Steady Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons. It is Thursday. We're just waiting for the last few people to join the room. Just gonna keep an eye on them as they're coming in. Give it 30 more seconds just to make sure we're all here. Good afternoon everyone. Vicki, great to see you. Tracy, Samantha, good to see you again. Carolina, Jason, Gabrielle, Darren, Colin, you know what?

Nathan Simmonds:

There's a whole crowd of regulars in here and I'm really liking this. Get more and more people coming into these sessions and staying in these sessions, which is lovely. Good to see you too. Hello. Hello. You can say hello by the way, if you want to type hello and say hello to me. It is allowed. I like the engagement. I like to know that you are there and paying attention and all that. What are we covering today? Let's get into this.

Click to watch the podcast on YouTube

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Just as last few people turn out. Let's say make sure that everyone we're setting everyone up for success as we're doing this. As always, first things first, mobile phones. Let's make sure they're all on flight mode so we're not getting distracted. A hundred percent attention on you and what you are learning. Second thing is making sure you've got a drink hydrated, ready to go, and also making sure that you've got a fresh page in the pad ready to go as well.

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon, Tracy. Clean sheet. At the top of the page you're gonna write keepers and these are the things you want to keep hold of. These are the things you wanna remember that you, when you go back and read those notes, it's gonna remind you and reinvigorate that thinking and come up with new ideas to keep the learning going and keep it sticky.

Nathan Simmonds:

Okay, let's go in and other people can arrive as we get into this. Welcome everyone to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me. Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer at MBM, making Business Matter, home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills to the grocery and manufacturing industry. I do with these lunches help you be the best version of you right now from where you are working from home and preparing to return to work in the near future. Let's dive into this. Today we're gonna be covering the D in the mind model

Nathan Simmonds:

Before we even get into it, how is everyone feeling? We've hit Thursday, we've covered some core co. We've covered some, you know, pretty, um, pinpoint content this week. How are we feeling at the moment about working from home Isolation? I wish it was another four day week, Vicki, that could be arranged if you want. How is everyone feeling? I must say great today has a bit of cabin fever by Monday and Tuesday. Absolutely, but now it's great. Nice poor start, but recovering well. So good just about now. Nice, Colin. Good. Took an hour out to tie the garage and needed some variety.

Nathan Simmonds:

Sometimes we need to do this and quite frankly, Tracy, I cannot show you the state of my office right now. It has been a very creative week talking to a lot of people and my variety is gonna be later on today actually just clearing down my office and getting it back to some sort of normal good. Mental health is all about conversations. It's all about having the different conversations and just checking in with each other and checking in with ourselves and seeing how we feel and what we need quick flash through. Then Monday, the m is all about mindset, yours and theirs.

Nathan Simmonds:

The I is all about importance. Where are you putting it? Where is the focus and the importance of making sure that mind the mindset is the number one element we're looking at because we can't move through the rest of the mind model until that mindset is in the right place.

Nathan Simmonds:

The n is all about network. It's all about you, the team, and the support that those individuals can get. So whether it's for your own mental health, who do you get support from, whether it's for someone in your team or someone in your charge. How you help them understand where they can get that support from, what role models they've got, who can they learn from, who can they speak to? And at the same time, as I said yesterday, if that person isn't right and they're not getting the benefits of it from that situation, from that relationship, how do they then speak to another counselor or another support mechanism to still keep that forward? Momentum.

Nathan Simmonds:

This is about network. The D is all about direction. It's all about the action. When we've got an understanding of kind of the, the, the mindset and we've got that person centered back to where they are, they've deescalated the emotions, the breathing, they've shifted the importance away from the thing that's causing the anxiety or, or the flashback or whatever. They can see. They've got community and connection, then we can put the directions in place. It's important to understand

Nathan Simmonds:

That what we have in this is the necessity to act. Mental health in the majority is still very stigmatized. It's still stereotyped. It's yes, it's a million times better than it ever was, but at the same time it is still, um, there are still challenges and frustrations in there. Leaders don't want to have the conversation 'cause they worry, they may say something wrong or they may put a foot wrong or they cause a problem. But as I've said before, you can say anything to anybody as long as it's done with absolute love and respect. As long as you are being a human, you will treat people humanely.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the idea is that when we understand there is mental health conversation that happens, we need to act. Why? 'cause action creates traction. The moment that you put one foot in front of the other or one foot in front, first of all and take the step, it then encourages more momentum. It then encourages the next part and so on and so forth. So the idea with the direction is understanding all these parts is two key questions that we can start to ask. I'm gonna run out a whiteboard on this screen in a minute. I'm gonna have to turn the laptop around. Two types of questions we can ask on a WN and or a WE.

Nathan Simmonds:

This one I've pulled out of coaching habits by Michael Bunga. Wherever that book has gone, these mean two things. Means and what next and or means and what else? Two incredibly simple, incredibly powerful questions that are gonna help you get to the heart of a situation. Because when we're dealing with mental health and in fact physical health in major situations, there isn't one thing that you do. But I'm Susan, thank you for reminding me. I thought I was gonna remember that today we're on big swing. Good, thank you.

Nathan Simmonds:

Regardless of whether it's physical or mental health or wherever you are, there isn't one size that fits all. If you have a cold or the flu, what do you do? Gimme some examples of things that you do to help get over a cold. Let's see them in the, in the questions box. If you've got a cold, what do you do? Sleep. Take medicine. What else? Lem sip, hot bath soup. RST, gym it out. Drugs. Legal. I hope there was a caveat on that. Rest, gargle. TTP cup. What? So we have here, you know, 10 different things that we can do. Do you do just one of them when you've got a cold?

Nathan Simmonds:

Do you just go, oh, I'll have a hot bath that will, that will make it better? No, and I know what the answer is, that you do all of them. You do the leip, you do the tissues, you blow your nose, you go to bed, you do this, you do as many as you can get your hands on because you know it's the right thing to do to help you get over it. But it's the same with our mental health as well as our physical health. There isn't one thing that we do that is gonna fix it. We have to have a layer and we have to have multiple actions that are gonna keep us moving forward. Often though, when we are working with people in, in, in high states of, of stress, and then it's very difficult for them to see the multiple elements.

Nathan Simmonds:

And we'll talk about that in a minute. And it's asked as leaders and HR professionals and support people to ask some different questions to help people see this in the different way. To understand where there are different options. Because as the mental health escalates, the our, our ability to think logically and soundly and come up with new alternative starts to shrink and starts to depreciate. So therefore we'll be lucky if we can come up with one answer. And it's for us as the leaders to nurture and support and, and help that person give the perspective, shift the focus and come up with some new alternatives.

Nathan Simmonds:

The simple questions that we ask. And what next or, and what else? Super easy. Let me give you three stories that I thought about earlier. Help you understand the power of these questions and when we use them, one comes back to mindset. Last week we had Jeff Birch here in talking, in talking and sharing around sales. And the thing that he shared with me a few weeks ago was this quote.

Nathan Simmonds:

And I, I'm gonna cherish this for a very long time, and if you haven't heard this before, now is the time to write it down. A change inflicted is a change resisted, and it's the same with mental health, uh, and personal and work and whatever. So remember that if you haven't been down, do now do so now a change inflicted is a change. Resisted. So we're on the allotment. I'm a king gardener.

Nathan Simmonds:

I like to grow vegetables and, and it gives us a chance to get out,...

Sticky Learning Lunches #23: Having a Mental Health Conversation Bothers Me

Use this 4-part model of M.I.N.D to have an effective mental health conversation. This is especially important when working from home.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch. I'm not leaving the room, I'm just getting my phone. I've left it on the other side again. Good afternoon everyone. Hello. Hello. Welcome people just joining the room. Great to see you. Vicki. Lovely to see you again. Tracy Bravida, Matt, Laura, Carolina. Hello again. Jason, Gabrielle, Colin, Adam. It's great. I'm getting some regulars. Some old friends, some new friends. Hello, hello. Getting some hellos coming up. If you wanna say hi, please type, type, hi.

Nathan Simmonds:

I know you and then you are, you are with me. You are fully attentive because I can see when you're not on the little box over here, I can see when you're looking at other webpages, people, how are we on a scale of one to 10, how are we feeling? One terrible, 10 amazing. Where are we on this scale ourselves. Let's check in with ourselves. Mental health isn't just about the people you are working with. It is about yourselves. I talk about self-leadership as a, as a technique, as an understanding. If you cannot lead yourself, you cannot lead anybody else.

Importance of having a mental health conversation when working from home

 

Nathan Simmonds:

So it's super important that when we're working with mental health and mental wellbeing, that we're checking with ourselves to make sure we're okay. Let's think about focus. What is the best part of your week so far? Let's get this into the, the questions box as well. I, I share some of these. What is the best part of your week so far that is filling you with joy, appreciation, love, gratitude, whatever it is. And I wanna see some of them. 'cause in that it then balances off me as well. Had a pretty good morning clearing the decks. Nice knowing Friday's, two days away, Adam. Don't be like that. The sun. Nice

Nathan Simmonds:

Session's in place for mental health week. All filled. Nice. Nice self development. Seeing my own son develop so much from homeschooling. He is loving the one-to-one. Yeah, absolutely. The people homeschooling and people are saying, you know, they're seeing their, their children developing so much. It's amazing. Sticking to the running, ah, sessions in place for the mental health awareness. We call Phil, they, maybe we need to have a conversation. David, there's maybe there's some synergies here that we can share and bounce off with each other, right? We are all in the room.

Nathan Simmonds:

Amazing to see you all. Good afternoon people. So David, if you feel any need you would like to reach out, please do. Just lemme know. I'd love to have a conversation. See how I can help with that. Hello Andrea. Good to see you. I set you all up for success. Always David, thank you. Just come and follow me on LinkedIn. Drop me a connection or, or an email or whatever. I'm happy to share. I'll get the, my email address in the chat box briefly and we can continue that conversation. Let's make sure we've all got their phones out.

Nathan Simmonds:

Phones first. Everybody on flight mode, a hundred percent attention on you. This is all about you. This is a selfish 30 minutes, which is all about you. And I'm not gonna sing any songs. It's no, we're not gonna do that. A hundred percent attention on you. What we're gonna share today and continuing the dialogue around mental health, mental health awareness, and the tools and techniques that I use and I use with other people to support them. Making sure you've got a fresh page in your notepad available. At the top of that you're gonna write keepers. This is for you to get those things you wanna remember and the things you wanna bring back to your thinking when you read back through your notes. Super important we do this and making sure you've got a drink available for this session.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to today's Sticky Learning lunch with myself, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter, the home of sticky learning and we are the soft, the leadership development and soft skills provided to the grocery and manufacturing industry. Today is day three. It's gone like a, it's gone super fast of the mind model, which is a unique model we created, I created to support leaders having stronger, more robust and more eloquent mental health conversations with themselves and with their teams. And today we're gonna be covering n for network is all about the people around us. So quick recap on Monday. Monday was all about mindset.

Nathan Simmonds:

It is all about yours and theirs. It's all about making sure that we're helping to support, uh, or find out where the focuses are, helping them to deescalate the emotions and come back to center so you can have a conversation. They too, yesterday it was all about importance. What we're putting the importance on. The other element that's really important is to understand and deeply comprehend, super important that if this is not in the right place, you cannot move the conversation forward.

Nathan Simmonds:

It doesn't matter what questions you think you want to ask or you would like that person to get to, is absolutely imperative that they have brought the thinking down, that the breathing has started to be more controlled. That the you, that they can focus their thinking and create new emotions so that you can continue the rest of the dialogue. Jumping this and try and get to here and to hear into the network or the, the next steps or direction is only gonna cause more friction, more frustration and more agitation and just cause that person to spiral deep more deeply into the situation they're in.

Nathan Simmonds:

Is everyone with me on this? If everyone see, see the importance of making sure the mindset is right. Let me know in the box, yes or no. Yes. Good, good, good. Yes, yes, yes. Good. So we help to understand, to lower the imp help to people to lower the importance that they're putting on certain things. We help to adjust the focus 'cause the brain can only focus on one thing at a time. Then we get into a network,

Nathan Simmonds:

Three elements to network you, the team and then the support mechanism. So we're gonna look at all three of those in a minute. The phrase that I had up at the beginning of this and that I shared in the LinkedIn post earlier is, your network equals your network worth. You may have heard this in other circles in other groups of people. We have to understand, you know, well when it comes to this idea is you don't just have a financial bank account, you have an emotional bank account.

Nathan Simmonds:

Okay? Most of us live our lives though, thinking that our financial bank account actually equals our emotional bank account. I'll be happy when I earn, I'll be happier when I get this. We're not gonna go into that too deeply, but it's understanding that actually your emotions, your emotional bank account will create the financial bank account.

Nathan Simmonds:

The emotional bank account though in this context is really getting to understand how you are putting credit in that account. How you are looking after yourself, how you are taking time to make those investments of time for yourself and with other people. There's a Jim Rowan quote that I will paraphrase here is in show me the top five people that you hang out with and I'll show you the content of your bank balance gift will take 5% or 10%.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's the same with our emotions. So we can start to see who we're surrounding ourselves with and how that's actually impacting our emotional and mental bank account. So it is really important that we start to understand who and what is in our network and how that is potentially impacting us or impacting the people that we are supporting. So the first thing for your network is you.

Nathan Simmonds:

Who here knows the Mental Health England First Aid, um, acronym of algae? Yes or no? No. Okay, I've got some nos coming up. I scribbled it down here. No. Okay, so they have a model, it's called algae, A-L-G-E-E. By all means, please look at it. The first part is to assess. Is to know, to assess the situation. The L is to listen. The G in this, um, is then to, um, give support

Nathan Simmonds:

In, in appropriate ways. And then the e is encourage them to get expert advice. Encourage them to get support. Again, I haven't got all my documents with me just to make sure that we're completely on point with that. The first part though, in the network is understanding that when you are supporting someone in a mental health situation, episode moment, there is an appropriate amount of you that you need to give to this conversation. It is not for you to be there 100% of the time. You are not the counselor, you are not the Samaritans.

Nathan Simmonds:

Um, you are the leader, the HR responsible individual, whatever it is, there is a certain amount of you that you can give to this. You are not there to give advice. You are not there to be there constantly. You are not on the end of the phone at three o'clock in the morning necessarily. And it's about making sure that you've got the right elements of you in there to support those individuals.

Nathan Simmonds:

After we, the the, when we are, when we are working in the space, the analogy is, you know, talking about carrying baggage, other people's baggage. As a coach, as a mental health first aid, as, as someone who works in this space, I am happy to help other people know, put their bags down. I'm happy to support them while they're unpacking their bags and working out what they truly wanna be carrying on how they wanna be moving forward.

Nathan Simmonds:

At no point though, will I be picking those bags up for them?...

Having a Mental Health Conversation Bothers Me

Use this 4-part model of M.I.N.D to have an effective mental health conversation. This is especially important when working from home.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Amazing. Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch. We're just clicking onto the hour. We're waiting for the people to come into the room. Welcome everybody. Hello. Hello. Good to see you. Good to see some friendly faces, some long-term friends in there, Carolina, great to see you Matt. Fantastic to see you Susan. Great to see so many regular people and new people coming into this space. Excited for today's content.

Nathan Simmonds:

Thank you for being here. It means a lot to me. This subject means a lot to me. Just gonna give it 30 seconds. While we're waiting for the last few people to arrive in the room, let's make sure we're setting you up for success. Drinks at the ready. Jason and Vicki, thank you for being here. Tracy again, Gabrielle, thank you. Let's just get these last people in the room and then we'll get into today's content. Welcome everybody. Hello Carolina. Thank you. It's great to see you here. Thanks for being here. Just gonna give it a moment. Let's make sure. First things first, phones. Crikey. Where's mine? Mine's over there. I dunno if it's on flight phone yet.

Master having a mental health conversation with this 4 part model

 

Nathan Simmonds:

As always, let's get your phones out. Let's make sure you've got them on flight mode. Let's zero out the distraction and maximize the attention on you. Let's maximize the attention that you're gonna give to yourself and your development in this process. As we go through this today and as I share these ideas, that's one flight mode, two drinks, absolutely. Three. Let's make sure you are setting up your notepad in the best possible way. Clean sheet.

Nathan Simmonds:

Again, no distractions on that piece of paper. This is about your thinking and what you want to get from today. What you want to down the load from the thinking, what new ideas come up. So at the top of that fresh page, you're gonna write Keepers, keepers, can I put my children on flight mode? If there was a button for that and either you or I invented it for working from home, we will be very rich people, Caroline.

Nathan Simmonds:

So let's make sure you've got that clean page, fresh at the top. You're gonna write keepers and keepers are the things you want to keep hold of the place where you want to put the new ideas and thoughts that are coming up that you want to, um, remind yourself of and reinvigorate when you look back through your notes later on. So the objective of today and the objective of that is to write more than three things that you want to take away from today. So Pen's, paper, app, the ready to take this information off. Last few people I think have arrived, just says, great crowd in today. Great to see you all.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's amazing. I just remembered to take it off. Share screen. Let's get into the day. So what are we covering this week? Ah, back step. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me. Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home of Sticky learning. And we are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry.

Nathan Simmonds:

I deal with these lunchtime learnings, these micro sessions is to help you upgrade that thinking, help you be the best version of you right now in this current moment when you are working from moment and also preparing you for that return to work that we have no idea is when, when it's coming due to the confusion of yesterday. But this isn't a politics discussion.

Nathan Simmonds:

Today's session is all about the I in mind. So mind is a four stage process that I have designed through my coaching techniques and coaching ideas to help leaders have more robust conversations with the people in their teams that may be experiencing mental health challenges, is to help encourage those leaders actually have the conversation.

Nathan Simmonds:

Because it doesn't really matter whether people have got qualified as coaches as mental health first aiders or practitioners. If your leaders are nervous or you are nervous about having that conversation with that individual, doesn't matter what tools you've got, you're still gonna feel, uh, a reticence to go and do that and you'll get nervous and huge sways and huge percentages of leaders currently are nervous about having that conversation because they believe they're going to say the wrong thing or they're gonna get it so wrong.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's gonna cause more damage in the majority by saying nothing actually causes the most amount of damage by making people feel like that you don't care or you are not thinking about them, just compounds the issue. You can say anything to anybody as long as it's done with absolute love and respect and humanity. So as a leader, being a leader is all about being humane.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's about being human, it's about being emotional, and it's about bringing that to the table When you're having these honest conversations with people, as long as you're doing it again, like I say, with that love and respect, you can have that conversation. You can work with them to help them find their way through because it's not what we tell them to do.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's not about giving advice, which we, we don't do as mental health first aiders. It's about asking the right questions so that person can come up with their own solutions that's gonna help solve it in the way that's right for them. Not what we believe or wish to inflict upon them. And as Jeff Birch told me or taught me, uh, last week, you know, is a change inflicted is a change resisted, and it's through our questioning and the way that we direct people or help them to direct their focus with those questions, that's gonna help them to come up with those solutions, which is why this model is important to me and to the people, um, that I work with.

Nathan Simmonds:

So, quick recap from yesterday. Question from me to people that were here yesterday or have seen the replay. What did you take away from yesterday that was useful? Fire it up in the questions box. Let me see what's actually sunk in from yesterday. Let's build on that because we're gonna do a super quick recap on yesterday and then we're gonna go into today's importance. Four Fs model. Good brain shifting.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely how someone thinking may change when it's in a crisis. Absolutely. Brain shuts down ownership and getting them to feel safe enough to talk. Absolutely. Brain is a validation machine. Questioning and signposting huge. Guys, thank you very much for taking this on board. Quick recap, mind. It is mindset . The mind is the model mindset starts with yours and theirs.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's not all about them. It's all about you as a collaboration about making things work. Number two is yes, the mechanics of the brain and how it's actually working against us and playing tricks on us. But it's doing that based on 200,000 years of evolution to keep you safe and alive so that you can pro procreate and continue the species moving forward. We just have to understand that part of our brain, which it thinks is doing us a favor, is actually holding us back from progressing or keeping us stuck in certain protective loops that we've learned in traumatic or, um, crisis like situations.

Nathan Simmonds:

The way to help shift out of that is asking questions. You want better answers, you ask better questions. Whatever question you put in your brain will create an answer or response based on what you put in the equation that I use for this is HQI equals HQO. High quality inputs equal high quality outputs. Write that down if you need to. HQI equals HQO. How do we wanna shift this? Then when we get into importance, what is important? He says,

Nathan Simmonds:

Importance is the thing that we put on certain parts of our life. The importance that we put on things makes, uh, raises that up in our priorities or our scheduling. So when we look at time management, is it urgent? Is it important? When we're looking at things that are, um, we're connected to now, we make decisions when we're doing house clearances. Okay, well what does this mean to me? What is the significance of this?

Nathan Simmonds:

What's important about this to me? So importance. And when you look at the mind model, so by the way, there's gonna be a link in in in the chat box about the, the mind coaching cards, the health, the mental health coaching cards that are designed. The I in in the mind model has a finger. And when we're talking about important importance, it's what are you focusing on that know that you are applying your importance and your significance to.

Nathan Simmonds:

This is what the importance is as we point the finger, we then decide what is in our focus. You can only focus on one thing at a time. Other elements may be blurry. And this is how your eyes work. As I'm looking at the camera rather than the image of me down there, I can see the little tiny circle and everything else is blurry. The clock behind is blurry, the light is blurry. I can only look at one thing clearly at a time.

Nathan Simmonds:

And we all do this. You can't think of multiple elements. You only ever think of one part of it at a single point in time. So the importance is of understanding where is your focus at that moment. When you are dealing with a crisis situation, a mental health challenge or episode or moment, whatever you would like to frame it as.

Nathan Simmonds:

What is the person you are working with or supporting? What are they focusing on? Open question to everyone in the room. When you are dealing with a situation like this, what is the person focusing on that is causing the si

Sticky Learning Lunches #21: Having a Mental Health Conversation Bothers Me

Use this 4-part model of M.I.N.D to have an effective mental health conversation. This is especially important when working from home.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons. Yes, I'm really excited about it. Okay. Admittedly, I've been excited previously. Every day is my favorite day. We're gonna be covering some really deep stuff, some stuff that is really personal to me, something that's really important to me. Um, and it's stuff that we, I think a lot of us here in some way, shape or form, have experiences in on, on either end of the equation. So we're just waiting for the last few people to join in. I just wanna make sure I've got full view, seeing some regulars here, which is nice.

Nathan Simmonds:

Colin, Andy. Darren, good to see you. Good. Thank you very much for being here again. Got Matt in Vicki again, good to see you. And new faces, which I'm super excited about as well. It's great to be sharing some of this content with some new people, sharing ideas, just giving it 30 seconds while we're waiting for everyone to get into the room. First things first, as always, he says with this, just reminding me to be here for sticky learning. Shut that down.

Click to watch the video

 

Nathan Simmonds:

First things, first, phones. Let's get your phones out. Let's make sure they're all on flight mode. Mine is, let's zero out the distractions. We're gonna be covering some serious content today, and I wanna make sure that you are giving yourself a hundred percent attention. Not just what I'm saying or what I'm sharing, or the questions that I'm asking, that you are giving yourself 100% of your attention right now as we go through this content. Okay? Next thing is making sure we've got drinks available. Nice cup of tea.

Nathan Simmonds:

Make sure, again, like I say, it's reducing the distraction. So you've got a drink available. Phone is off, Facebook's closed down, LinkedIn done. You haven't got WhatsApp, pinging, buzzing, beeps, nothing. Making sure. So you've got your papers ready. If you've got a notepad available, fresh piece of paper, let's make sure it's the fresh page that again, you can just, uh, devote to the content of today.

Nathan Simmonds:

And at the top of that page, you're gonna write keepers. Now, keepers are the things you wanna keep hold of. They're the things that you want to remember. The things that you want to go back to that are going to evoke a new train of thought. So after listening to today's content, when you go back and read those notes, it's gonna be the things that keeps the thinking and the learning going. That's what sticky learning is all about, making it stick. So good. I think we're all here. I think we're all here right now. Let's make sure we can see everyone there. Good. So let's get into the content today. Welcome to today's lunchtime learning.

Nathan Simmonds:

My name is Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, making Business Matter, the Holistic Learning. And we are the leadership and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. These lunchtime learnings, these micro elements of content about helping you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now, where you are, whether you are working from home or in the office, and also preparing you for the return to work as well. So let's get into this. What are we covering for this week? We are covering mind. We are gonna be talking about mental health. We are gonna be

Nathan Simmonds:

Helping you create the right questions and the right focuses to develop the conversations that you need to be having with your teams. Show of yeses and nos. Who here has experience of mental health? Um, I'm not sure challenges is the right word, but you know, from, from a personal point of view, who here has some, you know, concerns, challenges, questions about their own mental health and, and their own mental wellbeing? I'm one who here has got people in their teams that have some mental health, uh, conversations that need to be had. I'm mindful my language, it means different things to different people.

Nathan Simmonds:

Tough a few years back, yet tried to hide from it. Friends, certainly employers. Yeah, I do. Absolutely. So the idea of this is, let me ask a different question. How many people here have got people in your teams that are in your direct responsibility, in your gift that you know that they have some, um, they, they, they need some support around their mental health and their mental wellbeing. But you don't know what to say. Who here is having this challenge? I do. Good. I do. Yeah.

Nathan Simmonds:

If you are gonna take one thing away from today's training, from what, the next 15 minutes, what's the one thing that you would like to take away from today that is gonna help you to have that conversation? Yes, but learning all the time. Our company charity is a mental Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So more companies are getting involved in this. More companies are getting involved with mental health, charity, uh, charities and organizations. First response is to be approachable. Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

What else do you want? What else this is, and this is a question for everyone. What do you want to get from the next 15 minutes in order to support the conversations about mental health with your team? How to open it up. Good. To try and get my team member to be open with me when they need support tools to help just one person how to, how to spot it. Absolutely. Good. Let's dive into this. I've got three key elements here that I wanna share with you and I've got some other stuff that I want to kind of just go through with you. Everybody has mental health.

Nathan Simmonds:

It doesn't matter who you are or where you think you are on whatever continuum, spectrum or or framework. Everybody has mental health and a level of mental wellbeing and more businesses are talking about, which is phenomenal. The challenge is though, that just because the business is talking about it doesn't mean that your leaders are talking about it. Does it mean that your leaders have the conversational skills to open up the conversation to actually spot it?

Nathan Simmonds:

And when they do, to actually face into it, to help the individual do what they need to do, not for themselves, but to help that person that's in their gift, in their charge go and get the support they need to take the action for themselves. So as leaders now, the, the biggest, the biggest call out that I have as a previous leader, as someone that's experienced mental health from both sides is that I would probably say 95 to 98% as an educated guess of leaders simply don't know how to start the conversation.

Nathan Simmonds:

And because they're not sure they have this level of uncertainty, it makes them nervous. It makes them reticent to actually engage in it and step over that point and get into it to find out what's going on because they're worried that they'll make it worse. And in truth, the one thing that will make it worse is not actually saying anything. You can say anything to anybody as long as you do it with absolute love and respect.

Nathan Simmonds:

If you are dealing with someone that is in crisis, that has got challenges, doesn't know what the next step is for themselves, by ignoring it, you're actually gonna compound it. So we have to learn as leaders just to step into that and, you know, talk to people about this. Explain to them, you know what, I'm, I'm not used to this conversation. I feel nervous about having this conversation because this is very new to me.

Nathan Simmonds:

And at the same time, I want to ask you a question that's gonna help you do what you need to do that's gonna help improve the situa or help you to improve the thinking about the situation, whatever it might be. But I would rather have someone show me that they care, even if it was clunky or um, or nervous, at least I know they care about me 'cause they bothered to have the conversation. Yet too often we're concerned from a HR perspective, from a leadership point of view or even a tribunal point of view.

Nathan Simmonds:

Maybe I said the wrong thing. And as I said, now you can say anything you want to someone, as long as it's done absolute love and respect. Being rude is just being rude. Being inhumane is just being inhumane. And you cannot dress any of that up. So it's about, first of all, making sure that we are getting clear on our own head about how we have these conversations. So this week is gonna be all about mind. The first part on mind

Nathan Simmonds:

Is mindset. It's about helping people get clear, okay, where are they in the process? Now, the model that I've designed, the, uh, the framework, this first part is just helping people get back into their mind. It's about helping them to, um, create, um, to Dees deescalate and create enough space in order to be able to have the rest of the conversation. When people are in crisis, their brains are, are working very slightly differently. It's not incorrectly. They're doing what they believe, what the brain believes is the right process in order to keep themselves safe.

Nathan Simmonds:

And because of a situation that's happened, that process is then repeated time and time again. Whenever those indicators build up to that, we'll cover that in a minute. So the first part of this around mindset is signposting. In this model, in this framework, it's just the, the mindset part is about creating the space to help someone deescalate. Just bring the emotions back, create a center so that they can then start thinking a little bit more clearly and help 'em to, uh, move themselves forward. Whether it's in, uh, a moment of anxiety or depression or potentially the buildup to A-P-T-S-D flashback.

...

Sticky Learning Lunches #20: Part 4 of The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan by Geoff Burch - Part #4. What would you do to improve your performance? Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Really glad to see you again. We're just waiting for the last few people to come into the room. We've hit one o'clock, so we're gonna give it 30 seconds. Just while we're starting to do this, let's make sure we're setting ourselves up for success. I'm just making sure I can see everyone as they're arriving. First things first, making sure you've got a drink, herbal, tea, water, whatever it is. So you are, you, you can maximize the attention you're giving to this session. Second thing is, as always, mobile phones.

Nathan Simmonds:

This is a reminder for me as, as much for you making sure that they're on flight mode. So you give, you are giving yourself a hundred percent attention to get the best out of this session. What else do we need to be thinking about? Clean sheet of paper, notebooks at the ready pen, lid off, ready to go on that paper. Uh, and nice fresh sheet with keepers written at the top to get those things down. You wanna remember? 'cause keepers are the things, the the memory tests, um, the items of memory that you wanna bring yourself back to when you read the notes.

Improve working from home with The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

 

Nathan Simmonds:

And it brings up those new thoughts, those new ideas from what you are learning today. Here we go. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning lunchtime. Myself, Nathan Simmons, senior coach and trainer for MBM, making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning, and also the Delectable, Jeff Birch. This is Team GB and it's finest right now to today we're covering part four of the coming four part sales strategy and plan. And this is about making it better.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's the wrapup date. It's about taking the stuff that we learned from Jeff on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, bringing it all together. And from what I've talked about, making those 1% improvements, making those one degree shifts so you can deliver even better in the next conversation based on what you learned from this conversation. Over to you, Jeff. The stage is yours. My good man.

Jeff:

Oh, hello. Yes, I drifted off then. I was in another place entirely. I was, I was drifting. Anyway, let's just have a little review at, um, I, it's the, the cunning four stage plan that we've not stuck to one iota for the entire week. That was your fault. Yeah, it was entirely my fault. I I, I do tend to drift. I do tend to drift. Now, did, did I achieve my objective? That was the first thing.

Jeff:

And that, that is because most people don't have any idea why they're going to see people. I mean, again, I've seen people do telephone canvassing and fuck, which is terrifying. I hate it. Absolutely terrifying. But if you are gonna do it, why are you doing it? What is it you're trying to get? Are you actually trying to achieve a sale over the phone, which I would say is virtually impossible?

Jeff:

Or are you trying to set up appointments? What, what, what is it? What is it your objective? And, and of, again, in, in my book, resistance is useless. The, the, the key to the whole book with this idea that, of me meeting people, like, like the, at the lovely attendees that we've got today. And, and, and again, a lot of people have got small businesses, you know, and, and, and I, I would go round the room.

Jeff:

I would go round the room and say, what are you planning to do? Oh, I'm gonna be a consultant. And I think, no doomed. What are you gonna do? Oh, consultant doomed. You know, what are you gonna do? I'm going to open a tea shop in the Cotswolds. And I go, ah, let me see. Oh, the voices. I can read your mind. You are gonna call it the Mad Hatter.

Jeff:

Oh my God, how did you know? And I think, yeah, because I had a good idea. Doomed. Yeah. And then you get to this one person with a really, really great idea. Yeah, there's this, there was this woman and she was a cake cake sculptor. I I, they weren't just, they were fantastic. She could build a footballer with a footballer at his feet. Fantastic, fantastic.

Jeff:

And I thought, well, I said, success, a hundred percent guaranteed success. And then about three months later, I saw her work in Sainsbury's at the checkout. And I said, well, what, what happened? Oh, nobody bought them. Nobody bought, bought all those molds and stuff like you told me. And I spent loads of money and nobody bought them. And I I just don't understand you not understand that. Just don't understand it.

Jeff:

And then I realized what she was telling me was that nobody had climbed over the abandoned car in her front garden, had fought off her son's Rottweiler to get into her kitchen and say, yeah, you don't make cakes, do you? I mean that, the fact was that she hadn't got a clear idea of what her proposition was and who she would be making it to. And she had this fabulous product.

Jeff:

And from that I found that loads and loads of people in sales are demoralized by because they can't sell whatever it is. They're flogging. I mean, I'm sure a lot of the people listening to us today are saying, well, life would just be so much easier if people would just pay me to do what I'm brilliant at. I'm quite certain the people listening to this are brilliant at what they do. But how do you get people to buy it?

Jeff:

And I had this big argument with a telesales girl who said, the trouble is people don't want insurance. They don't want double glazing. They don't want any of the things I sell. And I said, alright, let's find the thing they do want. Let's find a product that people really want. And I chose to, to actually pick a tank, a battle tank, a huge great big tank with a massive gun on the front. People love them.

Jeff:

Who would we sell it to? Well, list of prospects would be what? Painters and Nana, blood Thirsty dictators, you know, general Galtieri Mussy. And we ended up with, with Genis Kane, right? So gen, I mean, I'm, he's a 13th century warlord. What he wouldn't do with a tank. And people listening to this now have got the, the equivalent of that their product will solve their customer's problems. Their product will make their technology. Everybody listening to this today, whatever it is they're selling, is gonna bring huge benefit to their customers.

Jeff:

So we are hired this imaginary phone call to Genghis, you know, you have to call him on the mobile 'cause he is back in the 13th century. And he is sitting, he's sitting in his tent watching the rain dripping on his discarded shield. He's depressed 'cause he is just had a kicking off the Visigoths. And you ring him card what you want. Now what do you say? Go on then, Nathan, what you say to him?

Nathan Simmonds:

Um, hello Mr.

Jeff:

What you want?

Nathan Simmonds:

Um, I've got a proposition for you. I've got an item that might help you take over more of the country.

Jeff:

Kinda right? You say kinda right? Because it doesn't, the number of times in, in a seminar I've said to people and they go, do you want a tank? And they like, well, first of all, he is never heard of a tank. But here's the key to it. Before we spend our entire 20 minutes trying to sell this tank to Genghis car, and that's another whole seminar, the important thing I say to my audience, what am I selling? What am I selling, Nathan?

Nathan Simmonds:

Uh, I wanna say a tank, but I know it's the wrong answer.

Jeff:

And also I use, I go into this big diatribe, rivers of blood, Mac, Mr. Kahan. We are talking rivers of blood, bloody slaughter on a scale even you couldn't imagine, you know, . But you know, and, and, and we go out, we sell him what it can do. We sell what the tank it, we sell the benefits of the tank. The fact that it give him world domination. That's what he wants, right? So then I say, what am I selling him?

Jeff:

And they go, oh, you are selling him world domination, bloody slaughter, mountains of skulls, rivers of blood. And I go, no. And they go, well, you just told us that Jeff. And I said, no, you cannot sell a complicated piece of technology on the telephone. My single objective for this call is to get an appointment face-to-face with Genisis.

Nathan Simmonds:

Sell the conversation. Mr.

Jeff:

Kahan. Yeah, Mr. Kahan. I wanna, I, yeah, yeah, yeah. Send me the details. I've got a, I'm busy, I've got a water fight. I understand that Mr. Kaan. But you just see this, just gimme two minutes. You will be No, no, no. You are not another bloody spear salesman, are you? No. Really? You'd love it? No. Send me the details. No, honestly, you've gotta No, send me the details. Okay, Mr. Ka, where are you? I'm an outer Mongolia, outer mon, bloody out. That's on my way home. Look, I've got a trans, I've got a tank on a transporter I could whizz by on my way home.

Jeff:

And you can have a look. That's what I want. That's my sale today. That's my how to eat an elephant. One bite at a time. My sale today is not to sell a tank to Mr. Khan. We often make this mistake of going into our wholesale, giving our brochures, doing whatever it is. The first step is to get somewhere quiet, get a nice, get Mr. Khan nice and comfortable. And then part two, three, and four is we then flog him the tank. But not until he is actually seen what it can do.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely. But I, I'm conscious, well in sales, they say now you need almost eight points of contact to build the relationship before you can close the deal. And it's gonna get bigger with the, the way the internet's working. I'm just checking the clock load, Jeff. 'cause I'm concerned 'cause I want to make sure that we get to share the story about your mum growing marijuana before we get to the end of the session.

Jeff:

Alright, we about right. So anyway,...

Sticky Learning Lunches

#19: Part 3 of The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan by Geoff Burch - Part #3. Did I achieve my chosen goal for this visit? Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon, day three of this four stage cunning sales plan with myself and the fantabulous, Jeff Birch. This is the sales training duo of the century with Team gb, uh, illustrious leader in this session, Jeff Birch. Looking forward to another exciting day of interesting stories, uh, anecdotes and different ways of looking things that are gonna help you change your perspective to get a better result. So, welcome to today's session.

Nathan Simmonds:

Couple more people still coming into the room. My name is Nathan Simmons, senior coach and and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. And the idea of these lunchtime learnings is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now at home and preparing you for the return to work, get you set up for success. As the last people turn up, make sure you've got a drink available.

Improve working from home with The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Make sure you've got water, tea, coffee, whatever, and make sure, actually, that reminds me. Good reminder for myself, mobile phones. Let's make sure they're on flight mode with zero distractions. Zero out the distraction completely. So you can give yourself a hundred percent to this training because the only investment that is guaranteed is the investment that you make into yourself and your thinking to improve your outcomes and accomplishments. What are we gonna be covering today? What else do we need to cover?

Nathan Simmonds:

Ah, thanks for reminding me, Jeff, you didn't even realize you did it. If you have not registered for tomorrow's session already, now is the time to grab the link out of the chat box. They're gonna have that there in a second for you so that you can register for tomorrow's session if you haven't already done so. Now is the time to get that window open so you can get yourself ready. That will appear in the chat box in just a minute. Welcome to the stage, Jeff Birch rip roaring keynote speaker, keynote six, bestseller time selling bestselling author, BBC presenter, and just a phenomenal person to walk, walk, walk, and work alongside us. So thank you very much, Jeff. Jeff. Well,

Jeff:

Very nice.

Nathan Simmonds:

Where are we going?

Jeff:

Well, where do we go? I mean, we're, we're, if we're still working on the vague skeleton, the vague skeletal remains of our four stage plan. The third, the third stage in it, it was we, we've, we've set up, we did, I achieve my objective was the first. Now and again, to remind anybody watching this, there's not much point in asking yourself that question if you didn't have an objective. Um, the second is, what have I learned that that's the point? What have I learned that will help me with this particular call? So we're asking great questions of the customer and so on and so forth, uh, that today's is what have I learned that I can make use of, uh, elsewhere?

Jeff:

So in other words, uh, the sort of vague skeleton that we're working on today is the fact that when we talk to a customer or potential customer, um, they know their own industry. So I don't know, you'd say something like, oh, I noticed there's a new factory being built on the town next in the tank. And I drove through cro and that's a great big place going up. What's that? Oh, well, that's a, that's a big paper mill. It's like, oh, you remember the weird kid who worked here with the sticky out ears?

Jeff:

Well, he's the, he is the new managing director there. Oh, really? Is that, what's his name? Brian. Brian, that's right. Brian. Brian said. So, you know, two days later, Brian, whatever his name is, gets a a nice congratulations on his new position and you've got an appointment with somebody else in your industry. So, so it's, it's very useful to gather information. Now, we, um, one of the things that we haven't covered in these scintillating broadcasts that we do, he said that with his tongue firmly pressed in his cheek, is we haven't talked about the role of the boss. Now, a lot of people visiting us are nominally a boss.

Jeff:

Maybe they're a sort of small business, but they would like to employ somebody who goes out and gets business for them. Or maybe they're a sales manager, or maybe they're a managing director or whatever they do. And we talked about a lot when we started this about it's about moving people, moving people from one place to another. Now, a very famous and scintillating and exciting sales expert who's me, wrote a book called The Way of the Dog.

Jeff:

Now The Way of the Dog with the maddest book I've ever written. I don't know if I've got a copy anywhere. Um, but anyway, it was about this guy, uh, about this guy that's such a rubbish salesman that he's trying to sell double glazing, and he blames the customers. It's all the customer's fault that they won't buy this stuff. And he is rubbish.

Jeff:

And he tries to sell double glazing to a strange little old lady who lives in a gingerbread house in the woods, fatal mistake. Um, he noticed some children are eating the roof, um, and points this out to the old lady, not realizing who she is. He says, there's some kids eating your roof. And she said, I blame the parents. You know. Anyway, she's so exasperated with his crap selling that she turns him into a dog, right?

Jeff:

So he goes to work as a sheep dog, and this is where he learns how to handle customers. And, and this objective thing, he works with a great sales manager who happens to be a brilliant sheet dog called She, who lets him loose on the sheep to see how he does. And the first thing he does is like, oh, crap salesman. He rushes at the sheep barking.

Jeff:

You know, Hey, you know, like these people that dive out from a, amongst the yer plants in car showrooms, you know, the first and what do the sheep do? They run off. You know, so you, you watch a real sheep dog. And, and, and the shepherd who, who's going War boy, war boy whoop boy. And the dog goes shut up a minute, right? And he sits on this hillside and sees the situation. He sees where the sheep are, he sees the obstacles, the prickly hedge, the stream, the wood, and then the pen is where they've got to be.

Jeff:

Now, anybody who's listening to this, who would like to make their business work, what I love is, 'cause I'm a miserable git, is I wanna set aside anything about personality, anything about, uh, luck, um, scintillating, whatever it is. You know what? I want to give a simple roadmap to making success inevitable. Now, the thing that fascinates me about a sheep dog is he doesn't look at those sheep in that field, go, oh my God. Come back to the shepherd and say, can I have some easier sheep ?

Jeff:

You know, the sheep are where the sheep are. The customer is where the customer is. And if you're starting a new business, the customer is doing business with somebody else today. You know, unless you've got a totally new product like levitating boots or something on the whole, you will be going in making an offer of something they've already got or using and are using from somebody else. You can't say, well, it's useless.

Jeff:

They're already buying levitated boots. They've all got no, you know, the sheep are where the sheep are. Where do you want them to be? I want them to be in the pen. So what are the obstacles? Well, the obstacles are, they don't like our price. The obstacle is the prickly hedge of doing business. We're quite happy with the people we use at the moment. Thank you. That is, that is a stream.

Jeff:

We've got to get these sheik through. If we rush it and bark in, all they're gonna do is run off. So we have to steer them gently. And you know, here's the thing with the sheep dog. You can watch, uh, one man and his dog, and the winner is the dog that does it the quickest with the least number of sheep running off. But they all succeed in the end. None of those sheep dog go, sod this. I couldn't get the sheep anywhere near the bloody pen.

Jeff:

I'm going home. You know, it's an inevitable outcome because dogs are quite, this is gonna annoy a lot of people. Dogs are a little bit thick. Their, their mentality is simple. They're either happy or they're waiting to happy. They're waiting to be happy. They have no fear of death. They have no fear of the future. They have no fear of anything else.

Jeff:

They live their life as it goes. And if they're given this simple task of moving sheep from one place to another, they don't question it. They don't complain at the height or size of the obstacles. They just work at it until the job's done. But we as humans give up, 'cause we've got the intelligence to give up. Somebody said to me once, how come really, really, really rich people get to be really, really rich? Can I do it? And I always say, you really want to have 70% of your brain removed, really? Because some of these, a shark is a prime example.

Jeff:

A shark. If you want to take on a shark on, uh, macrame or political discourse or the psychology of, you know, the psychology of groups of people, the shark will lose every single time. The shark hasn't got a hope. You'll beat it, fall in the sea and try and take one at swimming, swimming fast than eating that. You are not gonna beat one doing that. 'cause that's all it ever does.

Jeff:

And well, some rich people wake up in the morning and maybe they got rich selling pizzas. They wake up, the alarm goes and they go make pizzas, sell pizzas. And you say, Hey, do you want to, do you wanna go and listen to this wonderful concert? No, I'm making pizzas. You know, their, their focus is a hundred percent miserable life. Don't bother getting rich,...

Sticky Learning Lunches #18: Part 2 of The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan by Geoff Burch - Part #2. What am I learning about this person, this Company, and this situation? Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Good afternoon. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with myself, Nathan Simmons, one behalf of the Comedy Duo from this week of Team GB with Jeff Birch. Um, are we allowed to call it Team GB or is there we gonna be breaching copyright on that one? I'm not sure. Um, okay. We'll work that one out as we go along. Just gonna give it 30 seconds while the last people are joining the room. Make sure everyone's set up for success. Drinks available. Good to see you, Gina. Got Tim in as well. Some new faces, some original faces, and previous faces. Good.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's make sure, so we've got drinks available. Next thing is mobile phones. Let's make sure all our mobile phones are switched onto airplane mode. Zero out the distractions, a hundred percent focus on you, your time, your investment to this and, and some of the stuff that we're gonna be covering today on the four parts, the coming four stage sales plan that we're working through. What else? Notepads. Making sure you're setting up your note taking as well for maximum success.

Improve working from home with The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's maximize that fresh paper piece of paper at the top of that page. You need to be writing keepers for us at MBM making Business matter keepers are the ideas that you want to write down, that you want to keep hold of so that when you read back through your notes, it reinvigorates that thinking the imagination and starts to initiate a new train of thought that's gonna help you come up with something new and keep the learning embedded and, and sticking, as we like to say at MBM.

Nathan Simmonds:

Quick introductions as people start arriving. My name is Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. And we are the providers of leadership and soft skills for grocery manufacturing industry today and this week I have the pleasure of working with Mr. Jeff Birch. I'm not sure where he is. I'm gonna point that way 'cause that's the direction on my screen. Got the pleasure of working with Jeff this week. We are dueting on the, the four, the coming four stage sales plan.

Nathan Simmonds:

Jeff comes with a huge amount of experience. Um, he has had multiple businesses. He has authored six bestselling books. He is a B2C presenter and a rip roaring keynote speaker as well. To, to boot, just to add to that plethora of, of, of awesomeness. Today we're covering the second part of the cunning four stage, um, sales plan. And it's all about what you learn. Jeff, tell us more. What is this? What is this concept of the stage two about what you learn? Tell us.

Jeff:

Well, let's just have a quick review at hello everybody, by the way, and let's have a little review at, at the cunning four stage plan. Um, and, and famously, um, it it's, it, it is a thing that was given to me by a hard bitten old sales manager. And it, and, and the four steps is one, did I achieve my objective? Well, the fact is most people don't even have an objective. But the second one is quite interesting because we all think we're going to go and see customers to flog them something.

Nathan Simmonds:

But the second question is a bit of a strange one is what have I learned that I can make use of in future calls at this account? What have I learned? Well, first, the first thing is you don't learn anything unless you ask a few questions. Um, and again, the the big, the big who hard at most say salespeople do is they pile in there, they pile in there and start demonstrating or talking about what it is they want to sell or what they wanna do.

Jeff:

And they don't ask questions. So the key to all selling is asking questions. The famous, uh, you know, the famous old hory chestnut is God. God made us all great salespeople by giving us two ears and one mouth. And this is to remind us that we should listen twice as much. The truth is, if we really had enough ears to tell us to remind us, it would look like one of those old fashioned swimming at, you'd have about 40 ears stuck all over your head. 'cause that's the real ratio. It isn't two toe and it's about 40 to one. You know, you need to ask questions. And one of the things that people do is that they kind of, why do you, come on, come on, Nathan. Why do people ask questions? And, and, and the answer is to, to find things out, to find their information.

Jeff:

But, but it does three things, three really vital things. And, and what's important is that a lot of people who visit this fabulous, fabulous, free online seminar that they would pay, oh, at least a five or for anywhere else, um, is that some of the people visiting this are not professional salespeople and maybe trying to launch their own business, maybe try to improve their business, maybe they're trying to get a job. Or maybe it is one of the things is it's quite good to be important.

Jeff:

The better, higher our status, the more chance we have to success people with high status. Ask more questions, ask more questions than people with low status. So like the policeman that pulled me over on my motorbike the other day, his line was instantly a question. So squadron leader, you failed to achieve takeoff, I think is his cheery line.

Jeff:

But he, he is, he is actually, where do you think you are going? Do you know how fast you are going? This guy is in a situation that, in this situation, I'm the naughty boy and he's the guy asking the questions. So when we ask questions of our client, it makes us, even if it's not true, seem intelligent. So that's a very important thing. So the first thing, of course, it gets us information, it gets us facts about the customer, gets us to find out, oh, here's a tip, here's a real tip before we move on.

Jeff:

Because I've got a brain, like a firework display. When you want to ask questions about your customer, people listening to this might think, well, it's intrusive. You know, how tall are you? What colored underpants are you wearing? What sort of, you know, it, it, it's, it's, it's um, it's gestapo questioning, you know?

Jeff:

And it might put our customers off. So if you want to find out facts about your customer and you don't want to piss them off, talk about the past. People are unafraid of talking about the past. So if I was flogging holidays, I wouldn't say, what sort of holiday do you want? Do you think our holidays are the best? Where do, where are you going? How much money do you wanna spend? I'd say, oh, hello holiday. Where did you go last year? Oh, Majorca, we don't wanna leap in and offer Majorca.

Jeff:

We wanna say, oh, really? And did you enjoy it? Nah, not really. It was too hot for me. So what you say, you like something a bit cooler? Yes. What did you like about I like the all inclusive. So you want all inclusive, but you don't want the hot weather. He, his talking about the past is leading me into the future. So if you want to make your questioning slightly less exciting, talk and say, oh, well what have you been doing to solve this problem up until now? And how did that work out for you by then? Sorry,

Nathan Simmonds:

I would know because what you're talking about to me is, is week before we were did the grow coaching model, and this is the section where you're dealing with the reality. So you wanna find out what that person's done up until this moment, what problems have they experienced? What have they, um, done to solve it? So you're not offering the same solution as a sales person that they've already put in place. Because if you're doing that, it's gonna automatically say no and the conversation closes down. So you are, as you were saying yesterday, looking for the next signal that's gonna lead you in the direction to actually build that relationship.

Jeff:

Yeah. So the questioning, the questioning technique is something perhaps we can get on. So, so yeah, the first thing it gives you Asia, the second thing, it, it, it gives you status. People of status, judges ask questions, lawyers ask questions. You know, people charged with murder are answer questions. You know, this is the thing, you know, an inferior salesman gets battered with questions, gets battered with questions by a aggressive buyer. What makes you think I want to use these things?

Jeff:

Who have you sold these things before? Do they work? You know, and we need to get back into control and say, can I just stop you there? Can I ask you something? Right? And here's the next step control. We talked yesterday about being ambushed by our customers who clutter about and take control of us. Where, you know, it's, it's an a key in, uh, a sale is an intentional conversation.

Jeff:

It's a conversation that you should be in control of, not your customer. So a very, a very good thing to, I mean, again, when I was a kid, I was the most appalling child at school. And you'd get this sunny afternoon, you were hot and you were tired, and I'd be looking out the window at the netball team and the ghastly old troll teaching, whatever it was, geography would be droning on. And so the main crop of the pampers is Man York and cattle and beef products. And we were snoring. And then, and you all know this from school, he'd suddenly turn around and say, what's the, what's the major crop of the Pampers Birch?

Jeff:

And you go, wow. You know, the old gits asking questions, the minute somebody asks a question, you get their attention straight away. So when you watch your client drifting off as you explain the fabulous, the fabulous, um, processor in this wonderful PC you are trying to flog,...

Sticky Learning Lunches #17: Part 1 of The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan by Geoff Burch - Part #1. Did I achieve my chosen goal for this visit? Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Monday. This is Sticky Learning Lunches. Myself, Nathan Simmons, and I'm also Dueting today with Jeff Birch as well. Gonna bring him on in just a second. Now, you're pretty sure you can see him in the, on the side there. Welcome everybody to Monday. I'm excited for today because this is the first time I've done a duet in this space. And in that in itself is, is, is a, is a revelation and something new to me. We're just waiting for the last couple of people to turn up and come into the room.

Nathan Simmonds:

Just as we're doing that, setting everybody up for success today. Drinks available, making sure that we've got our drinks available, water, herbal tea, whatever, so that we can fully focus on what we're doing here today. Mm, definitely needed. Number two, mobile phones. Let's make sure we're zeroing out the distractions. A hundred percent attention on Jeff today, what he's gonna be sharing.

Improve working from home with The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan

 

Nathan Simmonds:

The content, mindset, ideas, very different approaches. So let's make sure we've got our phones out and everyone on flight mode gonna make sure mine is done. And the third thing, keepers, we at Sticky, sticky learning at MBM, we talk about keepers. It's the things that you need to write down to make sure that you are remembering the key points, the ideas, the new realizations that you're documenting them down, and making sure that when you go back to read them again.

Nathan Simmonds:

That they're, they're sparking new ideas, new curiosities, reminding you to come back to this content time and time again, to develop the thinking, to help you be the best version of yourself in this time and moving forward. Last couple of people arriving. Brilliant. So we're gonna crack on introducing today, Jeff Birch. We've already had an interview. Um, we did some work for the blog and we posted this on YouTube.

Nathan Simmonds:

Categorically what it says about him. He is a rip roaring keynote presenter. He is six bestselling books. He is a BBC presenter. I am honored to be sharing a small amount of time with this man with you on today's subject, which is all about sales. And I alluded to this last week that every day is a sales day. And this is why we've got Jeff here. 'cause we've led him from coaching skills, interpersonal development that then leads you into job interviews, pitching projects, sharing ideas.

Nathan Simmonds:

Every day is a sales day. Um, we're hoping with the content of the next four days from Jeff, that we're gonna get this skillset embedded, this way of thinking to help you develop, deliver and overachieve. So welcome to today's training final people in welcome to MBM, making Business Matter, the holistic learning. My name Nathan Simmons, also with my friend Jeff Birch. These sessions are all about helping you be that best version. Let's get on with today. So Jeff, bringing Jeff back in. Jeff, welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches.

Jeff:

Hello. Hello. How are you?

Nathan Simmonds:

I'm marvelous. How are you?

Jeff:

I'm nuts. I've been driven nuts by the shutdown, so I'm I'm un I'm doing unspeakable things. good.

Nathan Simmonds:

Like doing these virtual classrooms with me.

Jeff:

Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. But yeah. And other things,

Nathan Simmonds:

00:03:15 . Well, look, I'm in charge of the whiteboard today, so we're gonna be covering three key points, myself and Jeff with you there. Um, listening in, um, today predominantly we're gonna be talking about what is sales, the sales mindset. We, and also be talking about part one of this coming for stage sales plan. And I'm conscious of time because these sessions are very short. Their micro learnings are quite intense. And Jeff likes to speak

Nathan Simmonds:

For a lot. He gets paid for this, which is what you know, he is good at it. Jeff, look for you for, you know, the wonderful people that arrived. Stuart, thanks for very much coming again, Tim, amazing seeing some new faces in exist and, and regulars as well to you. Jeff, what is sales?

Jeff:

Well, everybody, sales is applied to everybody. Sales certainly shouldn't be the province of salespeople. What, actually, let me tell you something. It's not about selling, it's about moving people. Okay? It's about moving people from one place to another in their mentality. We're in a world now where we can't just tell people to do things. I mean, at one time doctors had this power that people respected them. So they would say, listen, old chap, give up smoking, or you'll be dead. It was very simple. But now, if you are a doctor, you know where your patient is smoking, you know, where you want them to be is not smoking.

Jeff:

And that's a sale. It's moving that mindset from wanting to smoke, to wanting to be alive. You know? So we are all in this business. Maybe we'd like a job. So we're moving the person we meet from. I don't like the look at this bloke. He looks shifty to this is exactly the employee we need for this business. And that is a sales process. The world over. You know, whether it's we're trying to persuade our kids to stop picking their noses, or whether we're trying to get an employer to give us a job. We need to move people.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yes. And I'm just thinking it, you know, stopping your children from picking their nose or going for a job. It's the same tactics that we have to employ. We have to remove the objections from the individual so we can get where we need to be. But they need to get where they need to be, which is how with us,

Jeff:

You are showing signs of old festy,

Nathan Simmonds:

Good .

Jeff:

Old festy, sales habits, objections. Now, I do not like objections because I like the people I persuade. They're my chums. I persuade my wife, I persuade my kids, I persuade the people I work with. Objections is combative and aggressive. I much rather think of them as concerns. So my wife says, where would you like to go for holiday? And I say, me Yorker. And she says, I don't want to go to Major Yorker. Why? Because you'll spend the whole time in that boat and I won't see you. So I go, okay, now she isn't, that's not an objection to me, Yorker. It's a concern. She's concerned that I, it she won't get the holiday that she wanted.

Jeff:

So I was, I will come to some sort, oh, I'll tell you what, why don't I go for a sale before breakfast and then spend the rest of the day with you. That's a solution. It's not dealing with the objection. It's not slick. It's not dishonest. It, it, it is me uncovering my customer's concerns or my, and and it's not dealing with them. It's, it's putting them at rest. It's a lovely, kind, gentle way of dealing with it rather than having the aggressive objection. You know, we, we, we know our customer is not our enemy. They're our chu.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely. And you know what? Every day is a sales day and every day is a school day as well. So thank you Jeff. It's appreciated. ,

Nathan Simmonds:

Just to bring the, the, the, the, the audience for the, want a better words into this. You know, what concerns are you helping or, or what concerns do you need to be thinking about in your current projects, in your current endeavors? What concerns have you got coming up that you would like to overcome work with and incorporate into your dialogues?

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's see those in the question box, just so we can get a flavor of what's going on for people and start coming up with some ideas to help people incorporate this thinking into helping them move forward. Have you got a job in, hold on two seconds. Have you got any job interviews, projects or, or sales you're doing for the audience that you've got concerns coming up?

Jeff:

Another important thing, especially like job interviews or anything else, is if, if you think about them as objections, they are often difficult to uncover. So they, they, they might say, I'm not sure we can trust this bloke, but they wouldn't say that in the job interview. They say, well thanks jolly. Well, very nice, very interesting talking to you and we'll let you know in a few days. Well, I need to find out, I've gotta start asking some pretty careful questions to find out, you know, just because I, just because I've been nicking their ornaments and they've spotted it on their, their security cameras.

Jeff:

Is this what's putting me off the job? You know, whatever it is I need to find out. And again, you know, too expensive. You know, too expensive. I mean, we, we, we love we love your product. It's too expensive that we need to ask some very gentle questions about what do they mean by too expensive? Do they mean too expensive? We're dearer than everyone else. Do they mean too expensive as they just haven't got the money to pay it Too expensive?

Jeff:

Under the current proposition, I put, it seems unfair that I've asked the price, you know, I need to under, I need to take part too expensive because if I say no, we'll do it cheaper. That just means that hasn't dealt with their concern. It's just me panicking and knocking money off, which is always disastrous.

Nathan Simmonds:

And like you say, you know, when you're going with this idea of it being combative, you're already creating a level of resistance, which is gonna kind of, um, um, demean the conversation that you are about to have. So valuable lesson in this for everyone. Objections change into concerns, ask better questions to find out where the concern is coming from.

Jeff:

And also they can be signals. We don't because particularly me, I talk and never listen to anybody. It's, it's my biggest failing 'cause I love listening to me ....

Sticky Learning Lunches

#16: Create Your Own Personal Development Plan

Understand the 5 simple steps to create your personal development plan in Part 5 of this PDP series.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Brilliant. It is Friday. We are just waiting for people arriving. Welcome everybody. It's good to see. A couple of new faces. No, we've got some regulars in there, which is nice. Kat, good to see you. Thank you. Colin. Darren, thank you. Gerd, great to see you again. Really appreciate you, mark. Matt, Tim, brilliant. Thank you for arriving early.

Nathan Simmonds:

We are gonna gonna give it 30 seconds as usual. Just wait for those last few people to jump in so we maximize the, maximize the share that's going on, hoping everyone's had a great week. Hope everyone's having a great day today. And is, is getting wound up for the weekend in a good way. Last few people coming in.

Improve working from home with the reflection tools

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Andy's in good. Making sure everyone is set up for success. As always, drink ready, whatever you've got. Whatever your drink of choice is for a Friday afternoon. Maybe you finished early and you're already on the gin and tonics, making sure you've got your page set up. Fresh page for part five of the PDP process, planning and progression week. And then we're gonna get into this. So you've got your drink, your pages set up, mobile phones, everyone get your phones out. Let's get you on flight mode.

Nathan Simmonds:

Whatever it is, unless you've got a baby on the way or you need your mobile phone, let's get it switched off. A hundred percent attention, a hundred percent intention, attention to yourself and the investment that you are making to yourself in this 30 minutes of learning with me. Couple more coming in. Gareth. Hello Gina. Hello. Great to see you here. Just making sure I can see everyone on the list.

Nathan Simmonds:

Before we get into this, on a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being hugely, how useful has this week been for you? Keen to get some feedback on here just to know about the content, how it's helping, what it's doing for you, and also it helps us to shape the content that we're gonna be delivering to you in the future. So next week. Who, another question for you all. Who here believes they're not a salesperson? Who here believes they're not a saleswoman salesman? Whatever, yes or no? Me. Who else thinks they're not a salesman?

Nathan Simmonds:

I am not me. Okay, good. Who else? Which is a common thing that people, I hear from people. I say, I'm not a salesman. I can't do sales. Here's the best thing about it. Every day is a sales day. Whether you think it is a trick question, correct. Whether it's you are delivering, uh, or wanting to get someone to buy into a new idea for a project you wanna deliver for a change in process or in HR or um, in your business, in the technical department.

Nathan Simmonds:

Whenever you want to get someone to buy into that idea, you are selling something. The moment you ask yourself, oh, you know, do I want to tea your coffee? You're selling yourself something. Sometimes you even have to sell, getting outside of your, um, getting out of bed in the morning. Thank you for reminding me. Now you can see my hope because I've just turned the screen share off.

Nathan Simmonds:

Every day is a sales day. You are always convincing someone, pitching someone, getting someone to come to your side of the table so you can collaborate with them. You're always doing this. Now, next week we have got a guest speaker, so it's gonna be good friend of mine and ours at MBM Jeff Birch. It's gonna be the the fourth stage, the coming four stage plan for sales that we're gonna be covering. Jeff and I are gonna be leading next week's session.

Nathan Simmonds:

If you have not already already registered for next week, now is the time link in the chat box, get yourself registered for next week. It's gonna be fun. Jeff Birch, rip roaring keynote presenter, sales expertise, six bestselling books, presenter on the B, B, C. What more could you ask for? If you believe you're not a salesperson, you're lying to yourself. Next week's gonna be hugely valuable to you.

Nathan Simmonds:

Get yourself registered for this. It's gonna be great. What are we going in for today? Today is part five of PDP, your personal development planning. Today we're gonna be looking at some of those reflection tools and, and, and devices that are gonna help you put that planning in place. Everybody is here. Grand welcome. Welcome to part five. The last part for this week. As most of you know, I think all of you know by now.

Nathan Simmonds:

Just for those people that might be watching the replay or on YouTube, my name is Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. The idea of these lunchtime sessions, these micro learnings, is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now while you are working from home and or preparing to return back to work, sharing great ideas, great concepts, so you can go and over deliver on what you are doing. This session today is gonna be the final element to really help you get focused.

Nathan Simmonds:

Dive into this. Number one we've talked about this week. We've talked about structure, we've talked about mindset, we've talked about structure. So we've gone from the OAG, the overarching goal, three to five years or more. We brought that down to 12 months. We've then taken that down to a hundred days. We've then taken that down to 30 days, and then even the way down to single, single hourly actions that keep moving you forward. The one thing, actually, let me put this question to go. What is the one thing that's gonna stop you from doing any of this? I alluded to it yesterday, alluded, yeah, I think it's alluded to this yesterday.

Nathan Simmonds:

What's the one thing that's gonna stop you from making this happen? The first answer came in me. What else? What other answers have we got here? Trying to do too much? Absolutely not me. I'm someone just said you, I'm not gonna stop you. Uh, external distractions. Good, good. We're all in the right ballpark here. The one thing that's gonna stop you from making you do this is your planning is your how you strategize and how you plan and how you book in to make sure this is gonna happen. Not keeping going until it sticks. Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

It's all about the schedule. It's all about how much time you wanna invest in this. So we're gonna put up here, it's gonna be all about the schedule. It's the planning side of it. You've got this wonderful mindset now of personal development planning. You've even got the form now. You've got the structures to fill in all the boxes, but if you don't take the time to fill those boxes to download the information to work out where you are going, you're never gonna get there. Or if you do, it might take a long time. As I said, strategy without tactics is the long road to victory.

Nathan Simmonds:

Tactics without strategy is the noise. Before defeat may remember this quote from the beginning of this, uh, the first part of these sessions, we have to make time for it. That's it. You plan it into your diary. Five to 10% of your time needs to be invested in yourself. It's about starting the day. What have I got in my calendar? What activities are going on when we get to the end of the day, calibrating and going, Hmm, or sorry, reconciling. What did I actually do today? What was it I did I, did I tick that off? Did I do that in the best possible way?

Nathan Simmonds:

Just five, 10 minutes each day at the end of the week, did I tick off what I wanted to in my 30 day blocks? And at the end of each month and quarter, and as you are going through, it's just having those po points of reflection on what you've done. What did I do today? What did I do this month? What did I do this quarter? You do this exactly the same for your businesses, with your leaders, with your commercial departments, with your teams. How many people are taking time to check in with your teams to make sure they're hitting their financial and commercial goals?

Nathan Simmonds:

Yes or no? Are your teams working on their projects and ticking the boxes? Yes, I believe so. Yes, absolutely. How many people are doing this for themselves? Yes or no? Got some yeses coming in. Good. Me Good. It's absolutely vital. We do this and this is gonna be the difference between success and, and failure, not consistently is you book the time with your teams to do this.

Nathan Simmonds:

Very rarely do people book the time with themselves to do this. If you are not, and I wrote this down this morning as I was thinking about this conversation we have, if you don't make time for yourself, why would a future employee employer make time for you? Lemme say that again. If you don't make time for yourself, why would a future employer make time for you?

Nathan Simmonds:

You are a business. You are the service. You are the, the, the, uh, the product that you are selling. You are a sellable service. When you go into an interview, when you go into a one-to-one, when you go into a team meeting, you are selling a service. You are telling people how much value you add by what you've done before, by what created that pride for you. What created that excitement. This is what, and this is the value that you've been adding through these emotions. This is what makes you valuable to businesses and helps you to move forward in that plan.

Nathan Simmonds:

So it is about investing the key time for yourself to make this happen. Number one, schedule and plan. What get scheduled gets done. You know what your OAG is, you know where you are going. You get that in your schedule. You start working towards it. Doesn't always mean it's gonna be plain sailing, as I've said before,...