TOOLS FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Essentials for Customer Service Excellence

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Facilitator-led 1 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

The need to lead, model, and promote the organizational values within a customer service environment is essential for business success. This course will provide you with opportunities to explore your responsibilities within your role as a leader (supervisor or manager) in a customer service environment.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Identify ways to establish links between excellence in customer service and your business practices and policies.
  • Develop the skills and practices that are essential elements of a customer service-focused manager.
  • Recognize what employees are looking for to be truly engaged.
  • Recognize who the customers are and what they are looking for.
  • Develop strategies for creating engaged employees and satisfied customers in whatever business units you manage.

What Topics are Covered?

  • The six critical elements of customer service
  • Understanding leadership
  • Managing performance
  • Onboarding and orientation
  • Five practices of leadership

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Social Selling for Small Businesses

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Facilitator-led 1 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

Social selling isn’t just a fad or the latest approach to selling that businesses need to adopt. It’s a result of the massive integration of social media in how we conduct our lives. Sales professionals understand they can connect to and leverage these habits. This course is designed for entrepreneurs and sales professionals to learn how to function in that space.

In this one-day course, we’re going to explore how social selling is an essential requirement for sales teams, and how the relationships that are created and nurtured within social media will help you grow and sustain your business. We’ll also learn how to apply specific techniques to connect with your audience and potential fans in the social space.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Describe the attributes of social selling
  • Explore how social selling can generate results for your small business
  • Apply social selling strategies to create relevance in social media
  • Understand the power of leveraging different social media platforms in social selling
  • Measure your social selling results

What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining Social Selling
  • Doing Your Research
  • Building Relationships
  • Sharing Content
  • Leveraging Technology
  • Measuring the Results
  • Keep Going Forward

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Small Business 101

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Facilitator-led 3 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

Wouldn’t it be nice to be your own boss, work on your own schedule, and make money doing something that you’re passionate about? Millions of people around the world are living that dream and running their own business. This course will teach you the basics of entrepreneurship. You’ll consider if entrepreneurship is right for you and learn the basic steps of creating your own business. At the end of the course, you’ll have a solid foundation to start your entrepreneurial journey.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Assess your own entrepreneurial capabilities
  • Outline and evaluate a business and product idea
  • Identify your target market and customers
  • Develop your value proposition
  • Understand different types of business ownership and structures
  • Evaluate franchising and business purchasing opportunities
  • Create key business planning documents
  • Create financial projections for your business and gather funding
  • Create a product development plan, marketing plan, & sales strategy
  • Identify ways to protect your intellectual property
  • Describe effective ways to brand your product
  • Launch and grow your business
  • Demonstrate the behaviors of an entrepreneurial leader
  • Find appropriate resources to help you on your journey

What Topics are Covered?

  • What it takes to make it
  • Resources to consider
  • Laying the groundwork
  • Building on your business idea
  • Business ownership options
  • Key documents to prepare
  • Gathering funding and developing your product
  • Creating a sales and marketing strategy
  • Branding 101
  • Setting up your office
  • Launching the business
  • Keeping the business moving
  • Being an entrepreneurial leader
  • Bringing it all together

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Communications for Small Business Owners

Select Your Learning Style

Facilitator-led 2 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

Communication between individuals is a two-way street, but communication between a small business and its customers is a multi-lane highway. Navigate this highway successfully and you increase customer numbers and profits. Set out on this highway unaware, ill-prepared, or unconvinced of its importance, and you will lose ground to your competitors. This course will introduce and reinforce the essential components of written communication that will connect you with existing and potential customers. If you are new to the communications highway, this course will provide the foundation for future development. If your company has some communications expertise, this course will help you strengthen and polish your essential components.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Define the essential pieces of communication
  • Customize these essential pieces for their company
  • Identify the processes and plans needed for clear communications
  • Develop, maintain, and evolve effective content for their communications

What Topics are Covered?

  • Key communication components
  • Your communications plan
  • The five C’s of a successful message
  • Communication strategies
  • Sharing information through media releases
  • Communicating online
  • Using stories to communicate
  • Polishers and time savers
  • Enhancing your results
  • Maintaining your message in crisis

 

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Appreciative Inquiry Training

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Facilitator-led 1 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

Do you love those moments of exception, when everything seems to have come together and things are working beautifully? Would you like to create an environment where those rare extraordinary moments become the norm? Then you may just be ready to learn the value of Appreciative Inquiry, also known as AI. AI is a method for implementing change that is rooted in being positive, sharing stories of things that work well, and leveraging people’s strengths and the power of co-creation to initiate lasting, powerful changes that can make an organization the best it has ever been, because of people who care and are committed.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Recognize and work with the fundamentals of Appreciative Inquiry
  • Describe the 4-D’s of Appreciative Inquiry: discovery, dreaming, design, and destiny
  • Work through a simple Appreciative Inquiry process
  • Create thoughtful, meaningful questions for their own Appreciative Inquiry initiative
  • Help organizations review what’s important, what they can become, and how they can get there

What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining Appreciative Inquiry
  • Success Principles
  • The 4-D Model
  • Test Driving

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

Learn more about Appreciative Inquiry training in the pdf below.

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Personal Brand – Maximizing Personal Impact

Select Your Learning Style

Facilitator-led 2 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

This course is an exploration about the type of impact we want to have in life and work. Participants will consider and define the influence that they can have on their life and work. They will also learn skills for success and how to create those circumstances.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Speak in terms of the impact and influence that you want to have in life and work
  • Understand your personal style in terms of your personal brand
  • Develop skill in areas like focus, concentration, and communication to support your brand
  • Build credibility and trust by living your brand
  • Take ownership of your image, both online and in person

What Topics are Covered?

  • Importance of a personal brand
  • Your brand approach to others
  • Looking at the outside and the inside
  • Setting goals
  • Networking for success
  • Communication strategies
  • Building your credibility
  • Brand You
  • Living your brand
  • Managing your social media presence
  • Having influence
  • Dealing with challenging people
  • Presentations and meetings

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Marketing for Small Business

Select Your Learning Style

Facilitator-led 2 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

Marketing is about getting your business known and building your position within the marketplace. Small businesses don’t always have a big budget for marketing, so they have to do things a little differently than big business in order to grow their presence, increase results, and meet business goals. This course will help small business owners and managers develop their marketing message, create a marketing plan, and apply the right strategies.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Describe the essential elements of a marketing plan, no matter the size of the business
  • Apply tools and strategy to create a marketing plan that supports the growth of their small business
  • Use six steps to create, implement, and review a marketing plan
  • Leverage the best of Internet and social media marketing

What Topics are Covered?

  • Marketing for small business
  • Elements of a successful marketing message
  • The marketing cycle in small business
  • Marketing strategies
  • Implementing your plan
  • Internet marketing basics

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Inventory Management – The Nuts & Bolts

Select Your Learning Style

Facilitator-led 1 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

No business can survive very long without an effective program of controls over the parts and materials that are used in producing or distributing goods and services of the firm. Like many other things that depend on human interpretation, “control” means different things to different individuals. This is an introductory course for you, the warehouse or stockroom manager, the person in charge of what comes in and goes out of your company. You want a smooth and cost-effective operation, with enough products on hand to satisfy needs without stockpiling too much.

This course will discuss all aspects of inventory management, including common terms, the inventory cycle, how to maintain inventory accuracy, and what some of the latest trends are.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Understand terms that are frequently used in warehouse management
  • Identify the goals and objectives of inventory management and measure your process against these goals
  • Calculate safety stock, reorder points, and order quantities
  • Evaluate inventory management systems
  • Identify the parts of the inventory cycle
  • Better maintain inventory accuracy

What Topics are Covered?

  • What inventory is and types of inventory
  • Setting up the warehouse
  • What makes a good inventory management system?
  • The warehouse inventory cycle
  • Identifying demand
  • The receiving process and validating inventory
  • The put-away process and maintaining accuracy
  • The outbound process and industry trends

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Building a Consulting Business

Select Your Learning Style

Facilitator-led 1 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

Today’s business environment isn’t focused on 9-to-5, lifelong, static positions like it was decades ago. Our world is constantly shifting and evolving, meaning that businesses (and workers) must evolve with it. As a result of this shift, consultants have more opportunities than ever before. This course will show you how to build a business as a consultant.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Define the term “consultants” and explain their role in today’s business world
  • Identify consulting opportunities
  • Create a business strategy that includes a business plan, budget, marketing plan, fee structure, and resources
  • Use social media and networking skills to grow your consulting business
  • Protect your work with contracts
  • Identify ways to stay on top of trends and changes

What Topics are Covered?

  • What It’s All About
  • Business Building Blocks
  • Crunching the Numbers
  • Planning Your Business
  • Test Driving
  • Creating a Sales and Marketing Strategy
  • Getting the Work Done

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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Kickstarting Your Business With Crowdsourcing

Select Your Learning Style

Facilitator-led 1 Day Program (Classroom)

OR

eLearning format (Self-paced)

Please refer to Pricing Page for cost per participant

Today’s fast-paced marketplace demands that businesses think fast. Crowdsourcing can help all types of businesses keep on top of trends and stay competitive. This course will show you how to leverage all types of crowdsourcing (including microwork, macrowork, crowdvoting, crowdcontests, crowdwisdom, and crowdfunding) to kickstart your business’ growth.

What Will Participants Learn?

  • Define what crowdsourcing is and its value to businesses
  • Determine when crowdsourcing makes sense for a project
  • Describe the crowdsourcing process
  • Identify platforms and social media tools that can support your crowdsourcing campaigns
  • Describe the major types of crowdsourcing, including microwork, macrowork, crowdvoting, crowdcontests, crowdwisdom, and crowdfunding
  • Attract and engage your crowd

What Topics are Covered?

  • What is crowdsourcing?
  • The crowdsourcing process
  • Choosing your crowdsourcing platform
  • Types of crowdsourcing (microwork, macrowork, crowdvoting, crowdcontests, crowdwisdom, and crowdfunding)
  • Social media and crowdsourcing
  • Engaging the crowd
  • Test driving

What’s Included in Your Learning Style?

  • Self-paced eLearning OR
  • Interactive class environment – Facilitator-Led
  • Specialized course materials and resources
  • Personalized certificate of completion

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