What's New?

Your Private Online Training University

Knowledgeable office business center operators understand the critical importance of continued training. Continual staff training must be a major part of your business plan if you want to keep clients happy, increase your conversions, and grow your center.

You may have skipped continued training for your team in the past because you thought it was costly or scheduling was inconvenient. The Academy has an excellent solution for you. Now you can provide on-demand workshops for your entire team for as little as $33 per month. Schedule training at times that are good for you, at a price that's great for your center's budget.

You can start building your own OBC training library with the most popular workshops from the 2009 Revenue Optimization Webinar Series. The ALLIANCE Academy Training Package includes 12 workshops that will benefit every position in the center. Now your team can decide how and when they receive the OBC training they need to lead your center to greatness.

• Create customized webinars that are presented live and recorded for future viewing by new team members.
• Develop company overview material for new team members.
• Employ competency tests for specific skills sets and positions.
• Easily turn team meetings into targeted training sessions.
• Accessible on any computer, anywhere in the world.

Invest today and receive 12 targeted OBC training workshops proven to drive the results you need to stay competitive in your market.

For more information visit theallianceacademy.com/traininglibrary.html or contact Susan Smith at ssmith@theallianceacademy.com or 1.678.641.4467.

Masters of The Academy

Susan Smith, Executive Director of The ALLIANCE Academy

Susan Smith, Director of The ALLIANCE Academy, has the pleasure of working with many international operators. She travels to London 3-4 times a year and works in the Netherlands often.

Travels to other countries afford The Academy a true global view of best practices of all operators. We are always comparing the differences and similarities to bring the best of the best to those who choose to engage The Academy to optimize their centers and strengthen their team.

For more information about bringing The Academy to your center, please contact Susan at +1 (678) 641 4467 or at ssmith@theallianceacademy.com.

Training that Works

Learning + Guiding + Teaching = Leading

As a leader at your center, it can become easy to forget that learning needs to be part of everyone's daily process - no matter what your duties or position. When challenges arise, it's important to take advantage of the opportunity to learn from the situation, provide guidance to your team members, and teach them how to react and how to best do their part in similar situations.

Before any crisis has a chance to develop, put a plan in place and strategize how you will lead through learning, by guiding behaviors and teaching critical skills to your team. Coach your management on improving empathetic listening skills and providing guidelines on how to lead. Your plan should focus on bringing your team together, raising morale and teaching critical crises management, as well as technical, financial, physical and behavioral skills to keep business going as usual, even in times of trouble.

When challenges and problems arise at your center, focus on putting your plan to work. Learning needs to happen in real time so that time isn't lost while a tough situatiion is figured out and solved.

For a full discussion on how you can become a more effective leader, contact us today.

Case Study

Rising to the Occasion in the New Decade

According to management consulting group Healthy Companies International, there are a few specific trends that will be creating a challenging environment for corporate leaders in the new decade.

As a center leader you will need to:
• Know how to thrive in chaos due to unpredictable market conditions.
• Get back to basics and focus on strategy execution in answer to reduced customer confidence.
• Work to rebuild lost trust.
• Create sustainability within your organization as well as a culture of corporate social responsibility in order to build employee loyalty.
• Focus on developing a strong customer and employee brand, and create growth innovation and superior performance in order to stand out from the competition.
• Understand and manage all facets of your organiztion, not just the costs.
• Convincingly communicate your organization's vision for the future in order to regain employees' confidence in you.
• Become globally fluent with the new rules of social media.
• Find new organization strategies to help the environment.

Are you ready for your skills and competency to be tested with these trends?

Focus On...

Persuasion: An Art and Science

We know that there is a certain artfulness to being persuasive - the way you talk to a person, how you present your offer, and so on. What we sometimes neglect to recognize is that there is a real science to persuasion, as well. You can hone your persuasion skills by carefully working around the science of it.

Limit your choice offerings. People can easily become frustrated when they are presented with too many choices. Offer plan packages rather than offering every item and service a la cart, and clients will be able to make a decision they feel good about more easily.

Ask for an active commitment. Don't just tell a prospect to call you if he needs more information or is ready to make a decision - ask him to respond in an active way. Simply altering your language from "Give me a call when you've made a decision or need help," to "Will you contact me if you need any more help or want to get started?" will elicit an active response.

Admit a small weakness, then provide your strongest argument. Portraying yourself as a trustworthy and believable person is a critical part of the formula for persuasion. You can be perceived as honest if you point out a weakness in your argument, and then immediately counter it with your strongest pro argument.

Remember the threat of loss. The possibility of losing or missing out on something is more compelling than the possibility of a gain. Communicate clearly the opportunities that the prospect stands to lose by ignoring your advice, rather than what they can gain by taking your advice.

Insider Tips

Good Networking: You Can Make It Happen

Networking doesn't always just happen on its own - in our industry, it's always a great idea to create opportunities for yourself to meet with and talk to new and different people.

Get more connected by following a few tips:

Set a goal. Make a decision to extend your list of business connections. Create a list of people you want to meet, and start reaching out to them.

Show your passion. Be energetic and enthusiastic when you're talking about what you do. People will notice, be interested, and return that positive vibe.

Make it personal. When you meet someone, make yourself more memorable and create a stronger connection by sharing some personal information about yourself. Find a common interest that's not strictly business-related and your contact will be able to better identify with you. Whether it's figuring out that you both love the same sports team or have a common hobby, you'll make a deeper connection.

Save the elevator speech and get to know the person. Engage in a more natural conversation and you won't come off as a salesman trying to give sales pitch. As you get to know the person you're talking to, you can figure out what they want, what they respond to, and what they're interested in - and you'll know exactly how to present something in a way that's appealing to them. Remember to ask yourself what's in it for them!

Be a good conversationalist. Don't be a one-upper - you don't always need to prove yourself by countering everything someone says with something you've done. Be more personable by not being competitive in casual conversation. Ask open-ended questions that elicit more than just single-word or "yes" or "no" answers.