Professional Development

The critical skills of leadership, management, sales, teamwork, and communication are essential for success and creating customer value. It’s the combination of individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, knowledge and skills that set an organization apart from the competition.

Who Is Responsible for the Professional Development of Your Employees?

In the past, many companies provided professional development and training to employees as part of normal business practices. Large enterprises such as IBM, Xerox, GE, Procter & Gamble and others were famous for internal training and development programs. It was part of their strategy to attract the best people who look for such a benefit to stay at the top of their game.

Smaller companies on the other hand, often find it’s not easy to fund truly impactful training and professional development unless it’s to handle new equipment, software or tools required to keep the company running. And critical ‘soft skills’ that are increasingly necessary for effective leadership and management get the least time and investment.

Tangible Results from “Soft Skills” Development

Investing in training and development can make business owners uneasy, especially in small and mid-sized companies. They think, “What if I train them and they leave?” A better question to ask is “What if I don’t train them and they stay?”

The hard truth is key areas are directly affected when leadership and related skills are either missing or poor. These have well-known metrics which can be tracked and linked to training and development:

Employee Turnover
Employee Satisfaction
Errors, Re-Work, Cancelled Orders

The Excellerated Performance Difference

Excellerated Performance makes an important distinction between training and development. Training is basically teaching people new skills. Development is getting people to apply their skills and knowledge more effectively, more often.

Though knowledge and skills are essential for success, they do not guarantee it. Having the right attitudes and habits, combined with defined goals, are just as important—often more so. Unfortunately, traditional training methods including one-time workshops, online training and 30-minute webinars that seem inexpensive expose participants to information only once. There is little or no follow-up to ensure the training actually worked. Excellerated Performance is different. Our approach is different because we ensure people actually retain and apply what they learn.

Results Are Driven By Behavior

Improved results can only happen when people go through positive behavioral change. This requires understanding the four key factors that affect performance and determine results: attitudes, skills, knowledge and goal setting.

These factors are shown below in our “success formula”:

Attitude (Skills & Knowledge) + Goals => Positive Change => Improved Results

Excellerated Performance addresses all four. We customize every program to match clients’ requirements. We combine pre-program due diligence, research on how people really learn, world-class materials, and skilled facilitation. And we follow-up to ensure participants continue to excel and perform based on what they learned in our programs.

We offer tailored programs in the following key areas:

Managers need to possess effective leadership and management skills, positive attitudes and the ability to set specific, measurable goals. Successful managers understand the distinction between management and leadership. They differentiate authority from power and know how to get work done through others. For less than the total cost of sending your managers to a “one size fits all” seminar or workshop that delivers no lasting change, you can receive a customized management development program based on your real-world needs. Our process works well for front line and second level managers—anyone who must get work done through others.

Success in today’s economy is challenging and the rules are ever-changing. These challenges will become more intense. The speed with which change occurs will increase and the competition will intensify. To lead an organization that can maintain its competitive advantage, executives often have to transform a culture that was founded on yesterday’s paradigms. Attitudes and behaviors reflecting new and different social and organizational values are a reality. Priorities shift and leaders must adapt.

Adjusting to change is difficult. And managing change presents new opportunities. Organizational success requires senior leaders who can focus on managing change while delivering results. We offer an executive leadership development process for senior leaders and business owners to acquire and apply knowledge and skills required to align strategy, lead, and deliver results through others.

Organizations often rely on first-line supervisors, shift leads, and high performers to lead others. These individuals often have to do their own jobs while overseeing others’ work. This places the team leader in an unusual position. Are they co-workers, leaders, or managers? Their challenge is to lead others and gaining their trust and respect. Our process helps first-line supervisors learn how to achieve more through goal setting, develop leadership skills and knowledge and gain the confidence they need to succeed in a team leaders’ role.

Companies often spend thousands of dollars on training sales reps with little to show for it. Why? Because most sales training methods and programs do not address the root causes for why people succeed or fail in sales. We take our proven success formula and apply it to a unique sales development process. As a result, sales people learn how to move beyond the basics.

We uncover true motivators and help sales people understand how internal attitudes may be holding them back from achieving sales goals. Sales professionals who embrace our sales process and methods can become self-motivated, goal-directed performers. We customize sales development programs to meet the distinct needs of new and experienced reps.

Our programs are also applicable to business owners and entrepreneurs. Anyone responsible for achieving revenue and profit will benefit from an Excellerated Performance sales development process.

Customer satisfaction is not enough. Today, customers demand more, and if you can’t meet their ever-rising expectations, customers will simply go elsewhere. It costs eight times more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one. This reality requires everyone in an organization to understand “we all serve the customer.” Our customer loyalty training program helps people learn how to think and act with customer loyalty as their #1 priority.

Time management is not a management issue. It’s a behavioral issue. It is about managing priorities and achieving goals. Everyone starts their day with the same amount of time. We all measure time the same way: minutes, hours, days, weeks. Yet, while some people “spin their wheels,” others gain the traction required to compete and win.

Successful people view time as an ally and an asset. We teach people to develop and apply new habits of thought that empower them to take action. The outcomes for participants include less stress, increased productivity and the ability to achieve more with the time they have.

So, What Is The Next Step for YOU?

Contact us today for a complimentary initial consultation. We have helped large and small companies and nonprofits wrestle the issue of planning down to a manageable size and significantly improve their results.