Focus On Soft Skills: A Leadership Wake-up Call

Written by Carole Nicolaides


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Soft skills arerepparttar underlying principles that trademark a company for professionalism and excellent customer service. They provide differentiation between allrepparttar 106288 cookie-cutter look-alikes and play a vital role in customer loyalty. In today's working environment, where customers and employees are demanding more, instillingrepparttar 106289 use of soft skills in your team members is something you simply can't survive without. When it's time to focus on soft-skills training as a tool to improve performance, leadership potential, and bottom line organizational success, considerrepparttar 106290 following: 1.Start Slowly - Instead of getting a large number of people in a room and preaching to them about their soft skills - move slowly. Introducerepparttar 106291 concept with an informative and fun workshop. The program should also be designed to enhance their skills. 2.Involve Your People Fromrepparttar 106292 Start - Involve as many employees as you can onrepparttar 106293 decision to create a program, what to include withinrepparttar 106294 program, and how to maintainrepparttar 106295 program. People support what they help create. Engage them, give themrepparttar 106296 possibility to make changes with your training curriculum, do a pilot program with key people, and userepparttar 106297 pilot program as an introduction torepparttar 106298 group. 3.Hire Expert Help - Coaches and Organizational Consultants are experts in building rapport and establishingrepparttar 106299 right culture for these initiatives. Withrepparttar 106300 right culture andrepparttar 106301 appropriate training, managers can continuerepparttar 106302 task of training and cultivating good relationships. 5.Recognize Individual Achievement - There is so much talk about teamwork today that we forget to emphasize how important it is to praise individual achievement as well. From time to time praise your stars. Recognizing personal contributions torepparttar 106303 team is an excellent morale booster. 6.Discoverrepparttar 106304 Group's Soft-Skill Identity - All people are notrepparttar 106305 same, so their soft skills and strengths are notrepparttar 106306 same either. Once you know who you have on your team, leverage their strengths and differences because these arerepparttar 106307 facts that will help distinguish you and your organization fromrepparttar 106308 competition. Illustrate how they can leverage each other's strengths insiderepparttar 106309 team to develop a new group "identity." The essence of your business is your people. Making soft-skills development a priority will bring your team to a new level because it focuses directly on them. By allowingrepparttar 106310 human aspect of your employees to shine through, you are encouraging them to do what comes naturally to them. Don't overlook these all-important skills when evaluating areas of improvement for your team. Find a way to incorporate soft skills into your leadership development programs and see results immediately.

Carole Nicolaides is President and Executive Coach of Progressive Leadership Inc. who thrives on helping individuals and organizations achieve results by coaching them on how to discover and build upon their strengths and cultivate their soft-skill set. Visit http://www.progressiveleadership.com for more info & subscribe to her FREE Ezine.




10 Effective Advertising Tips!

Written by BB Lee


Continued from page 1

7. Key your ads to find out which one's are working. Or simply have several email addresses or auto responders and calculate which email address receivesrepparttar most response to your ads.

8. Keep records of every one who responds to your ads. Follow up with appropriate messages about your product. Of course give themrepparttar 106287 option to opt out of receiving further correspondence.

9. Free Classified Ad Sites are a great way to test your ad writing skills before placing paid ads in publications online. Study how other marketers at these sites write their ads. Respond to their ads to see how they further market their product. Don't forget to set up a free email account especially to handle your request.

10. Study offline publications. And, advertisements you receive by snail-mail to see how they put it all together. This will help to build your ad writing skills and confidence in your copy writing abilities.

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BB Lee is Editor/Publisher of SmallBizBits Newsletter. Visitrepparttar 106288 site at http://www.angelfire.com/zine/smallbiz Limited Time! New Subscribers Request Your Free Ad! mailto:smallbiz@angelfire.com

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BB Lee is editor/publisher of the home based business newsletter SmallBizBits. And a published writer of articles and non-fiction books.


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