The 6 Secrets for the Perfect Pitch in the Digital Age

Posted on March 11, 2013 | 10 comments
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Get qualified in days not years with AVPTGLOBAL

Pitch & Grow Rich:

Tim T Dingle BSc (Hons) PGCE MBA
Chief Development Officer AVPT Global

Pitching comes with a health warning. It can make you seriously rich, but you need to make a transformation to the digital platform for pitching.

You may be surprised that we need to step back a bit and re-visit the ‘old school’ values of the successful elevator pitch. Ironically these skills are so poorly perfected by the majority of companies and business owners that you could make your fortune by getting them right. You will need to understand something of the neuroscience behind pitching, simple psychology and some basic, good old fashioned common sense. The premise for the perfect pitch should then become your essential mantra; the natural, automatic response when someone asks you what you or your company does. In our digital world, you will need to know the real secrets of pitching before entering your Twitpitch and Youtube contributions.

Regardless of what you call it, the perfect pitch, an elevator pitch, the elevator speech, your lift story or your perfect 60 seconds, it is one tool every entrepreneur, salesperson, business owner and job seeker must possess is an overview of their solution. With one, they will be able to catch the often fleeting attention of the people who can help them bring their solution to life. The simple truth is without one, they just won’t.

Back in the room, sixty seconds isn’t much time to pitch a client, a group or investor. The elevator pitch is a great exercise to develop a very short message which says what you do to potential clients, investors, media or partners. Your pitch should leave your target audience hungry for more.  You should understand that you must create clarity and buckets of curiosity. This is a vital online as it is in person.

One of the most enjoyable events of last year was being part of the Scholarship Den, run by the Academy of Vocational and Professional Training. It involved an ‘elevator pitch’ competition, where hopeful young (and not so young)entrepreneurs extol the virtues of their business idea with the best getting free training and mentor packages. These sort of events are both joyous and yet frustrating. There is nothing more joyous than listening to entrepreneurs explaining how they are going to change the world. What is more than frustrating is that few people have worked out how to pitch their ideas in a simple, concise and powerful form.

To the best of my knowledge, the standard lift (or elevator) really does not get stuck for several hours. I haven’t tried the lift in the Shard yet. Therefore you have to keep your pitch short and punchy. The worst sinners seem to be start-up businesses, consultants and technologists who feel that they have to cram as many features as possible into their three minutes presentation. The human brain cannot cope with this assault of facts, features and benefits. Most customers have in fact very short attention spans and can only remember three things at a time (see my articles about George Miller and Chunking, 5 plus or minus one). As soon as you mention the fifth star item the first and probably most important one drops out of their short term memory; boom, gone for good. By the time they get to number fifty, all the most compelling ones have long since gone, and the prospective customer has truly lost the will to live.  The objective in delivering an elevator pitch or 60 seconds is not to secure an order there and then. That is simply not going to happen.  Try to stimulate enough interest for them to give you another fifteen minutes and to hand over their business card.

The great elevator pitch is very simple to understand having the key 6 Ps of passion, pain, premise, people, proof and purpose. It uses the inner workings of the brain (at the reptilian level) and your ability to deliver these 6 answers:

Passion: You will remember being in a classroom and knowing instantly that the teacher (or supply teacher) really was not passionate about the subject they are trying (unsuccessfully) to teach? That feeling is detected in a flash: their lack of passion. If when you pitch you don’t have a certain sparkle in your eye, a passionate purpose or that palpable X factor, you will have the same effect on your audience as that hapless teacher. If you are not passionate about your company, close it now.

Pain: Can you answer this simple, crucial question ‘where’s the pain?’. Decide right now what pain or real problem you plan to solve with your business or service. The key is that the bigger the pain, the more likely people are to pay you to take it away. It seems very negative but is at the heart of everyone’s primitive brain thinking. The movement away from pain is unbelievably powerful. The pain presents itself in many forms and multiple guises. A simple rule to remember is that if your product or service saves time and money then you are on your way.

Premise: “So Tim, what do you actually ‘do’?” You need to be able to explain in pretty simple terms the ‘premise of your business’. Does that seem too obvious? Well for this to work you have to use language that is basic, literal and not some clever beefed up, steroidal slogan that is meaningless. When asked what I actually do then I make it a simple statement: We delivery outstanding online and workshop training for soft skills, using blended mobile learning and virtual tutors.

AVPTGLOBAL almost 400 courses all globally accredited

AVPTGLOBAL almost 400 courses all globally accredited

People: Here is the thing: every customer says they buy from people not companies. Every investor I have ever met has confirmed that they look for a credible team rather than a good idea. Get the best people you can around you and get yourself a Mentor as soon as you can. It really changes everything.

Proof: So Why should I buy from you, not your competitor?; great question.  Maybe you have a killer product or service and the greatest team money can buy, customers can still be skeptical and have doubts, reservations and remain unconvinced. Evidence suggests that testimonials and the tales of your happy customers and clients can make a huge difference. Have a look at those on my Linkedin and see the difference between ‘endorsed for’ (laughable in some cases, as I have never met them) and someone taking the time and trouble to write a glowing, current and accurate testimonial. Thank you to those that have!

Purpose: One of the oldest jokes I have heard is ‘What did the dolphin say to the whale when he bumped into him? I didn’t do it on porpoise’. Sorry. So the most important purpose of any business is to make money. I know crazy, eh? The thing is that the potential investors will be looking for a great ROI in any deal (return on their investment) and your prospective customers and clients will want to know that you run a sensible and profitable business. Why so? Well they need to know you have built a reliable and consistent delivery model for your products and services.

I believe even in the fast moving digital age, the premise is the most important part of an elevator pitch and the best pitches with the most traction also give some idea of the market. Consider these three:

– John Rockefeller at Standard Oil:  ‘Let the poor man have his cheap light’

– Merill Lynch: ‘Bring Wall St to Main St’

-AOL’s Steve Case: ‘Make the internet easy and fun’

Even as I write this, the standard elevator pitch however is under-going a face lift with new media. The truth is that getting clients or investors’ attention may never be the same again with You Tube pitches and the short punchy Twitter pitches. As new social media has exploded in recent years and slowly businesses are becoming more social media aware, the number of channels and methods to pitch has dramatically increased. The new digital elevator pitch allows you to reach a broader audience and receive critical feedback to really improve your pitch and business. So, if you find getting access to potential clients to pitch challenging, try the new dimension in digital opportunity.

The Tube Pitch: YouTube is quite simply MASSIVE. Consider these stats and prepare to change your pitch (still using the 6Ps) forever:

  • Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month
  • Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
  • 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
  • 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
  • YouTube is localised in 53 countries and across 61 languages
  • In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or around 140 views for every person on Earth. Yes, 1 Trillion!

Using your newly acquired 6 P Pitch & Grow rich strategy you need access this market, right now. A search on YouTube for the term elevator pitch returned millions of results. Forget your boring 80-page business plan, ditch the figures and research and get that new pitch ready and evoke the passion behind your idea or business for the new digital market.

The Twitter Pitch (Twitpitch): If you have just returned from a 5 year space mission, Twitter is micro-blogging allowing text messages of 140 characters or less (see also  @timlondonset and #expresscourses). So here comes the new idea: the Twitpitch, and yes, it’s just what you think – the same pitch narrowed down to 140 characters or less. The Twitpitch is the invention of Stowe Boyd, a business strategy and information technology consultant. Boyd had plans to attend the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo, but was having trouble scheduling meetings with startups. To address this problem, on Tuesday he posted on his blog that in order to make things simple for himself, he was posting a schedule of times when he was available for meetings. He added that he would not accept email-based proposals for these meetings, only Twitpitches.

To further explain the concept, Boyd put forth a set of rules for the pitches as follows:

  1. All companies who would like to have a meeting with me, need to send me a Twittered description of the product. Yes, please Twitter it to me at http://www.twitter.com/stoweboyd. Yes, one tweet, 140 characters less the eleven used for “@stoweboyd “.
  2. Optionally, send a supporting twitpitch with one link, and no other text. Could be to anything: website, video, press release, Rick Astley, etc.
  3. Then, twitter me one or more suggested times/place to meet at the event, using the times on the calendar, and a location in the conference building I won’t have time to visit your nearby hotel or offices.

This new way of getting the perfect pitching, now being dubbed the ‘twitpitch’ is quick, painless, andcuts through all those wordy distracting elements I talked about earlier. It cuts through the endless pretentious PR stuff and dramatically forces companies to summarise what they do in 140 characters or less. Mighty good work that!

The Blog Pitch: One of the areas of rapid advance that can use the power of the 6P Perfect Pitch is in the channel of blogging. TechCrunch is one the popular blogs around and has created TechCrunch Elevator Pitches with the great strapline: One Startup. 60 seconds. Go.   The blog describes its core service as a place where business founders and CEOs get a chance to pitch their startups directly to you, the TechCrunch audience. The instant (or certainly rapid) feedback is enhanced via a vote the best pitches up and the stinkers down, and tell them exactly what you think of their businesses in the comments.”

The Slide Pitch: There are yet more interesting styles of digital pitching developing that allow you to use your 6P skills to dramatic effect. The relatively SlideShare group (Google it please) is an online slide presentation community. Have a look at the Linkedin version of this which is rapidly gaining traction. Creating your perfect pitch, remembering the crucial 6P elements, in a brief slide presentation can reach a new audience or push them to your website for more details and edge them closer to a sale.

These new media ideas offer a massive opportunity to use your Perfect Pitch: Pitch & Grow Rich skills. It is a new opportunities for the average person or business to really stake their premise and their endorsement right out there for everyone to see. Yet at the heart of a any successful pitch, online or in person, is understanding the 6Ps and getting your story across in the most powerful manner. Pitching just got more interesting and the chance for you to pitch and grow rich has never been greater.

A selection of Sales and Marketing courses: Available at www.avptglobal.

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Join us now with over 200 courses

Academy of Vocational and Professional Training

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Revision? Forget it

Posted on February 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

How to Massively Improve Your Chance of Success, Now!

Become a VTF with AVPTGlobal

Become a VTF with AVPTGlobal

article by Tim T Dingle BSc (Hons) MIBiol PGCE MBA, Chief Development Officer at the Academy of Vocational and Professional Training (AVPTglobal)

I sometimes wonder what an alien might think if they were monitoring our schools, downloading training course and looking at how students try to learn.  They would be forgiven for thinking that they have been artfully designed to train students in the art of forgetting. Throughout the time you take most conventional courses (excepting, of course, the cutting edge ones at AVPT  www.avptglobal.com) it may seem that you spend your time ‘learning’ and ‘revising’ for tests. What then follows is extraordinary; we forget that information within weeks.

This pattern seems continue throughout schools, professional training cycles and college courses. This heroic shuffling in and out of knowledge from our cerebral hemispheres seems to be a constant cycle. Then students are tasked, days before a crucial exam, with relearning everything that they have managed to forget over the course of the year. This is the classic ‘summative assessment’ situation with a history of failure in so many cultures.  This often takes almost as much time as if we were doing it from scratch. It seems that the UK Education Minister, Michael Gove is known to be an admirer of this system.

The reason that forgetting is so common in traditional learning cycles is that the way we are taught to encode and recall memories, causes fading over time. Those memories that can be recalled are the one that get repeated and are strengthened. They are prepared for the long term and placed within the Long Term Memory System (LTM). This is important because (from an evolutionary point of view) repetition correlates with importance. Meaningful or important things tend to happen again; random things tend not to.

One of the problems with most learning systems lies in a distinction between two ways to go about this repetition.  It can be separated into ‘spaced learning’ (SL) and ‘massed learning’ (ML). Massed leaning is sometimes called cramming. You may remember those long sessions; students love them and believe the longer they stare at their notes /books, the more it is effective. The spaced repetition method is where the repetitions are spaced out over a period of time. The best analogy is to think of memories as plants in the garden of your memory; then think of repetition as watering with your watering can.

The ML system is like watering a plant by emptying the whole watering can all at once; then failing to do so for months.  The mechanism for SL Learning is to imagine watering the plant once a week in measured amounts from the can, over a period of months. This regularity, combined with a systematic  approach and by using a ‘chunked up’ seems to be crucial to success; an approach that, we believe at AVPT, is how all online learning must develop. The long term effect of these totally different techniques of watering (but the same total volume of water) results in two very different plants (one is probably dead).

Now imagine something else that can radically improve memory and success. Incredible as it seems the greatest advances in improving our chances of success can be had for free, right now. I’m talking about improving your brain from the outside in. If you take it seriously it can and will lead to faster and more accurate decision-making. It will yield greater productivity and inspire innovation. If you want to be mercenary about it, it’s the kind of smart that starts making money.

All you need to ‘invest’ is approximately 30 minutes a day.  And maybe a decent pair of trainers. Over the last 30 years I have seen many articles describing how aerobic exercise is beneficial to health. There is no doubt there is a lot of truth in what has been written.  Improving oxygen distribution in the body… reducing the chances of heart disease… losing extra pounds… exercise has many benefits. But cardiovascular exercise goes way beyond reducing blood pressure and cholesterol.  Current research shows that exercise can alter the very structure of the nerve cells in the brain. You could read the evidence in (fairly dull) scientific papers, of which over 1000 have been produced in the last 12 months.

There are many people like me who recognise the impact that cardiovascular exercise has had on their career and every aspect of their life. It may surprise you that there is a growing cohort of business people and entrepreneurs who credit exercise not as just a component of their successful lives, but as the biological catalyst in all of their achievements.

In very basic terms, our brains function due to groups of chemicals ‘jumping’ between the neurons (nerves) within.  My research indicates that BDNF – Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor – is one of the most significant of these chemicals. BDNF is a protein that is controlled by the BDNF gene in our DNA.  BDNF acts on brain cells by encouraging the growth and differentiation (dividing and deciding what they want to be) of new neurons and synapses.  The neurons start growing new connections on their branch- like ends (called dendrites). The more dendrites that grow, the more connections are made.  The more connections you have in your brain, the greater your capacity to think: using another plant analogy, BDNF is a ‘miracle grow’ for your brain cells.

It works in the areas of the brain vital to learning, memory, and higher thinking.  BDNF itself is important for long-term memory.  Which is why it makes you smarter. So, exercise increases BDNF – great!  But… when you are stressed, you release the hormone corticosterone.  This has been shown to decrease the amount of BDNF!

In other words, being stressed makes you less smart and less able to make good decisions.If your exposure to stress is persistent, this can cause an area of the brain called the hippocampus to actively shrink.  This has been shown to take place in humans suffering from chronic depression. The secret of creating change within the brain that can boost your intelligence, memory and decision making qualities (as well as relieving depression) is

The optimal amount seems to be 30 minutes of aerobic activity a day.  Running, swimming, active walking – they’re all good as long as you do them regularly. I’m always interested in finding new ways to learn better and faster. I am a busy and driven individual.  I try to read one book every day on top of a full time business career.  The amount of time I have available to spend learning new things is limited.  It’s important to get as much educational value out of my time as possible, so retention, recall and transfer are critical.

I need to be able to accurately remember the information I learn, recall it at a later time and utilise it effectively in a wide variety of situations. One sure-fire way to become a more effective learner is to learn new things and keep practicing them. The Science backs this up.  A 2004 article in the journal Nature[1] reported that people who learned how to juggle increased the amount of grey matter in their occipital lobes, the area of the brain associated with visual memory.When these individuals stopped practicing their new skill, this grey matter vanished.

So if you’re learning a new language, it is important to keep practicing the language in order to maintain the gains you have achieved. This ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ phenomenon involves a brain process known as pruning. Certain pathways in the brain are maintained, whilst others are eliminated.  If you want the new information you have just learned to stay put, keep practicing and rehearsing it.

One of the key secrets of memory is how brain cells connect without actually touching.  The gaps are called synapses – remember those chemicals that ‘jump’ across the gaps?  Circuits are formed that retain memory, but they disappear if they are not used over and over again.

So go juggle right now!

http://www.avptglobal.com

[1] Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Busch, V., & Schuierer, G. (2004). Neuroplasticity: Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature, 427(22), 311-312.

 

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Can you train to become a Virtual Tutor?

Posted on February 7, 2013 | 29 comments

could you do with some additional income!

Because your skills and experience are worth it

Because your skills and experience are worth it

Teaching and Learning has changed!  
Employment has Changed!
The World has Changed!
Could you manage up to 20 virtual students each month
and help them qualify from your PC
iPad or Tablet?
Using the latest interactive
Learning Management System
we have over 260 specialist on-line
and classroom fast track workshops
all accredited to Global Standards
You may be a professional, or retired
a graduate, personal coach, a consultant
or a teacher wanting to work from anywhere.
  • You make the investment and
  • We will Train you,
  • Register you,
  • and even Pay you when we
  • send students to you throughout the year

This two day workshop will enable you to follow procedure, e-monitor, e-mentor and e-access your students progress and help them to complete their online course using a cutting edge Learning Management System. Statistics have shown that institutions of higher learning increasingly embrace online education, with 65.5 percent of chief academic officers now calling online education ‘critical’ to their institutions! long-term strategy, an opinion that’s risen more than 15% over eight years.

After you qualify you will be able to work with our students online as a one of our Virtual Tutor Facilitators using your Global Accredited certificate by the IAO.

 

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Turning 50 isn’t the end of a business career – new wave of olderpreneurs

Posted on February 7, 2013 | 1 comment
Get qualified in days not years

Get qualified in days not years

article by Diane Shawe M.Ed

Turning 50 isn’t the end of a business career – it’s the beginning. And an ever-growing wave of ‘olderpreneurs’, starting a business have 70% chance of surviving their first five years compared with only a 28% survival rate for those younger than them.

Nearly half the self-employment population is over 50, and one in six new businesses started in the UK are set up by post-half-centurions.

So what’s fuelling the entrepreneurial impetus of the ‘silver startup’, and why are they doing so well?

Necessity

The over-50s age group has been particularly hard-hit by the recession. Last year, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed 28% of those aged between 50 and state pension age were out of work – compared with only 20% of those aged under 50.

Why? One of the biggest factors is the rife ageism that permeates practically every industry in the UK, that anyone over 50 who’s been forced to look for employment will testify to with a weary nod. The ONS estimates those who lose their job aged 50 or over have only a 10% chance of being re-employed.

Deciding to use their money from redundancies to fund ta company, over the course of two years the payout had trickled in its entirety into the business. But it was worth the investment – and they often don’t have to rely on the ineffective banks at the moment.

Become a Virtual Teacher Facilitator

Become a Virtual Teacher Facilitator

New challenge

At a fundamental level, sometimes people just want to do something different in their later years.

It’s interesting that recent YouGov and Standard Life research found the average age at which people feel totally confident in their working skills is 37, while the more elusive sense of fulfilment peaks at 50. Perhaps this climax of achievement and sense of ability leads to a need for a new direction, a new challenge, once a person passes the half-century mark.

If  we take a look at the Government statistics below it will give us an overview  Source Office of National Statistics

Summary of labour market statistics published on 23 January 2013

Between June to August 2012 and September to November 2012:

  • the number of people in full-time employment increased by 113,000,
  • the number of people in part-time employment fell by 23,000,
  • the number of unemployed people fell by 37,000, and
  • the number of economically inactive people, aged from 16 to 64, fell by 13,000.

Between September to November 2007 and September to November 2012:

  • the number of people in full-time employment fell by 341,000,
  • the number of people in part-time employment increased by 660,000,
  • the number of unemployed people increased by 854,000, and
  • the number of economically inactive people, aged from 16 to 64, fell by 75,000.

Chart 1: Changes in number of people in the labour market between September to November 2007 and September to November 2012, seasonally adjusted

Changes over 5 years

Source: Labour Force Survey – Office for National Statistics

The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for September to November 2012 was 71.4%. This was up 0.1 percentage point on June to August 2012 and up 1.1 on a year earlier, but it was lower than the pre-recession peak of 73.0% recorded for March to May 2008. The number of people in full-time employment aged 16 and over increased by 113,000 between June to August and September to November 2012 to reach 21.57 million but the number of people in part-time employment fell by 23,000 to reach 8.11 million. Compared with a year earlier:

  • the number of men in full-time employment increased by 237,000,
  • the number of men in part-time employment increased by 95,000,
  • the number of women in full-time employment increased by 77,000,
  • the number of women in part-time employment increased by 144,000, and
  • the total number of people in employment increased by 552,000, the largest annual increase since 1989.

Chart 2: Changes in number of people in employment between September to November 2011 and September to November 2012, seasonally adjusted

Annual employment changes

Source: Labour Force Survey – Office for National Statistics

The unemployment rate for September to November 2012 was 7.7% of the economically active population, down 0.1 on June to August 2012 and down 0.7 on a year earlier. The number of unemployed men aged 16 and over fell by 37,000 between June to August and September to November 2012 to reach 1.41 million, but the number of unemployed women was unchanged at 1.08 million. The number of women unemployed for up to six months increased by 26,000 to reach 571,000. This may reflect changes to the benefits system resulting in more single mothers starting to look for work (see Claimant Count section of this Bulletin for further details).

The economic inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for September to November 2012 was 22.5%, unchanged on June to August 2012 but down 0.7 on a year earlier. The number of economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64 fell by 13,000 between June to August and September to November 2012 to reach 9.03 million.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance fell by 12,100 between November and December 2012 to reach 1.56 million.

Between July to September 2012 and October to December 2012, the number of vacancies increased by 10,000 to reach 494,000. This is the highest number of vacancies since October to December 2008, but it is 200,000 lower than the pre-recession peak of 694,000 recorded for January to March 2008.

Between September to November 2011 and September to November 2012, total pay for employees in Great Britain rose by 1.5%. This annual growth rate for earnings was lower than the increase of 2.7% in the Consumer Prices Index between November 2011 and November 2012.
Source Office of National Statistics

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Breaking News….. Standby for the roll out of Master Practitioner VTF

Posted on February 2, 2013 | 2 comments

master vtf by AVPT Global

AVPT Global about to launch Master VTF practitioner Course

The ultimate course that over an intense and amazing week will develop all the skills necessary to work around the world training new Virtual Tutor Facilitator in their new career. Course topics include: Advanced Facilitation, Body Language, Teaching & Learning Skills, Mediation, Communication, Presentation Excellence and Assessment and online LMS systems.

It is brand new and uses all the latest techniques, theory and experience to deliver simply the best training course (train the trainer) out there. Graduates will get to spend a full day shadowing the professionals and learning the insight track for delivering excellence in learning.

The course will allow the trainers to deliver the workshops anywhere in the world having gained their IAO  global accredited certificate. The demand for such a course has been intense and we are delight to be taking enquiries and reservations for the first course dates. Become the best in the field, be the person you want to be and never except anything less than excellence.

To receive the latest updates for the launch of the  Master Practitioner VTF Course click here

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2012 in review

Posted on January 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 980 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Merry Christmas from AVPT Global

happy christmas from Diane Shawe

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Posted on December 25, 2012 in accreditation, apps, digital tickets, educational apps, free courses, HR, Management, micro Learning, micro teaching, mLearning, mobile phone broadcasting, online colleges, online courses, online teaching, online universities, training courses

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Why Stress can stop you from achieving excellence in 2013

Posted on December 22, 2012 | 1 comment
managing your stress

managing your stress

Article by Diane Shawe M.Ed.

Take 5 minutes a day to keep your stress level down

Everything seems much faster, urgent and possibly unfulfilling! Just after Christmas and heading into the New Year it can often be a stressful time for lots of people for lots of reasons.

Stress is created by worrying about things in the future or things that have already happened, both of which you cannot change at the very moment you are worrying about it.

Before you read any further do this little test.  ‘At this very very moment whist you are reading this is there a problem affecting you reading this article at this moment in time that is stopping you from reading it? If your answer is ‘no’ then this is because you are living in the ‘NOW’

Living too much into the future or reliving the past are both causes of fear and pain. You would probably find yourself concerned with some of the following thoughts…

  • How can I stop the pain?
  • How can I switch your mind off,
  • How can I stop worrying?
  • How can I relax?
  • How can I be happy?

Well I invite you to explore two words ‘acceptance’ and ‘surrender’ a good place to start.

Become fully present is very empowering and helps you live in the higher order of thinking.

If only our lives was like typing when we can simply undo, delete or Hyperlink to a quick useful reference but alas, lots of things are unavoidable in life.  Never before has it become more important to find ways to decrease and prevent stressful incidents and decrease negative reactions to stress, especially as they can lead to short or long term illnesses.

Here are some of the things that can be done instantly by just remembering to be conscious of them.

Managing time

Time management skills can allow you more time with your family and friends and possibly increase your performance and productivity. This will help reduce your stress.

To improve your stress management:

  • Save time by focusing and concentrating, delegating, and scheduling time for yourself.
  • Keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time.
  • Prioritise your time by rating tasks by importance and urgency.
  • Redirect your time to those activities that are important and meaningful to you.
  • Manage your commitments by not over- or under committing. Don’t commit to what is not important to you.
  • Deal with procrastination by using a day planner, breaking large projects into smaller ones, and setting short-term deadlines.
  • Examine your beliefs to reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like.
  • Build healthy coping strategies

It is important that you identify your coping strategies. One way to do this is by recording the stressful event, your reaction, and how you cope in a stress journal. With this information, you can work to change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones-those that help you focus on the positive and what you can change or control in your life.

Lifestyle

Some behaviors and lifestyle choices affect your stress level. They may not cause stress directly, but they can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress. Try to:

  • Balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations.
  • Have a sense of purpose in life.
  • Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping.
  • Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defense against stress.
  • Get moderate exercise throughout the week.
  • Limit your consumption of alcohol.
  • Don’t smoke.

Social support

Social support is a major factor in how we experience stress. Social support is the positive support you receive from family, friends, and the community. It is the knowledge that you are cared for, loved, esteemed, and valued. More and more research indicates a strong relationship between social support and better mental and physical health.

Changing your thinking pattern

When an event triggers negative thoughts, you may experience fear, insecurity, anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, and a sense of worthlessness or powerlessness. These emotions trigger the body’s stress, just as an actual threat does. Dealing with your negative thoughts and how you see things can help reduce stress.

  • Thought-catching helps you stop a negative thought to help eliminate stress.
  • Disproving irrational thoughts helps you to avoid exaggerating the negative thought, anticipating the worst, and interpreting an event incorrectly.
  • Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it.
  • Changing your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel put down, hostile, or intimidated. This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication. Use the assertiveness ladder to improve your communication style.

Why Continued Personal Development is important

Lifelong learning it’s important to your continued growth and smiley to core with lives every changing environment, circumstances and economical. Everyday life can often present challenges and like any thing in life if you don’t equip yourself with the right tools trying to fix the problem with the wrong tools can itself be the greater source of frustration.

www.expressingtrainingcourses.com

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Four Pillars that underpin buyers requirements for eLearning

Posted on November 29, 2012 | 2 comments

Get qualified in days not years

article by Diane Shawe M.Ed

Whilst I am in the industry and excited by the latest trends in e-learning  through blended Learning Management Systems (LMS)  learning being hugely of interest at present, I believe that the four  pillars that go to underpin the buyers requirements and therefore still define the industry offerings are centered around the following:

• Compliance and accreditation
• Scalable and flexible whilst achieving a real reduction in Cost
• Improving , track and measuring Learners performance
• Real time management, alignment and communication to support ongoing changes.

The ability to track and report learner performance remains upper most in many procurers mind.

It will become increasingly important to have specified learning strategy which can deliver effectively against all of these requirements, and getting the “e-learning mix” of technologies obviously including content, collaboration and communication environments (social learning) and control mechanisms will be the key to further industry growth.

Under-pining these trends we are seeing growing interest in how e-learning can address softer skills and this is why we have concentrated our LMS content to this area of learning.

Some vendors are following the vertical market and configuring the offer to meet specific needs, others are differentiating by adding social media and social learning functionalists, and others such as us are aligning the LMS to the latest technologies being colonised by the e-learning industry – mobile/smart devices and video driven content. The trend from the USA is strongly toward talent management and we are often lagging behind.

The smart vendors in my view are aligning and integrating with other solutions: HR, ERP, CRM etc…. Content or Content, which to choose…..?

These developments can only be positive for the industry, as the demand for quality and quantative content will grow and grow.

My one but final view is that we will progress from blending to mixing the content provision as this will be the key challenge to the e-learning industry. The importance of content won’t go away, its just changing faster becoming more “Re-purposable” , “Flexible”, “Interoperable”, and “Accessible” learning content!

Now get this, I am so loving the fact that on its way to us is 3 Dimensional technologies, simulation, holographic all of which will increase the demand for new genres of learning content into a learning reality!

http://www.expresstrainingcourses.co.uk

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E-learning growth ‘set to rise to £19 billion by 2015

Posted on November 19, 2012 | 8 comments

Get qualified whilst on the move with AVPT

article by Diane Shawe M.Ed.

Academy of Vocational and Professional Training (AVPT) finds that the market for e-learning just keeps growing and growing, according to various research and sales figure surveys

A survey by Ambient Insight Research has showed that the worldwide market for e-learning products was $32.1 billion (£20.5 billion) in 2010 and is expected to rise to $49.9 billion by 2015.

Products and methods of online learning that were deemed the most successful in sales rates included “how to” videos, step-by-step interactive guides and course notes which have multi-media inserts and annotations which directed learners to other resources.

Writer for Gadget magazine, Andre Joubert of MWEB Business said that he thinks the availability of media-rich, interactive e-learning content on the internet – and the advent of uncapped, business-strength broadband connectivity is changing the face of e-learning. He based his analysis on South Africa, but his principles apply worldwide as global sales figures show.

We noted from our research that Mr Joubert said: “E-learning has long been recognised as offering considerable advantages over conventional classroom-based training when it comes to training employees and management quickly, efficiently and conveniently.

So what about the Virtual Classroom?

We see 2012/13 as being the breakthrough year for virtual classrooms, as organisations move on from webinars (which are increasingly commonplace) to more interactive environments offered by virtual classrooms.

I am certainly excited by our  online courses which are recognised and accredited in over 200 subject matters.  As  result of this growing trend AVPT has launched the first globally accredited Virtual Tutor Facilitator course. To train

A New Career Opportunity as a VTF

professionals in becoming a qualified online Tutor who want flexibility and positive earning potential to assist individuals gain a professional recognised certificate  using a mobile learning Management solutions through facilitating their online learning.

Training through online learning is now widely available on the internet and can be beneficial to anything from flower arranging, PowerPoint presentations through to health and safety.

Soft skills is now becoming the new hard skills and offering mobile training and  advice  through e-learning are valuable to many people and a range of businesses globally.

Tim Dingle AVPT Chief Development Officer cited many benefits of the virtual classroom, such as convenience, relevance, immediacy, affordability and ease of use. He added that beginning the learning experience can be as easy as starting up an internet browser.

According to research by Key Note from last year, instructor-led training represents the largest sector of the market, although e-learning teaching – which includes blended learning – showed the highest growth over the review period between 2005 and 2009.

Mobile Learning forging forward.

A 2009 research report summarised that they thought mobile learning could be a “maybe just maybe”, In 2010  a definite trend was being recorded and in 2011 they saw mobile learning as a major driver for the growth of the e-learning market.

The driver is not one of simple learning enhancement and support but driven by a requirement for portability and availability made possible by smart phones and tablet devices, the learning “additionality”. The PC might still remain key to many learners for some years to come but I believe that the call for mobility, flexibility and the trends to workforce mobility will win the day.

We are particularly taken with the concept of second screen learning, in that learners will use mobile devices i-pads, smart phones etc… in conjunction with other forms media such as skype, bluetooth and appliances imbedded in a variety of devices such as the TV, car or even on your fridge.

I do not see mobile learning as a straight replacement to existing genres, and accordingly iIdo not advise organisations to rush headlong into mobile learning solutions because they can be an expensive option if not properly planned out.

Mobile learning in appropriate additional ways  can be used to enhance the learning mix. One principle game changer is our ability to upload current or new courses into our LMS, cutting down on project development planning time and costs and enabling a blended Learning proposition to commence not only laterally but securely, scalable and in real time.

For instance the unemployed, people of disability, prison population, senior citizens and excluded children from the educational system could all benefit in real time whilst keeping the overall unit costs down by scaling and up-skilling with an emphasis on inclusion and virtual support.

Content can now increasingly be authored or in many cases converted to become fit for all purpose all range device delivery and in real time.

HTML5 coupled with Cloud based services will further embed e-learning into the all- pervasive always on internet. Indeed the terminology of mobile learning/ e-learning will lose differentiation, as will the nature of the device that the learning is undertaken upon.

Technology coupled with the growing importance of social media learning will lead to greater learner acceptance. I for one have seen a pattern stemming from the services we are offering to date and look forward to 2013 as we believe it is going to be a bumper year for mobile learning.

Visit us on http://www.expresstrainingcourses.com or call us if you would like more information on 0203 551 2621.

Join us now with over 200 courses

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