Diploma in Business Success

Precision Research

How do we take our starting point from the foundation course of testing our idea and really drill down into researching our idea? In this first lesson we discover how to properly research our market opportunities by covering SWOT analysis and in depth advanced market analysis. We will cover risk management so that we can identify, assess and prioritize the issues that can impact your business. We will also learn how to reverse engineer your competitor's business model. This can be vital in understanding your marketplace and hence what exactly you have to offer your own customer base.

Advanced Marketing

Think about adverts and logo's that you see. And I mean really 'see', those that catch your attention. The ones you remember. How confident are you that you could construct one of these adverts for your business? How does an advertisement get your attention? What does it have to do to engage you? It is not simply about being louder and more shocking than your competitor. It is more nuanced than that. In this lesson students are invited to submit their adverts/slogans before the lesson to be work shopped by the entire group. We will consider each and every aspect from wording to layout to colour choice to where and how it will be presented to your customer base. The ones that get your attention. How do they do that? How do they make you look? In this lesson we go deep into what makes an advert and a logo grab attention. We will then as a group make suggestions and improvements to your design. We will explore colour psychology and how you can employ it to make your customer facing business say what you want and need it to say.

Effective Focus

In this lesson we take a brief look back at how to set goals but we quickly move forward to understand where to set goals. We look at where to put our focus for our goals, the 3 types of goals and most importantly how to measure results. We look at the success formula so that we can remain on track including the 9 ideas for success including 'Meaning and outcome of communication is the response you get'.

• SMARTER Goals
• 3 types of goals
• 3 areas for Focus
• Success formula
• 9 strategies for success

Goal setting

Every day in your business you decide what it is that you are going to focus on. How do you make these decisions? Do you make sure that you think about and take action to close sales? Do you spend the day writing blogs for your website? You must have a plan in place so that you know where your time, effort and money is going on a regular basis. This lesson will delve into these ideas and more so that you will have the ability to construct a clear roadmap for yourself and your business.

Advanced sales

Moving on from the foundation course where we learned the 'what is' of sales, this lesson and the next discusses the 'how to' of sales. Together you and I will put together specific sales techniques tailored to your business offering using persuasion techniques that you can use in your own sales conversations. This is a vital lesson for any person starting their business. We will also discover how to handle objections, how to build a fact based argument for any and all objections that you may encounter when conducting a sales conversation.

The mechanics of building strong and lasting rapport include understanding how to pace with a person. Pacing is to follow a person's movements at a distance for want of a better phrase. The main component of pacing is doing what is known as matching and mirroring. There are many different things we can match and mirror in another person.

We communicate with our words, tone of voice, emphasis, cadence, rate of speech...and that's just our words! We also communicate with our bodies, how we stand, eye contact, how we react to what we hear. When it comes to reading body language some people are of the opinion that it is easy -- crossed arms means defensive, scratching you nose means they're lying. This is all nonsense. Or more accurately by itself these gestures are nonsense. You will learn the 421 technique for reading people so that you will build rapport quickly and efficiently. We all communicate in a multitude of ways. When we think of communication most people just think of the words that are said. When we understand the words and phrases people use coupled with an estimate about their body language we have a better idea of how to direct the conversation.

Ultimate rapport

Ultimate rapport is about reading yourself. We ask ourselves 'what is it that I am projecting to the world?' This projection is impacted by the story you tell yourself about who you are. You want to put your best foot forward when it comes to any sales conversation. Part of that process is really about understanding yourself. We will go through an 8 step scoring system whereby you will be afforded the opportunity to audit your own output and we will tie in with the goal setting lesson so that you can get excited about making improvements in your output both in your business and in your day to day life. This is a powerful and in depth process.

Persuasion techniques

In this lesson we take an in depth look at the psychology of sales and how it can be used utilized. We will get to grips with the techniques behind persuasion. It is important to approach this lesson with an open mind. Persuasion is not about being underhanded or deceitful. It is about understanding the outlook another person has of the world and putting your case forward for your product or service in a way that they are going to respond positively to it. Persuasion is both an art and a science. In this lesson we consider the advanced persuasion techniques that you can put into practice straight away.

To further our revealing look at advanced sales and directing sales conversations we delve into one of our sister courses to explore the best techniques for priming customers to buy: The 6 Principles of Persuasion. We critically analyse each of the principles in turn giving definitions for each one. We go deeper then to understand why these are the principles of persuasion and most importantly we learn how to apply them. Remember our Ultimate Entrepreneurial Programme has by design a smaller number of students so you will be afforded the opportunity to ask questions about how to specifically apply these persuasion techniques to your business in general and to your sales conversations with customers. These six principles are both a science and an art. You can learn these six principles but they are not linear

You and I together will walk through a powerful but somewhat strange technique The Economist magazine employed to boost sales. We will look at the fundamentals of this technique. Most importantly we will consider which businesses can apply this technique to their businesses. It will not be applicable to every one of them.

Persuasion techniques application

Theory is important but without knowing how to apply it, it will remain just that -- theory. So in this lesson we will take real life examples of where the principles of persuasion are being applied and we will investigate how these companies and people are using them to great effect. This lesson is not to be missed as it involves taking the ideas of sales and especially a soft sell and putting them into real life situations. You will be amazed at how many of these techniques you are influenced by on a daily basis. These techniques are in full force in the advertising world and following this lesson you will be become more and more aware of them.

Concise communication

Imagine if you were introduced to someone at a party and you got talking. After a few minutes the person makes a joke that you find wholly offensive. Your new friend notices and says "hey calm down, I was just kidding". Who is in the wrong in this situation? Is it the person making what they think is a joke or the person taking offense? This is the crux of communication. Getting communication right is difficult. Almost everything a person says can be misconstrued or taken out of context. This is why politicians sound like robots and become very adept at dodging questions. Something they say to a journalist in jest can look very different splashed across the front page of a newspaper. The truth is that there are many barriers to communication, many things that can impact the meaning we give to messages we receive. In this lesson we tap into the flow of communication so that you can be empowered to make the correct choices in how you communicate. We give you a whole new perspective on what you communicate and why you communicate.
We learn to master:

This lesson arms you with the knowledge of how everyone is employing filters to every piece of information they receive. It is known as distorted thinking and can impact how your message is received. We uncover the techniques to recognise these filters in ourselves and others and we learn how to develop fail safes to ensure our message is clearly understood by our customer base, our employees or anyone else we communicate with during the course of your business.

Communication application

Success Strategy

Success Strategy Application

The previous lesson we brought together a lot of different ideas about tips and tricks to use in business. In this lesson we put it into practice. We understand that from the colour of our logo to the shape has an impact on how our business is perceived. This lesson is a look into the psychology of colour and shapes and how they impact our decisions. We pull back the veil to reveal how many of the household names have used these ideas.

Advanced networking

Being successful in business is helped hugely by knowing the right people. We know that it is not easy to go to a networking event, approach a strange and start a conversation. It can make even the most confident person nervous. This lesson involves opening a conversation as well as some linguistic acrobatics to lead a conversation where you want it to go. A lot of people think a good first impression is what matters. Where in actual fact, it is far more important to leave a great lasting impression. This lesson will take you through the framework for giving yourself a great opportunity to do just that.

Advanced networking application

Going even deeper into becoming a great networker we consider the ideas of group pawning, getting a seat at the table and telling great stories to engage an entire group. Some of these techniques are not for the faint hearted and require practice but if you really want to be the most engaging person in the room then this is the lesson for you.

Building Blocks 1

With all the techniques for sales, networking and everything else that goes along with being in business, it is all a waste of time unless you understand how other people think. The best tools in the world for fixing an engine are no good unless you know why they are the best tools and how they work. It is the same with people. You may know the most in depth theories about persuasion but unless you know why these techniques work then you will struggle to make any advances. This lesson is based around the building blocks of us, people. We explore how to understand the different types of intelligence that exist and how they fit into the bigger picture of making up a person's personality and hence their outlook on life.

Building Blocks 2

Following on from the previous lesson where we considered the different types of intelligence that exist, we look at some of the most influential figures in history to understand how they fit into the frame of MI theory. If we look at people who were close to genius level in certain intelligence areas we can take almost a simplistic view of the different intelligences and begin to then look for more subtle clues as to intelligence types in the people around us. We use the genius's to spot the intelligence with ease so that we can understand it and then we think about how we can apply this to our own business model. This lesson coupled with the previous is a fascinating look into what makes us who we are.

Digital marketing

We get back to the business of marketing in this lesson where we look at how to market ourselves online. Marketing has not changed since the dawn of time. We have to position ourselves as the expert and let people know that we exist. There are of course a few more subtleties than that. In this lesson we explore what you can do to give your customers as good an experience as possible on your website. We look at navigation and layout as well as looking at real life examples of both good and bad websites.

Digital marketing application

In our final lesson we apply the rules of marketing from the last lesson so that we can see not just how important marketing correctly is but also that we can understand how important market research is. If you are in business and you are guessing as to what you think your customer base would want then the chances are you are not going to be in business very long. This final lesson will ensure that you are approaching your business with your eyes wide open and with a full understanding of what is involved in testing your idea and continuously refining it.