Follow-up: Business-Edu Expo 2009 (2009.06.17-19)

A week ago I took part to a lovely event: Business-Edu Expo which took place at Sala Palatului in Bucharest. You can find out why I loved it so much by reading this blog post of mine: Why should you take part to the Business Edu Expo event these days? Here comes my review, separated by days.
17th of June:
A. Team Drumming Workshop with Drumming Cafe, Team Doctor.
I can tell you I had the best of times. Lovely, fun, great to watch and see. And lots of involvement and it was a beautiful experience for experiential learning.

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18th of June:
A. How do we approach learning in 2009? Mihai CURELEA – Achieve Global

What ideas I took home?
– It is very good to do management of performance, which is a different thing to evaluating performance;
– There are three steps to approach learning:
a. Integrate HR process;
b. Cost control;
c. Rethink the learning programs;
– The management of performance implies:
a. A standard of performance;
b. People must understand very well the process;
c. Follow the performance – it can fluctuate;
– The cost / advantages analysis implies:
a. Aligning to the business objectives;
b. Analyzing and monitoring the costs;
(both of the above are done to determine the value of each initiative)
– There are three types of companies:
a. Those that make things happen;
b. Those that wait for things to just happen;
c. Those that ask why did the things just happened;
– Learning is a pragmatic process;

B. Games – Facilitators of imagination, introspection and communication; OH cards of association – Iulia SARA – Active Labs
Lots of fun, and involvement of the audience, I felt good participating;
If you want to see the presentation of OH cards of association, you can see it in here: OH cards of association.

C. Change management and projects – Simona BONGHEZ – Roland Gareis Consulting

19th of June:
A. Magnetique Marketing – Bruce BENNETT, Rom Biz Conect
Thoughts that rushed on me:
– We want to go from a pest to a welcomed guest;
– You can’t push anyone into sales;
– It doesn’t matter what business you’re in;
– MBA acronm comes, for some, from “Massive Bank Account”;
– You need to have a:
a. USP – Unique Selling Proposition (why should I do business with you);
b. VSP – Value Selling Proposition (what added value you can bring me, as a customer);
c. Risk Reversal – you can give a money back guarantee;
d. Direct offer & call to action – Offer a bonus; Buy now, get something free;
e. Offer proof – what others say about you is much more persuasive than you say about yourself;
– You need the right tools:
a. Geographic;
b. Geo-demographic;
c. (if B2B) Geo-industry demographic;
d. Affinity;
e. Clientele;
f. Psychographic;
– Every media can be powerful;
– You need to create marketing systems that are:
a. Repeatable;
b. Predictable;
c. Controllable;
– Budget your market;

B. Interpreting the story of “The brave little taylor” – Good salespersons make 7 sales from one hit – Eugen DRAGOMIR – Codecs
What did I hear from what he said?
– Quality comes from standardization;
– Performance comes from continuous improvement of the standards;
– Standards are applied to each level of an organization;
– The organization gives to the seller some standards (input data);
– The seller gives to the organization information regarding the activity (feed-back data);
– The organization should measure if all the required information has been provided to the personnel, if they know it and apply it; It should also apply the feed-back from the personnel;
– The personnel should offer valuable feed-back, should be capable to offer a continuous improvement of the process;
– Delegation can also go from lower levels to upper levels: “Boss, I have a problem with this – What can I do? / Can you help me? / Why is that?”; That’s bad delegation;
– For a traditional type of store the process of selling is the one thing that makes the difference among different store; It’s the actual experience of buying, from the interaction with the seller to the placement of goods;
– Steps for a better brand positioning:
a. Communicate at a location level (trade marketing);
b. Receive the client;
c. Recognize the profile of the client (Is he just a passerby? Does he intend to buy something?);
d. Identify the needs;
e. Present the appropriate products;
f. Close the sales;
g. Paying the goods;
h. A request to come back again;
– It’s a bad idea to just measure the results, it’s much more appropriate to measure in different steps – what is the client’s specific need;
– Standards are made to be followed by orders and changed by feed-back;

C. What is coaching with Gerard o’DONOVAN – Noble Manhattan
And here is a clip I made with him:

– We all live somewhere and do something;
– There are four foundations to coaching:
a. 90% of the coaching can be done via phone;
– You can have clients all over the world;
– A human being will reveal more things on the phone (more openness, more clarity);
– On the down side, there is no body language on the phone;
b. A coach is non judgmental;
– it doesn’t matter if you tend to be judgmental, every one of us is like that;
– you, as a coach, you have to learn how to be non-judgmental;
– the more you practice being non-judgmental, the more you become non-judgmental;
c. Coaches are non-directorial – avoid saying “must”, “have to”, “should”;
– You cannot be a directorial coach;
d. Coaches have no answer;
– “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” – Albert Einstein;
– In coaching we create our own reality;
– “If it’s to be, it’s up to me”;
– Things about the human spirit:
a. We are human beings – you have an inner light that shines and that is out of this world;
b. We are spiritual beings;
c. We have access to any resource that we ever dream of in order to set or achieve every goal that we set for ourselves;
– Coaching is a collaborating partnership;
– Coaches see the clients as their potential;
– Coaching = “releasing human potential”;
– There is nothing wrong if we need attention, appreciation, affection; We all need love;
– You can learn anything;
– Coaches are living examples for other people;
– They are M.A.D. = “Make A Difference”;
– Coaches empower people;

D. Solution Focus Coaching – recognize the difference – Petra MUELLER-DEMARY, MDI Training

– What’s the difference that makes the difference?

Problem Focus:		Solution Focus
The past		The future
What’s wrong?		What’s working?
Blame		Progress
Deficits		Resources
Complication		Simplicity
(they all lead to frustration)		(they all lead to hope, energy, creativity)

You can download the entire presentation in here.
A camp to take part to, organized by Petra MUELLER-DEMARY: The Journey of Life.

E. “Mens sana in corpore sano”: the classical way to self improvement – Bruno MEDICINA

– Whatever our mission is, we need one thing: energy (food, sports, breathing);
– 90% of the globe’s populating is addicted to music;
– We are surrounded by energy vampires;
– We can be, ourselves, poisonous persons – persons with toxic thoughts;
– I can create at any time my emotional reality;
– The concept of energy is very personal;
– We have too much: information, money, cars, women;
– Practical test: try to run as fast as you can and see for how long can you hold that speed; Bruno MEDICINA’s estimate: 5 seconds;
– We need energy to do anything;
– What’s moral and good tends to lift the energy level, while the things that are sins tend to lower it;
– What stops you to say positive things about others?
– The key to receiving energy is to offer energy;
– Help the ones that surround you to understand that they can do more;
– Discovering who you are is a lifetime project;
– Stop from time to time to ask yourself what you want;
– If you want to understand objectives and goals, you should pick a simpler path: the path of energy, success, achievements – they should all be aligned; That’s the better solution: see if you align all the goals in your life;
– We are aligned by a force bigger than ourselves; This is the key to leadership;
– The previous rulers thought they represented a superior force;
– The Universe has a superior key to be understood by;
– Try to remove the poison that surrounds you;
– You have to have courage to forces yourself out of your comfort zone;
– The one thing that is appropriate to drink is water;
– To raise the energy level, you should offer energy to other persons;
– Connect yourself to a superior source;