The document outlines a soft skills training program consisting of 3 modules covering interpersonal skills like communication, networking, negotiation, and relationship building. Module 1 focuses on first impressions, confidence, assertiveness, emotional control, body language, and rapport. Module 2 covers networking, questioning, listening, negotiation, influencing, and customer service. Module 3 addresses difficult situations, problem-solving, creativity, risk-taking, identifying opportunities, and personal branding. Each module contains 6 sessions that use activities and discussions to help participants strengthen their soft skills.

1. Soft Skills Up-skilling Events
The Importance Of HOW Soft Skills CAN Make A Difference
The Power Of You – Building Your Personal Brand
For Business Owners, Graduates, Students, Corporate Workers…
THE LEARNTERTAINMENT COMPANY
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEARNING CONSULTANTS

2. Modules 1-3 – Overall Programme Architecture
Handouts & Core Subjects – Module 1 Core Subjects - Module 2
Take-Aways First Impressions Last Networking Skills –
You DON’T Get A Second Chance Your 15 Seconds Of Fame Or Shame
Top Ten Tips
Communicating Effectively –
Guides (for each Self-Confidence Tips ‘N’ Tricks
Questioning & Listening Techniques
skill area)
Negotiation Skills
Assertiveness Techniques That Work
How Not To Buckle Under Price Pressures
A3 Doodle
Sheets Self-Regulation – Influencing Skills
Controlling Your Emotions Knowing when to Push and Pull
e-Guides (PDF Body Language Awareness – Relationship Management
Versions Of It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Look Building & Sustaining A Strong Pipeline
Handouts/Tips) Building Rapport & Trust – Going The Extra Mile
Key Skills For Winning New Business Providing World-Class Customer Service
Core Subjects – Module 3
Handling Difficult People & Situations - Managing & Diffusing Conflict
Problem-Solving & Decision-Making - Getting More Structured In Analysing The Situation
Creativity & Innovation - Thinking Of Different Ways To Maximise The Use Of Your Products & Services
Taking Calculated Risks - Spotting Opportunities ‘Outside The Box’
Opportunity Knocks - Taking Advantage Of Potential Warm Leads & Contacts

3. High-Level Design – Module 1: Sessions 1-3
Session 1: First Impressions Last – You DON’T Get A Second Chance
This session focuses on the importance of the first impression. The participants
will be made aware of how people can make up to 11 perceptions in the first
7 seconds of meeting someone.
This session also covers the importance of perceptions using the basic
psychology of communication and the ‘games people play’.
Session 2: Self-Confidence Tips & ‘Tricks’
This session uncovers the fundamental values and beliefs that people have
and the impact they have on how they can across to others. Simple
messages such as the most important thing about CONfidence is the first
three letters of that word i.e. it’s a CON and how to sound, look and feel
confident. Challenging automatic negative thoughts , mistaken personal
beliefs, the ‘fine line’ between confidence and arrogance and how to feel
more confident are also covered in this session.
Session 3: Assertiveness Techniques That Work
This session demonstrates to the participants that assertiveness and self-
confidence are interdependent. It will cover the differences between
aggression, passive/submissive, manipulative and assertiveness. Also covered
in this session are saying no positively, coming across in an ‘adult’
manner, avoiding using neutral (e.g. ‘maybe’, ‘might’) and negative (‘can’t
do it’, ‘I’m not the best person’) into positive powerful language strategies.

4. High-Level Design – Module 1: Sessions 4-6
Session 4: Self-Regulation – Controlling Your Emotions
This session focuses on one of the most important aspect of an individual’s
emotional intelligence, controlling your emotions. Essentially, this is your
behaviour under pressure e.g. time constraints, aggressive customers and
anything that ‘hits’ your ‘emotional hot buttons’ (anger, fear, sadness).
This session looks at how to keep a firm grip on your emotional, physiological
and physical signs of behaviour when under pressure and ‘in the firing line’.
Session 5: Body Language Awareness – It’s How You Look
This session takes a light-hearted but poignant look at the non-verbal signs
that customers ‘feed-on’ (consciously or subconsciously) when working with
you. Body language can impact the effectiveness of communication by
over 50% in business (and personal) situations and may weaken the
individual’s ability to look persuasive as it often affects the tone that the
individual uses. The power of eye contact and body language ‘irritators’ are
the core components of this session.
Session 6: Building Rapport & Trust
This session demonstrates to the participants that the ‘foundations’ of
establishing contacts and potential/actual work is not just being assertive and
appearing to be confident, but it’s also about building commonality and
being personable to new and existing customers. This session will explore
techniques and questions to enable the participants to build rapport, which
leads to an instilment of trust. Essentially, techniques and how to ‘win’ trust
and build effective rapport are the fundamental outcomes of this session.

5. High-Level Design – Module 2: Sessions 1-3
Session 1: Networking Skills – Your 15 Seconds Of Fame Or Shame
This session focuses on the differentiators between face-to-face and online
networking and how to maximise your presence. The participants will be
encouraged to practise their ‘elevator’ pitch’ (15 seconds to get their
business and themselves promoted confidently and ‘packed with a punch’).
The session will also cover how to spot ‘interesting’ people and to find
potential customers and partners. The session also covers a how to use
professional and social networking sites to promote their business.
Session 2: Communicating Effectively – Questioning & Listening Skills
This session demonstrates the fundamental importance of the basic
psychology of communication – questioning, listening and checking
understanding. If these are used well, and people/customers remember you
for asking relevant (and not random) questions and demonstrate verbally
and non-verbally that you are listening then this goes a long well to keeping
the ‘communication loop’ going strong. Clarifying and checking
understanding (very under-utilised skills) are covered in this session too).
Session 3: Negotiation Skills–How Not To Buckle Under Price Pressure
This session explains a simple eight-stage model of effective negotiation
practices, including bargaining, trading concessions (and not giving them up
first), closing, negotiation tactics and not going beyond your bottom line.
Although the model is theoretical, the session includes how to negotiate in a
practical way through using negotiation tactics of your own. The essence of
this session is to create a ‘win-win’ outcome, something that is in danger of
being sacrificed to the new business owner, creating a ‘lose-win’ scenario.

6. High-Level Design – Module 2: Sessions 4-6
Session 4: Influencing Skills – Knowing When To PUSH and PULL
This session covers the two main styles of influencing – ‘push’ and ‘pull’
strategies. A practical look at the different influencing spectrum from
effective proposing and reasoning through to closing the deal. The session
also explains that influencing is a lot to do with personality, hitting the right
‘emotional hot buttons’ with those they are trying to influence. Therefore, the
concept of using ‘power levers’, such as personality, expert, knowledge and
information power is covered to show how this results in impactful influencing.
Session 5: Relationship Management – Building A Strong Pipeline
This session explains the importance of managing, but most important
retaining, a strong relationship with your customers. The session also covers
how to build a retention strategy, a compatible with the scale and nature of
your business’s customer management system. Other areas included in this
session are scheduling catch-up calls/meetings, email marketing, keeping the
customer ‘warm’ and planting seeds for future growth and business
opportunities.
Session 6:Going The Extra Mile–Providing Excellent Customer Service
This session talks about a much used phrase, ‘going the extra mile’ but
demonstrating through strong examples and stories of what this genuinely
means. Based on the FISH! Philosophy, made famous by fishmongers in
Seatlle, this session takes American ideologies into Scottish hearts and
embeds four core customer-obsessed/customer-focussed practices into
every organisation. This session also covers what the individual business owner
can do to differentiate themselves from any competitors/competitor forces.

7. High-Level Design – Module 3: Sessions 1-3
Session 1: Handling Difficult People & Situations – Managing Conflict
This session discusses how to handle common difficult people types and
explore different strategies for dealing with them. This builds in an
assertiveness model called A.G.R.E.E. and handles the subject of dealing with
objections, initial disinterest and repacking your business and verbal
proposition. Secondly, this session helps the participants understand that
there’s one more than way or strategy to manage conflict and to build an
understanding of when to use each of the five conflict handling styles.
Session 2: Problem-Solving & Decision-Making
Based on an effective six-stage problem-solving and decision making model,
this session discusses the following key stages when effectively identifying a
problem down to effective implementing the solution. Often, we jump to
implied causes and solutions too easily and this session discusses the following
core topics: identifying the problem, diagnose the problem, generating
solutions (including creative, dynamic ones), select the solution, implement
the solution and monitor/evaluate its success.
Session 3: Creativity & Innovation Techniques
This session encourages the participant’s to think of their business as having
more applications, features, benefits and applications than they believe it
currently has. Creativity comes from having the awareness to apply six
different ways of thinking, described as ‘six thinking hats’ and enables the
ability to be rational, logical as well as creative and emotional all at the same
time. The innovation session encourages the participant to think of different
situations to apply unique interventions and ‘off the wall’ solutions.

8. High-Level Design – Module 3: Sessions 4-6
Session 4: Taking Calculated Risks – Opportunities ‘Outside The Box’
This session focuses on taking risks in business, often a ‘taboo’ subject. The
practical nature of this session suggests that potential business opportunities
come along, like making an expensive telephone call to China that results in
new business outweighing the cost of this, then this may be a risk worth taking.
If it’s changing a component part, type of paint, whatever, sometimes it’s
important to think of new opportunities in the spirit of continuous
improvement, making your business less complex.
Session 5: Opportunity Knocks – Taking Advantage Of Warm Leads
This session focuses on maximising the opportunities that exist in the
marketplace and to develop strategies for dealing with leads that the
participant has picked up in a networking meeting (face-to-face or online).
As warm leads can also be word-of-mouth, friend-of-a-friend, Facebook
contact etc., the participants will establish techniques on how to start the
conversation with the lead and ‘follow through’ on the contact, what
benefits there are and most importantly make if WIIFY (What’s In It For You).
Session 6: Putting It All Together – Building Your Personal Brand
This session wraps-up the three modules on interpersonal and intrapersonal
skills and asks the delegates to complete an exercise on building their
personal brand, now that they are going to feel and be as successful as they
possible can and realise that they are the brand image of their organisation –
‘they are their organisation’.