Are you a Business Consultant, Coach, or Mentor? Looking for fantastic tools and resources available to you 24/7 to assist your clients? Then try FAQSupport.
2. Introduction
ā¢ The purpose of this presentation is to give a quick overview of FAQ Supportās
Facilitator and Coaching program. Additional information can be obtained from the
website, www.faqsupport.com.au
ā¢ FAQ Support has created a concept for facilitators and coaches which helps you to
pick and choose the components best suited to your practice and to make your
practice a valuable and sustainable asset in your community.
ā¢ Anticipated outcomes:
1. You will see ways that your practice will work better.
2. You will enjoy your practice more working with FAQ Support.
3. Your will achieve your aspirations faster.
Another key to unlock
your potential
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3. Times are changing
ā¢ Building relationships and networks with business owners and managers has become
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a top priority for many professionals as they become harder to reach.
For a business owner or manager itās hard to find trusted facilitators, or coaches who
will really challenge them and their ideas. But how do you move from being a
tradable commodity to a trusted partner and part of a clients inner circle?
For years we have been told to ask questions, listen, and solve problems, when
meeting with decision makers who could buy our services. Unfortunately this doesnāt
always work well.
From the clients point of view, you canāt charge normal fees for basic information,
which they can find easily from other sources. However they do want quick access to
quality information and knowledge and how to apply it to their particular business.
Clients are time-starved and you are one person on a long list of people competing
for their time. They have to be selective because their time is valuable and they will
usually only meet with people they already know, or who are recommended to them.
4. Classifications of business support people
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Facilitator - A Facilitator is experienced in processes which can relate to specifics;
planning, marketing, relationships, health, finance and so on. They also facilitate ideas
and opportunities for individuals and organisations.
Coach - These are the people who can be best summarised as a general practitioners.
They have had good practical experience in running a business and they act much like a
coach in a sporting team.
Mentor - Where an experienced person is assigned to an inexperienced person and
assists with advice, or acts in a general support role. Mentoring is about dealing with
individuals in order to guide them with problems they may have.
Advisor - These people have well developed skills in one or two specific areas such as
social media, employment contracts, accounting, law, finance, work-place health and
safety, construction ,engineering and so on . These are the people who can be best
summarised as a specialist practitioners.
Broker - A broker is an individual or party (brokerage firm) that arranges transactions
between a buyer and seller and gets a commission when the deal is executed. Examples
include finance brokers, business brokers, real estate agents.
Counselor - Counselling is a highly specialised helping process, used by professionally
trained and certified counsellors. It involves working with people individually or in small
groups. These specialists are used principally where there are personal and family
relationship involved, or health problems.
5. What is facilitation?
ā¢ The root of the word facilitation comes from the Latin word facilis which means
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easy. Facilitation is an activity that makes tasks easier for others.
A facilitator is someone who designs processes empowering groups to meet
objectives in a collaborative way.
An expert facilitator is like a process whisperer and group dynamics guru; someone
who can keep everyone on task and nurture positive interactions along the way.
6. Categories of Facilitators
In FAQ Support there are a number of different categories of Facilitators,
making it important to select what suits your needs:
1. Those who want to service a small number of businesses in their local area.
2. Those who want to service a large number of businesses beyond their local area; a
region, or state.
3. Those who want to be more global and want to service businesses anywhere and
help other facilitators.
4. Those who want to specialise (e.g. in relationships, health and well being, business,
social enterprises, Indigenous, youth, technical).
5. Those who want to help facilitate International businesses.
It is important to select a case-load that suits your lifestyle.
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7. When is it valuable for businesses to engage a facilitator?
ā¢ Facilitators are utilised in a variety of contexts (including business, education, therapy and
conflict resolution). Facilitators are often called upon to design workshops and productive
meetings. It is most valuable to engage a facilitator when you have a committed group of key
stakeholders and decision makers convening to solve a specific problem, create a strategic
plan, address an opportunity and/or launch a new product or service.
ā¢ For example, a facilitator is ideal for helping a business to:
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Remove frustrations and solve problems.
Establish a strategic direction for innovatively growing the business to meet aspirations.
Generate new product or service offerings.
Brainstorm ideas for names, promotions, events, campaigns, etc.
Developing the business model, business plan and budgets.
Leverage human resources to fill their innovation pipeline with new ideas.
Have useful and helpful conversations with customers and people in the value chain.
Knowledge mining of existing research to identify gaps and opportunities.
Get team alignment on project objectives, strategies, actions and outcomes.
Develop clear strategies and success criteria for long term projects.
Improve employee engagement by engaging employees in opportunity generation.
Develop a strategic revitalisation or development plan.
Generate a plan for a community.
8. FAQ Support - Development Phases
Phase 4
Sustainable Continuous Improvement
Phase 3
Commence Rollout
2014 ongoing
2012 - 2013
Partnerships
Networks
Phase 2
Build Infrastructure
2011 - 2013
Website
Technology Infrastructure
New Product Development
Phase 1
Building Resources
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1987 - 2011
10. There is a need to ignite good values
FAQ Support commits to the following values:
1. Proactive and responsive to peopleās wants and needs.
2. Good health is a prerequisite of good business.
3. Continuous improvement.
4. Reliability in delivering on our promises.
5. Honesty and integrity in all our activities.
6. Inspire others to make improvements to their life and business.
7. Applying technology and innovation in a practical way.
8. Stay focused by keeping the end in mind.
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11. We help you find a starting point?
Family
Relationships
Support
Where do
I start?
Social Media
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12. Time for a new paradigm
Old attitudes to facilitators, coaches and consultants:
ā¢ "They don't understand my businessā.
ā¢ "Our industry is different".
ā¢ āI have a fear of spending money and getting little resultā.
ā¢ āThey take our money and we never hear from them againā.
ā¢ āThere is no ongoing support, they are not pro-active, poor follow upā.
ā¢ āThey donāt help me with implementationā.
ā¢ āSlow to respond to my wants and needsā.
ā¢ āToo complicated and expensiveā.
ā¢ āNot very creative or innovativeā.
ā¢ āThey are reluctant to travelā.
ā¢ āThey are too specialisedā.
There is a need for a new approach to SMEs.
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13. Changes taking place in business support
Old ways
ā¢ People/paper based/slow.
ā¢ Individual dependant.
ā¢ Difficult communications.
ā¢ Poor regional support.
ā¢ Always behind.
ā¢ Poor access to support.
ā¢ Expensive, slow to respond.
ā¢ Slow market response.
ā¢ Poor market knowledge.
ā¢ Information overload.
ā¢ Doing same things over and over.
ā¢ Expensive, complex technology.
ā¢ Academic theoretical language.
ā¢ Operating in isolation.
ā¢ Difficult to see value.
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New ways
ā¢ Technology enabled, fast.
ā¢ Dynamic collaborative framework.
ā¢ Collaborative communications.
ā¢ Quality support anywhere.
ā¢ Always up to date.
ā¢ Access 24 hrs, 7 days a week.
ā¢ Cost effective responsive to needs.
ā¢ Rapid response to markets.
ā¢ Knowledge at fingertips.
ā¢ Knowledge management.
ā¢ A process that works consistently.
ā¢ Easy to understand.
ā¢ Practical and easily understood.
ā¢ Operating in teams.
ā¢ Focused, value added as wanted.
14. New paradigms for business facilitators and coaches
Old ways
ā¢ Ignorance of customer wants, needs.
ā¢ Poor information access.
ā¢ Difficult, strained, telling.
ā¢ Mostly specialised prospective.
ā¢ Too complicated, little experience.
ā¢ Expensive.
ā¢ Self indulgent.
ā¢ Individual - tardy, shabby.
ā¢ Low risk taking.
ā¢ Long hours.
ā¢ Self contained.
ā¢ Resists change.
ā¢ Poor tools and processes.
ā¢ Low technology.
ā¢ Facilitators office only.
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New ways
ļ¼ Knowledge of wants and needs.
ļ¼ Good information access.
ļ¼ Collaborative.
ļ¼ Coverage of total business.
ļ¼ Relevant practical, experienced.
ļ¼ Productive and relevant.
ļ¼ Customer focus, practical.
ļ¼ Team effort- clean and bright.
ļ¼ Creative innovation.
ļ¼ Balanced lifestyle.
ļ¼ Networked, well connected.
ļ¼ Initiates and embraces change.
ļ¼ Appropriately equipped.
ļ¼ Technology enabled.
ļ¼ Available on the job.
15. Change ā Those not technology enabled are at risk
Paper Based
Old Methods
Old Paradigm
Low Level
Technology
Confused
Inputs Required
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High Level
Technology
Enabled
16. Segmentation by speciality
By turnover
1. Start-up to $500,000.
2. $500,000 to $2 million.
3. $2 million to $10 million.
4. Over $10 million.
By Industry
1. SMEās.
2. Not-for-Profits.
By speciality:
1. Planning.
2. Marketing.
3. Finance.
4. Health and well-being.
5. Wholesalers.
6. And so on...
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17. Appropriately equipping the facilitator
FAQ Support provides you with a Business Support Infrastructure that
delivers various levels of support by addressing such things as:
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Orientation relative to business frustrations, problems, wants, needs and behaviour.
Lead and opportunity generation, improves personal time use.
Supports just-in-time problem solving and decision making.
Access to FAQ Support Infrastructure 24/7 to be better equipped for the job.
It supports ideas and managing a portfolio of customers.
Various Service Levels and associated skills required.
Training, Mentoring and Coaching as required and creates new knowledge.
Access to tools, processes, checklists and templates.
Business and market intelligence, information and knowledge.
Efficiencies in integration of information, knowledge and methodologies.
Capacity to address many different types of businesses.
Psychological support, it can be lonely working alone.
Support for building capability and capacity, particularly remotely.
Development and management of your Practice.
18. A facilitation and coaching model
Words of caring sensitive involvement
Words from a person with experience
Words of honesty with pain
Words of frustration and skepticism
Person whoās
business is not going
well. A person finding
it hard going by
themselves.
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Putting people
first,
money second.
A helpful person, ethical,
enthuastic, non-defensive,
caring, willing to share,
information, ideas and
opportunities, with good values.
20. Improve levels of customer learning and support
1st Level
Knowledge
The Cloud anywhere, anytime
Simple, practical, relevant
2nd Level
Understanding
Live facilitators online
People who know
3rd Level
Interpretation
Specialists online
At affordable prices
4th Level
Synthesis
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Direct one-on-one coach,
And facilitator support
22. A model for taking clients from dreams to the new reality
values
objectives
vision
dreams
strategy
caring sharing
Frustrations
Problems
building trust
get understanding
building connections
work smarter
building relationships
capture knowledge
be consistent
implement
innovate
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23. FAQ providing leadership to members and clients
ā¢ Training in leadership is
important.
ā¢ Focus on things being:
ā Profitable
ā Sustainable
ā Measurable
ā Reportable
ā Verifiable
ā Healthy
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24. Reaching potential ā Areas for improvement
Mental Functions
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Values.
Beliefs.
How you think.
How you act and interact.
Practice positive stuff every day.
Productivity
ā¢ Capacity to get things done.
ā¢ Ability to achieve goals.
Physical Functions
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Energy, stamina.
Fitness, sleep, diet.
Availability of resources.
Networking capability.
Infrastructure for sustainability
Persuasion
ā¢ Influence over other people.
ā¢ Able to persuade people.
Purpose
Vision
ā¢ Clear statement of purpose
ā¢ Clear vision of the future
Strategies
ā¢ Right strategies lead to the right actions
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Actions
ā¢ The right actions lead to right outcomes
25. FAQ Supportās approach to facilitation
ļ± It's too hard doing it by yourself, there is too much to know and do.
ļ± Entrepreneurial skills need to be present, or available.
ļ± Technology and communications, an imperative to improve operations.
ļ± Improve sales and marketing effectiveness.
ļ± Conflict between marketing and delivering needs to be overcome.
ļ± Prospecting is not the best use of a facilitator time.
ļ± Improves efficiency and effectiveness of customer service.
ļ± Personal productivity increases when working with others.
ļ± Success improves with collaboration.
ļ± Maintaining an āInvestor Readyā status.
ļ± Spreads costs, in terms of time and money.
ļ± As individuals we have limited skills, or a narrow focus.
ļ± Meets the need for sharing information and knowledge.
ļ± Everybody needs a reliable sounding board.
ļ± It can get very isolated and lonely working by yourself.
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27. Benefits of working together as a group, or cluster
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As a group we have a broader, more solid skills base to work from.
Collectively there are many more contacts to generate business.
Focused groups of diversified minds lead to better solutions.
Many hands make light work.
Collective ability to gather quality information and knowledge.
Improved capacity to diagnose opportunities and operations issues.
Group support improves the dynamics for everyone.
Dividing workload to where it is best handled.
Small tasks done by many equals big results.
Cross fertilisation of ideas, two heads are better than one.
Members of the group and customers benefit from group activities.
Its more fulfilling and fun working in a team.
āAll ships rise on a rising tideā
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28. Product offering to subscribers
1. Website, Social Media
ā¢ Networking.
ā¢ Lead generation.
ā¢ Information gathering.
ā¢ Surveys.
ā¢ Social Media.
ā¢ Business Automation.
2. Helpdesk
ā¢ Support for members.
ā¢ Lead generation.
3. Resource Centre
ā¢ Business Management Systems.
ā¢ Information and knowledge.
ā¢ Tools and Processes.
ā¢ Checklists and Templates.
ā¢ Campaign Management.
ā¢ Project Management.
ā¢ Business Automation.
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4. Administration support
ā¢ Telephone handling.
ā¢ Telemarketing.
ā¢ Administration tasks.
5. Training
ā¢ Facilitators.
ā¢ Coaches and Mentors.
ā¢ Multi-media presentations.
ā¢ Webinars.
ā¢ Workshops.
ā¢ Seminars, Conferences.
6. Networks
30. The role of FAQ Support
ļ± Managing the Website and Social Media.
ļ± Managing the Helpdesk.
ļ± Managing the Resource Centre.
ļ± Managing of the Networks.
ļ± Infrastructure management and expansion.
Making the right moves!
ļ± Business Management Systems development.
ļ± Lead and opportunity generation (marketing and marketing support).
ļ± Training and development of facilitators and coaches.
ļ± Development of tools, processes, checklists, templates.
ļ± Research and methodologies development.
ļ± Community development programs
ļ± Social Enterprise programs.
ļ± Community development programs.
ļ± Entrepreneurial leadership.
ļ± Creativity and innovation.
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31. Growing your business with FAQ Support
Features
Outcomes
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Helpdesk.
ļ¼ Easy access to support.
Resource Centre.
ļ¼ Access to resources.
Business Automation.
ļ¼ Reduced costs.
You are not alone.
ļ¼ Decreased procrastination.
Mentoring.
ļ¼ Psychological support.
Standards and rules.
ļ¼ Consistent quality delivered.
Unique tools and processes.
ļ¼ Efficient - lower costs.
SME knowledge, information.
ļ¼ Better ideas, methodologies.
R&D commitment.
ļ¼ Improved process ā ideas.
Larger networks.
ļ¼ Opportunities.
Range of experiences.
ļ¼ Capacity to support and deliver.
Business Management System
ļ¼ Access and control of business.
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32. Benefits of FAQ Support Membership
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Access to the FAQ Support infrastructure.
New leads and opportunities generation.
A successful business partner that works for you.
Improved profits with reduced costs through process improvement.
Models for managing and growing client.
Improved capacity to capitalise on opportunities.
Improved relationships.
Needs are addressed with improved planning.
Minimisation of risk.
Continuous improvement ā standards.
Balanced development of your future.
33. Addressing the issues that makes life work
Mateship
Health
Well-being
Community
Lifestyle
Relationships
Family
Activity
Time
Security
Personal
Development
Helping
Others
Recognition
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34. Isolation and loneliness can be minimised
ā¢ It can be too hard operating in isolation, there is just too much to do.
ā¢ And it can be very lonely when you are the boss.
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35. Where are you up to...
ā¢ On a scale of 1-10 where do you sit now, how close are you to achieving your vision?
ā¢ What new knowledge do you need to get to 10?
Where
You Are
Now
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1
5
10
Your
Vision
Achieved
36. Getting a business working well is a process
ā¢ Think for a moment about how you would cook a dinner:
ļ¼ You would need a recipe.
ļ¼ You would need tools and equipment.
ļ¼ You would need ingredients.
ļ¼ You may need some advice.
ļ¼ You would go through the process one step at a time.
ļ¼ And you would practice until you did it well.
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37. Getting Started
A. Decide on area of specialisation.
B. Address the transition period.
C. Steps to a Fast Start.
1.
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Check your commitment, belief levels and passion.
Initial training program ā Orientation, getting started
Business Plan, Business Model and Budget in place.
Selection of a Mentor.
Organise your tool kit.
Activate system for building your practice.
Input initial contact and prospect list.
Identify Centres of Influence.
Set training program.
Set the appointments.
Hit the ground running
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38. Actions I will take as result of this presentation
Priority
Action Item
Who
1.
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
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Start
End
$
39. Creating new conversations, that will lead to new relationships, better health
and better businesses as well as nicer places in which to live.
Where routine ends and inspiration begins.
Discover: www.faqsupport.com.au
Question: info@faqsupport.com.au
Contact: steves@thepersuader.com.au
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Editor's Notes
What are your core values, are they a fit with your home and business relationships?Are you one of the people who put dollars and possessions first and values second?Why not look at some changes to work on? You might be surprised at the results.
Like most things it is always difficult to find a starting point.Perhaps you have already started by taking the first step; to look at this presentation.
As we discussed earlier the cost of supporting smaller businesses using old methods has become too costly.This diagram shows how the cost of providing support diminishes as the business adopts a higher level of technology.As with business, it is an imperative that facilitators and coaches be technology enabled.Old methods of training and supporting facilitators and coaches is too expensive and time consuming.FAQ Support assists facilitators and coaches in becoming technology enabled.
The intertwining of people, trust, action and ideas helps enable people to achieve their goals.It can sometimes be difficult for business people to navigate along this path and this is where the facilitators and coaches play a role.They can take you on a journey from your dream through to reality and having fun again; or they can help you with various aspects as required.