Business Training Works
Call: 800-934-9410
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Business Writing Series
Word Power: Three Sessions to Better Business Writing
Format: Virtual Classroom Course, Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
This business writing course for remote teams consists of three two-hour modules. Attendees will learn how to determine what their readers need to know, how to plan a document, the basic rules of grammar and punctuation, and editing tools and tips they can apply to their writing. Organizations may purchase the modules individually or as a series.
Minute Taking
Making Minutes Meaningful: How to Take Great Notes Without Going Nuts
Format: Virtual Classroom Course, Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
In both formal and informal meetings, someone is usually responsible for documenting conversations and creating formal minutes or follow-up notes. Few people look forward to wearing the minute-taker’s hat. Determining what to write and how to write it can be hard work! This course aims to make the process easier. The program covers a range of best practices and offers concrete suggestions for capturing what matters in meetings.
Email Etiquette
Email Etiquette: Correct Correspondence Online
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Improve your team’s understanding of email etiquette during this instructor-led virtual classroom course. This web-based program covers the fundamentals of good business writing and the rules associated with creating professional email messages. The program addresses using basic courtesies, choosing a meaningful subject line, putting the core of the message up front, avoiding common mistakes, and complying with laws surrounding the use of email in the workplace.
Converting In-Person Training to Virtual Delivery
Transform!: Converting In-Person Training Programs and Presentations to the Virtual World
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
"The program was great in the classroom. Online? I just don't see how we can pull it off." While it's true that not every topic or classroom activity lends itself to the virtual classroom, there are steps presenters and training facilitators can take to communicate the essence of their offline programs in a virtual environment. This workshop introduces a host of tools and techniques to transform materials so they work in a virtual format. Participants should be prepared to share their existing materials and to apply the concepts discussed to them.
Accelerated Learning and Brain Science
Brain Science Basics: Tactics for Transforming Training to Leverage How People Learn
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Learning is not a passive activity, but unfortunately, a great deal of material exists that assumes the opposite. This course explores the idea of active learning and how the brain best absorbs and retains information. During the program, participants will learn the basics of brain science in adult learning, accelerated learning principles, and specific actions they can take to organize information for better retention.
Web-Based Training Design
The Virtual Virtuoso: Designing and Leading Dynamic Web-Based Training
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Designing training for web-based delivery has challenges specific to the virtual classroom. This course addresses best practices for creating interactive web-based training. The program covers basic principles of adult learning, techniques for reducing multitasking, tactics for engaging learners and encouraging participation, tips for selecting the right content, ideas for creating engaging activities, and resources for finding strong graphics.
Training Activity Design
Serious Play: Using Toys, Games, and Activities in Participant-Focused Training
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Effective training courses are typically interactive training courses that engage participants' heads and hands. This web-based program reviews a range of tools, tips, and tricks instructional designers can use to make their workshops active. The session addresses such topics as when to use activities and games, the importance of movement, why manipulatives are often more effective than lists, creative ways to use words, and techniques for incorporating traditional or repurposed games into a curriculum.
Sales and Selling Skills
Getting Your Ducks in a Row: Consultative Service and Selling Skills
Format: Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
This consultative service and sales course is designed for people who wish to improve their service and sales skills. The program consists of six instructor-led sessions. Topics include understanding trust and how to leverage it for stronger sales and better service, using questions to uncover needs, listening to what’s said and what isn’t said, overcoming objections, providing service recovery and handling difficult situations, and managing time for efficient and effective service and sales. Between each segment, participants receive a homework assignment to complete before the following session.
Chat Selling Skills
Chat Selling Skills: Fundamentals for Typing Your Way to Better Sales
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
A chat agent's ability to connect with customers can mean the difference between making online sales and not. This web-based sales training program addresses the fundamentals of selling via the chat channel. During the program, participants will learn how to start a conversation, read people styles, and drive toward the next stage of the sales process.
Time Management
Tackling Time Management: Productivity Fundamentals
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Solid time management skills are the key to getting the most out of the day. This course discusses the importance of focus and making good choices. It also addresses goal setting and the value of thinking strategically about tasks. Upon request, we can easily tailor this course to address the specific concerns a group may have about how they do their work and solutions to their time management and productivity challenges.
Time Management for Managers
Rock the Clock: Time Management for Managers and Supervisors
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Managers and supervisors face a range of time management and productivity challenges specific to those in leadership roles. This web-based course addresses those issues. The program covers such topics as thinking strategically about time, balancing management functions with everyday work, choosing the right tasks to delegate and monitoring what’s assigned, and evaluating progress against long-term goals. As with many of our productivity courses, we can tailor a session to meet needs specific to a group in advance if concerns are shared up front.
Meeting Management
Meeting Management Fundamentals: How to Run a Successful Group Discussion
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Poorly run meetings cost organizations thousands even millions of dollars each year. Dysfunction leads to morale problems, poor decisions, and a host of other issues that prevent a group from performing at its best. This course covers the fundamental skills needed to plan and facilitate productive group discussions: creating an agenda; selecting the right place, time, and people; managing participation; and troubleshooting common problems.
Minute Taking
Making Minutes Meaningful: How to Take Great Notes Without Going Nuts
Format: Virtual Classroom Course, Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
In both formal and informal meetings, someone is usually responsible for documenting conversations and creating formal minutes or follow-up notes. Few people look forward to wearing the minute-taker’s hat. Determining what to write and how to write it can be hard work! This course aims to make the process easier. The program covers a range of best practices and offers concrete suggestions for capturing what matters in meetings.
Mindfulness and Resiliency
Enduring the Unexpected: Employing Personal Resiliency and Bounce Back
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Why is it that some people seem to handle change easily, bounce back from disappointment, and thrive, despite the chaos and uncertainty that surrounds them? These people know and practice tools of resilience. During this hands-on, instructor-led webinar, participants will learn methods and strategies for putting their best foot forward and thriving when facing times of change.
Stress Management
Harnessing the Power of Healthy Habits: Tips and Tricks for Managing Everyday Stress
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
It’s impossible to go through life without encountering stress at some point. The key to surviving the experience is knowing how to deal with tension, anxiety, and discomfort. This web-based stress management program explains stress, describes its positive and negative impact, offers tools for handling what can be controlled, and suggest coping skills for managing factors that can’t or won’t change. Upon request, we can tailor this course to specifically address any workplace stressors shared in common by the participants.
Teleworking Strategies
Remote Control: Teleworking Know-How Made Easier
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Learning to telework effectively takes time and practice. Getting organized, developing strong habits, staying connected with coworkers, and remaining engaged require deliberate work. This webinar suggests ideas for accomplishing all of those activities and more.
Managing Teleworkers
The Long-Distance Manager: Skills for Supervising Teleworkers, Telecommuters, and Other Decentralized Employees
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Managing employees takes work, and it's even more of a challenge when people are not located in the same place. This interactive webinar is designed to give participants the skills they need to successfully manage teleworkers and other decentralized employees. During the program, participants will learn how to supervise without micromanaging, how to model desired behaviors, how to create a communication plan, and how to increase collaboration and build a sense of team.
Better Virtual Meetings with Zoom
Zero in on Zoom: Engagement Skills for Better Virtual Meetings
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Learn how to conduct better meetings during this interactive session on using the Zoom meeting platform. During this session, participants will discover how to organize information, communicate meeting goals, use engagement tools, and drive conversations forward using focusing language, pattern interrupts, and other techniques.
Virtual Presentation Skills
Delivering Dynamic Presentations Onstage and Online
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Learn stronger presentation skills during this virtual presentation skills course. Whether you typically deliver content in person or online, this program will help you develop skills to appear confident and control while speaking to others. Discover tips for creating strong introductions, transitions, and conclusions. Learn methods for leveraging statistics, stories, examples, and analogies. Identify ideas to encourage and audience to engage with you and the content you present.
Presentation Design
Better Thinking, Better Slides: Tactics and Tips for Designing Stronger Presentations in Less Time
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
A good presentation starts with good thinking and strong design. This course focuses exclusively on the skills needed to craft a narrative to address an audience's needs while saving time in the process! Topics include audience analysis, purpose finding, timeline management, narrative identification, design best practices and tools for better thinking.
PowerPoint Fundamentals
Power Pointers: Tips and Tricks for Designing Better Slide Presentations
Format: Virtual Classroom Course, Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
Learn the skills needed to create a strong presentation narrative and the slides to support that story during this online PowerPoint course. The program is instructor led and uses the participants' templates and samples as the opportunity allows. The course consists of one or two sessions depending on the needs of the group. By the end of this workshop, participants should have a range of tools and ideas to make their future presentations stronger.
Better Virtual Meetings with Zoom
Zero in on Zoom: Engagement Skills for Better Virtual Meetings
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Learn how to conduct better meetings during this interactive session on using the Zoom meeting platform. During this session, participants will discover how to organize information, communicate meeting goals, use engagement tools, and drive conversations forward using focusing language, pattern interrupts, and other techniques.
Web-Based Training Design
The Virtual Virtuoso: Designing and Leading Dynamic Web-Based Training
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Designing training for web-based delivery has challenges specific to the virtual classroom. This course addresses best practices for creating interactive web-based training. The program covers basic principles of adult learning, techniques for reducing multitasking, tactics for engaging learners and encouraging participation, tips for selecting the right content, ideas for creating engaging activities, and resources for finding strong graphics.
Negotiation
Let’s Make a (Good) Deal: Skills for Negotiators
Format: Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
This negotiation course is designed specifically for people who buy or sell as part of their workplace responsibilities. The program consists of six instructor-led sessions. Topics include understanding what you have, what you want and what’s important; negotiation styles and people styles; the negotiation framework; negotiation vocabulary; persuasion techniques; questioning and probing skills; negotiation tactics; and follow-up and account maintenance. Between each segment, participants will have a practical homework assignment.
Influencing Skills
Harnessing the Power of Persuasion: Influencing with and (without) Authority
Format: Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
Learn how to influence with and without authority during this instructor-led web-based course. Taught in two segments, the program offers practical tips and tools to make the persuasion and influence process easier to follow and replicate. The course is well suited to anyone who could benefit from learning strategies to shape how others think, feel, and act.
Supervisor Training
Supervision Essentials: The Fundamentals of Managing People
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
This crash course in supervision is designed for supervisors and managers who are either new to the role or who need a refresher program. Taught in an interactive distance format, the program covers such topics as accountability, delegation, communication, coaching, and counseling skills. By the end of this online program, participants should have command of essential tools to make their job as supervisor easier.
Coaching Skills
The Leader As Coach: Leverage Feedback for Engagement
Format: Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
Coaching is one of the most valuable skills a leader can master, and it’s also an activity many people find challenging. This two-segment program breaks down the coaching process and provides solid instruction on who, how, when, where, and why to coach. The course covers a range of models and addresses some of the practical skills managers need to engage their teams and hold people accountable for their productivity and workplace behaviors.
Mentoring Series
Collaborative Mentoring: People Development for Better Business Results
Format: Virtual Classroom Course, Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
A strong mentoring program can quickly build employees’ skills and increase engagement levels. This course talks about why, when, and how to mentor. Groups taking part in the session can expect to click, chat, and discuss as they move through this hands-on web training course. The program consists of 5 90-minute to 2-hour sessions. Organizations can purchase the sessions as a series or as individual segments. Segments can be taught on consecutive days or spread over a longer time period.
Feedback Skills
Cooperation Conversations: Winning Feedback Skills for Improving Workplace Performance
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Help your team grow its ability to confidently and comfortably deliver employee feedback. This virtual classroom course provides participants with an overview of the feedback process, several frameworks they can use back on the job, and time to practice their feedback skills. The program also prepares managers to handle a range of reactions.
Time Management for Managers
Rock the Clock: Time Management for Managers and Supervisors
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Managers and supervisors face a range of time management and productivity challenges specific to those in leadership roles. This web-based course addresses those issues. The program covers such topics as thinking strategically about time, balancing management functions with everyday work, choosing the right tasks to delegate and monitoring what’s assigned, and evaluating progress against long-term goals. As with many of our productivity courses, we can tailor a session to meet needs specific to a group in advance if concerns are shared up front.
Managing Teleworkers
The Long-Distance Manager: Skills for Supervising Teleworkers, Telecommuters, and Other Decentralized Employees
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Managing employees takes work, and it's even more of a challenge when people are not located in the same place. This interactive webinar is designed to give participants the skills they need to successfully manage teleworkers and other decentralized employees. During the program, participants will learn how to supervise without micromanaging, how to model desired behaviors, how to create a communication plan, and how to increase collaboration and build a sense of team.
Interviewing Skills
The Exceptional Interviewer: Tactics and Techniques for Finding Top Talent
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Knowing how to interview candidates effectively is a skill many people need, but one on which few people receive formal training. Left on their own, some interviewers research best practices. Others, however, “wing it” and risk exposing their organizations to bad hires, legal problems, or worse. This course aims to provide participants with the basic knowledge they need to successfully and legally interview applicants. The program covers the ins and outs of the process, best practices, legal and illegal questions, and communication strategies interviewers can leverage to build rapport and put candidates at ease.
Harassment Awareness
Now You Know: Understanding Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Workplace harassment has explicit and hidden costs. Organizations that fail to explain to their employees what is and isn’t okay expose themselves to unnecessary risks. This survey course provides all employees with information about sexual harassment: what it is, why it’s not okay, and what to do when it happens. Upon request, we can tailor this program to address a client’s specific policies and processes.
Harassment Prevention
Smart Steps: Preventing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
When it comes to harassment prevention, managers and others in charge have responsibilities specific to their roles. This web-based course outlines those obligations. The program can stand on its own or work in tandem with "Now You Know: Understanding Sexual Harassment in the Workplace," our course designed for individual contributors.
Diversity Basics
Diversity Basics: A Conversation Starter for Leveraging Differences
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
This course is designed to start a dialogue about diversity in the workplace. The program highlights the value of workplace diversity, tactics for encouraging inclusion and avoiding common traps, anti-discrimination laws, stereotypes – what they are and how to recognize them, assumptions, techniques for addressing uncomfortable situations, and proactive steps people can take to continue learning more about each other.
Generational Diversity
Finding Common Ground: Tools for Working Across Generations
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
He’s 20, she’s 60, and they don’t understand each other. She’s 35 but identifies with people ten years older. He’s 22 and doesn’t see how anyone would want to become a slave to the office. Sound familiar? Maybe. Employees from the same generation share some common experiences unique to their group. They often communicate in shorthand without even realizing it. Enter people born in another era, and that’s when things get more complicated. This web-based course explores what’s known about generational differences, tactics for improving communication between members of different generations, and process adaptations organizations may wish to consider in order to attract and retain talent. The program also addressed the dangers of stereotyping and making assumptions solely based on a person’s age.
Customer Interactions
Service Basics: Communication Skills for Better Customer Interactions
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Whether interacting in person, over the phone, or via email, customers deserve professionalism. This web-based course covers best practices for communicating through all three channels. During the program, participants will define what great service looks and sounds like, examine the basics of good in-person interactions, discuss the challenges of phone-only communication, and explore tips and tricks for sending customer-centric email.
Telephone Customer Service
Good Answer: Tactics for Giving Great Service over the Telephone
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Service over the phone differs from in-person interactions. Without the advantage of face-to-face communication, providers often find they have a more difficult time building rapport, reading customers, and answering their needs. This course focuses on skills for overcoming the obstacles the phone presents and techniques for giving great service without visual cues.
Handling Challenging Customers
Taming the Tank: Skills for Handling Tough Customers and Difficult Interactions
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Difficult service interactions are situations few providers look forward to handling but something all people with customers need to understand. This web-based training course addresses the basics of de-escalation and proven techniques for calming upset people. While the program introduces several types of difficult people, throughout the session participants have the opportunity to ask for help in responding to their day-to-day encounters.
Chat Skills
Chat Fundamentals: Best Practices for Connecting Through the Keyboard
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Learn the essential skills chat agents must practice in order to give great service online. The program covers chat goals, service language, chat errors, and other basics anyone responsible for real-time communication needs to know. The course offers multiple practice opportunities, and we can incorporate your scenarios into the curriculum upon request.
Creativity and Ideation Techniques
Imagine If...: Idea Making Made Easier
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Without new ideas, an organization may not survive. This web-based creativity course is designed for groups who wish to improve their creativity and ability to generate ideas. The program addresses the value of creativity, places to find ideas, obstacles that hinder creativity and solutions for overcoming them, techniques for finding root causes and clarifying problems, and multiple techniques for thinking up new ways of getting things done. Upon request, we can incorporate your group’s current problems into the program and use them as we practice ideation methods.
Communication Skills
Considerate Communication: Leveraging Diplomacy and Tact for Better Interactions
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
People who understand diplomatic communication know how to use a range of tactics to build rapport. This course touches on a myriad of topics: how perceptions are formed, verbal and nonverbal communication, listening skills, open versus closed questions, best practices for participating in meetings, and basic email etiquette.
Listening Skills
Do You Hear What I Hear?: Listening for Better Understanding
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Listening to first understand and not to reply or evaluate requires discipline and skill. This course addresses fundamental practices for leveraging listening as a tool for building rapport and improving communication. The program addresses bad habits, factors that influence perception, proven techniques, and tactics for interacting with challenging speakers.
Communication for Technical Professionals
Soft Skills Essentials: Communication Tactics for Technical Professionals
Format: Multi-Session Virtual Classroom Course
This three-segment communication skills program is designed for technical professionals who wish to enhance their soft skills. The program covers communication fundamentals, communication styles, listening skills, rapport building, best practices for leveraging different communication channels, and practical advice and suggestions for presenting information to technical and non-technical audiences.
Emotional Intelligence in Healthcare
Heart Smart: The EQ Advantage in Healthcare
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
This interactive web-based training course addresses service challenges that are specific to healthcare environments and the responses that can make those interactions easier. Participants will learn the value of developing emotional intelligence and some basic tools for doing so.
Communication Skills for Virtual Teams
Over Here, Over There: Effective Communication Skills for Virtual Teams
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Help your virtual team members learn best practices for communicating effectively with each other during this virtual classroom course. Topics include rapport-building techniques, team charters and their importance, solutions to common communication problems, communication channel pluses and minuses, and basic conflict resolution.
Navigating Tough Conversations
Navigating Tough Topics: Difficult Conversations Made Easier
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Few people look forward to difficult conversations. In fact, some dread them to the point that they avoid addressing situations they know they should confront. This course aims to provide participants with practical tools to make navigating tough topics easier. The program looks at how people approach confrontation, the outcomes they pursue, and the words and actions they choose in an effort to change behavior.
Teleworking Strategies
Remote Control: Teleworking Know-How Made Easier
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Learning to telework effectively takes time and practice. Getting organized, developing strong habits, staying connected with coworkers, and remaining engaged require deliberate work. This webinar suggests ideas for accomplishing all of those activities and more.
Workplace Professionalism
The Workplace Advantage: Leveraging Professionalism to Get Ahead
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
If everyone isn’t operating from the same rulebook when it comes to workplace behavior, conflict is bound to arise. This virtual classroom course covers the fundamentals of workplace etiquette and professionalism. The program addresses the basic rules to which most professionals adhere, image management, communication skills, and productivity essentials. We can tailor the course as needed to address any issues of particular concern to your group.
Business Networking
Networking Know-How: Off-Line and Online Business Relationships Made Easier
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Grow your team’s ability to build, nurture, and leverage their online and offline relationships with this business networking course. The program consists of seven modules covering a range of timely topics: the value of networking, the components of a networking plan, tools for finding prospects and potential connections, networking etiquette, event strategies, tactics for researching, and action planning.
Email Etiquette
Email Etiquette: Correct Correspondence Online
Format: Virtual Classroom Course
Improve your team’s understanding of email etiquette during this instructor-led virtual classroom course. This web-based program covers the fundamentals of good business writing and the rules associated with creating professional email messages. The program addresses using basic courtesies, choosing a meaningful subject line, putting the core of the message up front, avoiding common mistakes, and complying with laws surrounding the use of email in the workplace.