The process involved 1:1 sessions with the entire team and specific profiling including the Group CEO. The team were then brought together for an off site workshop. This also included some fun team development aspects as well as classroom based.

Several months later and the team are feeling the value and benefit from the programme and the relationship is developing into other mutually beneficial areas.

Chris developed and ran a two day  Executive Team Build for us.  The event was a real success, not only did everyone really enjoy the event but Chris's expert facilitation enabled us to make real and lasting progress.  Did the effect last?  Yes it did, the event really did improve team dynamics , team behaviours, and consequently team performance.

Helen Davis Group Development Director 

Thank you to the wonderful team at Jelf for the opportunity to support you and the very mature in which you all have taken the learning and using it to make a difference.

In Autumn 2011, I was invited to present to 'The Chartered Insurance Institute of Manchester' on 'How to Achieve More'.


 

During this 45 minute speech, I shared with them 7 principles for success which have been derived from considerable research. Including research from my radio show on Voice America.

Following the event, I wrote an article for 'The Professional' the Chartered Insurance Insitute's magazing.

The 7 principles I shared were:

1. Thoughts and Feelings
2. Purpose, Vision and Goals
3. Empowering Beliefs
4. Turn Intentions Into Actions
5. Improve Personal Systems
6. Build Your Network
7. Develop Mastery

You can access the pages of the full article here:

How to Achieve More CC1 article in 'The Professional' - Page 1

How to Achieve More CC1 article in 'The Professional' - Page 2

An elevator pitch is a short summary used to quickly and simply define a product, service, or organization and its proposition. The name "elevator pitch" reflects the idea that you should be able to deliver the summary in an elevator ride, or approximately thirty seconds to two minutes.

A variety of business people, speakers, politicians etc commonly use elevator pitches to get their point across quickly. It may be presented in words, writing, or video.

An elevator pitch is often used by an entrepreneur who is pitching an idea to receive funding from a venture capitalist or angel investor or an employee in interviewing potential candidates. This is used to assess the quality of an idea or the preparation and clarity of a candidates thinking. It is a great way to summarize a service to potential clients and audiences. For example breakfast club meetings typically allow the audience a minute to share their services.

Also, this could be very helpful when you meet the new CEO for the first time in the lift.

So how do we produce our own Elevator Pitch?

Imagine that you have only one minute to present yourself, your business, your objectives, and your passions to an audience that has not met you before.  Can you present your vision smoothly, enticing them to want to know more? So explain:

1. Who are you and what would you really like your audience to remember about you?

Choose words that express who you are eg an expert, leader, innovator etc

2. What do you do? This could by your tag line. For example I use for my corporate CC1 brand 'helping organizational leaders develop themselves to deliver greater Results, Profit and Success'. I then explain 'how'. This must allow the audience or listener to appreciate how you bring value.

3. Why do you do it- Demonstrate what you do that is different or better than others



4. Objectives - Explain your prime objectives. These must be firm commitments, be clear and achievable. Also, it should be clear what you are asking the audience or listener to do. 

Example

'My name is Chris Cooper and I am a trusted senior advisor who through my CC1 Consulting brand helps organisational leaders develop themselves and their people to achieve greater corporate Results, Profit and Success. This is achieved through bespoke mentoring, coaching, training and consultancy.  I also have a personal development brand called 'Be More. Achieve More' that supports corporate leavers in successfully establishing and developing their own businesses. This includes some unique mentoring and group coaching, tele-seminar interviews and workshop programmes.  I am also currently speaking and writing a book about 'How to follow through with ypur entrepreneurial goals' and I will shortly be hosting a 'Be More. Achieve More' global radio show. My prime objective is to enable high achievers around the world to add greater value to their organisations and entrepreneurial businesses through increasing levels of personal, people and business awareness. If you are interested in developing yourself, your people and ultimately your business we should talk'.

References: Wikipedia and Harvard Business Review.

So this week I have been writing about Trust. Something that is so important. If you are a trusted leader people listen to what you have to say and give it a premium, if they don't trust you they will discount what you have to say.

It was therefore interesting and slightly amusing in today's news to see this video. It shows the Czech President possibly stealing a pen and sneaking into his pocket. The Chilean leader he was with may possibly tried to help the situation by saying it had been a gift. Look at the body language and make up your own mind.

Whether this man was actually stealing the pen or not it was clear that his mind was not on the task in hand. He is reported to have a reputation for unusual behaviour. A certain Italian Prime Minister is also under significant pressure over his behaviour right now! I wonder why in a research study only 8% of people trust politicians?

On a serious note, does a leader really want to be a centre of ridicule? The question to ask is is my own behaviour being perceived? If you are in a position of power slip up and news travels fast. Why not be a shining example to others instead?

I often challenge executives on their body language when coming our of senior meetings. Employees in offices often watch the leaders as they go in and come out of meetings. If they come out with heads down, all sorts of reasons fly around the office for it breeding uncertainty. The reality may been that everyone was just tired. Then tell people everything is fine and this can also undermine trust.

For 7 years, I worked for the Confectionery arm of Mars Incorporated and there was a really important new product under development. We had been trying to keep it secret when suddenly it was announced in the press. In the end the trail led to the MD of A marketing company who had drunk too much at an industry event and inadvertently shared the details with a journalist. Now who knows it may have added to awareness of the brand. However, for the MD who was actually a great guy it was absolutely humiliating and trust with the marketing department of his most prestigious client was at an all time low.

Does your behaviour each day add to your own credibility or does it take away? How do you ensure that your good intentions are following through into behaviour that helps you become more successful? Are you a shining light to others? Is your business a shining light in its sector? How does the consolidated behaviour of your company help your clients, employees and stakeholders to give your business a premium?

Have a fabulous day and remember as a leader one of your top responsibilities should be to build trust. That is if you want to get things done faster and achieve greater results.

Chris

I was recently asked by a large organisation what my philosophy and approach is to coaching and mentoring and I thought I'd share my thoughts. Whether I am working with an MD as a trusted advisor or coaching a senior manager the following key points in my mind are key for a successful results orientated process.

1. Feel confident that the coachee is committed to the coaching upfront. I need the confidence that the person being supported will embrace the coaching and act upon their learnings to ensure a return on investment for the client and good use of my time. Also, that their line manager and/or mentor/HR are supporting the process. This includes agreeing how the relationships will work upfront. If people are not committed and you can sense this ie they feel pushed into I would recommend addressing the issue at the outset. If you don't then results will not be achieved and the coaches integrity and brand is at risk.

2. Ensure outcomes with measures and responsibilities are defined at a first meeting related to areas of improvement that would benefit performance. Plus documented. Also, appropriate profiling and ways of behaving to gain maximum value. Here 

3. Coaching should be tailored with both structure and flexibility. I encourage use of upfront design and coaching reports after each session. All one to one coaching should be tailored to the needs of the coachee. It must have structure, however, also space for exploring new issues and opportunities that may come to light. Some clients choose to join some of my Be More. Achieve More tele-seminars, interviews or programmes as they add further value and we can discuss relevance in the coaching.

4. Coaching should be about results and have pace. Some of my personal experience of coaches in my career were too 'relaxed and chatty'. I believe a coach should be motivational, able to develop great rapport and be fully present. They must also be a challenging friend. There needs to be enough edge, combined with trust to keep the process in motion towards achieving the desired results.

5. A coach should have some experience in the area they are coaching. For example, I once coached a Wimbledon tennis final winner. They would never have asked me to be their tennis coach, nor would I have accepted. The same applies in business.

6. Questions are more powerful but.... As a general rule, if someone discovers something for themselves they are more likely to act upon it than if they are told. However, there are times when a combination of coaching and mentoring (in areas where I have more experience) is more effective. Some clients do not have the time or energy to discover all the answers themselves.

7. If a coaching client can see the relationship between their purpose in life and their job, then their performance often accelerates. Where appropriate, coaching to define who you are, can be very powerful and many of my clients have gone on to achieve some astonishing results with this information. Suddenly their job has real meaning.

For more information on how a coaching programme works you can download the following brochure. To contact us for a no obligation conversation call 01455 824233 or email Chris@cc1consulting.com

Chris

Have you ever considered group learning and development via tele-seminar or webcast? Perhaps, also combined with 1:1 coaching for key performers? I have a personal development brand called 'Be More.Achieve More'. This is aimed at helping individuals who take responsibility for their own performance and success and wish to become shining stars in their organisation. Or people who have transferred from the corporate world and are either considering a move to self employed status or setting up and growing their own business.

One of the key learning's from the group development that I do through this brand is that people really benefit from getting together with others who wish to achieve more. I run a programme with two tele-seminar calls per month called 'The Achiever Programme'. This was initially designed so that my personal coaching clients could gain access to a group element. What has happened though is that it provides a wonderful place for people to learn together in a supportive environment. Also, to share progress and be held accountable once a month for achieving even more.

Together the group is really progressing. Income in the group is going up when for many around us it is going down. We are able to adapt quicker to what is going on and keep our thinking positive, up to date and energy high. We are even getting fitter and some of us will be running a half marathon together this year. 

If you are looking for new ways of learning in your organisation or have an eye on the future yourself this could be well worth a conversation. Setting up a group learning programme for those employees who are committed to their own development via tele-seminar could be a very flexible way of your key people learning, growing and achieving more.

The key though is that people have to show up. I believe following through is essential. Most people make the mistake of putting their own development last. The challenge is that if they don't change neither will their results! So I am interested in helping your achievers. Those who can inspire the rest of the organisation to get learning and moving.

Since 2009 business has changed enormously. We are in recession, their is major economic, political, international and environmental upheaval. Technology is also shifting at such a pace and those key people in our businesses need to be armed with knowledge and skills that can thrive in this changing world. 

A bespoke group learning programme could be developed to meet your specific organisational needs. It could be run via tele-seminar or webcast and include a variety of bespoke elements to keep people learning and developing. It could even include some face to face if appropriate.

Warren Buffett wrote: 

'I look for three things in hiring others. The first is personal integrity, the second is intelligence, and the third is a high energy level'

Developing all three of these requires on going development. Not one hit wonder training programmes. What are you doing to build these key skills to keep you at the forefront? Also, combined with some 1:1 coaching it could actually bring down the cost and raise the value over say traditional 1:1 mentoring and coaching.

If you want to chat, you can contact me on 01455 824233 or email Chris@cc1consulting.com

Chris

Here you can check out Be More. Achieve More and 'The Achiever Programme' . Note this programme is different to an in house bespoke solution, however, may give you an idea.

Many Arab countries at present are attempting to overthrow their leaders where poor intentions are followed through in many instances with poor behaviour leading to suspicion and mistrust. Sometimes the same happens in companies who gain low employee satisfaction ratings and employees jump ship.

 It is true to say that many organisations or groups who suffer from low trust have good intentions. It is just that they have failed to follow through on them through their behaviour. Whether this be in the pursuit of profit and cost reduction or even survival. The reality though is that they are judged on their behaviour rather than those intentions!

So think carefully before making frequent redundancies as this will breed mistrust and uncertainty amongst the people left. Ultimately this will impact performance.

According to Stephen MR Covey in his book 'The Speed of Trust' 22% of people trust the media, 8% political parties, 27% the government, 12% big companies. Not good reading.

Here is the opportunity. High trust organisations stand out from the crowd. They gain a premium ie they are much more likely to be listened too. Low trust organisations haemorage opportunity.

There is a kitchen company who I allowed to come to my home. They tried every sales trick in the book until I turfed them out after completely out staying their welcome.A quick search on the web then identified lots of unhappy customers. Of course all calls from them since have fallen on deaf ears. I would never trust them on advising me about kitchens.  I would also never recommend them. Their intention was clearly to sell me anything and get the most out of me. They didn't care about me and now I don't care about them!

So if you have a bad experience you will tell others and take anything they say with a pinch of salt. 

So how are you and your organisation perceived? 

Do people trust you? Do they trust your organisation. Are you riding high on a wave of high trust performance? Do you have authentic intentions that come from really caring or are you in it for yourself? If you do have good intentions do you consistently walk the talk?

What is the financial benefit? 

It has been identified that high trust organisations outperform low trust organisations by 3:1. From an individual perspective does it not also mean that if you are high trust then you will outperform others by 3:1. Well that may not always seem true if you look at it in the short term. It is sometimes the ruthless who seem to get on quicker. However, they almost always get caught out at some point whether at work, in relationships etc. The truth is that strong personal integrity and intentions will invariably leave you with an advantage in the long term.

In my view I would rather have stuck by some good principles and be able to look back on my life in old age and say it was well lived. Rather than look back on regrets where I walked over other people.

How can we improve trust?

It is possible to turn trust around. However, it requires a strategy. As a leader this starts with you and requires lots of personal follow through. Will you always get it right? Not always. Someone is always likely at some point to be suspicious of your motives. However it starts with you. It starts with a commitment to clarify your own intentions and then notice how you are translating that into your behaviour.

In the 'Speed of Trust' Stephen MR Covey says there are 4 core areas for self trust:

1. Your Personal Integrity

2. Your Intent

3. Your capabilities

4. Your Results 

Change the Circumstances 

To really follow through on transforming yourself and your organisation to gain a high trust premium requires changing the circumstances. It means doing things differently to the way you have done them before. 

Having a trusted accountability partner who can help you is valuable. For me personally I utilise coaches/mentors, a business development partner, an internet marketer, an accountant who all help keep me accountable for following through with positive change.  

The aim at CC1 is to operate with high integrity. The intentions are to add great value and enable people and organisation to be more successful in business and personally. We also have some great results to share and high client satisfaction. If you are a senior leader and are interested in some personal support to raise your or your organisations performance in an authentic way I'd like to chat without obligation about your needs and how we can help.

Contact us on: 01455 824233 or Chris@cc1consulting.com

If you find this valuable and require facilitators to help you implement this work then you have come to the right place.

Our relationship with Richard began after CC1 were asked to tender to support training requirements for Primary General and Rural Insurance. It soon became clear that there was an opportunity to create and deliver a transformational programme that went beyond the original brief, while operating to constrained budgets.

Richard shares his thoughts on the programme in the following video. If you are unable to view the video from your office or if you prefer to read this testimonial there is a full transcription below the video.

Richard Pitt (Former Managing Director, Primary General). Currently Head of RBS Business Insurance Services.

Video Testimonial Transcription

At a time of great change, it is essential as individuals and as organisations that if we are going to invest, we invest only in those things that deliver great value for money and have got a proven track record.

I'd like to to take 2 minutes of your time to walk you through an experience I had using Chris Cooper and CC1 that delivered an unprecedented return on investment.

I have been through many sales programmes in my time, whether they were based on features and benefits, closing the deal or overcoming objections but I always felt that I was missing out on something, something at a more deeper emotional level. At an organisational level we got used to transactional selling, winning case by case but we never had peace of mind that what we were going to get repeat orders. So I went to  Chris to talk him through the challenges we were facing and it became clear that Chris is hugely passionate about understanding people, what makes them tick, building emotional relationships and it was kind of the dawn of a new day for me. This emotional selling was what I was really looking for. 

We put together a programme that was delivered to about 100 people but because they were from a whole diverse background, we needed to  create a language that everybody could buy into whether they had salesman in their title or not. That led to a new language, the dawn of a new language that was adopted and implemented during the training programme and follow up that Chris delivered. Yes, there was some classroom based training, usually every other month but that was cleverly interspersed with telephone conferences. The training was very practical based and enabled the people who went through the programme to practice their new skills, practice their new learning, practice their new language and that built confidence. That confidence could then be used day to day in between the training experiences that people went through. The telephone conferences were a good touch base for people because they were able to share their experiences and their learning and the successes that they had with the rest of the team that went through the programme. That gave great confidence and people really embraced the changing language.

What did that deliver? Well, that delivered a much greater frequency of order, the value of order that we got went up, we had emotional relationships that were long lasting. So, as the economy changes, those relationships that we have built stay true , they hold true, they are not transactional they are really meaningful relationships that deliver mutual value.

Chris delivered something that I thought was groundbreaking, it was fantastic and I would encourage any organisation that was thinking in investing in their people and at the end of the day our people are our greatest asset, to talk to Chris and to CC1 because I genuinely believe they will deliver something that you will see a tremendous return on investment for.

To find out more about how we can help you contact Chris Cooper on 0845 683 6653 or Chris @cc1consulting.com 

Stuart is an experienced business trainer, coach and sales expert who is passionate about helping individuals and organisations optimise their performance. He was recognised by The Yorkshire Post as one of the 'Top 100 people under 30' most likely to influence the region in the coming years.  Stuart has worked with a large range of clients to CEO level across multiple business sectors and will support Business Development as well as project delivery.

One thing I really appreciate about Stuart is his commitment to his own development. Stuart has personally invested highly in himself. This has involved visiting and working with top mentors in their fields in Asia, Europe and the USA.

I look forward to him bringing some of this value to the benefit of CC1 clients.