Congratulations to ExecuTrain of Kentucky President and Owner Crinda Francke who was awarded Woman Business Owner of the Year by the Lexington chapter of National Association of Women Business Owners! The nominated finalists were evaluated by an independent jury who chose the final winners.

Crinda accepting her award

Much of the ExecuTrain family was on hand for the ceremony held at the Marriott Griffin Gate Resort

All smiles after the event!

From the entire ExecuTrain of Kentucky team, congratulations Crinda!

The April/May/June class schedule for ExecuTrain of Kentucky is now available for download (PDF).

Inside you’ll find:

• Upgrading Microsoft Office
• ExecuTip for Excel 2010
• Spotlight on ExecuTrain Instructors
• News on ExecuTrain of Kentucky’s Crinda Francke
• Class schedule for April, May, and June

Click to download PDF

The ExecuTrain of Kentucky newsletter for January, February and March 2012 is now online. It’s filled with tips and tricks. Be sure to check out the article on setting New Year’s work resolutions.

Click to download PDF

Wonderful article from our friends at SPI and Solution Selling®. There IS a difference between solution selling and Solution Selling®.

You can’t really blame our competitors for trying to do and say things to tarnish our brand, Solution Selling® – it’s the nature of the beast when you are among the market leaders… we take it as a confirmation of a leadership position.

When we do confront our detractors on their mischaracterizations, such as “solution selling is dead” or “that methodology is old” or “it’s just an approach where you ask 20 questions and hope you find a problem you can address” they usually come back with the same response… “We didn’t mean your trademarked methodology; we meant the general concept of solution selling.” Read more to learn about the methods, concepts, and tools in our version of Solution Selling®

A friend of ours shared a neat presentation tool that we thought you all would like. While PowerPoint is a great tool for presentations, there are some neat new technologies that are similar, but can work on devices such as Apple iPad’s and their pinch and zoom technique. If you’re someone making sales presentations on the fly, Prezi is a neat tool to explore.

Here’s a sample of a Coca-Cola Prezi:

We came across this great article from the HR Toolbox that gives one HR professionals view on being a great HR professional and asset to senior management. We thought our HR friends would enjoy.

So, we are all set to be a great strategic business partner. We understand business including the business of our employer. We understand Human Resources through and through – the language, the trends and the views of great HR thinkers. We feel very confident that we can bring great things to the organization, but can we?

We can offer opinions on most business topics, we can explain the intricacies of HR and how it adds to the business. We are ready to say our bit, but does anyone want to listen? (Click to read the rest of the article)

The ExecuTrain of Kentucky October, November and December Newsletter is now out, featuring dates, tips and articles. Click here to download your copy today.

October, November, December 2011

Click to download PDF

We at ExecuTrain of Kentucky are really excited to bring you another phenomenal sales training program from Sales Performance International. It’s called SolutionSpeak™

SolutionSpeak™ is a unique presentation methodology designed specifically for salespeople who focus on selling high-value solutions. The course teaches sellers key elements of delivering high impact presentations along various key points in the sales cycle.It also aligns with key principles of Solution Selling® so that presenters effectively connect with the critical issues of buyers and message appropriately.While other presentation programs may prepare participants to speak in front of crowds, SolutionSpeak™ prepares students to deliver solution-driven sales and marketing presentations that are more differentiated, concise, and effective.

This two-day workshop will be held in our Lexington office November 9-10. More information is coming soon, but we wanted to share this presentation with you that gives a great overview of the type of results-oriented content that the workshop contains.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Sales Presentations:

Feel free to contact us if you want to go ahead and reserve your spot, or if you want more information on how this can be applied to your sales team.

The always-helpful Microsoft at Work blog has a great post that has 6 ways to ensure your email gets read. I’m not sure about everyone else, but with the volume of email I receive, my mind goes some automated mode that helps me filter quickly through them. These are great tips that will help you make sure your email is read, understood, and responded to as appropriate:

1. Make the purpose of the message clear
2. Tell recipients what action you want them to take
3. Provide the proper data and documents
4. Send the message only to relevant recipients
5. Use the CC line wisely
6. Ask “final questions” before you click Send

For all the explanations, check out the full article here.

TrainingIndustry.com recently came out with a list of training trends for the first half of the year. Do these trends mirror the happenings within your company?

Excerpt:

In December of 2010, TrainingIndustry.com published 10 trends that were reshaping and redefining how organizations provided learning solutions. And with these trends, we predicted how we expected them play out in the near future.  Now that we are at the mid-year point of 2011, let’s see if and how those trends are materializing. And depending on where your organization is, you can determine if you are right on track or if you need to readjust your path to the future.

1. Corporate training spend is up – Just as projected, corporate training organizations are definitely spending more for training services. I predicted that training spend would be up by as much as 7 – 9% over 2010 levels. It was based on the idea that companies were delivering positive earnings and there was a general optimism that the growth in training spend already occurring in 2010 would continue into the new year. For the first part of this year, we saw very strong increases across all segments of the training market. But because of the current lack of confidence in the financial markets, we may see some pull backs in some segments through the end of the year. Therefore, I’m adjusting my prediction for an overall training spend increase this year to 5 – 6% over last year’s levels.

2. Staffing for training positions are up – But job growth is not up by much. The big question is where are the new jobs coming from? And when will they increase in big numbers? It was expected that buyside training organizations would increase full time staff by a very modest level (2%) and so far this looks to be playing out. I also expected job creation by training suppliers to be up by as much as 8% this year. It looks like suppliers are definitely hiring this year, as most of the jobs are coming from larger, Tier 1 suppliers. Smaller training companies (Tier 4 suppliers) are not performing well and generally not generating new jobs. I’m expecting that job growth for the year to come in 4 – 5%. Pretty good compared to other industries, but not good enough to deal with what we lost the last few years.

View the rest of the list here.