Mark Freer’s Post

🤔 What energises you on a Monday morning? 📊🔵Evaluating & assessing opportunities? 📋🟢Prioritising a list of activities to work on? 🌐🔴Engaging and learning with diverse contacts? 💡🟡Creative Blue sky thinking on new ideas? 🌧️Or just getting outside for a walk in the belting rain. 👉 If you need to better understand what motivates & energises your team and how they think get in touch. I can share some ideas with you. #motivation #energy #teambuilding #psychometrics #energyleadership #emergenetics #brainscience #leadershipdevelopment #coaching

🤔 What limits do you push through to keep fit and healthy? 🚶♂️Go for a walk? ⚽️ Regularly playing sport? 🏊♂️ Early morning swimming? 🧘♀️ Yoga and mindfulness sessions? 🏋️ Strength & conditioning at the gym? 🖼️ I have this picture in my gym. 🎯 It puts things in perspective for me. 🎯 Particularly when I’m struggling to motivate myself to do fitness training. 🚴 In June 2018 my neighbour Michael Broadwith broke the official road cycling World Record for cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats in 43 hours, 25 minutes and 13 seconds - in one ride! 😳 💭 Imagine the training, dedication & commitment required to just train for that one ride - and the resilience to push through the really tough moments when actually completing the ride. 🚀 It’s amazing what your body can do and the perceived limits you can push through if you have the right mindset. #fitness #health #sport #running #cycling #strengthandconditioning #swimming #mindset #landsend #johnogroats #worldrecord

😬 Stumped? Feeling stuck and unable to move forward? Often we get stuck in life. 😕 Our career stalls: we plateau and no longer progress – everyone else seems to be overtaking us. 😰 Our business hits problems: our sales decline, costs sky rocket, talent leaves – we lose control. 😟 Our partnerships stagnate: we run out of energy, motivation and ideas – we lose momentum. 😵 Our life becomes overwhelming: suddenly we can’t cope – we are juggling too much – stress takes over. In these situations we often need to “Pivot” and find a new way forward. Taking the decision to seek professional external support can often provide the support you need to create a “Pivot” and make that change. 💯 Coaching and Mentoring provides individuals with the support and guidance to clarify where they are and where they want to go, as well as commit to change and deciding how to get there. 💯 Training and Development provides support to your teams, particularly where they feel they have skills gaps and need to build their confidence and ability to enhance their performance. 💯 Leadership programmes accelerate your leaders capabilities using tools, techniques & simulated business environments, enabling your management team to lead their teams more effectively & achieve more them. 💯 Facilitated Workshops allow you and your team to fully participate and collaborate, building stronger teams and allowing everyone to focus on strategic imperatives and outcomes. 💯 Assessments and Profiling are powerful tools to help teams significantly raise their awareness of their thinking, behavioural & energetic preferences and how to improve team engagement. 👉 If you or your team feel stuck and need professional support pivoting please get in touch. #leadership #management #feelingstuck #blockers #mindset #behaviouralscience #psychology #brainscience #profiling #teambuilding #coaching #mentoring #supportnetwork

🤔 What positive impact have you had this week? 🌎 I've just finished delivering a 4 day programme on Design Thinking for a diverse international group of sales leaders from across Ericsson on behalf of Imparta. 🌎 I had delegates from North #America, #France, #Portugal, #Spain, #UK, #Kenya, #Angola, #TheIvoryCoast, #Egypt, #India, #Pakistan, #Malaysia & #Indonesia - providing great diversity of ideas & perspectives. 💯 Design Thinking is a powerful process that can be used in sales, particularly when dealing with complex organisations, users and solutions - it's ideal for creating high levels of value for a customer and building long term relationships. 👏 Thank you to all the group for engaging with so much energy and enthusiasm. Your willingness to ask curious questions and share real customer examples created a great learning environment. Congratulations on getting your certification & getting your "Sales Foundation Design Thinking" badge. Indresh Mishra Ambreen Kokab Shah Anthonius Wahyudi Bassem El-Bogha Fawaz R Fawaz - B.Eng, MSc, MBA Geoffrey Macharia Janet Javier. MBA, M.Eng Oluwadamilare Okewusi Pedro Direito Yolanda Muñoz Esteban Zied Malouche Ph.D George Pastidis, Assoc CIPD, F.ISP 🙏 Most importantly though is knowing the training has had a truly positive impact: “Mark, Thanks for the great insights in the wonderful sessions across the 4 days. I truly admire your calm and composed demeanour. It brings a sense of clarity and focus to every session, making it easier for us to absorb the knowledge. Your guidance feels both empowering and approachable, which is a rare and valuable quality in a coach.” “Hi Mark, Very efficient and innovative approach with an excellent team and collaboration atmosphere. Congratulations 👏” "Structured, and excellent way to understand the concepts - good collaboration and diversity in the team Thanks Mark " #salestraining #leadership #designthinking #partnerships #engagement #colaboration #culture #diversity #international #salesskills #performance #impact Katie Heath #technology #telecommunications

🤔 How well do your team articulate "value"? 💯 Organisations and their teams often get stuck in their ways, make assumptions and assume customers see value in their products or solutions. 💯 If your customers can't see "value" they won't buy your services. 💯 It's your job to help customers see the value and want to take action. Here are a few fundamental considerations to create value: 😰 Highlight the "pain" from not taking action and contrast this with the "gains" of taking action (Contrast Bias). 🌎 Identify benefits at different levels (1) Strategic e.g. competitive advantage, (2) Tactical e.g. reduced costs, (3) Political e.g. leverage over an issue and (4) Individual e.g. reduced stress or wasted time. 💹 Be transparent and clear about the costs of buying and using your services, but position these against the benefits to show overall life-time value. 💰 Create commercial arguments and quantifiable numbers so you can show the financial impact - the larger the investment the more important this becomes for a customer. 🌎 This topic came up today with an international sales leadership group I am currently training and is often an area that teams struggle with. The tendency is to rush towards selling the solution without properly identifying a problem worth solving that creates value. 👉 If your commercial teams are struggling to create real value with potential customers and need support please DM me to discuss ideas. #creatingvalue #salestraining #consultativeselling #designthinking #problemsolving #painandgain #value #leadership #coaching #performance

🤔 How do you bounce back from setbacks? 💯 Leading an organisation or team is a journey filled with setbacks, failures & rejections, as well as successes. 💯 Resilience is your ability to overcome those setbacks and succeed despite the rejections. 💯 This is so important in all walks of life - from sales people coping with lost deals - to young talent experiencing rejections to job applications. Setbacks cause a downward spiral of feelings, thoughts and actions: 😬 We feel panic, anxiety, anger, fear or a loss of confidence. 😰 We become distracted and unable to focus. 😨 We aren't able to prioritise, plan or execute effectively. Resilient people 'stop' this downward spiral quickly and bounce back. Here's a few techniques that were highlighted by a group of sales leaders I'm working with this week: 🎯 1️⃣ Expect Setbacks: role-play difficult situations and outcomes, so that when they happen you are not surprised and know what to do. 🎯 2️⃣ Pause and step away: take a break, go outside, give yourself time to calm down and gain perspective - mindfulness and exercise are often used. 🎯 3️⃣ Reframe: Resilience and growth only comes from being given the chance to work through difficult situations - embrace it as an opportunity. 🎯 4️⃣ Deeper Purpose: if you are deeply committed and motivated to do what you are doing you will find the energy and perseverance to keep going. 🎯 5️⃣ Be comfortable being uncomfortable: Step out of your comfort zone and embrace challenging situations where you might get things wrong. 👉 If you want to build the mental resilience of your team to help their performance please get in contact to explore bespoke programmes for your organisation. #leadership #resilience #reframing #positivepsychology #perseverance #determination #purpose #setbacks #anxiety #stressmanagement #pressure #coaching #mentoring

🤔 When are you at your most effective or productive? 🌅 This week I’ll be joining the 5am club as I’m running a series of Sales Leadership training sessions with an international group. 🌍 It’s a truly international group with individuals from North America, Africa, Europe, India, Pakistan, and Asia. 🌐 Everyone is connecting from different time zones - for some it’s early in the morning - for a few it’s late in the evening. ⚡️ Ensuring everyone is engaged and energised is one of the most important parts of any training - you need to show up at your best to optimise the experience. #5amclub #salestraining #leadershiptraining #international #culture #engagement #energy #impact #performance #coaching

🤔 Imagine trying to end the longest wait in international sports. ⛵ The America's Cup is the oldest competition in international sport going back to 1851 - only 4 nations have ever won it - the Americans, New Zealand, Switzerland and Australia. 👏 Today Sir Ben Ainslie and the Great Britain team earned the right to compete for the America's Cup for the first time in 60 years by beating Italy 7-4 in the challenger's final series in Barcelona. 🌊 I've watched a few of the races recently - it's high octane stuff. 💯 It requires remarkable skills - the skipper needs to make split second decisions - the crew have to be precise and ice cool under pressure. 😮 I'm amazed there hasn't been more coverage in the news really. 🚀 Wishing team GB all the best next week when they take on New Zealand for the America's Cup - it will be tough, as they are the All Blacks of the Sea. "One more to go - Bring on the Kiwis" in the words of Team Ineos/GB #americascup America's Cup #sailing #leadership #pressure #decisionmaking #excitement #skills #sport #globalsport

🤔 What is the impact of the "boundaries" you create in your organisation? Creating and maintaining healthy boundaries is really important. 🎯 Without boundaries misunderstanding & unhealthy behaviours go unchecked. 🎯 Being clear about what is acceptable & what is not provides clarity and direction. Many people are reluctant to set boundaries because they think: 😟 they will make other people angry or disappoint them or 😟 they will come across as being selfish or unlikeable. Yet many realise the consequences of not setting boundaries create: 😡 feelings of resentment, anger and frustration whilst also 😡 destroying confidence and trust, often resulting in a blame culture. Setting boundaries is a major part of any leader's skill set: 🎯 Being aware of your own habits and the impact on boundaries in your organisation (unplugging from work, taking holidays, only committing to the tasks you have time or capacity for and delegating), 🎯 Respecting boundaries set by others (contactable hours for work, respecting other people's opinions, inappropriate comments), particularly if we want others to respect ours. 🎯 Building Trust and Honesty by making boundaries visible and communicating why they are in are place (e.g. respect, wellbeing, integrity, avoidance of doubt). 👉 If you are struggling to set effective boundaries in your organisation or create a culture of respect and integrity which allows your teams to be at their full potential please DM me to discuss bespoke training programmes which are right for you. 😎 Where is your boundary for switching off from work at the weekend? #Boundaries #Expectations #Behaviours #Habits #highperformance #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #training #peopleskills #wellbeing #mindset #culture

🤔 How do you celebrate long term partnerships? 💯 Today myself and my wife are celebrating our 20 year wedding anniversary. 😃 We took the day off. The kids went off to school. We walked the dog. We went out for a relaxing brunch. And we’ve just got back from watching a matinee film at the fabulous local Rex Cinema. 💯 Sometimes it’s just nice to appreciate the simple things in life and what you have. 💯 We’ve known eachother for 40 years - we went to neighbouring schools. 💯 We’ve been through lots of highs and lows. ▶️ Partnerships are all about investing time and effort together to create something powerful and meaningful - as well as having eachother’s backs. 🤔 What partnership has had the biggest impact on your business? #partnership #anniversary #celebration #dayoff #cinema #journey #wellbeing #resilience #family #therex