Leadership Forecast for 2012: Cloudy with a chance of not meeting target goals
Human Capital Media (HCM) Research and Advisory Services Group has just released its findings on the annual Leadership Development survey, led by the Business Intelligence Board, Chief Learning Officer magazine.
One hundred and fifty-two executive-level leaders from around the world shared insight into their organizations’ investments and practices surrounding leadership development for the upcoming year.
The survey results identified the top 5 skills these organizations are targeting for executive leadership in 2012, as:
- Strategic planning 51.4%
- Business acumen 50.0%
- Coaching 48.6%
- Communication 47.2%
- Employee engagement 38.9%
Followed by “Succession planning” at a close 37.5%. These companies understand the direct correlation between strengthening current leaders and developing up and coming leaders with the overall success of their business. To support this, 44% of participants stated that they plan to increase spending on leadership training and development in the coming year, yet fewer than half of them indicated that they have a validated, proven solution to accomplish these goals.
With respect to front-line managers, the top 5 areas of focus for these organizations in 2012 will be on:
- Communication 61.8%
- Coaching 51.4%
- Conflict management 43.1%
- Employee engagement 43.1%
- Business acumen 39.6%
While it’s interesting to see that communication, coaching and employee engagement are amongst the top 5 focus for both managers and leadership training, these numbers come as no surprise to David Lahey, President of Predictive Success.
“One of the key fundamental components many businesses miss with respect to leadership training and management development is taking a good, long, unbiased look at the individuals within their organization. They seem to know what the problems are yet struggle to understand the root cause or find seamless, viable solutions that solve these issues while meeting their needs and supporting their goals.”
Through this research it was also discovered that, while strategic planning topped the focus list, 30 percent of reporting organizations indicated that they are struggling with aligning their leadership development process to their business strategy!
Are you one of the 30 percent?
Further, a mere 8.2% of all participants stated that the design and planning of their leadership development programs in the areas of talent acquisition, succession planning, retention and management functions were seamless, yet 59% of them plan to make integration a priority in the coming year.
““Success at Work”, Predictive Success’ suite of validated management, sales and leadership assessment tools and training; that includes the Predictive Index® (PI®) behavioural assessment provides both organizational diagnostics and effective management/leadership training proven to increase communication, employee engagement and leadership success – from hire to retire!”
added Mr. Lahey.
“HR professionals are using the tools to clearly define the needs of each job and to hire smarter, putting the right people on the right bus, while managers and business leaders use PI® analytics data to clearly identify the key strengths, motivators and natural behaviours of each team member; including current and potential leaders, empowering them to make clear decisions that will support their current and evolving needs over time. Even GOOGLE attributes their success to an evidence-based approach through their guiding principal that – “data beats opinion”.
Unlike any other management and leadership development training series on the market
Predictive Success prides itself on (six sigma and other data based) measures that may be applied against diagnostic benchmarks, providing organizations with a clear ROI on their training spend. These web- based tools can also be fully integrated into client organizations, providing a secure and seamless solution.
In today’s economic crunch, building strong leaders and effective succession planning are paramount to the longevity and long-term sustainability of any business. But like any structure, you need to establish a strong foundation in order to build and grow solid.
How does your organization measure up?
Predictive Success provides thorough diagnostics, tools and training on your team’s most valuable asset – your people. From hire to retire, we have the data-driven, validated tools and training proven to meet your organizations top 5 goals for 2012:
- Establish Business acumen
- Support Coaching
- Improve Communication
- Increase Employee engagement
- Mitigate Conflict management
With hundreds of validation studies, client testimonies, case studies, and a 55 year proven track record, Predictive Success offers data driven analytics, coupled with professional training and coaching to companies of all sizes across Canada, to maximize the benefits of your training investment and capitalize on your bottom line results. Predictive Success is ideal for Human Resources professionals, managers, sales associates and business leaders wanting proven, viable solutions.
To learn more, call Sally O’Connor, Client Experience Manager, Predictive Success Corporation at 905-430-9788 x 200 or via email at: soconnor@predictivesuccess.com
Download your free copy of the Leadership Development survey >>>
5 New Facebook features BOOST Marketing Success
Want to know the 5 New Facebook features that will BOOST Your Brand Exposure and Marketing Success
Ok I lied … well, not exactly. What I mean is, there are actually 12 recent changes to Facebook but not all of them will help your business or your marketing efforts. I’ve listed all 12 changes here because if you are using Facebook – whether as a personal user or in your business marketing, then they are all good to know. I have gone into detail with the top 5 new Facebook enhancements, to show you how you can use them to BOOST your marketing success. Read on…
The evolution of social media madness changed with the introduction of Facebook in 2004. What started off as a dream of Mark Zuckerberg, to create a social networking platform for his college friends, quickly evolved into a social networking forum for friends and family from all over the world. Today, Facebook is the number 1 social media networking forum with over 1 billion active users across the globe who connect on a regular basis to share and network with others. As such, Facebook has also evolved into one of the top free and paid advertising platform for effective marketers.
To reach the top and stay there, Facebook has had to continually seek out areas of improvement
by regularly adding new features that would improve upon the user experience, add more intuitive functionalities and keep it fresh. With each new feature comes change and thus, new opportunities. Understanding the latest changes and knowing how to use them to your benefit can greatly increase your brand exposure and marketing success on Facebook.
It happens every time. With each new Facebook feature, people talk. Some people will claim to hate them, some people will profess to love them but one thing they can all agree on is that everyone talks about them, and the newest features on Facebook are no exception. Regardless of whether you love them or hate them, if you are an active marketer, then you already know the power of promoting your business on Facebook. Understanding their newest features and knowing how to use them will help you stay current and keep your brand on top.
1. Tick-tock – the Ticker
Yes it’s annoying! That was my first thought too when that dreaded ticker first appeared on the right side column of my home page news feed. My initial reaction was ‘how do I turn this thing off?” But once I explored it, I realized its HUGE marketing potential. From the ticker, I could see everything my friends were doing, who they were leaving comments for, what pages they ‘liked’, links they shared, everything! And when I held my mouse over one of these news items, a window popped up giving me even more details. This made me realize that my comments, likes, pictures and shares were also being seen on the top of my friends’ tickers. Every time I ‘liked’ a page or post, I was actually promoting it to all my friends (and their friends) through this ticker, without them having to visit my wall or be my friend. As long I post, share and connect on a regular basis (which I already do anyway), my page will be seen on the ticker of all my friends – and their friends. Brilliant!
2. Share More Photos
Have you noticed that Facebook photos are now nearly 3 to 4 times larger than they used to be? That means, each photo you post on your Facebook page will be more visible and consume more real estate on your friends’ news
feeds than they used to. So go ahead and post away! As the old saying goes, ‘a picture says a thousand words’. Photos can evoke emotion and instil an emotional connection to the viewer/customer.
You may want to note however that while images posted on business pages are larger now than they used to be, they will not be as large in the newsfeed as photos and images that are posted on profiles. This is because Facebook has put a preference on social users over business marketing. See the two examples here.. the top image 
is taken from our Sweet Spot Facebook page while the image below was posted to my personal profile and shown in the news feed.
As an effective marketer, you need to post photos that promote your brand while connecting with your audience. Create photo albums that tell stories as they promote your brand. For example, rather than showing a picture of your product (boring!), show a photo of someone actually using your product (with a big smile on their face 
. Be sure to add descriptions, back-links to your website, comments, and likes to all your photos. This will fully maximize the use of photos on your Facebook page. Don’t forget to click the *like* button on each and every comment that gets posted on your pics. The more active your photo, the more likely it will land on top of the news feed – which bring us to our next tip….
3. Top those top stories
When you log into Facebook, you are taken to your home page. That’s nothing new. What IS new is that now, Facebook has combined Top Stories with Popular Stories into the same news feed, and the most active posts get the
highest ranking. That means, if your posts are compelling enough that they receive enough likes, shares and comments, your post will stay in the top news feed, where it will be viewed longer than before. How do you create compelling posts? Here are a few suggestions:
- Ask open ended questions that encourage interaction
- Post a photo, video or comment that will stir emotion or motivate others to comment, like and share it
- Offer valuable information, special offers and deals for those who ‘like’ your comment or page.
4. Enable Subscriptions
Many marketers, including myself, have faced the dilemma of allowing perfect strangers into their personal space, for the sake of expanding their network. My personal profile was set up to allow me to connect with friends and family. With a personal profile, I could now keep up with my cousins in Prince Edward Island and view photos my new baby grand-nieces and nephews in New Jersey, Barrie, Toronto and Sudbury, allowing me to watch them grow up into beautiful little people. I could share my passion for music, special family moments and holiday pictures, and let them know how we’re doing. My personal profile was set up to be exactly that – personal. However, as an internet marketer, I also know the power of Facebook as a successful marketing platform for my business. I have created pages for our websites that and I use on a regular basis to promote our brand. While these business pages are set to *public*, the majority of those who actually see these posts and updates are those on my active friends list. Unfortunately, in allowing strangers into my private world to share my posts, I am also allowing them into the private world of all my friends and family on my friends list.
With the addition of subscriptions, Facebook has removed the dilemma of allowing total strangers into your personal Facebook world and exposing my friends and family for the benefit of sharing your brand and expanding your
business network. All you need to do is to click on the ‘Subscriptions’ link on the left column of your home page, and
choose to enable subscriptions. This new feature allows total strangers to subscribe to your page and receive all your public posts on their news feed and ticker, without giving them full access to your personal profile.
5. Customize your audience
Facebook has simplified their feature of deciding who can see your photos and posts. Facebook has allowed for both default settings (what category each post and photo will naturally fall into) as well as custom settings for each individual post. Setting this up literally takes less than 5 minutes and will allow you to expand your brand to your subscribers while protecting the privacy of your loved ones so it is well worth the minimal time invested. In your personal settings, go through each option, (favourite books, movies, sports, etc.) and decide on your default settings for each item, whether you want to make them public (can be seen by everyone) or private (can only be seen by your friends). If you are unsure about a particular item, set it to private/friends only because you can always over-ride the default by changing the access on the individual photos and posts. With each new message and photo you post, you can easily choose to make it either public or private, by clicking on the small icon on the top-right corner of the post itself. This new simple feature allows me to post business updates that I can set to public, and add new family photos that I can set to private.
… and more Facebook changes…
And here are the additional recent changes to Facebook. While they may not help boost your brand or increase your business’ exposure, they are good to note and understand, for your own familiarity with Facebook.
6. Increased post sizes! Posts can now be up to 5,000 characters, that’s 10x longer than the previous maximum post length.
7. You may have noticed that you can no longer accompany a friend request with a message. It’s either accept them or not – then send them a message. And when you DO accept them as a friend, you can categorize them right there and then.
8. A floating navigation bar on your profile page that is always in view, even when you scroll down your profile page.
9. Customize more bookmarks and label your favourites on the left column of your Home page.
10. Birthday reminders now appear in the upper right column (with a small gift icon) on your Home page. If you have more than one friend’s birthday on any given day, the new Birthday pop-up window allows you to send each of them a unique post from you, all from one handy window. Friend lists that existed before the new smart list prompts now have an entirely new management interface as well.
11. The POKE button is now hidden in a pull-down menu. You can find it to the right of the “add friend” button.
12. A thumbnail image of the user, and his or her name, appears in the right corner of the top blue navigation bar; when one surfs the site using a page alias, the name and main image appears in the same place.
And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the social media water…
Facebook will be coming out with even MORE changes in the near future – many of these changes are currently in beta testing. Stay in the know … subscribe to our free membership at SweetSpotTraining.com to get the latest news and articles on social media and internet marketing PLUS tons of free training, downloads, videos, and more!
When it comes to marketing on Facebook, your business cannot afford to be left out of the social media madness loop. Sign-up today for Sweet Spot Training’s Facebook Marketing ‘How To’ Training Course.
This online video training course on Facebook marketing includes 27 interactive video lessons plus BONUS software you can use to create your own Facebook iframe special offer page, like this one: http://www.facebook.com/SweetSpotTraining
- *LIKE* our page to receive your discount coupon code and start your Facebook Marketing Training today!
For a limited time, Sweet Spot is also including their Facebook online store generator tool – where you can create a store page and sell products on Facebook – like this happy client is doing: http://www.facebook.com/pages/BEST-Value-on-Bed-Bath-Products-Gifts/244583152255100?sk=app_190322544333196
If you love the comfort and convenience of online training, then sign up to Sweet Spot’s Creative Web Courses online training centre at WWW.CreativeWebCourses.com. You will get the full Facebook Marketing Course PLUS many 
other online video training courses on:
-
Generating web traffic
-
Building and managing WordPress website from notice to expert
-
Internet marketing strategies
-
Fast Track method for creating money making websites – FAST!
PLUS, as a member of Creative Web Courses you will also have full access to:
You can even use the free promotional niche videos, royalty-free images and graphics on your own website. Join now. The free graphics alone are worth more than the price of membership! 
How to make money with Affiliate Marketing
You’ve heard a lot of talk about affiliate marketing. But what is it and will it work for you? This article explains the fundamentals of affiliate marketing, what it is, how it works, how to find a reputable affiliate program and of course, how to make money with affiliate marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is one of many internet marketing strategies being used on the internet today to generate wealth. With affiliate marketing, companies will pay out a pre-determined amount of money (or percentage) to an affiliate who either drives traffic (people) to their website or sells the company’s product or service on their behalf. Think of an affiliate like a sale person or a promoter who partners with the company and works on a commission basis. Each time you bring the company either leads or sales (depending on their offer), you are paid an affiliate commission.
How does Affiliate Marketing work?
When you sign-up as an affiliate, you are provided with a logo, a banner and/or a web link, that will contain a special code, unique to you. For example, if I signed up as an affiliate to a program like Creative WEB Courses using the name “SallyO”, then my unique link may either contain special numbers assigned to me (www.CreativeWebCourse.com/47565) or it will contain my username (www.CreativeWebCourses.com/SallyO)
Use your unique link and/or banner in all your online and offline marketing – on your website, your Facebook profile, in your email signature, and everywhere else you can think of. Tell your friends about it, and print it on your business cards and stationary. When someone clicks the unique link with your code, they will be taken to the company website which records the unique code and can detect that the person was sent there from you. Then, when the person buys or subscribes, your code is recorded as the one who generated the sale and you are paid the affiliate commission for that sale.
Can I make money with Affiliate Marketing?
Yes! There are thousands of people on the internet who are making part-time to full-time incomes using affiliate marketing. The main advantage of affiliate marketing is that you can make money on the internet without having any products or services of your own to sell. Another advantage is the low to no start up cost that is involved with getting into affiliate marketing. There is no overhead, and most times, once you set up a good system for generating traffic, you can step back and let it go on auto-pilot, making money for you with very little effort on your part. Once you learn how to be an effective affiliate marketer, you can offer several affiliate programs with no cap on your earning potential!
How do I make money with Affiliate Marketing?
There are several strategies – both online and offline for making money through Affiliate Marketing. One of the most popular methods is to set up a website or a squeeze page (a squeeze page is a one page website that is fully optimized with targeted keywords, reads like a long sales letter, and links to the affiliate product/service you are promoting) to promote your affiliate products or services. Many times these squeeze pages will have an opt-in (sign-up) form that places them on your list. You don’t need your own opt-in form but it is a good idea. You can send them directly to the affiliate sales page but having an opt-in form on your squeeze page is a great way to develop a legitimate customer list that you can use to promote other specials and affiliate offers to at a later time. You can get a trial version of our preferred customer list building tool for only $1 – just click here: Amazing List Building Tool for $1
The cost of setting up a squeeze page is minimal – and can be done for under 20 dollars. All you need is a unique URL from a Registrar like Go Daddy (make sure that the web name is ‘keyword rich’, meaning it has your targeted keywords in it) and hosting. Our preferred web host provider is HostGator, where you can host unlimited websites for under 10 bucks! 
Another effective method for promoting your affiliate products and services is through social media channels. The majority of popular social media networking channels, like FaceBook and Twitter are free to use and highly effective in promoting products and services.
Successful affiliate marketers will use many – if not ALL of these and other effective internet marketing strategies to ensure they cover all their bases and reap the maximum rewards for the product/service they are trying to sell.
Where can I find good Affiliate Programs?
There are basically 2 types of affiliate programs. One type of affiliate program will have a 1-time payout and the other type of affiliate program will offer a recurring or residual (ongoing) payout.
The majority of companies with affiliate programs offer a 1-time affiliate payout. This means, if you sell their one product you will be paid a one-time commission for each sale. The unfortunate thing about this method is that these companies always have more than one product or service to sell. And when you bring them a sale, you are also generating a LEAD that they will continue to market their additional products and services to, without having to pay you any further affiliate commissions. Still, this is the most common practise of affiliate marketing. There are many websites, like Clickbank, where you can sign up as an affiliate, browse through all the affiliate products and services, and decide which ones you want to promote.
However, if you are thinking of getting started in affiliate marketing, you are best to put your time and efforts into an affiliate program that pays a recurring affiliate commission – if you can find one. These programs are generally for products or services that either have a monthly fee or other promotional products, where you are paid an affiliate commission each month, for as long as the customer you brought in continues to buy or subscribe, or for each product they buy. The reason recurring affiliate commission programs are not as common is because it means the company has to share more of its profits with its affiliate partners. If you can find an affiliate program with a recurring affiliate commission payout, your potential for higher earnings will increase exponentially! Just a word of caution, not all membership sites offering affiliate programs will offer a recurring affiliate commission payout. So be sure to read the fine print, as outlined in the affiliate program’s terms and conditions.
Apply today – limited time offer!
Sweet Spot Training’s Creative Web Courses has an excellent Recurring Affiliate Program. Their affiliate program pays out a whopping 50% monthly residual on every membership package that an affiliate sells. To join the affiliate program, register on the Affiliates page of the Creative Web Courses website. Upon approval, you are provided with a unique link that contains a special code that is unique to you, in addition to some graphics and banners (that also contain your unique link) that you can use on your website and in your online and offline marketing materials. Be sure to use this link and these banners everywhere, so people will click it to visit the Creative Web Courses website and sign up to all the fantastic online training courses. Each time someone signs up using your unique link or banner, you will be paid 50% of their membership fee, for as long as they are a member. And since Sweet Spot has promised to provide new, exciting training each and every month, there will always be new and exciting programs to retain them as a satisfied, ongoing customer. That means your one customer could generate an ongoing monthly sales commission for you. Multiply that monthly income by many customers and you have the potential to create your own GIANT money making system.
Now Accepting Affiliate Applications!
Click on this banner NOW to find out more about Creative WEB Courses incredible recurring affiliate program and unlimited money making opportunity.
Here’s to your online success!
Sally O
