Diversity Management Workshop

A colleague of mine attended a Diversity Management workshop delivered by Tanya Kennedy two weeks ago at Legal-Island's training centre and took from it the following five key learning points :

• Jane Elliot’s “A Class divided” is a superb video that shows just how easily people can fall into prejudice and the ugly consequences. See here
• Zappos has some great core values worth examining including :

1. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Deliver WOW Through Service
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

• Pret a Manager have simple core values  : passionate about food; passionate about people; passionate about success
• No-one is born prejudiced. It’s a learnt process. We can unlearn it.
• Are we all age obsessed? I think we are…

As always we're busy devising more Irish employment law seminars

Social Media Marketing

Legal-Island has been studying social media marketing closely this week and have gleaned 5 important key points to remember:

1.  It's Social - Marketing as a conversation is a two-way dialogue. New 'mindsets' are required to be successful in social media  
2. It's a Revolution - A fundamental and revolutionary change in online behaviour, expectations and in the online customer experience 
3. Power Shift - Social media empowers the customers and the network
4. Declining Effectiveness - the traditional approaches to sales and marketing are not as effective as before
5. The End of Business as Usual -  We need new 'mindsets', new business approaches and new performance measures. It's not all about being a broadcast medium. It's about listening to and engaging with customers, partners and community.


We're currently re-working how we marketing our employment law email service

IoD Annual Convention 2012

Three weeks ago, one of my colleagues attended the IoD Annual Convention here in London. It was really helpful and she was able to gather a number of key points: 

1.        How to make the most out of your LinkedIn Profile (from Ariel Eckstein presentation, MD of EMEA, LinkedIn. Complete your profile – importantly add a photo – it makes it more personal to those connecting with you. Only connect to those who you will actually do business with. Treat your Linkedin connections like your phone book. Would you phone the people on your LinkedIn connection?

2.       Passion drives success. It’s not all about the talent you have for something, it’s the passion and the drive you have which will ultimately lead to your success (BackleyBlack – Steve Backley and Roger Black)

3.       “Success is a decision not a gift” (BackleyBlack)

4.      From Kevin Roberts, it’s not all about Return On Investment but Return On Involvement. Get the staff fully involved and the return will be much much greater.

5.       From speaker Kevin Roberts, CEO Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide: “inspire rather than inform”, specifically on the company website. Customers want to be inspired by what they see, not bored by informative text. Think about what your webpage looks like and revise to inspire customers.

As always we're busy devising more employment law seminars.

Active Listening

I listened to an audio cd this morning by Peter Thompson called ‘The best kept secrets of the world’s great communicators’ – the following is a summary of one chapter on ‘Active Listening.’ These are the points that I noted from the session:

Listen actively when there is high emotion or the possibility of misunderstanding, when the person is important to you, or when you need the information they have. The better you listen and respond to others, the better they will listen and respond to you. The more attention you pay when someone else is talking, the more attention they will pay when you are talking. The following are ways to listen actively:

1.       Maintain eye contact. It shows others that you are paying attention.
2.       Think of listening based on the ratio of having two ears and one mouth. Use them in that ratio. Listen twice as much as you speak.
3.       Make notes. This will reinforce your memory. It is advisable to ask permission first in some situations. That permission is seldom refused. If you wish to take a tape recording, it is vital to ask permission.
4.       Allow people to finish their own sentences no matter how enthusiastically you want to jump into the conversation. Doing so will indicate respect for what the person is saying.
5.       Get all the information that is available within a conversation so you will not jump to any false conclusions. Wait for the end of the sentence or end of the conversation to be sure this conversation is unique from any other that may sound similar to you.
6.       Respond so the other person knows you are listening. Your response may be “Yes” or “I see” or merely nodding your head. Any of these will do.
7.       Be accepting rather than judgmental so you can truly hear the message being given. Different accents, catch phrases, speeds of speech, and cultural generalizations can get in the way of hearing the actual message.
8.       Ask questions when you do not understand something that was said. This goes a long way to building strong communication.
9.       Ask core questions. That is typically a series of “why” questions that go deeper into a particular subject to gain the greatest understanding of a situation. Start with broad information and continue seeking more specific responses.
10.   Pause before replying. Pausing will add power to what you say. It indicates you are giving a considered response, that you thought about it, that it is not just some answer you offer every time this question comes up.
11.   Use the Rapid Repeat Method to improve your listening skills and concentration abilities. Do this by simply repeating, silently in your mind, what is being said a fraction of a second later. This holds your concentration and improves your recall of what was said.


It's hard going sometimes in the employment law field. We still feel we're organising the best employment law seminars around.

Art of Pricing

Legal-Island has been trying to research about how to find the hidden profits to grow a business. We came across a book called, "The Art Of Pricing" by Rafi Mohammed.

Here are some of the ideas we've obtained:

• Find ways to add perceived value in ways your competitors cannot match. 3 most commonly used ways to add value are:

1. Offer enhanced service
2. Provide peace of mind
3. Arrange financing

• Value, in the mind of your customer, is always determined by 5 different factors:

1. Income
2. Competitors
3. Substitutes
4. Demand
5. Environment

• Only 2 of the 5 factors are directly controlled by your company. The other 3 factors are determined by market forces you can’t directly control. Your product’s value will ebb and flow as these external factors change. Note also that these 5 factors are determined subjectively by each individual customer. Different people will always have differing personal judgments about the value of things. This is why the comparative value of the same product will differ markedly from one person to the next. If you set a single price point for your product or service, there will always be untapped profits you are failing to harvest.

• Pricing Strategy

1. Market conditions
2. Versioning
3. Segment-based
4. Differential Pricing

At the moment we’re all working hard on our big event coming up soon. This is the Employment Law 2012 Conference.

Andy Bounds's Sales Seminar

6 key learning points from Andy Bounds's Sales Seminar in London, 26th of April:

1. Success, not perfection is what selling is all about.

2. Money is never a money issue but a priority issue. We need to help customers give us priority.

3. People buy because they are interested in your value proposition not your unique proposition.

4. The aim of the marketing brochure is to cause something to happen.

5. You need an incentive on Facebook for customers to like you. For example, to receive 5 top tips a day, join us on Facebook.

6. Facts tell, stories sell. A good selling technique is what is known as the "BO" technique. Where 'B' stands for Benefits and 'O' stands for Options. Give them a choice of 'Yeses' rather than a 'Yes-No' option.

At the moment we’re all working hard on our big event coming up soon. This is the Absence From Work Conference.