Soft Skills for Business Profitability

Important: GDPR Email Preferences

As you may already know, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be coming into effect on 25th May 2018. We take your privacy seriously and we are working hard to ensure we comply with the new data protection laws. You can find out more about how we're doing this in our privacy policy on our website.

We want to make sure you continue to receive the latest newsletters, blogs, special offers and more.

As someone who has opted-in to receive our emails in the past, we’d like to give you this opportunity to confirm what you wish to receive:

Just so you know, if you don’t let us know what kinds of emails you want to receive from us, we’ll stop emailing you on the 24th May 2018 - you'll be missing out!

You are of course free to change your mind at any time – just follow the link at the bottom of any of our emails.

Soft Skills To Help Improve Your Business Profitability.

Certain soft skills will make you and your organisation more profitable, complementing the technical knowledge related to the delivery of your product or service.

These profit-boosting soft skills are:

1. Motivating others.
2. Goal setting.
3. Persuasive communication.
4. Sales and negotiation.
5. Questioning, listening and memory skills.

1. Motivating others

Organisations do NOT pay staff for their time, but rather for their productivity.

If the team is demotivated then they are paid the same money, but their productivity plummets. In order to get the full productivity of the team, you must motivate them!

It is a mistake to think that people are motivated only by money; since there are many well-paid, but demotivated people.

So, it is important for you to learn about social motivators, which are those motives - other than money - that inspire people to work harder. Social motivators include: a shared vision, opportunity for achievement, praise, thanks, appreciation, team spirit and inspirational leadership.

Therefore, learning the above mentioned soft leadership skills will help you to become more profitable.

2. Goal setting.

Goal setting is an important soft skill, since both leadership and motivation is based upon the ability to set and communicate the goals we want to achieve.

There is motivation only when there is a clear goal, which sets the terms for every subsequent plan, action and emotion.

Goal setting is a soft skill which should be studied by everyone who wishes to become a better leader and motivator.

Goal setting will make you more profitable.

3. Persuasive communication.

Since nobody can succeed on their own, we must gain the cooperation of others, so we need the soft skill of persuasion.

There are two types of persuasion, logical and emotional.

To persuade people logically; talk about the logical consequences associated with either doing or not doing something.

• Attach pleasurable consequences to the implementation of your idea, and
• Attach painful consequences to NOT implementing your idea.

Emotional persuasion is achieved by making the consequences directly affect the listener. Whenever you personalise the beneficial consequences of an idea and link it to the listener's own success or failure, then your message will have "personal significance", and will affect them more emotionally.

Failure to persuade others to act in accordance with your ideas will cause you to fail.

Successfully persuading others to act in accordance with your ideas will cause you to succeed, therefore undertaking communication skills training is beneficial.

4. Sales and negotiation.

Profits are obviously linked to the soft skills of sales and negotiation.

The sales process consists of five steps: introduction, investigation, product solution, negotiation of profitable terms, close.

1. Introduction means making contact with new people.
2. Investigation means finding out what the other person wants.
3. Product solution means showing how your product or service can help the other person achieve what they want.
4. Negotiation of profitable terms is agreeing a set of terms that allows for the profitable delivery of your product or service.
5. Close means gaining their commitment.

It is self-evident that all organisations would profit by improving their sales and negotiation soft skills.

5. Questioning, listening and memory skills.

Questioning, listening and memory skills are fundamental because we gain information about the world, either by personal experience, or by learning from others.

We gain the majority of our knowledge by asking questions, listening to, or reading about other people's information and remembering what we learn.

And in order to hear the most important information, you need to ask the right questions.

Questioning, listening and memory are fundamental soft skills that underpin every other.

Therefore, investing time and effort into improving these skills will make you more profitable.

Our memory training and creative problem solving course is designed to help you succeed in this area.

About the Author: Chris Farmer

Chris Farmer is the founder of the Corporate Coach Group and has many years’ experience in training leaders and managers, in both the public and private sectors, to achieve their organisational goals, especially during tough economic times. He is also well aware of the disciplines and problems associated with running a business.

Over the years, Chris has designed and delivered thousands of training programmes and has coached and motivated many management teams, groups and individuals. His training programmes are both structured and clear, designed to help delegates organise their thinking and, wherever necessary, to improve their techniques and skills.

Blogs by Email

Do you want to receive an email whenever we post a new blog? The blogs contain article 5-10 minutes long - ideal for reading during your coffee break!

Further Reading in Leadership and Management

• Three Advanced Leadership Skills
  When your plans are thrown off course, how do you react? Do you complain or take advantage of the change in circumstances? Take your leadership to the next level by mastering the skills of utilisation, adaptability and creativity.
  Read Article >
• What qualities do I need to be a manager?
  There are many skills you need to develop in order to be a good manager, but all of them fall into just six major sets.
  Read Article >
• Leadership training - Success principles
  Leadership training - Success principles The role of a leader is: To get the best results from themselves and others. In fact, that is a good goal for which everyone should aim - to discover how to get the best results from yourself and others. If you could get the best...
  Read Article >
• Seven Ways to Improve Your Leadership Skills
  Leadership skills are important traits that can help you make progress in your career. Here are some soft skills you can learn, which will help develop your potential for success.
  Read Article >
• How to Stop Micromanaging Your Team
  Micromanagement is an easy trap to fall into. Find out how to avoid common pitfalls in this article from experienced management trainer Chris Farmer.
  Read Article >

Advert