STARS Business Development Pty Ltd
Based in Melbourne we provide training and mystery shopping services Australia wide. Our specialty areas are Customer Service and Management & Leadership Training, other key disciplines include:
* Professional Selling Skills (intro. and advanced levels)
* Customer Service Excellence
* Creating Loyal & Profitable Lifetime Customers
* Complete Suite of Management and Leadership Disciplines
* Small Business Skills
* All Retail Disciplines including merchandising and theft prevention
We cater primarily to companies in these categories: Retail, Service, Hospitality, Field Sales (including property), Call Centre, All Management & Leadership, SME"s, Train the Trainer.
We come to you. All training is fully customised using our unique 5 step plan and conducted on your site. Our Training Facilitators are all professional and qualified business people, each with minimum 10 years training and business management experience.
We have a suite of eBooks now available for self teach, mainly to assist SME"s with developing a robust Internal Strategy to maximise customer retention and profitability.
It is a fact that most people work to less than their full potential. Unfortunately that potential often remains locked away despite previous conventional training. Through our professional training programs we help organisations to develop employees and management teams into highly effective performers. The benefit you can gain from the STARS 5 Step Training System is the growth of your business productivity through the improved skills, knowledge and attitudes of your people. Our system assures you a return on your training investment like no other.
"Many conventional training workshops
fail in their purpose because they
remain simply a one time "event". Unless a
carefully constructed plan of follow-
up is implemented, the impact of learning
fails to transfer to the workplace and
quickly dies"
Tony Houlston
The STARS 5 Step Training System
* We start by gaining a thorough understanding of your aims and objectives.
* In depth analysis of participant competencies, learning needs and the leadership environment.
* Customised programs to meet the specific learning needs of your team, conducted through highly interactive workshops.
* Our programs are produced to reflect the characteristics of local audiences, business and learning dynamics, whilst incorporating the most up to date international standards.
* A comprehensive process of evaluation, support and follow up at the conclusion of each workshop. The final step is a 3 tier post-training process designed to ensure the learning is transferred into the workplace. No training program can be of any value if the learning stays in the training room.
STARS Business Development Pty Ltd is based in North Croydon, Victoria,
EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE
Full day (half day condensed available)
No Longer is good customer service good enough. Winning businesses realize that to stand out from the crowd, in an increasingly crowded marketplace, they must consistently provide Exceptional Customer Service. Those businesses already know that Customer Service is the only thing that can really differentiate them from their competitors and they understand the need to continuously measure and work on improving their customer service.
The choices available to customers have never been so great, both in what they buy and where they buy. Customers these days are more discerning about their choices, in particular where they will conduct their business.
In this incisive workshop your front line employees will learn:
The secrets of delivering exceptional customer service that is far ahead of your competitors
The difference between processing and serving a customer
The 5 Golden Rules for Retaining Customers
How to creatively under-promise and over-deliver and get amazing results
How to Create Customers for Life
ENGAGING CUSTOMERS TO BUY
Full day (half day condensed available)
In earlier times this topic might typically have been entitled Professional Selling Skills . Designed to make a difference in today s market, our workshop shows the techniques of engaging customers and creating demand. Selling is about the art of gentle persuasion and once you learn how to engage customers, they will virtually sell themselves. The steps of successful selling are employed with smarter and far more effective methodology that eliminates any risk of appearing pushy, and increases the opportunity for closure.
A powerful learning experience:
Turns traditional selling techniques upside down
Shows how to engage customers interest and eagerness to buy
Qualifying that will eliminate objections
Know how and when its time to ring up the sale
The power of follow up
CREATING A SALES SYSTEM
Half day
A Sales System is a consistent process that is followed by everyone in the business. It is how standards, efficiency, customer service and productivity come together. By nature, human beings are creatures of habit and we form habits in most things that we do in life, including the way we complete tasks, shop, communicate and so on. Because we all do things differently, we often end up with chaos as a result of inconsistent operating methods in the business and failing to understand our customers. Far from turning your people into robots, we show how to respect the human and systemize the processes. You will soon be able to create a set of good habits that will impact powerfully and positively on staff and customers.
In this workshop we discuss:
How we can change habits and why we should
Low vs. High involvement purchasers
How to foster impulse buying
Is your business a Survivor, Successful or Significant?
Positive and negative behaviours that customers respond or react to
IT S ALL ABOUT COMMUNICATION
Half day
Really effective audio communication is as much about listening and acknowledging as it is about speaking. But what about other forms of communication? Body language often speaks louder than words and if we know how to interpret it we get much closer to the real message ! This workshop is perfect for people in any role where interaction with others is part of the job, and that has to be just about everyone. Whether we re interacting with customers, colleagues, suppliers, bosses or employees, unions or even competitors, how successfully we do it depends on how we send and receive messages .
We cover:
Words vs. tone
Timing is everything
Listen to understand
The power and interpretation of body language
The written word
HANDLING DIFFICULT CUSTOMERS
Half day
You often hear people say I really enjoy working with people and meeting people , I am a people person . Most of us by nature need and enjoy the company of others and wish to be liked by others, we make the effort. Most of us would agree that most people are a pleasure to deal with. But let s face it, now and again we come across someone who is downright difficult to get on with, some are angry and that can lead to rudeness. In the case of dealing with customers, our ability to relate to people of all types, personalities and manners is one of the keys to being a successful customer service and sales practitioner. This workshop goes beyond concept that says the customer is always right to create an understanding of customers different personality traits, attitudes and triggers. Whilst complaining customers are not always necessarily difficult we also take a look at how you can remove the pain from complaint handling and manage these situations to a win/win outcome.
Learn how to:
Respond confidently to different personality types
Know why customers react they way they do
Diffuse upset and irrational customers without tears
Understand they are not attacking you personally
Turn a complaining customer into an advocate
MERCHANDISING & STORE PRESENTATION
Half day
One of the most powerful marketing tools in your Internal Strategy is a well presented and creatively merchandised store. Cleverly orchestrated marketing and advertising campaigns may successfully drive prospective customers to your door, but the first visual impressions are critical to the consumer in deciding whether to enter your store, vs. your competitors store close by. This important first visual impression is the point where your Internal Strategy takes over from your marketing External Strategy. Consumers employ various senses to decide what is attractive to them, often subconsciously. If your store fails to send the right signals, your prospect s attention will drift to the alternatives on offer.
Learn how to draw customers past the window and into your store:
The senses customers use, consciously and subconsciously
The power of presentation and image
Strategic merchandising
Learn techniques used by the most successful retailers
Understand your market
BEHAVIOUR BASED RECRUITMENT
Full day (half day condensed available)
Attracting, recruiting and retaining the right people for your business doesn t just happen by accident. If it does, you are lucky in the extreme! There are some valuable techniques to be learnt in attracting and selecting good staff and more importantly increasing the chances that they will stay with you. Your people are one of the biggest investments you will make in your business, and whilst it is important to recruit the right people in the first place, it is essential to know how to manage staff retention effectively. You want to ensure they stay with you and turn those skills into great productivity for your business. We show you how to become an employer of choice and devise a performance management plan
Behaviour based interviewing and selection
How the agency experts do it
Performance management
Team motivation
Leadership and staff retention
MANAGING CONFLICT
Half day
Conflict is everywhere, in every part of life and relationships, every day. Why? because (fortunately!) human beings don t agree on everything all the time. Some conflicts are minor, we might call them differences of opinion but all the same, they are still conflicts until a settlement is negotiated. Whilst conflicts are endemic to human relationships, they can also be resolved. In the workplace conflicts need to be managed and resolved swiftly and skillfully. If we don t recognize and manage them, conflicts can be unhealthy and extremely damaging for the business. For managers, the ability to show true leadership through effective conflict management skills is an essential attribute. Learn and use those skills and enjoy a more harmonious and productive team.
BUILDING WINNING TEAMS
Half day
There is probably more talk about the idea of teamwork than there is about the practical development of teamwork that actually works day to day. Although most people know and accept that a winning team will achieve more than a team of winners, how to make it happen is not always so clear. The collective ability and strength is far greater than the sum of the individuals. It adds the dimensions of co-operation and collective effort in order to improve the outcomes. This workshop focuses on how to convert your talented individuals into a team that contributes even more by working together to achieve an ultimate common goal. Individual strengths are built into the team strategy, they are not devalued, and the cohesion is added by everyone understanding their role and their responsibility to the next, as part of the game plan . The acronym TEAM sums it up well: Together Everyone Accomplishes More. This is a key skill of top sporting team coaches and military leaders, but their models do not always translate well into a business environment. We need to take into account the realities of working life and understand how we can successfully build teams in our environment.
PROBLEM SOLVING
Half day
Problems, like conflict, are an everyday occurrence and arise in just about everything we re involved in. The most positive people will regard problems as opportunities and challenges. And so they are, but it helps if you know how to tackle them. There is a science to problem solving, a process if you like, and this is what we share with you in our workshop. Often we can see the options, but we can also become tempted to fight the fire with what may be regarded as the quickest fix. We haven t necessarily taken the time to analyse the problem, understand its life cycle (all problems have one) and all its implications, or scientifically choose the best solution. Decision making may not always be best done unilaterally, so who should be involved in the process? Understand these characteristics and avoid the pitfalls of bad decision making that you may later regret. People who understand how to solve problems in the workplace are invaluable.
WHAT MAKES A LEADER
Full day (half day condensed available)
We address the difference between managers and leaders, defining the essential qualities of each role. In many cases managers are also required to be leaders, they are responsible for the performance of others. However some leaders are not necessarily involved in managing. To help with the definitions; Managers ensure tasks are completed in line with plans and parameters, Leaders set direction based on simple, specific easy to remember philosophy. Anyone who is required to lead a team must understand how to execute that role effectively, or risk ending up with a disjointed collection of people who lack motivation and purpose (see Building Winning Teams). How do you lead? How do you motivate and inspire your people? To Quote President Eisenhower Leadership is the ability to decide what has to be done and then get people to want to do it .
MANAGING CHANGE
Half day
Managing change, embracing and even creating change is probably the most talked about management quality of the last decade. Look at the Professional Appointments columns. Just about every manager is required to embrace, implement and manage change. We exist in an ever changing world, no less so in business than in any area of life. To stand still is to literally go into reverse as we are quickly overtaken by our competitors, so we understand the need to search for ways to do things better, to be innovative, to change. There is a saying that sums up our need to change the way we do things: If you always do what you ve always done, you ll always have what you ve always had . You simply can t go on pushing old methods and expect to get better results. Paradoxically, for many human beings the fear of change is downright daunting - learning new systems, loss of confidence as we let go of the tried and proven methods we re so familiar with, and so on. Leaving our comfort zone is to challenge our natural instincts, so how do we manage change and even become positive and enthusiastic about it? Even if you feel you can do this, if you re a leader how do you get your team to be equally as positive? Find out in this workshop and you may just be astounded at how capable you are of managing change in yourself and others once you know how to approach it.
SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATING
Full day (half day condensed available)
No, not just for the sales team! Certainly the most common users of professional negotiating skills are sales people it s what they do day in, day out, with varying degrees of success to win new business. But absolutely anyone can use good negotiating skills to great advantage. Think about it: we negotiate continuously with partners, off spring, family members, friends, colleagues, suppliers, employees, customers and so on. Life is a negotiation. The world s most skilled negotiators those who are called upon to negotiate on behalf of governments, major corporations, unions etc. are usually very highly paid and in great demand for their skills. Learn the skills, techniques and process of successful negotiating. Learn also how to adopt the all important power position and the art of achieving win / win outcomes. Based on power with rather than power over, it can engender competence and co-operation rather than dominance and control.
SPEAKING AND PRESENTATION SKILLS
Full day (half day condensed available)
One of the greatest fears held by most adults is the fear of public speaking. It rates greater than the fear of job loss, or no money, and for many western adults it is a greater fear than death. The thought of having to stand up and speak or present in public has been known to make strong men weak at the knees and confident women run for cover! Many skilled and talented business people have limited their careers and missed great opportunities. Because of their inherent fear, they have avoided roles and situations that might involve having to speak and present in public. It need not be this way. Many people are able overcome these fears and go on to become much more confident at speaking and presenting once they learn the essential techniques, and practice them. Don t hold back any longer, it is expected increasingly more in corporate and business environments that managers will be capable of presenting to small and large audiences. Managers who cannot speak in public or make presentations to groups are professionally handicapped. In this workshop we show you how to cast off the shackles that are holding you back and help you on your way to mastering the techniques and improving your confidence.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Half day
Most business people are involved in planning at one level or another. Planning effectively provides the map we need to plot our goals and measure our success. As the old saying goes; If you fail to plan, you plan to fail . The preparation of budgets, forecasts and action plans designed to achieve the numbers are the most common types of planning that managers get involved in. But how well are you able to plan strategically? Understanding and interpreting the corporate objective, setting direction for your team requires strategic planning skills. Understand the four stages of the business cycle, how to define what your present stage is and then develop a strategy to address and capitalize on the successive stages well before you reach them. The ability to plan strategically is paramount to the success of your future business achievements and critical if your goal is to stay ahead of the competition.
Many more topics available
"An investment in a STARS Learning Solutions program is an
investment in your people, your greatest assets."
Full day (half day condensed available)
No Longer is good customer service good enough. Winning businesses realize that to stand out from the crowd, in an increasingly crowded marketplace, they must consistently provide Exceptional Customer Service. Those businesses already know that Customer Service is the only thing that can really differentiate them from their competitors and they understand the need to continuously measure and work on improving their customer service.
The choices available to customers have never been so great, both in what they buy and where they buy. Customers these days are more discerning about their choices, in particular where they will conduct their business.
In this incisive workshop your front line employees will learn:
The secrets of delivering exceptional customer service that is far ahead of your competitors
The difference between processing and serving a customer
The 5 Golden Rules for Retaining Customers
How to creatively under-promise and over-deliver and get amazing results
How to Create Customers for Life
ENGAGING CUSTOMERS TO BUY
Full day (half day condensed available)
In earlier times this topic might typically have been entitled Professional Selling Skills . Designed to make a difference in today s market, our workshop shows the techniques of engaging customers and creating demand. Selling is about the art of gentle persuasion and once you learn how to engage customers, they will virtually sell themselves. The steps of successful selling are employed with smarter and far more effective methodology that eliminates any risk of appearing pushy, and increases the opportunity for closure.
A powerful learning experience:
Turns traditional selling techniques upside down
Shows how to engage customers interest and eagerness to buy
Qualifying that will eliminate objections
Know how and when its time to ring up the sale
The power of follow up
CREATING A SALES SYSTEM
Half day
A Sales System is a consistent process that is followed by everyone in the business. It is how standards, efficiency, customer service and productivity come together. By nature, human beings are creatures of habit and we form habits in most things that we do in life, including the way we complete tasks, shop, communicate and so on. Because we all do things differently, we often end up with chaos as a result of inconsistent operating methods in the business and failing to understand our customers. Far from turning your people into robots, we show how to respect the human and systemize the processes. You will soon be able to create a set of good habits that will impact powerfully and positively on staff and customers.
In this workshop we discuss:
How we can change habits and why we should
Low vs. High involvement purchasers
How to foster impulse buying
Is your business a Survivor, Successful or Significant?
Positive and negative behaviours that customers respond or react to
IT S ALL ABOUT COMMUNICATION
Half day
Really effective audio communication is as much about listening and acknowledging as it is about speaking. But what about other forms of communication? Body language often speaks louder than words and if we know how to interpret it we get much closer to the real message ! This workshop is perfect for people in any role where interaction with others is part of the job, and that has to be just about everyone. Whether we re interacting with customers, colleagues, suppliers, bosses or employees, unions or even competitors, how successfully we do it depends on how we send and receive messages .
We cover:
Words vs. tone
Timing is everything
Listen to understand
The power and interpretation of body language
The written word
HANDLING DIFFICULT CUSTOMERS
Half day
You often hear people say I really enjoy working with people and meeting people , I am a people person . Most of us by nature need and enjoy the company of others and wish to be liked by others, we make the effort. Most of us would agree that most people are a pleasure to deal with. But let s face it, now and again we come across someone who is downright difficult to get on with, some are angry and that can lead to rudeness. In the case of dealing with customers, our ability to relate to people of all types, personalities and manners is one of the keys to being a successful customer service and sales practitioner. This workshop goes beyond concept that says the customer is always right to create an understanding of customers different personality traits, attitudes and triggers. Whilst complaining customers are not always necessarily difficult we also take a look at how you can remove the pain from complaint handling and manage these situations to a win/win outcome.
Learn how to:
Respond confidently to different personality types
Know why customers react they way they do
Diffuse upset and irrational customers without tears
Understand they are not attacking you personally
Turn a complaining customer into an advocate
MERCHANDISING & STORE PRESENTATION
Half day
One of the most powerful marketing tools in your Internal Strategy is a well presented and creatively merchandised store. Cleverly orchestrated marketing and advertising campaigns may successfully drive prospective customers to your door, but the first visual impressions are critical to the consumer in deciding whether to enter your store, vs. your competitors store close by. This important first visual impression is the point where your Internal Strategy takes over from your marketing External Strategy. Consumers employ various senses to decide what is attractive to them, often subconsciously. If your store fails to send the right signals, your prospect s attention will drift to the alternatives on offer.
Learn how to draw customers past the window and into your store:
The senses customers use, consciously and subconsciously
The power of presentation and image
Strategic merchandising
Learn techniques used by the most successful retailers
Understand your market
BEHAVIOUR BASED RECRUITMENT
Full day (half day condensed available)
Attracting, recruiting and retaining the right people for your business doesn t just happen by accident. If it does, you are lucky in the extreme! There are some valuable techniques to be learnt in attracting and selecting good staff and more importantly increasing the chances that they will stay with you. Your people are one of the biggest investments you will make in your business, and whilst it is important to recruit the right people in the first place, it is essential to know how to manage staff retention effectively. You want to ensure they stay with you and turn those skills into great productivity for your business. We show you how to become an employer of choice and devise a performance management plan
Behaviour based interviewing and selection
How the agency experts do it
Performance management
Team motivation
Leadership and staff retention
MANAGING CONFLICT
Half day
Conflict is everywhere, in every part of life and relationships, every day. Why? because (fortunately!) human beings don t agree on everything all the time. Some conflicts are minor, we might call them differences of opinion but all the same, they are still conflicts until a settlement is negotiated. Whilst conflicts are endemic to human relationships, they can also be resolved. In the workplace conflicts need to be managed and resolved swiftly and skillfully. If we don t recognize and manage them, conflicts can be unhealthy and extremely damaging for the business. For managers, the ability to show true leadership through effective conflict management skills is an essential attribute. Learn and use those skills and enjoy a more harmonious and productive team.
BUILDING WINNING TEAMS
Half day
There is probably more talk about the idea of teamwork than there is about the practical development of teamwork that actually works day to day. Although most people know and accept that a winning team will achieve more than a team of winners, how to make it happen is not always so clear. The collective ability and strength is far greater than the sum of the individuals. It adds the dimensions of co-operation and collective effort in order to improve the outcomes. This workshop focuses on how to convert your talented individuals into a team that contributes even more by working together to achieve an ultimate common goal. Individual strengths are built into the team strategy, they are not devalued, and the cohesion is added by everyone understanding their role and their responsibility to the next, as part of the game plan . The acronym TEAM sums it up well: Together Everyone Accomplishes More. This is a key skill of top sporting team coaches and military leaders, but their models do not always translate well into a business environment. We need to take into account the realities of working life and understand how we can successfully build teams in our environment.
PROBLEM SOLVING
Half day
Problems, like conflict, are an everyday occurrence and arise in just about everything we re involved in. The most positive people will regard problems as opportunities and challenges. And so they are, but it helps if you know how to tackle them. There is a science to problem solving, a process if you like, and this is what we share with you in our workshop. Often we can see the options, but we can also become tempted to fight the fire with what may be regarded as the quickest fix. We haven t necessarily taken the time to analyse the problem, understand its life cycle (all problems have one) and all its implications, or scientifically choose the best solution. Decision making may not always be best done unilaterally, so who should be involved in the process? Understand these characteristics and avoid the pitfalls of bad decision making that you may later regret. People who understand how to solve problems in the workplace are invaluable.
WHAT MAKES A LEADER
Full day (half day condensed available)
We address the difference between managers and leaders, defining the essential qualities of each role. In many cases managers are also required to be leaders, they are responsible for the performance of others. However some leaders are not necessarily involved in managing. To help with the definitions; Managers ensure tasks are completed in line with plans and parameters, Leaders set direction based on simple, specific easy to remember philosophy. Anyone who is required to lead a team must understand how to execute that role effectively, or risk ending up with a disjointed collection of people who lack motivation and purpose (see Building Winning Teams). How do you lead? How do you motivate and inspire your people? To Quote President Eisenhower Leadership is the ability to decide what has to be done and then get people to want to do it .
MANAGING CHANGE
Half day
Managing change, embracing and even creating change is probably the most talked about management quality of the last decade. Look at the Professional Appointments columns. Just about every manager is required to embrace, implement and manage change. We exist in an ever changing world, no less so in business than in any area of life. To stand still is to literally go into reverse as we are quickly overtaken by our competitors, so we understand the need to search for ways to do things better, to be innovative, to change. There is a saying that sums up our need to change the way we do things: If you always do what you ve always done, you ll always have what you ve always had . You simply can t go on pushing old methods and expect to get better results. Paradoxically, for many human beings the fear of change is downright daunting - learning new systems, loss of confidence as we let go of the tried and proven methods we re so familiar with, and so on. Leaving our comfort zone is to challenge our natural instincts, so how do we manage change and even become positive and enthusiastic about it? Even if you feel you can do this, if you re a leader how do you get your team to be equally as positive? Find out in this workshop and you may just be astounded at how capable you are of managing change in yourself and others once you know how to approach it.
SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATING
Full day (half day condensed available)
No, not just for the sales team! Certainly the most common users of professional negotiating skills are sales people it s what they do day in, day out, with varying degrees of success to win new business. But absolutely anyone can use good negotiating skills to great advantage. Think about it: we negotiate continuously with partners, off spring, family members, friends, colleagues, suppliers, employees, customers and so on. Life is a negotiation. The world s most skilled negotiators those who are called upon to negotiate on behalf of governments, major corporations, unions etc. are usually very highly paid and in great demand for their skills. Learn the skills, techniques and process of successful negotiating. Learn also how to adopt the all important power position and the art of achieving win / win outcomes. Based on power with rather than power over, it can engender competence and co-operation rather than dominance and control.
SPEAKING AND PRESENTATION SKILLS
Full day (half day condensed available)
One of the greatest fears held by most adults is the fear of public speaking. It rates greater than the fear of job loss, or no money, and for many western adults it is a greater fear than death. The thought of having to stand up and speak or present in public has been known to make strong men weak at the knees and confident women run for cover! Many skilled and talented business people have limited their careers and missed great opportunities. Because of their inherent fear, they have avoided roles and situations that might involve having to speak and present in public. It need not be this way. Many people are able overcome these fears and go on to become much more confident at speaking and presenting once they learn the essential techniques, and practice them. Don t hold back any longer, it is expected increasingly more in corporate and business environments that managers will be capable of presenting to small and large audiences. Managers who cannot speak in public or make presentations to groups are professionally handicapped. In this workshop we show you how to cast off the shackles that are holding you back and help you on your way to mastering the techniques and improving your confidence.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Half day
Most business people are involved in planning at one level or another. Planning effectively provides the map we need to plot our goals and measure our success. As the old saying goes; If you fail to plan, you plan to fail . The preparation of budgets, forecasts and action plans designed to achieve the numbers are the most common types of planning that managers get involved in. But how well are you able to plan strategically? Understanding and interpreting the corporate objective, setting direction for your team requires strategic planning skills. Understand the four stages of the business cycle, how to define what your present stage is and then develop a strategy to address and capitalize on the successive stages well before you reach them. The ability to plan strategically is paramount to the success of your future business achievements and critical if your goal is to stay ahead of the competition.
Many more topics available
"An investment in a STARS Learning Solutions program is an
investment in your people, your greatest assets."
This Provider has not yet told us about their training programs
| Head Office |
