All of the articles under 'more free ideas' are more substantial than the tips, and are often several pages long. All of them are downloadable or printable in Acrobat PDF form. You will find them useful, both as a reference yourself, and for distribution to others.

Current documents available include the following titles:

Business Improvement

Excellence - the journey starts here. Jim Wade, director of Advanced Training, is no apologist for ISO 9000, having seen many cases of QMSs which leave people demotivated and do not help managers to manage quality. However, he argues that the standard can still provide a sound base for excellence. The secret is in the principles and management behaviours that they imply.

Is ISO 9000 really a standard? Jim Wade is a director of Advanced Training and founder of The Business Improvement Network. This hard-hitting article, drawing its insights from practical inputs offered by members of the Network, highlights some of the basic issues that stem from treating ISO 9000 as a standard.

ISO 9001 and beyond This article by Advanced Training's Jim Wade reminds us of the existence of just one of the other documents, ISO 9004 and of two other tools, the Balanced Scorecard and the Excellence Model. It outlines how each might be used to progress beyond ISO 9001, specifically as part of a programme of senior management education on 'quality' matters.

Customer Care

What it means to be customer driven. Bob Hazell. Director of Advanced Training shows how it is easy to lose customer focus and instead begin to focus on internal issues.

Managing People

A philosophy for effective team building. Tony Atkins looks at how to get the very best out of a team building event.

Be motivated for success Tony Atkins gives some down-to-earth tips for those of us that find motivation is sometimes lacking in our teams.

In-house refuelling.  Business psychologist Marie Mosely examines the trend to cut training budgets during difficult trading conditions.

Presenting as a team to our customers. A look at how to get the very best customer reaction when we need to present as a group. Tony Atkins gives commonsense and practical tips.

The human factor.  Gerald Blair looks at the subject of what makes people work and perform and the crucial part the manager plays.

Meetings

Running effective meetings. Tony Atkins explores the ways in which our meetings can become more powerful and more enjoyable

Running team meetings. How to get the best out of meetings with our team. Some great ideas from Advanced Training are shared by Tony Atkins.

Time Management

Time management and the power of personal goal setting. Our Associate Katie Jones looks at the importance of our personal goals and how they influence the way we organise our lives.

Personal Behaviours

Using goal setting to focus our success. Tony Atkins looks at the need to know where we are going in order to get there.

Developing habits to prompt our success. Habits are habit forming. Are ours positive or negative? Tony Atkins outlines some positive ones.

Selling Skills

Get closing. Ideas to avoid the pitfall of asking for the business and getting either a 'No' or an objection. Bob Hazell explores the way forward.

Get listening. Most of us have heard the saying "He/she would make a good salesperson because they've got the gift of the gab". Do you, like Bob Hazell, think the opposite?

Get matching. How to match EXACTLY what you are offering with what the customer needs. That's the way to get the business, says Bob Hazell

Get organised. Bob Hazell contends that more sales are lost through poor organisation than poor selling. Find out why.

If - with apologies to Rudyard Kipling. A sales approach to this famous poem is given by Bob Hazell.