Effective Training and Development

1:

Up in Cumbria this week, out at a farm centre for lunch, and came across a great idea: a spiral bound jotter pad or to do list, with a theme of quotes at the bottom of each page.  There are lots of themes, including

• wisdom and inspiration
• animals
• sunshine
• dieting
• famous last words
• most sports
• friends
• love

We’ll use them as prizes, but they are great stocking fillers.   They’re £1.95, and available from www.notesandquotes.co.uk

2:

Been thinking recently (!)…..why don’t more businesses combine..especially in these difficult times?  For example, a recent client orders vast - I mean vast - amounts of paper, and gets really top rate discount.  Could they supply paper to others…?  Elsewhere on this site you may have come across the dry cleaners operating from a golf course (”get your trousers pressed while you play”).

We’re thinking for ourselves, is there anything else we are well set up to do, that we could do in addition to training and development?  Any ideas would be most welcome…

Lots of possibilities must exist: why does one shop necessarily specialise in one core product?  The simple traditional argument is ‘that’s what it does best’.  But I’m not only thinking of the issue of one business diversifying, but also the idea of co-hosting: could two businesses - each a specialist in its own right - occupy the same premises?  Would this be a pro-sustainability argument: two businesses, one set of heating, lighting, etc…your thoughts and ideas would be welcome - as would any examples you’ve come across where this is happening.