 Hello and welcome to today's webinar – Influencing Upwards. My name is Sarah. I'm from Redback Conferencing and I will be your facilitator for today's Business Skills webinar. Today is all about uncovering the skills and mindsets to increase your confidence when influencing those at senior levels, creating desired impressions and building credibility. I would like to get started by welcoming our host for today's presentation, Sandra Wood from Great Managers. Sandra is a people management and leadership training expert with over 20 years experience. Prior to becoming a consultant, Sandra had extensive human resources and organizational development experience and held senior management positions in both the private and public sectors. How are you today, Sandra? I'm well, Sarah. Lovely to be here. Excellent. So we're going to get straight into the content now. We're also going to turn off the webcam so we can focus on the presentation and ensure no one has any difficulties with their bandwidth. So off we go. Thank you. Here we go, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to all of you. So one of the key challenges facing many people today at all levels is how to influence people more senior than themselves. So including your boss, perhaps. So I want you to think about this. Have you ever been in a situation where you feel like you just can't get through to your boss? Well, the purpose of the webinar today is to help you get your point across and communicate persuasively with people in more senior positions. So here's what we're going to cover today. I'll start with, I'll just give you a little bit more information about me and I'm keen to hear a bit about you as well. And then I'm going to take you through some things about influencing upwards. How you can develop a wider range of influencing skills and strategies. How you can tailor your influencing strategies for individual stakeholders. And how you can increase your confidence and credibility when influencing people. So I hope that sounds good for all of you on the webinar today. And I'd also like to tell you a little bit about our program, Great Managers, and how you can become a great manager. And I'll take the questions at the end. So I like to stay focused on the webinar as we go through and I'll take the questions at the end. So we talked about the fact that I'm a leadership consultant and have been doing that, I've been running my own business now for 14 years. And my absolute passion is teaching managers how to become great managers. And this is, I tell people, this is my mission. I'm actually on a mission to fill the world with great managers. And when I tell people about this, I do get a few strange comments. Sometimes people say, well, that's interesting. How about you get a life or something like that? But when I explain why I'm on this mission, most people get it. You see, the problem is that more than 70% of employees are not engaged at work. And most say it's because of bad bosses. The employees think the managers are the problem. And the managers think the employees are the problem. And this is not a good formula for building a high-performing workplace. And we do spend such a lot of time at work and it doesn't have to be this way. So this is my passion and I've got a special offer for you at the end today around that. So let's find out a little bit more about you. I'm interested to find out your role and your title. And, whoops, we'll just go back to that, your role and your title and the industry you're from. And I'm also, we're going to run a poll shortly about whether you lead a team. But can you put those things in the question box now for me? So I've got a sense of who you are. I'd love to find out a little bit more about who we've got on the webinar today. So your role and title. We'll have a look at those in the question box. Okay, we've got some people coming in now. Thank you. Okay, quite a few of you have managed other looks of things. Training, lots in training and finance. Government roles. Got a few finance managers, people in aged care. Lovely marketing as well, universities. Lots of people on, fantastic. So Sarah, how about we run the poll now? Because I'm really keen to see how many of you are leading a team. How many of you on the webinar today have direct reports? There we go. Run the poll if you'll just answer that for us now. So we've got a sense of the mix we've got. Seems quite even so far. Sandra? It does. Okay, we're ready to... There we go, we've got the results from the poll. All right, lovely. Look at that, so close. So we've got about very close to 50-50 on there today. So yeah, it's interesting because people at all levels need to be able to influence up. So as a leader of a team, you also need to be able to influence down. So thinking about how you'll be able to apply what we're talking about today in relation to influencing upwards as well as downwards. So I want to start with a couple of important messages. The first one is being able to get your point across and communicate persuasively with more senior people is a critical workplace skill that you have to develop. It's not something you either have or don't have. It's important to think here that the best ideas don't matter if no one pays attention to you. And to be an effective leader, you have to be a strong communicator because leadership consists of getting things done through others. Persuasion and the ability to influence others is one of a leader's essential tools. Now, many people assume that influence is available only to the charismatic and the eloquent. But there are strategies anyone can use to reliably lead others to adopt new ideas or you can sway them or help them change their mind with this ability to influence. So let's start with what is influence? Now the definition of influence is to move or impeller person to some action. But influencing upwards is your ability to move or get things done through people over whom you have no formal authority. So this could be your own manager, it could be the senior management team or it could even be external stakeholders. And the key to effective upward influence is to know what to do in a skillful way. And it's also important to know when to push ahead and when to back down. That's a really important point there. It's also important to understand that influencing upwards does not mean using crawling or groveling or brown-nosing behaviors or flattering others. It's about mutual support, trust, respect and integrity. Now you probably know more about influencing than you think. There are many factors that impact our ability to influence others. So I want to start with a case study. So I listened to this case study, I'm introducing you here to Maureen. She's going to be our case study person today. And I want you to think about what Maureen does well and what she doesn't do so well in terms of influencing others. So Maureen just happens to be a finance manager in a large company. She's very bright, she's very well read, very informed and she's extremely competent in her role. She often has to present to the senior executive team about financial matters and make recommendations. She communicates well and she can be very interesting to listen to. Until the point when she senses that people are disagreeing with her. If people don't agree she becomes a bit dismissive and barrels ahead stating with complete certainty how right she is and she provides lots of facts and figures to support what she is saying. But if you resist her recommendations or have misgivings or doubts you'll get the look. The I don't suffer fools look and her posture is one of well you simply don't understand. And she also has little patience when others express views that she doesn't agree with. It seems she has little consideration for input or other perspectives. She's very focused on what she wants and on the facts and she thinks she knows best. People do admire her brilliance but they tend to keep her at arm's length. So how successful do you think Maureen is in influencing upwards? If you said not very you'd be right. But Maureen often doesn't understand why her brilliant suggestions are not adopted or why she just can't seem to connect with people. And at present she thinks the problem lies with the other people. But she's in a bind because getting her ideas adopted is the only way she can be successful in her role. So Maureen is using her dominant style and does not have a good range of influencing skills. So she has what we call limited range. Now range is about being adaptable and having the ability to tailor your skills to the situation and the audience. We can't just go with what we've got. That is our natural style or our preferred communication style. We have to develop our skills to influence others and get results. So we have to be flexible and have to use a range of skills and strategies. So the two main factors that impact your ability to influence others are your behavior. And this doesn't just apply to the actual time or situation you're trying to influence. It's your behavior and your relationships with the person or group that you're trying to influence. And it's also your history and your credibility. They all come into play as well. And the other factor is your influencing strategies. So let's have a look at behavior first. People are persuaded by different things. Some people are impressed by a strong logical argument while others are swayed by a passionate explanation. So we have to consider both facts and feelings. Or another way of saying this is we have to provide information and benefits. So you not only have to be able to send a clear message when you're influencing others you have to be able to listen really well and ask effective questions. And Bob Seldon who wrote the book What Do You Do When You Become the Boss? He said there are four key behaviors you need to be able to influence upwards effectively. And these are asserting, reflecting, questioning and suggesting. And the behaviors that work best with feelings are reflecting and asserting. So reflecting is the ability to really listen to the underlying message being expressed by the other person. It's not only what they're saying but what they're really feeling. And this is where you would paraphrase. You'd repeat back to them in your own words and clarify their comments, their inputs and concerns. And asserting is being able to state your own needs and expectations in a compelling way. This is where your passion or your emotion is important. And when emotions are high these are the most powerful influencing skills, reflecting and asserting. And the behaviors that work best with facts are questioning and suggesting. So questioning is about asking fact-finding non-judgmental questions to gather data and information from the other person. And it's important here to use the right type of question. So questions that start with what and how are most useful here, not questions that start with why. So why questions can cause defensiveness in the other person without you intending to create that. Suggesting is about making proposals and suggestions supported by two or three strong reasons of what you want. So think about this as your well-researched business case. And these behaviors are very important for logical fact-based situations. Now I don't believe that there's any situation that is purely either fact-based or feeling-based alone. When human beings are involved there are always emotions present. But some people do have a preference for one over the other and this is why you need range. You need a few different tools in your influencing toolkit. Now you can see from these descriptions that Maureen was only using suggesting and asserting in terms of her key behaviors. She was missing the other two so her range was too limited. So how should you use these four key behaviors and this influencing model? Well the idea is to use these behaviors of reflecting and questioning early in an influencing situation. This is about opening up communication and gathering input about facts and feelings. So this might be before you're in the actual situation where you're presenting your case. This would be part of your consultation and your preparation for the situation. So you might need to think things through and do your research and ask several people for their views or experiences with what you're wanting to influence about and reflect on what they're saying. Ask them good questions to get more information and get some different perspectives than you currently might have. And with asserting and suggesting, Seldon suggests that you use these two behaviors later in the influencing situation to present your needs or feelings in a compelling way and to make suggestions or proposals. That is about you putting forward your business case and these behaviors are best used as a way of closing your case. So we've looked at four key behaviors. Now we're going to look at six influencing strategies and these are more about the psychology of influencing and understanding humans. So as we go through these you might want to think about a time when you've had to influence others in the past or maybe even a situation that you've got coming up and how you could use what we're talking about today. Because you might have come up with a fantastic idea for your organization or business. And the idea is now you need to convince everyone to support it. So how can you do that? Influencing can be challenging, which is why it's worth understanding the psychological principles behind the influencing process as well as the behaviors or the skills that you need. And I like Childini's six principles of influence here. You might have seen these before. So the six principles are reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity. And these are sometimes referred to as the six weapons of influence because they're very powerful in swaying behavior. And as we go through you'll notice that marketers are using these on us all the time. So this is where we need to remember the ethics of influencing and make sure our intentions are genuine and that we are acting from a place of integrity. So our first influencing strategy is reciprocity and research confirms that people tend to treat you the way you treat them. So if you've ever smiled at a co-worker just because he or she smiled first then you know how this principle works. As humans we generally aim to return favors, pay back debts and treat others as they treat us. According to the principle of reciprocity this can lead us to feel obliged to support people who have supported us. This is because we're uncomfortable with feeling indebted to them. For example, if a colleague helps you when you're busy you know when you're busy on a project you might feel obliged to support her ideas later on. You might decide to buy more from a supplier if they've offered you an aggressive discount. Or you might give money to a charity fundraiser who has given you a flower in the street. So to use reciprocity to influence others you'll need to identify your objectives and think about what you want from the other person. You then need to identify what you can give them in return. And remember that you can sometimes use this principle by simply reminding the other person of how you've helped them in the past. Or you can put reciprocity into action by doing a favor before seeking one or by giving people what you know they want to receive. But remember our ethics of influencing here with this one. We can all sniff someone who is not genuine a mile away. So you're more likely to have this work for you if you're a supportive or giving type of person most of the time not just when you want something. Our next influencing strategy is commitment and consistency. And Cialdini says that we have a deep desire to be consistent. For this reason once we've committed to something we're then more inclined to go through with it. So for instance you'd probably be more likely to support a colleagues project or proposal if you had shown interest when he first talked to you about his ideas. So for you to apply this principle try to get people's commitment early on either verbally or in writing it might even just be an email. For example if you're building support for a project talk about ideas early on with a range of different stakeholders and take their comments and views into account. Or if you're selling a product, sell a very small quantity or a taster of the product and make it easy for people to change their mind once they've bought it. So in that situation buying the product is the early commitment even though they have the right to return it if they want to and you probably are with lots of companies do that. Our third principle is social proof and this relies on people's sense of safety in numbers. For example we're more likely to work late if others in our team are doing the same. We're more likely to put a tip in a jar if it already contains money or eat in a restaurant if it's busy I'm sure you can relate to that. So here we're assuming that if lots of people are doing something then it must be okay. So we're particularly susceptible to this principle when we're feeling uncertain and we're even more likely to be influenced if the people we see who are doing it are similar to us. That's why TV commercials use mums, not celebrities to advertise household products and you can use this principle by creating a buzz around your idea or product. For example if you're trying to get support for a new project work on generating support from influential people in your organization or if you're selling a service highlight the number of people using it or use plenty of relevant testimonials and encourage people to talk about it on social media or you can publish case studies with current customers to demonstrate its success. Our next principle is authority and we feel a sense of duty or obligation to people in positions of authority. This is why advertisers of pharmaceutical products employ doctors to front their campaigns and why most of us will do most things that our manager or other people with authority request. So job titles, uniforms and even accessories like cars or gadgets can lend an air of authority and can persuade us to accept what these people say. So to apply this principle you can use both your own authority and expertise and the authority of others as influencers. It could be the authority of an industry expert or a piece of research. So to use authority get support from influential and powerful people and ask them for help in backing your idea. If you're marketing a product or service highlight well-known and respected customers and use comments from industry experts and talk about impressive research or statistics. So things like well-produced brochures, professional presentations, impressive offices and smart clothing can also lend authority. So think about how you're turning up for work each day and make sure that you're being professional. Our next principle is liking and Childini says that we're more likely to be influenced by people we like. So likability comes in many forms. People might be similar or familiar to us or they might give us compliments or we might just simply trust them. So to apply this principle build your network not just within your own team and your own area but within the organization and even within your industry. So an example of this is that some companies look for sales people who live and work in their own local community and employ this principle with huge success because people are more likely to buy from people like themselves, from friends and from people they know and respect. And to build good relationships, ensure that you put the time and effort in that is needed to build trust and rapport with the people that you work with and also behave with consistency. And remember that there is no one size fits all approach when it comes to relating to others. And also don't try too hard to be liked by others. People can always spot a phony. And if you need help with your networking skills I'll be running a webcast with Sarah and Redback on this topic in November. So make sure you look out for that one as it comes out. So our next principle is scarcity. And this principle says that things are more attractive when their availability is limited or when we stand to lose the opportunity to acquire them on favorable terms. So with this principle people need to know that they might miss out on something if they don't act quickly. For instance we might buy something immediately if we're told that it's the last one or that a special offer will expire soon. So if you're selling a product limit the availability of stock or set a closing date for the offer or create special editions of products. This principle can be a little bit trickier to apply within your organization if you're trying to influence others but you can use urgency instead of scarcity to get support for your ideas. So for example you could highlight the possible urgent consequences of the problem that your idea helps to solve. So a little warning about using these six principles because it is very easy to use them to mislead or deceive people or to exert undue influence. When you're using approaches like these make sure that you use them honestly by being completely truthful and by persuading people to do things that are good for them and good for the organization. Don't use them in an unethical way because a good reputation takes a long time to build but you can lose it in a moment. So let's have a look now how you can tailor your influencing skills and we'll start with influencing your boss. So you might wanna take some notes here for this one. So the first step in influencing your boss is to get very clear on your manager's expectations of you. So thinking about what are the highest priorities for them but maybe they've got a business plan that they're working with that will outline their highest priorities and how would they weight them. It's important to know how their success is measured and then once you know what your boss is focused on you work backwards from there to craft your messages establishing a clear link between your most important talking points and his or her most important priorities. The next step in influencing your bosses to assess styles both yours and theirs. So I want you to think about your boss's style for a moment because chances are you know your boss pretty well. What is their style in terms of communicating? What would be the best way to communicate to them? Do they prefer to be communicated with in person or do they like you to shoot them an email first or maybe even give them a little bit of a report or outline. So what have you observed in the past about your boss's style or preferences around communication? Then assess yourself. So what aspect of your style has worked well in the past when communicating with your boss and what hasn't worked well? Think about what you like about working with your boss because that'll give you a sense too of anything you have in common there and perhaps what you don't like. So there might be a disconnect there between your style and theirs but be careful that you're not just focusing on what you don't like because if you're thinking like that that judgment could leak out of your body language when you're talking with them. So you need to be very aware of that. And the third step here is to work in sync with your boss. So the idea is to communicate in a style that they find persuasive. So this is where you need to be adaptable. So for example, if they're quite extroverted and outgoing and you're more introverted or reserved you might have to talk things through with them more than you'd naturally like to or if your boss is more introverted you might need to give them time to reflect on things first. So in Great Managers we use a model called the Z model which is very useful for communicating well with all types of people. The thing to remember here is that your boss needs your support and many people fail to see how much their boss needs their help and cooperation to do his or her job well. So if you don't support them they're unlikely to support you. Remember that principle of reciprocity? So here are some general tips for all situations. So keep your boss informed. Don't bring surprises in. Bosses don't like that. Don't hide a problem. Always do your homework and get clear on their position and make sure you've got solutions more than one to a problem. And be very clear about how your objectives will benefit them and the organization. And another little tip here. Don't disagree with your boss in public. That's not a good thing in terms of influencing. So to be able to influence upwards you must not only be effective in terms of achieving what is expected of you, you must be good at building and managing relationships with a wide range of people. So let's have a look now how you could tailor your influencing skills with the senior management team. And for some of you, this might be the board. So the idea here is to firstly know what the key initiatives or what we call critical success factors are in your organization at the present time. So is it cutting costs? Or is it developing new products or new ideas? So it's important that you find out what the CSFs are or critical success factors are. And then you compare your objectives or goals with the overall organizational priorities and eliminate items that are not aligned because you know that they're probably not gonna get up. Be clear on how your objectives will benefit the organization. So thinking through how would your idea solve a problem? How would it save money? How would it increase return on investment? And make sure that you don't leave people to draw their own conclusions from your proposal. Be very clear about it. Because people are gonna trust you more when your motives are aligned with the organization's goals. And another tip is to be known as the person who gets things done. So now it's show time. The day has finally arrived when you have to influence upwards. So let's have a look at how you'd approach an actual meeting, how you pull it all together. So the first thing you do is to clarify and communicate your vision or goal. Make it compelling. Show your enthusiasm and be energetic and upbeat. Make sure you're doing this authentically though. Because emotions are contagious and your passion and enthusiasm can infect others. You'll give a brief synopsis or overview first and what you would like from them. Make sure you use good visuals and make your business case. So present a realistic cost-benefit analysis of your ideas. But keep it succinct, not too long. And make sure you're paying attention to the reaction of your audience. Are they engaged? Are they asking questions? And if they're not engaged or asking questions, draw them out. Maybe ask them some questions. Get their sense of what you're talking about. Make sure you're listening really well. This is such an important influencing skill and very few people do this well. So you need to demonstrate your understanding. Use that reflecting behavior that we talked about earlier and ask good questions. Those what and how questions will serve you well here. Ask for their thoughts and comments. And if appropriate, this is where you would make your suggestion. So clarify next steps. Ask them, do they need any more information or any adjustments to your proposal? And then summarize agreements and actions and then thank them. So can you see the application of the four key behaviors being used there as I've taken you through that? I hope you can see them coming into play. So let's talk about how you can build credibility and confidence. Because the more credibility and confidence you have, the more successful you'll be at influencing others. So there's a few key elements of credibility. Credibility is built on the trust of others and an effective track record. It also comes from the ability to demonstrate the value of a proposition. That's a skill in itself there. It comes from good relationships, consulting people and forming partnerships. It comes from being strategic and being able to take the big pitch of you. So being able to look outside your own area and take the big pitch of you. It comes from having a balanced perspective and being flexible and not having to get your own way like Maureen was doing in our case study. And it also comes from being patient because sometimes influencing takes time. To increase your confidence and influence others more effectively, you can start with increasing your self-awareness. This is about knowing yourself and what you're good at and where you need to improve and make adjustments. It's also about being able to manage your emotional state. So this is about being able to be grounded and being calm under pressure. It's about being able to go into an influencing situation with the mindset that the other person is your ally rather than the enemy because that will come out in your emotions. And it's very important to develop these skills. These are your emotional intelligence skills and we teach you how to do this in our great managers program. Confidence will also come by being prepared. So make sure you're prepared for all the meetings you go to, not just the one you're trying to influence at. And prepare your case beforehand. Don't fly by the seat of your pants with this. So make sure you're clear on your top three most important points and what you want from three perspectives. Now these three perspectives could be what is absolutely necessary, what is ideal in terms of your proposal and what would you be willing to give up. So being prepared for those in advance. Confidence will also come from observing others in your organization who are good at influencing. Just notice what they do and build a relationship with them if possible and get some tips or advice or feedback from them because we can learn a lot through modeling other people's behavior there. And my next tip for you here is to behave confidently. We say behave as if you're already confident. And ways you can do this are to increase your contribution in groups and meetings. So speak up more. Be more attentive in meetings. Even if it's boring, stay focused and use more eye contact when you're connecting with people. Connect with other people in your organization from all areas and make sure you're working on building good relationships. And show appreciation and give feedback to others who are presenting. And you might do this at work or even when you're out at conferences or other sorts of presentations. People love that when they're presenting to have that appreciation. Another tip is to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And you might think, what are you talking about there, Sandra? But this is about to grow in your role. You have to stretch outside your comfort zone. And sometimes growth comes from the inside where we reflect on things we're doing well or not doing so well. But it often comes from the outside too where we have to behave in a way that is taller, stronger, better than the current identity we hold of ourselves. And doing this can create some discomfort or a feeling of being fake. And I want you to know that this is very normal when you're learning something new or going to the next level with a skill. And I strongly encourage you to keep going. Do not pull away from skill development or increasing your confidence because you're not there yet. The only way you will build your confidence is through practice, practice, practice and some discomfort while that skill is being developed. Other things you can do to gain more influence you can volunteer to lead groups. Now you could do this in your organization or you could do it in your life even. So it might be being on a committee or on a working party, something like that. I've done this a few times and I have found that really valuable. So you can seek to assist others whenever you can and genuinely serve others. You can return favors. And this next one is very important around influence. It's making sure you return calls and emails. This action alone can make a big difference to people's perception of you because everyone in an organization knows who the team players are, who the givers are and who the takers are. So your history and track record creates the perception others have of you. So be more deliberate from today onwards in creating better perceptions and make a positive difference in your organization. Don't be known as the person who always has to win or be right like Maureen was. So let's recap our learning from today. So your ability to influence is built over time and it comes from your credibility and confidence. It comes from your communication skills and your preparation. So your preparation includes the information you provide as well as the quality of your relationships. It's important to practice using those four key behaviors and the six influencing strategies because influencing upwards is your ability to move or get things done through people over whom you have no formal authority. And you can have the best ideas in the world but they don't matter if no one pays attention to you. So build your range of influencing. And there are many benefits for you in increasing your ability to influence. People like being around others who use their influencing skills well. And it can also elevate your status. It's very good for your career. So I wanna talk to the leaders out there now. Those 50% of you that are leading teams now, very important piece of wisdom for you here. Leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less. If a person is able to influence another to take some course of action, they are a leader. And you don't lead by pointing your finger, you lead by moving your feet. So start being the example now. And please note that every manager leading a team needs to be trained. These skills do not come naturally. And lack of skillful leadership is the biggest barrier to success in any business. And if a leader can't do it, they don't know it. Now I hear lots of leaders saying, oh, I know that. I know this, but there's no evidence of that knowledge in their behavior. And I get really tough with people around this when I'm coaching them. When it comes to being an effective leader, it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you do. So you can take this information I've shared with you today and apply it. And I guarantee that you'll get better results at influencing upwards. But if you're interested in becoming a great manager and being coached step by step through these seven essential skills that great managers use, that these skills will enable you to be the best manager you can possibly be and the best influencer you can possibly be, then here's what I'm offering for you today. So there are some fundamental skills that great managers around the world use to get extraordinary results. And these are the seven strategies that they use. And our great managers program is based on these seven strategies. And these seven strategies need to be developed in this order. There's something very important about the sequencing here. And I won't go through those now in detail, but if you're interested, get in contact with us. So I just wanted to talk with you briefly about your leadership learning that you might have done in the past, because I'm sure many of you have done some form of leadership training. And most leadership or management training is done in one to three day seminars. And what I've noticed over the years is that people do not tend to remember a lot of training done this way, let alone apply it. And from what I've learned, only about 10% is retained. So in terms of return on investment, this is not necessarily the best way to learn. It's very easy to get information overload and for people to lose concentration in a seminar style format. So no wonder people don't retain it. And it's one thing to know a few terms and facts and quite another to have a knowledge which leads to practical skills and strategies that are applied every day. So don't get me wrong, I'm not against face to face training. It is valuable. However, adults learn best when skills are delivered in bite-sized chunks that can be applied straight away and when the learning is done over time and measured. Here's what the research says about that. So I'll tell you now about our Great Managers Academy. In the Great Managers Academy, we take the long-term view on leadership and we've moved right away from leadership training as an event. We wanna help you get results because that's what being a leader is all about. The Great Managers Academy is designed for busy people who are committed to learning but know that manageable learning chunks work best. So there are 26 skill-based lessons in our program. Each one takes between 30 to 60 minutes. And for each lesson, you get a comprehensive workbook, video file and audio file. And the lessons can be done anywhere, anytime. It's like having your own short one-on-one seminar with me every week. There's also a monthly masterclass. Oops. Oh, okay. Is the slide progressing? Oh, there we go, thank you. So I just wanna tell you there's also the monthly, we have a live monthly masterclass for the latest in leadership thinking and a whole range of short, interesting, how-to topics. And we also provide unlimited email support. Okay. Now, the Great Managers Academy is specifically designed with adult learning, affordability and accessibility in mind. The lessons are short and done online at a time that is convenient for you. It's a how-to-do-it course. It doesn't just say you need to do this or that. It shows you how using lots of examples. And it allows managers to learn a skill, apply it, learn, apply it. It's all about building new skills, new mindsets and new habits and sustaining your learning. And there's no lost productivity or lost time because you don't need to spend days at a time away from work. And it only takes you about an hour per week. Plus, you get seven leadership forums for group coaching where we can discuss and solve your problems and provide you with support and identify ways to improve things. And what we do is we work with groups of managers and these can be from within your organization or they can be from a range of different businesses. And we currently have a few mixed groups working together. One of them's got four different businesses represented. And these forums are held about every six weeks via a go-to meeting for one hour. So I've just got a couple of brief testimonials here from what our current clients have to say. I'll give you a chance to read that through. And another one here. So we're really focused on measurable results in our great managers program. So this very contemporary and comprehensive program is currently only $3,497 for the 12 months for all the lessons, the masterclasses and the leadership forums, which represents great value for 12 months of development and coaching. And it's all backed by our 100% no risk money back guarantee. But I did say I had a special offer for you for those on the webinar today. And our special offer is it's not $3,497 for the 12 months but only $2,497, which is $1,000 off for those of you on the webinar today. And to make it even easier, you can do our payment plan which is $249 per month to get all the skills you need to become a great manager who is agile, adaptable and able to influence really well. Now that's about the cost of one university subject for 12 months of leadership development and support. So if you're interested, you can contact us via email at infoatgreatmanagers.com. You might like to write that email down and mention this special webinar offer because we'd love you to join our great managers community. We're taking expressions of interest now for our next intake which starts in mid-October. So imagine if you did join us. Imagine if in just a few short months after applying these new skills, you notice your confidence as a leader increasing. You're feeling so much more competent leading your team and your team is noticing the difference in you. People are doing what you ask them to do and productivity is humming. And your team becomes a well-earned machine when you're a great manager. And you look at your targets or KPIs and you're hitting them all. Now that's what being in business is all about. It's about results. And you're getting those results because you invested in yourself and cared about your business or career enough to put the time in just 30 to 60 minutes per week. I believe that the more great managers there are in the world, the more engaged and productive employees there will be and the more successful businesses there will be. And the more successful businesses there are, the stronger our economies will perform. Now that's a world I'd like to be part of. So join me on my mission to fill the world with great managers. It will change your world of work and make a significant difference in the lives of your people. All the alternative is you can keep doing what you've always done. So I've just got some words of wisdom here from Warren Buffett, who's the guru on investing. When he was asked about the best investment you can possibly make, he said the most important investment you can make is in yourself. Your best asset is your own self. And you can become to an enormous degree the person you wanna be and the leader you want to be if you invest in yourself. And here's another piece of wisdom from a book called Fuel, which is a story about a couple of runners preparing for a marathon. And I think leadership is a bit like being a marathon runner. You do need to be able to do the right training and persevere over the long term. Don't be upset by the results you didn't get with the work you didn't do. But that brings us now to our questions. So we'll go to Sarah for the questions. We've got one, I had one question. There I noticed one question come in. Yes, we had a pre-question. So we'll just get to this because we're conscious of time. So the question was from Lynn. When is it okay for me as a subordinate to take initiative to ensure project progress as planned without being disrespectful for my manager's instruction? That's an interesting one. I'm sure lots of people can relate to that one. My advice for that one would be that it's a matter of patience there for that one. Cause remember I was saying earlier that it's sometimes influence takes time. And in that situation, what I'm hearing there is that the manager is wanting to take charge there and there's a bit of a status difference. So really important if your manager is requesting that of you to go along with that and be patient and build your relationship, building skills there to build that rapport so that your manager will let you do that. It might take some time. Are we ready to close off then, Sarah, you think? Yes, I'll hand over to you for closing comments. But just want to thank everyone for joining today. It was a very insightful session. We've also got a survey up on the right-hand side. So please feel free to provide us with your feedback. And if anyone does have any questions after this, can they contact you directly, Sandra? Yes, they can. So I just wanted to thank everyone for being here today. I really value spending time with us today. And if you'd like to get in touch, you can send me an email at infoatgreatmanagers.com and you can also follow us on social media. We have a Great Managers Facebook page. We'd love to see you there. So I hope you've got some valuable tips on how you can influence upwards, go forth and apply them today. And I hope you also understand how you could become a great manager. So it's Sandra Wood here saying bye for now. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everyone. Enjoy the rest of your day. And we hope to see you at future Business Girls event.