Sue France Training and Coaching for Personal Assistants, Executive Assistants, Office Managers and Secretaries (and the other 160 or so titles to cover this role).

Sue is available for in-house training as well as public workshops. If you are an organisation/company, events or training company please get in touch with sue@suefrance.com to discuss a collaboration.

Sue is always delighted to be invited on speaker panels.

Sue also conducts one-to-one, face-to-face coaching with assistants at your offices which will be bespoke to your individual needs both in format and timing.

Sue visits your place of work and together you will discuss your role/activities as well as observing live on-the-job interaction where appropriate. An agreement will be made on the development requirements through discussion with Sue and 2-4 hour sessions will be set up at agreed intervals for an agreed number of sessions. Where appropriate Sue will also interview your boss(es).

Coaching testimonial:

Sue France personally provided an excellent training, coaching and development plan for a newly appointed Personal Assistant within RentSmart. Sue facilitated the development over a 6 week period and the benefits were immediate in terms of the PA’s motivation, confidence, organisational skills and overall performance. I would not hesitate to recommend the services of Sue France for Secretarial Coaching, training and development.
Jill Hodgkinson, HR Director, Manchester

“Sue is a true expert in her field. I hired her to coach and deliver a secretarial development programme to my PA. Sue skillfully diagnosed clear objectives for the programme and effectively tailored her delivery methods to suit the employee’s learning style. Sue is a successful business woman, committed to her own professional development and that of others. She is an absolute pleasure to work with.”
Gail Howarth, HR Manager, Manchester

Sue is an international, international, motivational speaker for PA/EA/secretarial conferences, meetings, workshops from one hour to 5 days and Sue would be delighted to develop bespoke workshops to suit your needs.

Example outline of a 1 hour interactive workshop:

“Manage difficult behaviours before they manage you.”
• Powerful confident assertiveness
• Understanding the mind as well as the body
• Developing relationships
• Perception vs reality
• Strategies, techniques and tools
• The resilience glow

Testimonials:

“I just wanted to thank you for your support, guidance and friendship. I came into work on Wednesday and it was a new day, new me as I had found new confidence. My boss asked me to write down the 20 things I got from the conference so I could remember how and why I felt the way I did on Wednesday, a lot of those things came from your seminar and the time spent talking to you. I have your book with me for reference so I have your great advice at hand every day if I need it.

I would love to keep in touch. I am very happy for you to use my words as a testimonial as it came from the heart. Thank you once again”.
Love Linda x Linda McGivern 2014

“Sue gave a very inspiring, practical and interesting talk at the recent ExecSec Summit. Coming from a background as a PA, Sue understands and appreciates the every day stress of the role of the PA and gave useful advice on managing stress and balancing priorities. Sue’s style is fun and engaging.
Top Qualities: Great Results, Personable, Expert”
Eleanor Clark FinstAm 2014

Example outline of a 3 day interactive workshop:

The Ultimate Business Partner Relationship workshop for Office Admin Professionals.

Workshop Content

Day 1 – 09:00 -17.00 with 1 hour for lunch and 2 x 15 min breaks in the morning and afternoon:

Relationship management at all levels
• Introductions
• Comfort zones
• First impressions
• Assumptions
• Perceptions
• Telephone etiquette
• Email management and tips

Secrets of successful Secretaries and Admin Professionals
• Managing the role, the relationships and the motivation
• Discover the challenges of the Assistant and the tips on how to overcome them
• Identifying the skills and qualities of a highly efficient and successful Assistants
• Understand yourself, your strengths and your weaknesses and leverage your strengths
• Discover what makes a strategic Assistant
• Harnessing the power of emotional intelligence
• Harness the power of technology
• Social Media and its benefits and downfalls
• Maximizing opportunity and visibility
• The difference between gossiping and being the ‘eyes and ears’
• The importance of trust, confidentiality and being a confidante
• The importance of accuracy and attention to detail
• Developing your role, exceeding expectations and determining the way forward
• Tips on diary and calendar management

Communication, Influencing and persuasion
• Introduction to Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
• Preferred thought-processing style
• Understanding and using verbal and non verbal communication
• Questioning & listening skills
• Words to use and words to use carefully
• The use of space and the influential right

Day 2 – 09:00 -17.00 with 1 hour for lunch and 2 x 15 min breaks:

Quick Quiz reflecting on Day 1

Stress and time management

• Identifying stress symptoms and how to deal with them
• Managing your own and your manager’s time and tasks effectively
• Prioritising and meeting the needs and demands of more than one person
• Organisation and planning techniques to keep you in control
• Understanding and using productive time
• The four quadrants of effective time management – setting realistic deadlines
• Identifying and dealing with ‘time thieves’
• Tips on working effectively
• Top tips for managing deadlines

Ergonomics and keeping healthy
• Physical environment best practice
• Effective Desk/office layout
• Practical exercises to do at your desk
• Utilising your dominant eye
• Ergonomic breaks

Dealing with difficult behaviours and situations
• How to work with difficult behaviours
• How to work with different management styles
• Below the line behaviours
• How to use your emotional intelligence to manage your responses
• Choosing your attitude
• Confidently Assertive
• A quick and effective conflict management technique – 3rd positioning
• Specific steps of conflict resolution and a conflict model using assertive language
• Strategies to reduce conflict
• Problem-solving technique – Example Exercise: we will work together on a ‘live’ problem of one of the delegates

Managing Projects – Organizing effective meetings and events
• Prepare and plan – purpose, attendees and agenda
• Monitor and control – Project dashboard
• Work breakdown structures and Lollipop mind maps
• Executing
• Evaluating
• Managing follow-up issues: who does what? When
• Case study: Before, during and post event

Day 3 – 09:00 -17.00 with 1 hour for lunch and 2 x 15 min breaks:

Quick Quiz reflecting on Day 2

Networking, Image & business etiquette
• How to make networking work for you
• Your professional brand and projecting a professional image
• Understanding and awareness of business etiquette and different cultures
• Practical tips of networking

Confidence, self-belief, Appraisals
• Confidence file and building and maintaining confidence
• How to keep your self esteem
• Internal ‘negative gremlins’ and internal ‘positive coach’
• Appraisals – receiving and giving constructive criticism
• STAR system
• Empowerment

Teamwork
• Working in a team – discover the role you play within a team
• Benefits and barriers of working in teams
• Understand team formation and the 5 stages
• How best to form a project team

TETRAMAP – Behavoural profiling

Sue France is a Certified TetraMap Facilitator. The TetraMap behavioural model is a cross-cultural training tool that helps to improve communication and reduces conflict between individuals and teams. It enables understanding of your own and others behavioural styles enabling you to respond in a way that reduces miscommunication and misunderstanding and you will be better able to empathize and understand others.
• Complete the TetraMap instrument and find out about your ‘elements’ and how best to approach others
• Improve communications and relationships
• Appreciate what each person brings to a situation
• Respond more appropriately to the behaviour of others
• Choosing the right words and body language
• Understand yourself, your boss and your colleagues
• Understand the most impactful change is generated from within

Moving forward and taking action

Continually learn and improve
Complete the Wheel of Competencies
Goal setting/stretching
Personal Development Plan

Round up of the 3 day workshop: Evaluation forms and close

Testimonials:

“Sue is a fantastic trainer!!! She delivered Secretarial Training to our office and she kept it interesting and fun whilst also informative and extremely helpful. Her tips and skills were passed on from her extensive experience and her enthusiasm rubbed off on us all. I would highly recommend her.” Louise Aldrich, Executive Assistant at The Coca-Cola Company, Dubai

“I invited Sue to share her expertise at our annual ‘Behind Every Leader’ event. Sue was an INCREDIBLE asset at Behind Every Leader conference in Los Angeles for administrative professionals. Sue is a multi talented, dynamic and compelling individual. Her breadth of knowledge and abundant skill set has been utilized by a global audience of CEO’s and Admin professionals. Her books sold out! Victoria Louise Rabin, CEO and Founder of ‘Behind Every Leader’ – USA
I was recently fortunate enough to attend one of Sue France’s workshops at the Behind Every Leader Conference in California, and was thrilled at what I was able to take away from it. Sue teaches individuals how to understand their own style of communication, and how to use that effectively in the workplace. Sue is a great teacher, and has a lot to offer career-minded people as far as intangible keys to success in the office. I would highly recommend any chance you can get to attend a workshop or read her books, which I consider to be my Bible of Executive Administrator handbooks, “The Definitive Personal Assistant & Secretarial Handbook,” and “The Definitive Executive Assistant & Managerial Handbook.” Renée Viens, EA to President & CEO, Atlantic Power Corporation, Boston, USA

I have attended many workshops with different trainers, but, honestly, no workshop is like your workshop on “Becoming World Class Executive Assistant” held in Doha. I was really impressed by the interesting way you delivered the presentations. We felt that we were ready to listen to you for hours for it was so rich with quality information and skills. From day one I started applying some of the skills you gave us to work with and my God IT WORKS. Also, I would like to refer to your book “The Definitive Personal Assistant & Secretarial Handbook” which I consider a valuable reference for any Executive Assistant, and I am sure it will change anyone’s life once he/she reads it. I am so eager to attend more of your workshops, and looking forward to reading your new book…
Madame Sue France, simply, YOU ARE THE BEST. Louay Kawas, Qatar“ Office Manager

Sue is also available for workshops on presentation skills, negotiation skills, minute taking skills, business writing skills and all soft skills training that Assistants are required to carry out.

Once you have attended one of Sue’s workshops or one to one coaching sessions, the outcome will be a confident, competent, organised, proactive and motivated Office Professional.

Offer: online webinar workshop available now at a discounted price of just £47