I have just wrapped up my year of work and headed down to a very wet and windy Spain. This year I have started to email on a quarterly basis key customers (currently 5 consulting companies). Beyond this I don’t do “mailing lists”. I am curious as to what you do to keep in touch. This is the email that has gone out today:
HEADER – Q4 Professional update from me AND Happy Christmas – Feliz Navidad – Nadolig Llawen!
“Hi NAME,
So another quarter of 2019 has flown by and I thought I would reach out with a very brief update on what I have been up to in Q4 and what is ahead for 2020.
Q4 is traditionally for me a strange quarter. October is normally manic and one of the busiest months of the year. November is normally at about 50% capacity and December is very quiet. This Q4, like Q3 has definitely been a bit different.
October was almost exclusively focused on leadership development. Client sectors were manufacturing of plastics and steel and professional consulting. It was a very international month with work in Frankfurt (twice), Toronto, Kuala Lumpur.
November was a mixture of leadership development, alliance planning facilitation and business acumen training for sales professionals. Client sectors were consumer electronics, IT services and food retail. A reasonably travel free month with just a trip to Amsterdam.
December is normally a half month of work and this year I have been working on business acumen and “soft skills” development. I have just done a trip to Corpus Christi in the US and the rest of the work has been UK based.
Overall balance of work this quarter has been 65% training, 20% facilitation and coaching being just 15%
Professional Development wise, Q4 was very quiet, as I front ended the year for development. I have been working through several online courses and conferences in order to get my International Coach Federation designation for the next three years. This requires 40 hours of CPD on coaching. I had planned to take a course on Systems Scribing and whilst I have paid for it I have not completed the online classes yet (aiming to do it over Christmas break). The day job, my work at the OU Business School and the degree module I am studying took up more time than expected.
Looking ahead to Q1 next year and beyond. The first quarter is reasonably full. Principally leadership development and sales development work. I have multiple trips to Toulouse and Barcelona planned alongside one off trips to Helsinki,Frankfurt, Oslo and Chicago.
I will be running, alongside Jeff Evans of Designed Learning, an open programme “Flawless Consulting 1” on February 4th & 5th in central London. This basically allows people to practice the ideas and skills from the best selling book by Peter Block. Information: http://bit.ly/DLLondon1
As always I am always up for conversations around potential projects or being someone to bounce ideas off, so please feel free to reach out!
Wishing you a fantastic Christmas and I truly hope that 2020 kicks off really well for you!
Best regards from a wet and windy Spain, Andi Roberts”
I do customise it slightly depending on what work we have done together.
What do you do? What feedback have you got about my email?
THANKS for reading my blog – I also wish you a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Image Credit: J Kosinka
What are your thoughts on this....