A fun way to better equip yourself to sell multi-service lines to clients!

Have you been told you need to broaden your internal network? Have you been advised you need to start understanding the wider services of the organisation to bring a fuller suite of teams and services to your clients? Let me share with you an easy, and dare I say it, enjoyable way to go about this! 

You’re busy, and so to dedicate time to development areas the actions must feel meaningful and that you feel engaged with – right? A great way of learning about different areas of the business and broadening your internal network is through a self-managed learning group (SMLG).  

I was lucky to have been part of a SMLG very early on in my career. It was a group of 6 of us, all at the same stage in our career, but in different departments of HR within a large corporate firm. After an initial introductory set up meeting by my manager at the time, we then committed to meet monthly (just the 6 of us) and set our own agendas. The agendas included things like, sharing what’s happening in our areas of HR and what we were hearing about the business; as well as picking topics we wanted to learn more about and all bringing what we’d read and researched to pool the information and allow for discussion and new learning.  

Through this we got to know each other both professionally and personally, the meetings became fun and a sacred time set aside in our diaries. It definitely helped us develop and progress (eg we’d share our experiences of going for promotions) but it also helped day to day as we had contacts that we could easily reach out to get answers to questions quickly and easily, have a boarder perspective on topics using the knowledge and insights that had been shared within the group, as well as seeing ways to collaboration for better outcomes. Our careers have led us over time on different paths, but the connections built remain today. 

Recently I’ve been experiencing the benefits of a SMLG again. This time practicing tools and techniques, allowing me to put thoughts and theories into practice. Things I’ve read about and know in theory, but don’t yet feel fully confident in. Having someone you feel comfortable practising what you want to say and how you want to say it, as well as an opportunity to personally experience what tools and techniques look and feel like in practice. The value you gain from learning in action can be surprising. 

So now it’s your turn. Why not get a group of peers together from different parts of your organisation and set up your own SMLG? It really is an enjoyable way to build and extend your internal network and equip you to better cross sell services. Let me know how your SMLG goes!