The Go1 Team are excited to find out that we have been listed as a part of the Disrupt 100, celebrating the businesses with the most potential to influence, change or create new global markets! The list is compiled by the world’s leading entrepreneurs, investors and business people and takes into account over 1 million companies, with Go1 coming in at 81 on this years list.

We are honored to be included in the list which contains some pretty amazing companies such as ClassPass, WeFarm, Mondo and many more.

You can view the Go1 page on the Disrupt 100 website to read more about why we were selected as a part of this years list, and to learn more about our disruption potential.

The DISRUPT 100 is a bi-annual index celebrating the businesses with the most potential to influence, change or create new global markets

The report tracks the world’s most disruptive businesses, compiled and curated by the world’s leading entrepreneurs, investors and business people.

The ventures were then judged by global brands including AstraZeneca, KPMG, IBM and Silicon Valley Bank, tech accelerators Microsoft Ventures, MassChallenge and WAYRA and entrepreneurs Emma Sinclair, Tom Goodwin and Bill Liao.


The 100 listing provides greater public understanding of the innovation by companies worldwide. We’re going beyond providing a simple index with analysis of the disruption and its wider impact provided.

False

If you think that being a co-founder of a startup is a busy job, you are right. There's a lot to deal with on a daily basis and having any free time is a rare thing. Chris Eigeland has not only embraced his role as a co-founder of Go1, he's out in the community continuing his hard work and spending time developing and supporting programs that will help to shape Australia for future generations, and is now being acknowledged for his efforts.

The finalists for this years Queensland Young Achiever Awards have just been released, and we are very proud to announce that Chris Eigeland has been listed in the group nominated for the BB Print Leadership Award. Chris' continuous work in helping to improve the community and educate young people across the country has seen him listed alongside some amazing nominees for this years awards.

Earlier this year Chris was also appointed as the 2016 Australia Youth Representative to the UN which is an amazing achievement. Speaking about his role with the UN, Chris says:

"The UN Youth Rep role is an unparalleled opportunity to consult with young Australians from all walks of life, on issues that are of international significance. The global landscape of business, politics and development is undergoing radical change as a result of new (and arguably democratising) technologies – however this change isn’t occurring evenly, even within a country such as Australia. The role, for me, is about understanding the most pressing challenges facing Australian youth, and linking them back to the opportunities that are arising for generation Y – in entrepreneurship, innovation and social policy."

In this role Chris understand that he now has the opportunity to show the world what the youth of Australia are capable of achieving, and he's looking forward to getting down to business.

"The role of the Youth Rep should be as much about showcasing the work of amazing young Australians as it is about guiding policy"

The Go1 team is incredibly proud of Chris and the work he is doing, and hope that you too will support the initiatives that he is working hard to promote to create a better world for future generations of Australians.

 For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Go1's co-founder nominated for Young Achiever Award - Go1

Go1 co-founder Chris Eigeland nominated for Queensland Young Achiever Award

At Go1 we are constantly working to create the best learning experience possible for our customers. We believe that online learning can change the world by allowing anyone across the world to be able to gain access to learning material,  regardless of country, social standing and age. We are elated to announce that our hard work has been recognized by Anthill Magazine as we have been named as a part of their 2016 Smart 100.

The Smart 100 awards showcase the top 100 innovative companies in Australia. After receiving hundreds of nominees every year, Anthill Magazine narrows down the field to find the top companies in Australia who will then attend the Smart 100 awards.

Anthill Magazine founder James Tuckerman explains how the Smart 100 work: "With over 700 nominations and 100 innovations profiled and ranked each year, the SMART 100 Index is the largest awards program dedicated to innovation in Australia."

The Smart 100 awards are set to take place in Melbourne in June where the top companies will be announced. There will also be a portion of the awards dedicated to the most popular voted company.

To vote for us, please visit the Go1 Smart 100 page and click the Facebook or Twitter share button at the top of the page.

When you're running a small business, budgets can be tight, but that doesn't mean that you can't afford training. With the help of a Learning Management, being able to train employees is affordable no matter the size of your company. Today we are going to take a look at some of the reasons why all small businesses should have a Learning Management System.

Anyone that has had anything to do with running a small business knows just how hard it is to stay up and running. Budgets are extremely tight, and often employees take on multiple roles outside of their area of expertise to make sure the organization progresses.

Committing time and money to training in this situation can be shuffled down the list of priorities, however, this can lead to building a company based  around a culture where training is not valued, which can later lead to costly mistakes and stagnant professional development for employees.

Implementing a good Learning Management System (LMS) means that you can have the best of both worlds. Saving both time and money, while still completing the training both you and your team need, is a simple process and can be reused to train new hires reducing onboarding times as well as setting new employees up for success.

According to ATD’s State of the Industry Report, in a one year period, smaller sized organizations with fewer than 500 employees spend an average of $1,888 per employee in direct learning expenses, whereas midsize companies of between 500 to 9,999 employees only spend an average of $838 per employee. With the help of a Learning Management System small businesses can reduce their training cost per employees to less that $100 per year.

In this article we are going to take a look at some of the key reason that all small businesses should be using a Learning Management System.


When you’re a small business, employees tend to take on many roles in the business to get the job done as budgets are tight. Bearing this in mind, it’s not cost effective for most small businesses to have a HR Manager on their team to manage staff services as well as training. Implementing a Learning Management System takes care of the training for you. After setting up some learning paths relevant to your industry and having access to a course marketplace, your Learning Management System will take care of all of your training needs as you establish your business and won’t break the bank.

It might seem like a good idea at first glance, but unlike other elements of the business world that are being outsourced, sending training external to your business can have a dramatically negative effect on both the impact and budget of your program. Starting with impact, you are already restricted in what you can offer your employees due to programs available in your area. This results in “settling” on programs rather than actually getting the training that is relevant and going to engage your team. Out sourcing your training often results in employees needing to leave the workplace to take part in programs. This can be a time consuming process, and as the saying goes, “time is money”. A Learning Management System can solve both of these problems. Your training material is accessible anytime, anywhere allowing employees to experience their learning directly from their desk or from home, saving time and money, as well being more engaged and pushing their personal development by gaining access to courses that are relevant to their role within the company, and personal learning and development goals.

Gone are the days of having a filing cabinet to store all of your training material. It’s not uncommon for us to store all of our other business data online in this day and age, so why aren’t we doing that without training material? Well, by using a Learning Management System we are. All of our courses, employee records, and HR data can be stored and tracked through our learning management system. This ensures that all team members have access to the latest versions of all company information and can easily set up new employees with the relevant training material as the company grows from a small business into a larger organization. It might not seem like a big deal when you have only 2-3 team members, however, when that number starts to grow very fast, it’s important to be prepared to handle the growth and avoid any compliance or training complications that may arise.

Small businesses still want personalized training

Just because you’re a small business, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need your own customized training programs. Rather than build complete programs from scratch, you can now use a Learning Management System to take an existing course from a course marketplace and customize it to be relevant to your company, or build a learning pathway containing a series of courses from the marketplace that cover a range of skills need for a particular role. Tools such as Inline Editing have also made the course creation process as simple as clicking a few buttons and using drag and drop functionality. Personalized training in small business has always been too costly or time consuming, but learning technology has changed the game!

One of the toughest things about operating a small business is keeping up with local compliance laws and accreditation to avoid fines and stay up to date with best practices. If you are using a good Learning Management System you will have access to an extensive course marketplace that contains a range of courses from accredited training providers that can be enrolled in at the click of a button. Not only do you have access to these courses, you will always have access to the most current courses, saving time and effort in tracking down programs through external providers.

5 reasons why every small business needs a learning management system

A key to building a business in any industry is being able to create a good relationship with your customers. As the people who are interacting with your customers on a daily basis, your customer support team are your relationship builders, and their role on a day to day basis could be the difference between winning or losing business.

There are no set rules to developing a great customer support experience, but it’s the little things that count. Being attentive to each and every person you speak to and showing a positive, helpful and friendly environment will guarantee that customers leave with a great impression and shows that you care about everyone using your business, no matter how big or small their contracts. Providing that positive experience will more often than not see customers investing further in your organization, or recommending you to their person network which is invaluable.

Great customer service is putting yourself in your customer's shoes. It’s critical to ensure the person you are speaking with understands that you care about them and you are concerned about what they are going through, rather than just looking to palm them off onto another team member. The best customer interactions occur when a customer feels that they are being listened to and understood, no matter the size of the problem.

Nancy Friedman of Telephone Doctor outlines the three most important things that a customer representative should do and should avoid. In her video entitled “Excellent Customer Service Skills” Nancy talks about the impact of empathy and enthusiasm, as well as the negative effects of Apathy in your business.

We will now take a close look at Nancy’s Top 3 Tips.

Demonstrating to a customer that you understand and being aware of, and sensitive to, their feelings and thoughts are critical. We are all human and react to human emotions, so when we are treated in a way that doesn’t cater to those emotion, we immediately disconnect mentally. How many times have you sat through endless recordings while trying to gain customer support from a large corporation only to grow to hate the company more with every minute that passes?

Empathy is an essential service mentality and it’s a key building block in creating a great customer support experience. During phone conversations it is easier for well-oriented customer service representative to show empathy because they have the benefit of using perfect tone of voice to make understanding easier, but we live in a world where most of our communication comes in the form of email and live chat messages, so we need to adapt.

Some tips on how to show empathy include:

Listen – Active listening is the most effective way to show empathy to customers. When talking to customers, focus is very important. You have to listen with purpose and let the customer feel that you are the most reliable person to talk to.

Focus – When customer starts logging their issues, focus is very important. Don’t be afraid to paraphrase if you feel like you don’t fully understand the situation. Focus on the main issue but keep listening to every point that the customer is trying to say.

Sympathize – Even the customer is telling the whole story of his/her life, whether it’s related to the service that your company provides, it is important that you sympathize, sometimes clients make dramatic introduction before telling the main issue. When you sympathize to customers, they begin to become comfortable and you conversation will go smoothly and will end up nicely.

Offer Help – Once you heard the entire story and learned what the issue is all about, it’s time for you to offer help. Let the client feel that you are ready to help them resolve their issues the best way you can.

The last thing anyone wants when talking to customer support is hearing the person they are talking to sounds like they don’t want to be there. Being able to bring an observable high level of energy or interest to a project situation makes a huge difference to the customer. People who are truthfully enthusiastic don't discriminate between their activities, instead they tend to bring high energetic and passive of emotions to whatever activity they’re doing.

Acknowledge - The initial opportunity to put your enthusiasm on display is to acknowledge your customer. Enthusiasm makes it easy for you to reach out to your customer and it can be shown by the tone of your voice and by the positive words you say to your customer.

Provide – Whether you have the information or not, always provide assistance. Avoid saying negative words such as “I’m sorry, we don’t have that” or I’m sorry, I am not trained to assist you in that matter”. Great customer service is always finding a way to help and not telling what you can’t do.

Appreciate – Most customers like being appreciated. Thank you is the most used and common word and it is very powerful to show to customer that they’ve been appreciated. Appreciating customer is like telling them they are very important.

Apathy is indifference and lack of emotion and caring. A customer agent should not show traces of apathy as this would affect to the quality of service they are offering to their clients. Apathetic attitudes and bad attitudes are just similar when it comes to customer service; they both cause negativity in the workplace and to customer relationship. Avoiding apathy is leading you to be more professional customer service provider.

Define the cause – Defining the cause of an issue is one effective way to avoid apathy. Once you become aware of the cause, you will eventually become interested on finding a solution. Apathy sometimes a result of cluelessness and it becomes worst if you keep on believing that you don’t have any idea rather than finding a way to discover it.

Be perspective – Always learn how to weigh things and situation. A great customer representative should always compare, analyze and judge fairly based on the situation.

Be self-motivated – If you feel good about your job and you love what you are doing, you strive to achieve more and do better. Company culture is one of the most important things to motivate employees and that includes staff in customer service. A great company motivates its people that start from the heads to the staff and it will be contagious.

By following these basic tips, you will be on the path to providing exceptional customer success and taking your business to the next level!

Members of the Go1 Team are passionate about helping the community, and one of the ways we do this is by participating in events to help raise money for organisations doing amazing things! We are excited to announce that this year we will have two team members participating in this years Helping Hoops 24 hour Charity Shootout!

Scott Cooper and Rachel Farac of the Go1 San Francisco office will both be shooting as many free throws as they can in 15 minutes to raise money for Helping Hoops. The shootout takes place on June 25th and 26th and is based in Melbourne, Australia with participants from all over the world taking part in the event on their local basketball court as Scott and Rachel will be doing.

Helping Hoops is a Melbourne charity running free weekly basketball programs for over 1,000 disadvantaged and disabled children every year. The programs aren't just basketball related, they also focus on building self-esteem, aiding social cohesion, discipline and leadership skills. Helping Hoops provides a place of safety and stability where these kids can prove to themselves and the world that they are not limited by what society expects of them. They are not expected to develop the next LeBron James or Kevin Durant, but we do hope to develop these kids into best people they can be.

The Go1 team will be raising money that will go towards supporting Helping Hoops in running their programs across Melbourne for the twelve months.

Please donate to our team members by clicking the image below and help us support a great charity!

To find out more information about the Helping Hoops Charity Shootout, or to participate yourself, please visit http://helpinghoops.com.au/24

The Go1 team take part in Helping Hoops Charity Shootout

If you could learn anything that you wanted within 20 hours, what would you learn? It might not sound like a long time, but a book titled 'The First 20 Hours' and accompanying TED talk from Josh Kaufman has shown that you through using rapid skill acquisition techniques you can go from knowing absolutely nothing, to performing at a high level of skill within a very short period of time.

Josh's book topped the Amazon best sellers lists, and while you think that this might seem too good to be true, it's not. Kaufman hasn't invented a new way of learning that will change the way consume educational material forever, but he has developed a great process that you can follow and will ensure that you absorb as much information as possible on a subject within a shortened timeframe.

Once we are in our mid twenties and our brains are fully developed, we are able to learn new material a more rapid rate and adapt to new processes, but it's not quite that simple. We live in a world of distractions. It doesn't matter which directions you look, there is now a device that is sitting and vying for your attention. If it's not your TV it's your laptop, if it's not your laptop it's your phone and so on.

We've grown so used to checking out mobile devices, that the average person needs to make a concerted effort to not check their device every 10 minutes. These habits have had a negative impact on our attention span, and made it even harder for us to be able to sit down for an extended period and concentrate.

Josh's process to help people speed up their ability to learn is based around a simple process of removing these distractions and committing yourself to regularly spending time to learn your new skill. When you first learn anything new, you are not going to be good at it, making it hard to push through, but once you get through those first 20 hours, you might surprise yourself with how good you have become in such a short space of time.

As outlined in the image below, the are four key elements in the process:

It's great to spend time researching your topic and finding out as much as you can, but jumping into actually practicing is much more valuable. It doesn't matter if you're learning coding, an instrument, management skills or how to use a new computer program, jumping in and practicing using the tools/program/skills is going to allow you to pick up the concepts much faster than reading about them.

What is keeping you from learning. Are you sitting on the couch scrolling through endless social media feeds or half watching a tv show? Instead, why not spending that tie focussing on learning something new. By turning off all of your mobile devices and your tv, you can really focus on creating a space where you can be fully immersed in your learning or practice. Try setting aside some time every day for learning. It might only be half an hour, but half an hour of fully immersive distraction free time can make a huge difference to your ability to learn!

The world we live in is full of reminders. You can't go for an hour without something popping up on your mobile device to remind you about something you should be looking at, and everywhere we look there are advertisements vying for our attention. We should learn from this and incorporate it into our learning process. Leave yourself some visual cues to remind you to commit to your daily learning or practice time. This could be as simple as leaving your laptop or a notepad on the kitchen table, but it works as a trigger reminding you that you need to spend time learning.

Learning anything new is never easy to begin with, but as you progress and spend more time understanding fundamentals and practicing your new skill, you will see vast improvement. It's important to commit t0 practicing to reach this point though. It can be easy to come home and say 'I'm feeling pretty tired tonight, i'll just skip today', but when one day turns into two days, and two days turns into a week, we are only cheating ourselves. Committing to practice can be tough, but sticking to a learning routine will yield great results.

Following Josh's steps aren't a guarantee that you will learn faster, but they will provide you with a great basis in which to go about learning any new skill doing pretty much anything! His reinforcement of committing time on a regular basis is a great way to be approaching any learning task, and but removing distractions we are letting our minds fully absorb the learning material and getting up to speed much faster.

So, what are you going to spend your next 20 hours learning? 

We are very excited to announce that Go1 will have 2 teams in this years Kokoda Challenge Walk to raise funds for the Kokoda Youth Foundation.  On June 5th our teams will set off on a grueling 30km walk which winds through some of Brisbane's toughest terrain and isn't for the faint hearted.

Established in 2004, The Kokoda Youth Foundation supports young Australians, inspiring them to do extraordinary things by challenging their deeply held beliefs, allowing them to explore their limits and abilities, and providing them with opportunities for personal growth.

Central to Kokoda Youth Foundation is the Spirit of Kokoda, embodying courage, endurance, mateship and sacrifice. These principles take their origin from Australian soldiers who fought on the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea during WWII. Still relevant today, KYF has developed programs designed to reignite these timeless values in the younger generation.

We are putting the call out to anyone who is able to donate to our teams, and contribute to the great work of the Kokoda Youth Foundation. Throughout the event, our team will be providing live updates using the hashtag #Go1KokodaChallenge across Twitter and Instagram so you can keep track of their progress, and witness the agony on their faces in real time.

If you would like to support the Go1 team, you can donate via the following links:

Click Here to support Team Go1.1 featuring Chris, Adrian, Phoebe and Doug

Click Here to support Team Go1.2 featuring David, Khoa, Eduardo and Andrew

As you can see below, our teams have been training hard for the even, so please donate to help in making a real difference to the lives of these teens involved with the youth fondations, and your local community.

Click here for more info on The Kokoda Youth Foundation

All funds raised 100% benefit the Kokoda Youth Foundation charity, which run youth programs in QLD and VIC. These programs aim to give direction and guidance to young teens through tests of physical endurance, behaviour based learning and instilling the values of the Kokoda Campaign of World War II.

The program participants are given the opportunity to earn their place in on trip to Papua New Guinea to either walk the Kokoda Track or visit the local villages and war memorials to further instil the messages shown by our Australian diggers on the Track: courage, endurance, mateship and sacrifice.

It doesn’t matter what industry you are in; sales are tough business. Over the past decade the way in which sales teams operate has evolved at a rapid pace leaving teams scrambling to stay on top of their game. Online business has been a major factor in this evolution, and now the way in which we handle our initial calls with potential customers have become more critical than ever!

Working in sales for over 10 years, I have derived a simple set of steps that are relevant to anyone in the business world and have helped elevate me towards winning some of the top sales awards in business. Like all aspects of running a business, having basic plan in place makes for a much smoother and more efficient sales call.

There are 6 steps that can be used to assist in create a road map and a clear goal for your call. By applying these 6 steps I am confident your sales process, engagement levels and meetings will start to show signs of improvement.

Step number one in the sales process should always be to establish a connection with the potential client. During an initial meeting with a client, one of our key goals is to gain their trust quickly, and this can be done in number of ways. The most common way to do this is by finding commonalties with your client. A quick and easy way to learn about the potential client is by using tools such as Linkedin and Facebook to find out more about the person and their company. If both of these options don’t give you results, you can also try Googling their name. The more we can learn about the client prior to speaking with them for the first time, the more we can tailor the call to match their needs and personality.

Another way to build rapport is discussing what you have learned in researching their company. An example of this is aligning the company’s vision and goals to that of your company. Finally, asking questions about the company and being genuinely interested in what they are doing and what they are working on will help to establish a relationship.

The second step in the sales process is to set expectations, or an agenda, for the meeting so that you are both aware of what will be covered throughout the call. This helps you establish control as well as staying focused during the meeting.

“Today I would like to cover a few things. First, to tell you a little about my company, then ask you some questions to better understand you and your business. Finally, I will be able to present a list of solutions based on your needs”.

The third step is to highlight strengths of your company. Some great details to mention are how many clients you have, names of high profile clients you work with, a brief company history, your vision, and how you stand out from the competition. During this stage it’s also helpful to include industry statistics or millstones you have achieved. The goal of this portion of the call is to increase confidence in your company and establish credibility.

The fourth stage is the most important, it’s when you gather information that will be used to introduce your product in a way that’s relevant to your client. The goal during the discovery stage is to learn as much as you can about the client and the problem for which they are looking for a solution.

The ideal conversation during this stage would involved the potential client taking the lead and speaking for around 80% of the time. There are a wide range of questions you can ask during this stage to prompt the answers you are looking for, and it pays to have a short list on hand as some clients may not be as clear in projecting their needs as others. Listening and preparing to address their specific needs is critical to this step, as they are telling you exactly what they’d like your product or service to do for them!

If you asked good questions during the previous part of your call, then this should be easy! At this stage you are selling the solution to the problem you have just discussed with your client. You want to clearly talk about their needs, and how your product/service can solve it. The goal is to give a clear and concise demo using features and benefits of your products and services that are relevant to helping address the clients need. Having a customized demo containing client logos and information is always a great thing to have prepared too.

The final stage of this process is closing the deal. Closing is asking for the sale, or progressing to next step in the process for making the sale. The next step on the process could be anything from a next meeting or arranging for a trial or signing up for the product or service. There are many different techniques in closing, and it’s important that you choose the one you are most comfortable with. During this stage we need to make sure that we give clear guidelines for the next step in the process, along with setting a timeline for when tasks need to be completed. Stay confident is the key to this stage, as our end goal is to get some sort of commitment.

There you have it. 6 basic steps to a successful initial sales call. Using this system, the more these steps are practiced and executed with clients, the more you will understand which elements work best for you and your company. Everyone has a slightly different way of doing things, but the underlying process remains the same.

Good luck, and go out and close some deals!

How to improve your sales calls in 6 basic steps

The April release of Go1 is here and includes a number of new features and improvements to make your learning experience better. This includes updates across our payment integration as well as in the display of information on courses prior to users purchasing. You can read about the full range of improvements below.

We have redesigned the course overview page, with more information about the course users are about to enroll or purchase.

If you are charging for courses in Go1, we now forward more details about each payment through to Stripe. This allow you to better see exactly what course and account each payment is for. Also, if you enable the email receipts feature in Stripe, can send payment receipt directly to users on each payment.

You find more about setting up email receipt from Stripe at https://stripe.com/blog/email-receipts

We want to ensure that our users are experiencing their training in the fastest, most user friendly and secure environment possible. To make sure this is happening, we have implemented a new feature to notify users if they are currently using an older version of their internet browser that may effect their learning experience.

Users who are using non supported browsers will now be directed to a page containing the following message:

You will need one of the following browser versions to access this portal:

Internet Explorer 10
Mozilla Firefox 40
Google Chrome 42
Safari 9 (Apple only)

Other browsers may work, but have not been tested and are not supported. 
Beta versions of browsers have not been tested and are not supported.

This release also contains a number of major backend improvements. The updates we have made in this release, and will continue to make in upcoming releases will pave the way for a faster, more scalable system for all users. It will also allow us to introduce some new course creation tools that will make building learning content easier and quicker. We will be posting more details on these in the coming weeks.

For a full list of improvements and updates since last release see the list below:

Update initial account email with clearer instructions

Parse payment information through to Stripe as Metadata, so Stripe can process receipts.

Add support for matching question to not show any feedback until the end of the quiz

Show scheduled course event date in user own timezone

Show message to users with older browsers that some features may not be supported.

Fix issue with users unable to see group posts.

Add check to ensure course end date is always after start date

When resuming quiz - show saved answers from previous attempt.

Improve UX when submitting mandatory profile form required to start course

Change ordering of my recently courses on dashboard to most recent updated

Helping you reach your training goals with the latest insights, trends, and advancements in L&D

Blog

petrol_green

What's the role of L&D at work? 🎧 Hear from our CEO on the latest episode of L&D in 20