Services

Training Topics

Enhanced Customer Service — Nobody Cares How Much You Know, Until They Know How Much You Care

In today’s fast-paced, high-pressure marketplace where competition for customers is fiercer than ever, the ability to creatively and powerfully provide outstanding customer service has become more crucial and precious than ever. Businesses around the country are seeking innovative and strategic techniques for offering the kind of enhanced customer service that will lead to growing and ongoing customer loyalty and word-of-mouth advertising, thereby guaranteeing continued and expanding business.

This workshop teaches those enhanced customer service techniques; techniques that will almost surely distinguish the front-runners from the also-rans.


The Magic of Communication — Communication Is to Relationships, What Breathing Is to Life

The Magic of Communication is a training program designed to explore, teach, develop and practice specific communication techniques. The program focuses on reasons communication fails and how to improve it; and why communication-based interpersonal conflict develops and how to avoid it and defuse it once it starts. Topics include the elements of enhanced communication; the practices and processes of stress-minimized information exchange; how to say what you mean and mean what you say in an assertive way but not in a passive or aggressive way; the truth about active listening; how to criticize constructively; the strategic use of reality-based feedback; and the non-verbal side of communication. No one can be a perfect communicator; however, virtually all people can improve their communication abilities — sometimes very dramatically — and that surely benefits the individual and the organization for which they work.


Leadership from the Heart — Finding and Developing the True Genius Needed to Be an Inspired Leader

At a time when information has become a commodity, technology is rapidly changing, and globalization has forever altered the way we think and work, effective leadership distinguishes the companies that soar from those that are carried to the graveyard. Organizations around the world are seeking innovative and strategic ways of developing leadership capacity to meet the challenges of today’s fast-paced, high-pressure environment. Leaders can be the choke point for strategy execution, or they can be the accelerant. Those organizations that survive and thrive will do so in large measure because of their inspired, optimally effective managers who lead with their hearts and not simply with their minds.

Inspired leaders are made, not born. Given the desire and willpower, anyone can become a great leader, and many can become extraordinary. Transcendent leaders develop through a never-ending process of self-study, education, and experience. This training program jump-starts that process.


Do I Remember What? — How to Remember Things You Never Knew You Forgot

As people live longer and longer, one of the interesting challenges of such longevity is how to maintain our memories in efficient working order. The fascinating news is that there are proven neurological, physiological, behavioral, nutritional, and psychological techniques available to everyone that can dramatically improve memory ability – even to levels greater than experienced at younger ages. This enhanced memory ability can surely help at work and in life in general. Reasons for memory impairment and strategies for significantly reversing decreased memory capacity are explored and practiced in this highly interactive, crowd-pleasing experience. “Bordering on magical” is how one past participant described this memorable event.


Corporate Creativity — Accessing Originality and Vision

All employees and all corporations have an unlimited wealth of creativity and innovation waiting to be tapped. What they don’t have is the means to access this natural wealth. The innovations that will lead businesses to previously unimagined success are residing within us, waiting to be born. Even those who believe themselves to be creative and innovative often fall far short of their true potential because they are unable to fully access their powers. “Corporate Creativity” addresses this most important need.

Participants achieve the understanding, inspiration, and practical methods to awaken their true creative and innovative powers. They learn immediately-applicable, user-friendly creativity and innovation techniques. Most importantly, during this training event they apply their newly-developed creativity expertise to solve actual issues currently facing their company, and they generate specific solutions to real business dilemmas.


The Secret World of Non-Verbal Communication — It’s Not Just What You Say That Counts

When we interact with others, what we say is only one part of the fascinating mix of modes of communication that occurs. What we look like when we say “it” and how we sound when we say “it” make an enormous difference. When servicing our customers, be they end-user customers or anyone in the entire “customer service chain,” among the most important skill sets we can possess is a working knowledge of the ways to optimize our use of non-verbal communication. This high-energy, fact-filled, fun-filled training explores and teaches how to use and read non-verbal cues to profoundly understand and influence relationships with virtually anyone with whom we interact.


Are You Talkin’ to Me? — Picking Your Battles; Choosing Your Weapons

The ability to manage conflict is one of the most crucial skills a person can have, be it at work or in any aspect of life. This high-energy, audience-engaging, interactive training is designed to explore, teach, develop and practice specific conflict management techniques. The program focuses on why interpersonal conflict develops and how to deflect it or defuse it once it starts. No one can avoid or perfectly resolve all conflict; however, virtually all people can improve their abilities in these arenas — sometimes very dramatically — and that improvement benefits the employee, everyone with whom that employee interacts, and indeed, the company at large.


It’s About Time — Managing the Moments of Your Life

One reality that can never be altered is that we only have 24 hours in a day. We have a finite amount of time in which to do what sometimes seems like an infinite amount of tasks… and the demands continue to grow. Time is a precious commodity and once it is gone, it can never be reclaimed. Managing time is vitally important to each employee’s personal and professional life, as it impacts how much we can do and how well we can do it. This presentation examines the most prevalent and challenging time wasters and offers powerful and surprising strategies for optimizing one’s ability to manage the ever-fleeting “time of our life.”


De-Stressed for Success — A Different Way to View Stress Management

Stress continues to be one of the most challenging, formidable, costly issues facing individuals and businesses. The ramifications of unmanaged stress are far reaching; affecting not only the health of people’s minds and bodies, but affecting their relationships, businesses, and communities as well. It is estimated that $25 billion are lost by American businesses each year due to stress-related absenteeism. Ten billion doses of tranquilizers are prescribed annually. In this “Age of Stress,” the outlook is grim unless we begin to educate people on how to manage the stress that we all face. With effective use of stress management techniques, we can reverse the psychological and physical impacts of stress. This workshop starts the process to achieve those goals.


Got Bias? — Overcoming Bias in Today’s Evolving Business Landscape

It is almost impossible to exist in this world without having some degree of bias. It is a fundamental part of the “human condition.” Our life-long experiences, from the time we are born until this very moment, continue to influence and reinforce our biases. Absent of intervention, these tendencies will almost surely self-perpetuate. This training event takes participants on an eye-opening journey through the psychology, sociology, and business of what biases are, how they are created and maintained, and how we can begin to “de-bias” ourselves – and hopefully contribute to the “de-biasing” of others. This program is an eye-opening, honest, intellectual and emotional ride through the twists and turns of a real phenomenon that has always been a part of human existence, and that has become an emerging, trending issue fueled by numerous high profile events. It is guaranteed to make you think, safely confront yourself, understand the issue in innovative and surprising ways, and possibly forever change the way you view and communicate with others.


Power Presentations — The Art and Science of Great “Stand-Up” Presentations

When we experience speakers who can captivate and mesmerize an audience, we often marvel at how well they engage, inform, delight, and motivate their listeners. Such enviable presentation abilities are not reserved for a few, rare, naturally-gifted speakers. The techniques and tools necessary for such brilliant stand-up speaking ability are available to each of us. This “Power Presentations” event teaches and facilitates how to best inform and touch your audience and make them better for having experienced your performance. You will learn how to most-effectively share your expertise and how to enchantingly share yourself. It’s a little bit of science and a little bit of art, as you learn to make presentations that will be powerful and memorable. Get ready to perform; better than ever before… this is a highly participative workshop.


Speeches

Concrete Wisdom — With Love from NYC

He has travelled around the world for work and leisure, but his most important lessons about life were learned in the iconic city where he was born, still lives, and professes to love the most. In a fascinating, inspirational, story-filled journey, winding through his soul-defining experiences in the 5 boroughs of what is arguably the greatest city on Earth, Mark Steinberg — in his signature New York City accent — shares the insight, meaning, knowledge, humor, and rhythm the city has provided. It’s an amazing trip through the worlds of psychology, philosophy, business, and hip-hop, as Mark shares how having a little bit of New York inside you can make all the difference in the world.

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Juggling Like the Experts — Balancing Work, Family, and Self

The better you are, the more is expected of you — it’s not just a saying, it is a business reality — a reality that is placing more and more demands on the brightest, most talented business people in America; for it is the most talented who receive the greatest challenges, both at work, at home, and in life. When faced with seemingly infinite tasks, one of two things can occur: (1) the demands become so great that there is a fall from excellence due to overload, or (2) there can be a growth of a new and sophisticated skill set that allows for continued excellence in the face of the ever-increasing demands. In this intriguing speech, topics explored include how to manage multiple priority overload, how to use one’s finite nature for infinite gain, how to balance corporate and personal challenges while solving both, and how to respect and manage your own needs in an increasingly complicated, interdependent world.


Hello, I Think I Love You — How to Create Rapport at First Sight

The ability to create a harmonious relationship with another person, based on mutual trust and emotional ties is one of the most vital, yet surprisingly rare skills in the world of business today. Creating rapport is the art of making someone feel comfortable and accepted. It is all about crafting a feeling of friendship and camaraderie. Rapport can be formed very rapidly, and there are specific communication and behavioral techniques that can be used to construct this all-important connection with others.

Why to create instant rapport, how to create instant rapport, and how to do it in an authentic, non-manipulative way are explored and examined in this insightful, humor-filled presentation driven by the worlds of interactive psychology and business methods.


The Transition Mission — Thriving Amidst Change

One of the few things in life on which we can depend is change. Transitions are inevitable. Sometimes work and life will change quite dramatically, and we have to make major adjustments in order to survive and hopefully, to thrive. If we don’t prepare for the new reality, our jobs, our careers, our happiness, and our well-being can be threatened. However, if we learn to view change as something to positively embrace and proactively engage, we can experience transitions in amazingly constructive, unprecedented ways.

How a person copes with change is one of the most defining characteristics of how easily they will be able to find happiness and success in work and in life. This speech offers strategies to understand and positively deal with changes they will inevitably face as a result of working and living in our ever-changing, turbulent times. It is a speech all about changing the way we engage change.


Dancing in the Rain — How Relentless Positivity Can Change Your Life

It all started when he was a freshman in high school, innocently waiting for the number 28 bus. What was about to happen would change his life forever… and along the many journeys that followed, there would be recurring examples of that first lesson; reinforcing it, expanding it, tweaking it, and it always came back to the basic notion that if you want to find negative in the world, you’ll find it; but, if you want to find positive in the world, you can find that also. This is an inspirational voyage that examines questions such as, “Does everything happen for a reason?” “Does how we view things impact how we experience them?”“Can we influence others for good?” “Why is ‘relentlessness’ crucial to engaging the world with positivity?” and “What would have happened if he had not gotten on that number 28 bus in the first place?” A seemingly random, innocent event had a life-changing impact on Mark Steinberg, and in this seemingly random speech, he will challenge you to embrace a similar life-changing result. You might walk in to this speech, but you just might dance out of it.


The Steinberg Hyper-Analytic Group

What We Do

The Steinberg Hyper-Analytic Group (SHAG) provides in-depth analyses of all “public contact aspects” of your retail establishment: be it a restaurant, supermarket, department store, sports venue, theater, hotel, or other such property. All environments, services and facets of the venue that are experienced by customers are analyzed. That also includes your website, where research has revealed huge amounts of errors exist.

SHAG intricately examines all aspects of the guests’ experiences at the establishment, with the purpose being to identify and name specific, correctable issues and problems. It is the ultimate “proofreading” of your entire property. SHAG “corrects” your sites — both the brick and mortar site as well as the website.

Traditionally, the raters of a consumer service are the consumers. This is a valuable approach; however, it is limited in its worth because it is not oriented to “correction.”

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As a result of a hyper-analysis performed by The Steinberg Hyper-Analytic Group, you won’t simply learn that guests are dissatisfied, you will learn specifically WHY and more importantly, you will learn how to remediate the dissatisfaction.

SHAG, therefore, provides a factor-based, higher-order analysis and correction of the elements that contribute to your site’s most important asset — its reputation, and thus, its bottom line. Research has clearly shown that when on-site problems that negatively impact customers are remediated, customer satisfaction improves, word-of-mouth advertising is enhanced, and profits significantly increase.

FAQ’s regarding The Steinberg Hyper-Analytic Group

In market research guest surveys, responders numerically rate the site regarding their impressions and evaluations of a full array of experiences and services. However, the guests do not identify the specific elements that prompted their numerical ratings. SHAG specifically identifies the Impact Elements (IE’s) that cumulatively contribute to the evaluations and numerical ratings provided by the guests, and even by secret shoppers. Additionally, market research and secret shopping services have an “attitude assessment orientation” – they quantify and analyze consumer attitudes. SHAG has a “solution orientation” – we identify the elements that contribute to the assessments, with the purpose being to remediate the issues and correct the errors. SHAG focuses on causes, not symptoms, and then remediates the causes.
Mark Steinberg, the founder and principal hyper-analyst at SHAG, comprehensively studied the business of and psychology of Guest Services on the post-graduate level when attaining his Master’s degrees in Business Administration and Psychology. He has presented seminars and keynote speeches around the United States and the world on the topics of “Enhanced Customer Service,”“Guest Services,” and “The Hyper-Analysis of What Guests Want and Need.” In 20 years of nationwide and worldwide travels for his seminar business, he has experienced thousands of retail businesses and has been informally hyper-analyzing each. He has a highly specialized ability to see things, people, interactions, and processes in extreme detail and to isolate specific elements that contribute to the overall impression that is a result of the accumulation and synergistic effect of those individual elements.
SHAG hyper-analyses have been conducted at Sheraton and Radisson hotels and for The Palazzo and Riviera Hotels in Las Vegas. SHAG introduced and tested its proprietary methodology at The New York Public Library in a series of hyper-analyses conducted at the flagship branch on Fifth Avenue. SHAG hyper-analyses have also been conducted at 4 consecutive U.S. Open Tennis Championships at the United States Tennis Association National Tennis Center.
SHAG will find and report as many errors and issues that exist at the property being analyzed. The number will vary, depending on the property and its pre-analysis state.
For every issue revealed, SHAG will make specific recommendations regarding how to “fix” the problem. You will decide whether to engage the suggested remedy.
When SHAG’s methodology was tested, it was eminently clear that a walk-around with a manager allows for immediate, real-time, in-person, on-site referencing of all issues. The experience of pointing out and explaining the issue with the manager present is literally worth a thousand words. It makes the reporting process far more efficient, effective, explanatory, and far less expensive. Clients do also receive a written report, to augment the walk-around experience.
The written report will include a full narrative account of every issue discovered (and shared during the walk-around) and explanations of why it is an issue, the impact that issue has on customers, and how to remediate that issue.
It will likely be the most in-depth, comprehensive analysis your business location has ever undergone. It has been likened by one client to “a complete physical and psychological examination… they checked things I didn’t even know to look for, and couldn’t see even if I wanted to. It made a huge difference.”
The hyper-analysis and reporting is done with the utmost discretion, respect and positivity. SHAG views the entire process as one geared to improvement and enhancement. It is a “critiquing,” not a “criticism.” It will be totally honest, candid, and sincere; all in the name of dramatically helping your business reach its goals and fulfill its mission.
The benefit of remediating issues, errors, and problems that can and do negatively affect your business’s image, guests’ experiences, and word-of-mouth advertising is extremely valuable. By correcting the issues, you can significantly increase bottom line success and profit. Research and empirical evidence indicate the resultant benefits can more than defray the cost of the service.
Yes. Although retail businesses have been using “secret shoppers,” focus group research methodology, and sophisticated market research surveys for decades, no one has yet offered exactly what SHAG does.
Yes. After the analysis, walk-around, and report are complete, the client is offered a 2-hour follow-up phone consultation at no additional cost that is suggested within 30 days of the submission of the SHAG report. Furthermore, SHAG offers follow-up “undercover visits” for post-intervention comparisons, to assess improvements.
SHAG is the acronym for Steinberg Hyper-Analytic Group. Among the various meanings of the word formed by the acronym is the name for the bird also known as the green cormorant. This species occupies cliffs by the sea, feeds on fish, and is extremely voracious. It dives and swims with great power, and pursues its prey beneath the surface of the water, often diving to great depths in order to find what it seeks. In the same way, the Steinberg Hyper-Analytic Group dives to great depths to find what it seeks.
Mark P. Steinberg and SHAG-certified senior analysts perform the hyper-analyses. Mr. Steinberg personally conducts the training seminars to prepare and certify all SHAG senior analysts. Client companies can specifically request Mark as the analyst, if they so desire.
No. SHAG analyses are available and appropriate for any business that is oriented to guest services; for example, supermarkets, hotels, department stores, restaurants, sporting events’ venues, theaters, malls, spas, transportation systems, cruise ships, airports/airlines, etc.
Yes, SHAG analyses are offered anywhere in the lower 48 states. Special arrangements are available for Alaska and Hawaii.