By popular demand, we present our downloadable MSP® Practitioner Exam Tips PDF. We created this to help prepare those coming on our MSP Practitioner course for the exam, and have since been overwhelmed by how valuable it has proven to be!

The MSP Practitioner Exam is taken on the final day of our MSP Practitioner training course. We are very proud of our pass rates - so proud in fact that we offer a MSP exam pass guarantee!

We feel that one of the reasons our training has such good results - both in terms of exam pass rates and feedback from delegates after returning to work - is that we provide extensive support before the course

begins and once it's under way. This download is just one way we put together workbooks and resources above and beyond the MSP manual.

Of course, knowledge of MSP theory is needed to pass the practitioner exam, and the course covers this in depth. Our trainers also provide real life case studies to help put the theory into context and to make your training easy to apply once you return to work. Finally, we provide focused exam tips to help you understand what will be expected of you during the exam.

The word “theme” is used in PRINCE2® to refer to the various crucial aspects of a project, why they should be a priority, and how they should be controlled. They are known as themes because they are referred back to throughout the whole PRINCE2 process.

The PRINCE2 themes are Business Case, Organisation, Plans, Progress, Risk, Quality and Change. A few weeks ago, I talked about the Plans theme of PRINCE2, and now it’s time to outline the Quality theme. Of course, we go through all the PRINCE2 themes and processes in our PRINCE2 training courses, to equip you to pass the exams and to give you real-world knowledge that you can apply as soon as you return to work.

Quality of the output is a priority within PRINCE2 projects - and of course for all business owners, CEOs and project managers. Once the customer’s expectations of quality have been identified, standards will be documented and processes put in place to check throughout the project lifecycle that these quality standards are going to be met. Part of the quality theme is ensuring that these processes are being used correctly.

One of the most important things to us is that those who come on our training courses get the most possible out of their day/days/week with us. We feel that one of the reasons our Train the Trainer course is so popular is because people know that we train well - they trust our training – and therefore see us as the best port of call to train their own trainers.

Many growing businesses find themselves in a position where established members of staff have to train new recruits, or that cross-training becomes increasingly important. It’s often the case that the people training others have little or no guidance in how to most effectively impart their knowledge and skills to others. We wrote a blog post on Why Trained Trainers are Better at Training a while ago, which goes into this in depth, but for the moment I want to talk about barriers to learning. This is one thing that’s rarely intuitive and can cause additional time and cost to businesses whose internal training practices are not efficient.

Barriers to Learning

When training others, there are a number of factors that affect learning, beyond basic intelligence and the quality of the training given. Individual differences such as those below can make a huge difference to a training session, especially in group settings where different barriers may apply to different members of the group. If a training session is not going to plan, a trainer should consider whether any of the issues below are coming into play.

By gaining a basic understanding of common barriers to learning, a trainer will be easily able to identify the warning signs and adapt their practice accordingly.

Social Media Marketing is now essential for brand reputation and for SEO. But, more than that, it’s an effective way of connecting with existing and prospective customers, and providing customer service.

It’s not enough to set up a Twitter account and post daily about your products or services – you need to maintain an online presence and engage with your followers – just one example of how businesses aren’t using social media to its full potential.

We offer a 2-day Social Media course which is jam packed with advice, guidance, strategic tips, what-to-dos and what-not-to-dos. The course is continually updated with the latest developments in the industry, and you leave ready to begin (or revamp) your business’s social media campaign.

For those who are thinking of coming on the course, or those who can’t make it to Brighton (although we’re happy to train you on site!), here’s our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. We hope it helps!

Our #1 Ultimate Most Important Top Tip

The number one thing to be aware of is that social media marketing is not about you - it's about them ('them' being your followers, those who like your pages, your connections and your circles). Never forget to ask yourself what you want to see on social media from a business – and that constant self-promotion is the quickest way to put people off. I see examples of this happening every day.

With that in mind, I’ll take you through how to apply this principle to the various social networks.

Too much to do?

The skill of knowing how to manage projects is increasingly useful for businesses and definitely make someone more employable – our project management courses have never been so much in demand, particularly PRINCE2. But project management techniques are not just for work. You can use the practices in your personal life, to become more efficient and to reach your goals.

1. Identify projects

In business, the first step towards project management is to identify past, present and future developments that have as yet not been seen as projects. Once projects are identified, formal goals can be set and project management techniques can be applied.

You can use this in every day life, especially if you realise you keep hoping for a change that never comes. Making a decision to make the desired change happen immediately makes it become more achievable. Things that could be dealt with as projects include writing a book (see below) and planning an event such as a holiday or wedding; but also every day things like huge to-do lists that you keep putting off.

While you are identifying the project, identify the goal. You may sometimes find it's different to what you expect. For example, you may say your goal is to write a novel, but this is not actually the end point for most people - once you start thinking of it as a project you realise your goal is really to get the novel published.

2. Work backwards from a goal

Once you identify a goal, working backwards step-by-step to the point where you are now is a very efficient and controlled way of achieving it.

Using the example of getting your novel published, you identify your goal and approach it as a project:

Turning simple photos into Warhol-style Pop Art is a great way to impress people with your Photoshop skills. If you're fairly new to Photoshop, you'll find that following this tutorial helps you learn and understand more about cut-outs, layers, groups, colours and scaling.

Coming on our Photoshop course will teach you these kinds of techniques, along with useful keyboard shortcuts and what to do when things aren't going to plan! We also offer Advanced Photoshop training and courses in InDesign and Illustrator.

There are 3 main tasks when turning a photo into Pop Art: preparing the main image; duplicating and arranging it; and adding colour.

On Monday, we presented extended details of Google's first 6 SEO Tips for Start Ups,

which included:

• Use of www. in domain name
• Verifying ownership in Webmaster Tools
• Running a domain background check
• Submitting URLs for indexing
• Using search engine analytics
• Building a great site

Here are the next 6 tips. As before, we've extended these with actionable tips and advice that spans more search engines than just Google.

#Tip 7: Define Your Conversions

What do you want visitors to your site to do? Buy a product? Join a mailing list? Download a resource? Read a blog post? You should define all your conversions and make sure that every page has a conversion attached to it.

Without defined conversions your site will lack purpose and your visitors won’t be sure what you want them to do.

You can then track your conversions easily in Google Analytics and find out which pages are working and which aren’t, helping you finely tune your site to improve your conversion rate.

In the past week, Google released a video called ‘SEO for start-ups in under 10 minutes’ in which Developer Programs Tech Lead Maile Ohye runs through everything a start up should and shouldn’t do to help gain organic traffic from Google.

As it’s only in 10 minutes the tips are very succinct, but they’re also very Googlecentric to the point of assuming Google is the only search engine worth caring about.

Interestingly, the next day Glenn Gabe published a very detailed post about how most startups get SEO wrong. It’s interesting to get the two viewpoints within days of each other – what the search engines recommend you do and what a professional SEO thinks you should do. They’re not always the same!

So, as a startup, what should you do to ensure that your new site is visible in search?

Well, the first thing we would recommend is to come to Brighton for an SEO workshop. In 1 day you will get to grips with all the SEO basics and you’ll be able to ask questions directly to an SEO expert about your startup!

However, for those who have already been on the course or don’t like in the UK I’m going to run through Google’s SEO tips for startups, without being so Google centric! Many of these tips are also useful for existing businesses  who may have been doing things wrong for a while!

Here are my first 6 tips - keep an eye out for part 2 on Wednesday with 6 more!