An Opportunity Tailored for YPO Forums

Who is Servo Annex?

We are digital educators and advisors. We work with CEOs and Presidents to accelerate their digital learning curves.  Discretion and careful confidentiality are critical to our firm. We’ve worked with YPO members, YPO senior leadership, YPO Chapters and Forums for a decade. Our firm works on referrals only so the success of every single client is always important to us.

 

Leveraging Digital in 2023

Our “Leveraging Digital” Forum education session started with YPO members who had enjoyed their experience working with us directly. They asked us to present this learning to their Forums, and we worked with them to develop, create and refine what we now have today.

The world is experiencing significant shifts that impact leaders on a personal and professional level. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has forever changed how people view and utilize technology platforms. Social tensions and the need to be culturally responsive have far-reaching impacts on how leaders interact with clients and employees.

Covid-19 has enabled businesses to offer remote working and it’s not going away anytime soon. There is a greater chance that someone will be on their social feeds more working from home. Therefore, there is also a greater chance they could say the wrong thing and create serious issues. Additionally, the relationship that employees have with their careers and their expectations of work-life balance, amongst other factors, has created the most significant attrition and turnover rate in a generation.

We developed this program to help leaders better understand and address both the opportunities and challenges that digital platforms present in 2023. This is a safe environment to have candid conversations, and get actionable support, while learning about emerging trends and how it impacts your business and digital presence.

Leveraging Digital in 2023 will provide digital best practices and support you to build confidence as we guide your forum through courageous conversations and how to navigate the ever expanding digital world together. And like all forums, the peer-to-peer sharing of perspectives improves learning and connection among members. We provide digital best practices/hacks and support you to build confidence so there are practical takeaways and application.

We also recognize that the discussions can go beyond raw learning to Forum members sharing fears, concerns, personal experiences – which is a unique topical pathway.

 

What Servo Annex Offers

To provide the very best experience to you and your forum, Servo Annex is offering a comprehensive pre and post-session:

1) 15-Minute Pre-Session Consultation With Each Forum Member – One week before the forum session date, the principal trainer will schedule a brief 15 min call with each forum member to learn more about them, their digital needs and goals. This allows for the sessions to be customized while understanding that levels of understanding will vary between forum members. Combined with the advance survey, this helps enhance trust and safety and personal relevance for each member.

2) Advance 4 minute Online Survey – Advance 4 minute online survey to establish a starting point for individuals and the group. We typically find a wide variability among groups regarding digital engagement, awareness and topics of interest. The advance input helps us guide discussion to the most interesting issues.This extensive pre-work enables us to customize the experience to various proficiency levels. The 1:1 consultations and advance online survey require a time- investment but create unique experiences that go beyond a “morning together”.

3) Relationship and Trust Building Environment for Learning – To maximize the two-hour learning session, the principal educator welcomes the opportunity to attend dinner or an event earlier in the retreat to help build connections and familiarity with all Forum members before the Forum session.

4) Ongoing Post-Training Conversation – The Forum moderator will setup a WhatsApp or Signal group with the principal educator for pre-training conversation or post-training continued support. This will allow any lingering questions to be addressed, but more importantly, as your YPO members return to work, this communication tool will provide better application-based support.

 

Sample Schedule

Here is what a potential schedule could look like. All sessions are collaboratively created in partnership with the group moderator; depending on the specific needs of your forum group; any scheduled aspects can be customized.

 

Timeline
A week prior	The principal educator will schedule a 15-minute pre-session training call to meet forum members individually and discuss learning goals. Also a brief 4 minute online survey is sent to all Forum members to complete and the results are shared with the Moderator.
Evening Before	If training is scheduled over a retreat weekend the principal educator will share a meal with all Forum members
Training Day	Two-hour highly customized training sessions will be delivered. Our sessions allow for a high level of collaboration with the moderator to ensure we deliver high-value ROI and meaningful digital results.
Ongoing Post-Training	A Signal or WhatsApp group will be established to enable follow-on digital conversations to continue. This proves to be an important pathway for continued engagement, questions and sharing.

 

How does a Moderator introduce this?

Here is a sample WhatsApp message a YPO moderator used to introduce the idea to their Forum:

“Hey team. Am thinking to spice up our next forum meeting with a resource for part of the meeting. Are you open to discussing how each of us can use the evolving digital platforms (social media and more) to maximize our impact and legacy now and in the future? I envision a session in which we learn truths and myths about social media as well as hacks we can use to have more impact. And hopefully learn more about each other in new ways. What say you?”

“Responses were all positive and quick, including “love it”… “excited” …“works for me” and “I’m in.”

There are three goals in framing this forum session:

(1) learn about current and evolving digital platforms and social media
(2) learn truths, myths and implications for us and
(3) learn personal tactics we can choose to use to maximize our impact and legacy.

 

Recommendations

“Sulemaan is an expert through direct experience. I trust him because of his character and goodwill. Both are essential for success with leaders. His counsel and support has been important for me.” – Scott Mordell   “I wouldn’t ask my YPO forum brothers and sisters to trust me with their time and money by inviting you if I didn’t believe in what you offer.  It was a great experience Sulemaan. You deliver.” – Ronda Shrewsbury   “Sulemaan was able to guide us remarkably well in a highly instructive session with a YPO NY group. He had a robust preparation that I coordinated as the Learning Chair of the Chapter with him, prior to the session, with bespoke content tailored to the needs of the group. It was a very productive master class with clear and concise actionable items for each of us. I highly recommend Sulemaan and I trust and value his advice.” – Marco Antonio Achon   “Sulemaan led events for our Santa Barbara Integrated chapter and for a chapter Forum. He provided significant take-home value to members, spouse/partners and YNGers. He is knowledgeable, personable and engaging. I recommend him as a resource.” – Pierce Dunn

 

Next Steps

As a result of our ongoing partnership with YPO, we would like to offer forum groups the preferred rate of $5k USD (our typical group rate is $15K USD). Plus travel expenses and associated costs where applicable from Toronto, Ontario.

If you are interested in moving forward, please email Sulemaan Ahmed (sahmed@servoannex.com) to discuss dates, session content, and how to leverage digital success in 2023 for your YPO forum group.