Often when asked to come up with a goal people will think of what they’d like to do. That’s great, what they need to ask themselves is whether it’s realistic at the current stage of their business. There’s nothing wrong with aspirations at all. However, using goals to try and achieve them in the short-term [...]

We all like to think we have a valuable ability to do an amazing presentation to our clients, employees and others. Unfortunately from long and sometimes bitter experience I can attest to the fact that there are very few people who are great presenters from the day they start. I’ve actually sat through presentations where [...]

You fit the bill. That’s right I don’t take on everybody I meet! Over the years, I’ve realised that there are some people who just need some guidance, a bit of training and focussing to develop themselves and/or their business. And I can really help those people, if they’re the right ones. So how do [...]

Confiding in your board, or your senior managers, about your worries or anxieties about a new market, a fellow director or even the business direction is often seen as a mark of weakness and will get pounced on just like a hungry T-Rex spying a tasty morsel. And yet, we’re only human, we need someone [...]

Egg sucking entrepreneur scores

I was talking to my brother Simon yesterday and we were discussing entrepreneurs and how it can be difficult to go to the next level in a business. We both agreed that the common trap entrepreneurs seem to fall into is making excuses for their business. After all it’s their baby. And it can be [...]

Your business, every business, faces issues at the moment because of the fear generated through the current economy. That fear has slowed demand and made some organisations delay orders to their suppliers and consumers put off their own purchases. We can all see it simply by watching the news every day. In fact now is [...]

If you read my previous post on mistakes in sales recruitment you know 3 big mistakes businesses can make when recruiting sales people and getting someone who’s not the sales superstar you wanted but a sales dog who actively kills done deals.. This post goes through a 7 step process to get the best sales [...]

When asked to conjure up an image of a sales person people in the UK tend to think of someone who has the gift of the gab, are "hale fellow well met" party people, someone whose interest is in squeezing the most money they can get from their customer and someone who once the sale [...]

Business growth when you’re a business owner and/or a business leader tends to be looked upon as a budget thing. For example, "We want to grow our business and make 25% more profit next year." That’s the wrong way to go about it. After all if you haven’t done some investigation how do you know [...]

"When do we stop marketing for Christmas" is a question I sometimes get asked around this time of year. It’s a perfectly fair question, after all unless you’re in retail everything starts to go quiet in the last few days before the Christmas holiday period. And in some companies staff have put up the Christmas [...]

It seems as though a lot of people are turning to sales and marketing to get money into their company. Given the current economic climate that’s no surprise. The issue is that it can be difficult for a company struggling with bad payers and their own debts to invest in marketing. And yet, research shows [...]

Learning from Nellie, Paying for all identified training, where do you stop? And what about leadership mentoring. Find out in this post.

We all need a little criticism in our lives. Otherwise how could we improve? However, the carpers, the doubters and the envious we can do without. Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt said it best, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of [...]

The thirty day challenge, what it is and how to get on it

Recession proof, a video that shows what can be achieved

On the popular GrokDotCom they’ve commented on a piece of research that shows e-commerce is still too complicated. Not just for the over 65′s but for everyone pretty much equally. If it’s too complicated people will leave the site rather than confuse their brain cells further. So in the interests of improving web sites sales [...]

Unusually Sir Alan only fired one candidate after the interviews with his gang of 4 (augmented by Karen Brady). That leaves 4 Apprentice candidates to fight to the death in the final.

Sir Alan Sugar’s Apprentices try to sell experiences in some of the world’s most coveted supercars. Do they succeed? And more to the point who went home after the task?

Sir Alan Sugar’s Apprentices are let loose at the NEC Wedding Expo to sell wedding dresses. Someone got fired. Was the firing fair? It’s easy to decide with the benefit of hindsight – that doesn’t mean it’s less fun though!