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Getting everything in its right place can be like sucking on a lemon

Do progressive organisations know what strategy, processes, and systems they need to have in place in order to achieve their growth potential? If they do, can they get them all lined up and in place to serve their own and their clients' needs? Knowing what to do and actually doing it are two different things. Trying things out can be a bit like sucking on a lemon. It can be so unfamiliar it's uncomfortable. But, when we sort out the colours in our heads, then we can line up all ou...

Why should anybody care?

When passion, desperation, and the stakes are running high some people go to extraordinary lengths to be heard. What's important in the moment - these days COVID-19 transcends or at least overlays almost every issue - is in stark contrast to the seemingly mundane tasks of everyday life. Industries everywhere have gone through a period of questioning their very existence unless they were directly contributing to the priorities of saving lives and livelihoods, supporting care workers and providers...

Why Spud's "I'm a bit of a perfectionist" made me cringe

24 years ago Spud made me cringe, and not a moment too soon. You see, up until first watching Trainspotting (movie), my stock answer to the interview question "What's your biggest weakness?" was "I'm a bit of a perfectionist." I'd only recently doled out that very answer during a series of job interviews. I know, I know. Such a spud! But what was I know? I was only 24, myself. I'd been taught at school that interviews were a time to present everything in a positive light. And I was specifically ...

Objection handling for sales people who understand life

Heard these before? "No!" "Not interested!" "Don't have the time!" "Too expensive."  What sales person hasn't! We know these as objections. Getting aired or ghosted is a similar thing. And the way most sales people handle objections simply doesn't work....

Salespeople: How to get over your fear of cold calling and get opportunities to quote in less than 1 hour

Cold calling - otherwise known as phoning strangers - can feel scary, awkward, and creepy. That's pretty understandable. After all, who likes receiving phone calls from strangers, even when we've given some sort of permission? None of us want to be "that guy" who interrupted someone's day, stuttered an incoherent sales pitch, or sounded like a robot reading a stiff-sounding script.Yet doing deals usually involves speaking to people we didn't previously know. So we'd better figure out how to get ...

3 reasons psychometric tests and personality questionnaires fail at predicting sales performance

Employers have been using psychometric tests and personality questionnaires to try to improve recruitment of sales people for some 20 years. So it's shocking that so many fail to predict future, in-job sales performance of new recruits. A lot of the time they can even damage sales performance. Anyone who's ever complained when their use hasn't delivered any sort of measurable improvement is often blamed for their own failure. If you've ever been told that you selected the wrong personality attr...

Never met a profitable MLM distributor? Me neither. [Q&A]

I calculate the average earnings from MLM at £400 a year per distributor in the UK, and $200 in the US. But that's not the worst part....

Practical rather than theoretical objection handling [The Formula]

Traditional sales trainers categorise objections into types - like price, time, features, credibility. They also teach a variety of exotic sounding objection-handling tactics like "Boomerang", "LAIR", "Reprioritize", "Feel/Felt/Found", "Bouncing", "FUD", and "Deflection". It's all bullshit, though, to most sales people. Because 1. when you try to put any of these into action on the fly, it's practically impossible to be unemotional, and 2. buyers no longer want to be boomeranged, deflected, r...

Quiet summer? 6 tasks to boost quick wins now and pipelines for September

Even TREACL tends to have some capacity till September. So, as well as lowering rates for a month (check summer pricing), we've also been getting clients busy on a 6 easy-to-do and easy-to-overlook tasks. Because, unless you boost sales pipelines for September now, not only could profits suffer over summer, you'll lose out when everyone else is ready to do business. And then it will be Christmas! So here's a few things smart organisations are up to this summer:...

Free CRM at last! What's more: it's awesome!

I know, I know. "Free" means junk, right? Wrong! Our friends over at Hubspot, the all-in-one premium marketing software company that's now worth $1.2 billion, have recently launched it's own CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software....

Are We Stereotyping Our Children On Facebook?

I recently analysed the photos of the 254 of my Facebook friends who have children. Does early-years stereotyping of our children influence their own career aspirations and image of themselves? We picture sons actively doing things. We picture daughters passively posing. 82% of photos of sons, and just 46% of daughters feature them busy on some activity like playing, or interacting with others. 54% of photos of daughters, and just 18% of sons and feature them just passively posing for the cam...

10 Actions To Make Your Conference Exhibition Stand Stand Out

Conference exhibitions can be productive, fun places to drum up business. Especially because so many exhibitors don’t make the most of the opportunity. Before you snigger at everyone else hiding behind their stands, hunkered down over laptops, oblivious to visitors passing by, see how many of these actions you’ve taken....

Kony 2012 viral video - Exposing Invisible Children

20 million views in 2 days! Maker, Invisible Children Inc, appears legitimate. Who wouldn’t want to highlight the plight of child soldiers and stop war crimes? But who’s behind Invisible Children? And where does their money go? Here’s what a shocking, 4‑minute Google search revealed. Here’s the photo of Invisible Children Inc’s founders posing with guns and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. They, in turn, face allegations of rape and looting. Here’s some book content about t...

R.I.M. Can we live without mobile devices?

You bet we can live without mobile devices. When BlackBerry services went down, life carried on. But we did slow down. Maybe you think that’s a good thing. But you probably weren’t waiting for that crucial email. Sure, there are other ways to communicate. Communication behaviour changes quickly though. In just a few years, most people in organisations and businesses have now come to rely on mobile devices. Without instant access to data, we feel less well equipped. We delay making decision...

24 Faces of a Presentation Audience

You see them when you look out from the stage. But who are they? And what are they thinking? Here are 24 types of conference delegate. And what the delegate is actually thinking (in speech marks)....

How to write short emails [EOM] (pass it on)

Forget the preamble. Nobody reads it. Make them scroll? No chance. Worse still: they’ll miss the good bits. Humans began as hunter-gatherers. We filter out what’s commonplace. We instinctively hone in first on things we need. Then we find things we like. Anything else is a distraction. Distraction meant death. (Now read the last email you sent. Any distractions?) We’re also farmers. So we latch on to helpful people, tools, and information. And we root out weeds that waste resources like...

Tweep Cloud – Types of Twitter Users

You asked who I see on Twitter? Well, here’s a tongue-in-cheek look at the types of users I see. I’ve charted them by numbers of followers, and number following. Read on for more detail. And click on the image for a larger version....

How’ll big names cope without privacy on Twitter?

Social media is the voice of the outspoken. They don’t feel bound by privacy. Renowned PR, Richard McCann MBA PhD MCIPR of Friday’s Media Group is used to helping big names with their profiles. Here’s how he suspects they’ll cope without privacy on Twitter....

TED Talk - Passport to ευδαιμονία (happiness+)

Feeling in the doldrums? (I’m thinking about the economy, of course.) Imagine being an entrepreneur or professional in Greece. Many want to leave. Yet Greece’s resurrection is in their hands. TEDxTalks just posted one Greek entrepreneur’s heartfelt plea to Greeks around the world. Onic Palandjian, friend and client, told how he found his passport to ευδαιμονία (eudaimonia) in Greece. It’s his call to Greeks around the world to enlist in the country’s resurrection. When Onic...

How to get to present - the TRICK or TREACL

Anyone who’s tried it knows that presenting is one of the best ways to make a big idea stick and spread. But events are waning. Event organisers struggle to pull in big enough, paying audiences. They’ve cut spending on boring conferences. And they struggle to sell sponsorship. So, worthwhile speaker slots are harder to get. Here are some tricks of the trade....

2 ways to give corporate gifts and cards

Giving corporate gifts and cards is routine. Messages in most cards are stock. Their sign-offs are squiggles. What do they really mean? Organisations buy gifts in bulk. (Corporate hospitality’s the same. I’ll deal with corporate hospitality later in the year.) Are they only worth their material cost to their recipients? Friends and family naturally mark each others’ occasions. Gifts and cards show we care. They show we’ve thought of one another. It’s true that many organisations send...

Enough with the ‘engage’, already!

How often do you use the word ‘engage’? Count how many times you wrote it in your last proposal, or brochure. You’ll find it hundreds, even thousands of times on corporate websites. IBM 79,100 times ‘engage’ appears on IBM’s website, UK Government 10,600, GE 5,070, Bank of America 3,270, BP 696, Walmart 346, and General Motors 316. It’s lost its meaning. Hugh MacLeod’s cartoon(above) illustrates the point. Hugh says, “What we really mean by ‘engage’ is simply communicatin...

The 7-step network start-up short cut

Networking is the best way to find work. I don’t just mean employment. (But it is true that referrals lead to the best jobs.) You’re working any time you’re trying to achieve something you care about. Last month, one of my networks led to an invitation aboard HMS Richmond. I’m already planning work with someone I met there. You can learn networking skills. But here is the short cut to starting a network that can help your work....

4 ways business communication goes wrong

We must all know some of the rules of Business Communication. Write clearly. Be honest. Stick to the point. Use compelling words. Make lists. Use bullets. Don’t use bullets. Create a story. Include a call to action. Check spelling. It’s a long list! So, why does so much corporate and business communication fail? Here are just a few reasons I’ve learned from friends, and from writing and reading countless brochures, proposals, product sheets, direct mail, advertising, websites, and blogs...