Business Ideas For Smes And Start Ups

Sales momentum is critical for any business - are you able to turn the heat up when you need to or does your team operate at inconsistent levels across the year? Would you trade of 3 hours of flow sales for a day of?

This podcast gives a brief insight into a project that I had the good fortune to work on over the last 3 years that culminated in a customer service charter. All the good work of a business that has a clear focus on driving value through a better working relationship with customers - something that ill clearly differentiate them from their competition and help them win out in marginal situations

For so long we only thought in terms of academic intelligence. Along came Daniel Goleman and Emotional intelligence in the mid 90s and yet before in 1938 - Howard Gardner had introduced Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences where he talks about multiple intelligences, 8 and how they can impact our world view and our engagement with other people. Valuable if you have an interest in sales.

Fergal Keane is a renowned journalist, war correspondent and author of 'Madness: A memoir of war, fear and PTSD.' Not a normal read for me but a brilliant biography and my first encounter with epigenetics and generational trauma. And a good reason to be reminded about the importance of screening your media intake

Too often the focus is on asking questions rather than analysing what you know. In this podcast I talk about the origins of critical thinking and how it can be applied to your sales process along with EQ, to help deliver greater success.

As luck would have it I ended up speaking to someone with the inside track on customer service at the Merrion

Found myself back at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin, last weekend...just 3 days after the deployment of the largest number of Garda in riot gear. (If this podcast was part of the BBCNI offering, Garda would be described as *the Irish Police....) Interesting times on all fronts - but no change at The Merrion where customer service was exemplar. Worth taking a dive into their world over the next 4 weeks - I'm sure they'll make it special for you. Can this level of customer service and attention to detail be applied everywhere? Or is it just the domain of those that can afford it?

My work recently with a client has put me on the other side of the buyer - seller relationship, as we build a new business development team. I have been amazed at the approach taken to my interest in their 'Sales SaaS' resulting with the feeling that outbound sales are deemed more precious than their inbound counterparts. In the podcast I go a little deeper in the experience and reference some good examples of BANT, MEDDIC, ANUM and GPCTBA/C&I (interesting methodology thats designed especially for inbound sales. Linkedin get a solid reference based on the fact that they are very good at what they do...very, very good... Let me know what you think.

An episode that I had threatened to record at least 3 times - about the GAA and their response to the alleged abuse by Rory Gallagher to his wife Nicola. The recent events in Spanish football and the threat of prosecution against Luis Rubiales has persuaded me to record this. I hope that the GAA can learn and learn quickly from what's going on in Spain.

What else would you be at on a bank holiday except recording a podcast on life as a start up against life as a mature business. My work with a few of these clients recently has prompted me to record this - also watching some of the 2014 Queens Sigerson team flourish in the start up world. Some clear differences in setting up a business in 2023 v 1998 but surely there must be plenty to learn from each other for both parties...? I posit yes - from sales, branding, customer and talent acquisition as well as raising money, scaling and everything else. There is less structure too this episode but I hope there is still enough worth thinking about. Thanks for listening and reading.

Selling is not a symmetrical process. It's far from it. Once a seller makes a connection with a business thats when the hard work starts but it's important that to understand that most of the hard work should be done before the selling even starts. This podcast covers a methodology to consider when you are looking at the other person's(the buyer) perspective. Edward De Bono was a physician, physiologist, writer and inventor and apparently a deadly man from the 45m too (in house GAA joke) Much of this methodology will make sense if you find yourself in the middle of a complex buying process.

For me the jury is out when it comes to NLP, DISC profiles and the rest...learned recently that I'm more of a skeptic than a cynic when it comes to this sort of thing but it made me wonder about other aspects of personality and the softer skills when it comes to selling. I also learned that there are as many as 12 learning styles - I had thought there were 4...audio, visual, kinaesthetic and digital...this podcast focuses on just the 7 but asks an important question - how are you making your digital platforms and your sales content work to cater for all 7 learning styles. more questions asked than answers in this one - would be keen to hear your thoughts.

Some thoughts on what might well be the most important part of the sales role - territory planning and forecasting. There is an obvious logic to planning in almost every aspect of our lives and yet when it comes to sales management and sales that's not often the case. This podcast is a quick run through some tips and ideas to help with planning a sales territory for. the next 12 months - helpful, I hope for both sales people and sales management and business owners. let me know what you think.

Around this time each year, I get asked to speak to a group of business owners from across Northern Ireland - the brief: "What's new in sales?" Everyone wants to hear what's new in sales - quite rightly. Any new methodologies? Technologies? Routes to market? What is everyone else doing? The truth is that pretty much everyone else is making some basic mistakes - across acquisition and retention. In this podcast I look at some the failings made by business owners, sales leaders and sales executives that when corrected could make a massive difference to your overall performance.

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer. We all know that relationships are based on trust - are we doing enough? Do we have a plan? Have we rehearsed? Do we know what Trust is? Competence, Character, Confidence? Were are the weaknesses - and our strengths...and how can we improve?

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer. It all depends on the sales cycle - 6 months to 18 months or more...or even a month. It is important not to rely on your initial engagement. Do you have a process - an effective one? What are your touch points? From sales and marketing? How do you feel about waiting? Think about detail, resilience, focus, commitment...

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer. A classic here - many people ridicule this notion..."communicating value" but the truth is, if you cant communicate the value fo what you are selling, your customer won't be completed to buy or put in the hard work trying to understand. It's as much about NOT selling features and benefits but talking about the outcomes and giving them proof that there is value to be had.

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer. This one is about all those times when we think we don't need to, or don't make time to thoroughly research up on our customers or our prospects. It's important to make the time to understand as much as possible - no shortage of information out there at the minute with search engines, media, machine learning tools etc...

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer. This episode is where we find ourselves spending too much time talking about ourselves - as people - or as businesses, spending way too much time on our products and services. It's what we get paid to do? Not really - we get paid to sell - and presenting products and services is only one every small part of all of that.

A week has passed since I made the veneration at the altar of Bruce Springsteen whilst making my first stay at the Merrion hotel. It made me think about what good customer service looks like - how good brands not only read the room, they anticipate it. Again and again. Against a back drop of the music, whiskey and craic was the headline dominating domestic abuse claim levied at an inter county manager. An example of how easy it is to misread the room.