Business Ideas For Smes And Start Ups

Driving down the road last week, I was listening to a Spotify playlist - Lynyrd Skynyrd - which had 2 versions of their 1970s classic, Freebird. It got me thinking about sales and about building trust - not in others but in yourself. Admittedly it's a cheap way for me to link two subjects that i love and am curious about... I hope you understand where I'm coming from and I'll not be apologising for the music!!

There are almost as many mobile phones on the plant as there are people - surely telephone sales has a role to play based on that statistic alone? The legacy of double glazing, recruitment and advertising sales people has ensured that the reputation of the phone has never been moe tarnished. It's certainly not a panacea but does it still have a place in sales strategies? I think the answer is yes - in this podcast I try and dispel some myths and hearsay and also try and give some suggestions as to how to make it work better for your business.

Over the last number of weeks I have made some casual references to GlenGarry GlenRoss. Great movie, great acting, poor sales advice. In his book To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink talks about the new ABCs of sales - Attunement, Buoyancy, Clarity. The thing is that whilst the book is brilliant - the new ABCs are not all that new...in fact the same lessons have been around since GlenGarry GlenRoss and maybe before. Not to take anything away from Pink, this podcast reframes the new ABCs in a more down to earth way.

I was prompted to record this podcast following the 2020 Oscars with warranted wins for both Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt (amongst others) and their respective outstanding performances - including acceptance speeches. This podcast is based around the 2002 movie, Moneyball, featuring Pitt as the GM of the Oakland Athletics Baseball team and how the introduction of data analytics as a player evaluation system helped the team almost win the World Series (of American only teams) in 2002. It highlights the importance of measurement - specifically measurement of whats important to the end result and how that focus can be further honed in on what really matters. Often in sales, the individual and team work hard at tasks that are ultimately unrelated to the success of the sale and the business. If you know what's important and if it can be measured then the old saying "what gets measured gets done' comes in to play. As an aside, it is a great movie - well worth a few hours of your time if you've not seen it alr

One of the best known and most referenced #sales clips from the movies must be GlenGarry Glenross...if you're in sales you will have seen the clip by Alec Baldwin, if not the entire show. The Anti-Salesman 7 minute piece by Baldwin is superb as is the entire movie, based on the David Mamet play and nominated for a bunch of oscars in 1992. What I talk about in this podcast is the link between the acting and sales, rather than the language or the script itself. How can sales people perform better if they are unable to hear or see how they currently perform or behave...it goes beyond mystery shopping and call listening. It's about understanding why you need thoroughly analyse recordings....just like football managers do on 'any given Sunday' or like actors do every day to ensure they're working to their best. If you want to improve will you do what it takes? I hope you enjoy - please get in touch by email on [email protected]

In many sales coaching and sales training sessions we focus on creating a high performance sales team usually siting high performing sports stars and teams. That got me thinking about some of the fundamental differences in HP in sport and also in business - with recovery, mental/ emotional well being and training as areas were there is often no cross over. I have mentioned many sources and references before that I have read and that I am curious about - Damian Hughes being one obvious - but others include Anders Ericsson (I always call him Anders Anderson for some reason) Geoff Colvin, 'Talent is Overrated' as well as The Talent Code, Bounce, Outliers. There are many sources for HP sport, Flow state and improvement etc...but not so often fro business and in particular sales. I see the following as being important: - culture - talent acquisition - leadership - shared vision - surroundings and environment - teamship - hard work - training (coaching and mentoring) Recovery? Never considered it. Stress? I've

This episode follows a week that included a 20 minute session at a an exhibition at Croke Park. A hugely successful event which saw a lot of people take time out from their busy days generating revenue to spend 2-3 hours at the North Dublin home of the GAA. I learnt a lot this week about high performance in sales against high performance in sport and how important it is to fully understand the levels YOUR TEAM can operate comfortably at. From a sales training perspective it was a busy week - the highlight being my 20 minutes at Croker which reminded me about the importance of value and making an emotional deposit before you ever thing about making any withdrawals.

Following a recent conversation with a client, this podcast focuses on 'Commodity Selling' If the sales person creates the narrative that what they are selling is 'just a commodity' then the buyer has it within their gift to immediately talk about price. When the negotiations go straight to price, it becomes almost impossible for the seller to protect that price. The growth of coffee over the last many many years is a great example of how a commodity can be celebrated and gain substantial margin increases. In the podcast I discuss the 3 waves of coffee growth and how making the sales process an educational one - supported by excellent customer service - you can create more value that the customer is happier to pay more for. Shift Control is a sales training and sales coaching consultancy, working with individuals and teams across Ireland. For more information, email [email protected] or visit www.shift-control.co.uk

Does everyone have a biased viewpoint? How you vote, what you buy, what you read - all of our conventional 'consumer behaviour' is influenced and informed by who we are, our family background, schools, geography, what we read, who we hang out with... How do these biases affect the world view of our business, of our marketing messages, our value propositions and in turn how does that thinking impact how sales people fully engage with customers and new prospects. Shift Control is a business improvement consultancy focusing on delivering sales training and sales coaching to individuals, teams and organisations throughout the island of Ireland. For more information visit www.shift-control.co.uk or email [email protected]

The first podcast of 2020 - and the first since mid-2019 - focuses on customer retention and the importance of creating value for those customers who helped you achieved targets over the previous 12 months. Stratgic thinking in sales often focuses on acquisition over retention yet the importance of reducing the churn rate in your sales is obvious. The Hegalian dialectic is a writing method (amongst other things) that can be used to help better understand the importance of creating 'tension' in those existing customer relationships. For more information on sales strategy for your team or team or individual sales coaching, please email [email protected]

The first podcast of 2019 is a solo podcast focusing on sales, media and podcasts. The last few months I have cut out pretty much ALL media from my life and taken control of what I DO listen to....podcasts (Rich Roll, Michael Gervais, Dan Carlin, Irish History, Blindboy Boatclub...and Bill Burr...) Audio books are starting to work for me again and I'm having a go at speed reading...courtesy of Tim Ferriss Sales focus in this podcast is on prospecting and why front loading the effort will pay dividends when it really matters. Will get back to the conversational format next week - in the meantime, thanks for listening in. Paul

Marketing has never been more complex than now. Channel proliferation. Social unconformity. Decreasing attention span. Big data. Small data. And then there is the myth of the 'Brand Story.' That is to say the myth that a brand story is anything more than just a poor mans sales pitch. A good brand story stands out for all of the right reasons - check out my podcast with Park Howell Shift Control Episode 17 - Park has it down to a very fine art and a set process. Check out www.businessofstory.com There are some people who just get it and Dave Linton is one of those At a recent seminar on the future of marketing in Belfast, I had the pleasure of listening to Dave, CEO of Madlug tell his remarkable 'brand' story. So compelling was it that I emailed him immediately to try and get him on the podcast. And here he is - his story is right in the sweet spot of everything the I believe to be good about marketing and the art of storytelling. Enjoy - and if you do enjoy, please share.

Ireland and in particular Belfast are neither recognised nor acknowledged as centres for excellence when it comes to watchmaking. That may soon change if Hans Enoksen has his way. Serial entrepreneur Enoksen has created a very beautiful brand in Enoksen Watches, collaborating with Big Motive, one of Ireland's digital design studios. After a high profile launch in Belfast in the summer, Enoksen has now partnered with Alexandra Cousteau, grand daughter of Jaques Cousteau, on an environmental project Oceans 2050. The conversation in this episode goes wide and deep on a number of topics - resilience, design, the environment and gives an insight into the non-tech start up world. Hans can be reached on www.enoskenwatches.com - check out his story on the podcast and the beautiful watches on his website.

After growing a success web design business in mid 2000s and a product buy-out in 2012, Paul McKeever is back with his latest venture Continually, an online sales/customer service platform that helps businesses manage and assist better, online customer enquires. A serial entrepreneur, with a passion for business and learning, Paul is an exceptional story teller - this podcast is about his journey from web design to his latest venture and the lessons he has learned along the way in business and in life.

The 3rd time guesting on the podcast, Damian is back on talking about his latest best-selling book, The Barcelona Way, Unlocking the DNA of a Winning Culture. Through the lens of Pep Guardiola and one of the most successful sporting teams in world soccer, Damian gives an insight into what makes an authentic and winning culture within high performing teams - in sport and in business. He shares the meaning of the acronym 'BARCA' and gives anecdote upon anecdote to help show the importance of vision, dealing with change, repetition and the OODA loop and an indication of the character required to drive home the change and to be part of the unit. Damian is a Professor of Psychology and publisher of 12 books as well as being a consultant to Scottish Rugby.

Episode 29: Stendhal Festival by Shift Control

A high percentage of our work this year has been in training rather than marketing or brand strategy. Over the last number of weeks we have begun work with some major businesses across a variety of sectors, including construction and logistics - both could be considered as bell weather sectors - if they are building and moving then things are ok. When they stop building and moving , there's trouble, right? Businesses are investing in training and up-skilling staff but there is no guarantee that training or coaching will work - there are many factors at play which determine ongoing success. In this solo podcast I look at what needs to be in play for a successful coaching outcome.

Most of the time sales people are focused on short term outcomes and look inwardly towards their own needs and wants over those of the customer. There has been a widely accepted move away from features and benefits to outcomes - seeing the world from the perspective of the buyer is the most important thing where the key is to understand the consequences of which to build a cogent argument around.

“Sponsorship is the future of business” Jackie Fast, Pinpoint: How challenging the norm is the only route to success in selling sponsorship. Only someone who has successfully navigated the choppy (and occasionally murky) waters of sports marketing and sponsorship can make that claim with any confidence. As Fast points out in her book, advertising and marketing has changed. Media consumption and channel proliferation has made it harder for brands to fully engage with their audiences but if advertising has changes then it is fair to say that sponsorship has also changed. A logo on a shirt is never going to be enough. In fairness, it never was. There is greater demand on sports properties to demonstrate something beyond “equivalent media value” and greater pressure on brand owners and managers to make their sponsorship money work. Jackie Fast sold her sports marketing business, Slingshot Sponsorship having worked with Sir Richard Branson, Spotify, IBM, Renault, Haymarket Consumer publishing and Shell.

Is "Practice" part of your sales process? How many of you spend time in 'rehearsal' preparing questions, answers, eventualities and outcomes for those big sales presentations? In fact, not just those big presentations but for everything you do? There are examples everywhere of those people who take the time out to prepare hard for the main event. In a previous Podcast with Damien Hughes, he described how Pep Guardiola would spend 7 hours preparing for a 20 minute team talk. Benjamin Franklin was renowned for preparation in his writing. Do you make practice an integral part of your preparation - please, get in touch and let me know what you think.