Today’s blog is a guest post/interview with  Nicola Cook, of Company Shortcuts.    Company Shortcuts is the UK’s leading sales acceleration agency, helping ambitious business owners create a profitable and scaleable sales operation for their business. Based on the S.A.M© (Sales Acceleration Model) which was developed by Lara and myself, and supported by our extensive […]

Take a look at a map of the world for a moment, and notice how small the UK is compared to the rest of the globe. If you are not exporting your product you are limiting yourself to a tiny proportion of the world’s population when it comes to your available market. I was recently […]

I’ve been in the sales business for 30 years, and during only 50% of that time I have networked my socks off. Don’t make the mistake I made by not learning the techniques and skills I now practise daily to maximise the value I gain from speaking to strangers. I am not particularly comfortable in […]

I do a lot of public speaking, and it’s always good to get feedback from these events. A while back I spoke at an event in Northern Ireland and was delighted to speak to a lady named Karen Yates, who had been inspired by a previous speech I had given. I asked her to write […]

How persistent, and resilient are you? Like a child taught to jump back on a bike whilst learning, or someone who relentlessly remounts a horse, have you the mindset to keep on keeping on? There is an oft-quoted marketing statistic that informs us it takes 6 to 8 “touches” before a potential client is sold […]

How often do we hear the saying, “time is money”… and how often do we actually really listen to it? What I’m talking about here is of course time management: prioritisation of decisions by profitable outcome, and balancing the value of all the opportunities that may come your way while deciding which ones to chase, […]

The Power of Focus: not only a good book, but a great habit. There is a lot to be said for small business owners avoiding the distraction of almost anything that does not drive their business forwards. For example, rants about political opinion, or wasted energy combating/contributing to projects outside of their own ambitions.. This […]

With over twenty years’ experience in business, I’m often asked how to be successful in business. There’s no one size fits all answer to that question, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and here are my reflections on success, and how to achieve it: Get a business plan written, and each year utilise it […]

In 1998 my company Pacific Direct was turning over around £4.5 million and growing quickly – and always profitable, which I have since learnt is rare. In fact, I never ran the business in a year when we did not improve on profit; now I know how challenging that is, but at the time I […]

You might think a post about taking time for yourself has no place on a blog about business; you would be mistaken. In the era of modern technology where people can get hold of you before you’ve even woken up in the morning (if you let them!) taking time for yourself, and protecting that time, […]