Money spent on marketing is wasted – if you can’t close the sale

Business owners have been warned by a sales expert that money spent on marketing activities such as branding and website design could be wasted if they don’t have the skills to get customers to actually buy from them.

Speaking to over seventy business owners and salespeople at the ‘Selling in a Slowdown’ evening event at The Palace Hotel in Manchester, International sales expert and author of ‘Selling in a Slowdown’ Andy Preston said the evening was their ‘wake up call’ to the fact that sales techniques during recessionary times were distinctly different to those used in a healthy economy.

“The recession has changed the way people buy and in return the way businesses need to act to close the deal. We can’t continue to sell the way we have for years and just expect it to work as well as it used to because it won’t! If anything, the recession has presented an opportunity for the more motivated, driven salespeople to take business off their competitors”, reveals Preston, MD of sales performance company Outstanding Results.

Preston claims that two major contributors to why people don’t win more business in the current economy is that is they aren’t sat in front of the right decision makers often enough and they don’t ask the right questions when they are there. But the biggest issue by far he says, is the fact is that most people have no idea how much a sales enquiry is potentially worth to them and so don’t treat those potential customers in the way they should be treated to help win the business.

“Many companies spend a large amount of money getting their website, branding, design and marketing materials right, but then forget the most important part – which is training themselves and their team how to deal with sales enquiries effectively so they generate new business,” says Preston

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Editors Notes

Andy Preston is MD and Training Director of sales performance company Outstanding Results. Andy is an international speaker, author and trainer and specialises in working with companies to improve their sales results. Preston has over a decade of experience and success in the sales industry, working his way from sales representative to sales director in less than twelve years. More information on Andy Preston can be found at www.andy-preston.com and for more information on Outstanding Results please visit www.outstanding-results.co.uk.

For press enquiries please contact Rebecca King on 01603 283 506 or email rebecca@mediajems.co.uk

Who says blondes are dumb?

You only need to take one look at high-flying business duo Audra Lamoon and Sue Gilkes to see that these blondes definitely mean business as they prepare for the launch of the  their new book Blondes in Business.

Having built up Your Impact, a successful business training skills consultancy with offices in the UK and Dubai, Blondes in Business authors Audra and Sue know exactly what it takes to set up a business and compete in what they say is largely a male dominated market and come out on top.

It is precisely this success at overcoming the struggles and prejudices associated with being both female and blonde that has motivated the feisty pair to create a permanent record of their rise to success in the form of Blondes in Business (Ecademy Press, £10.99) and in doing so have created a comprehensive guide for other women looking to excel in the business world.

Neither Sue nor Audra have degrees, or rich parents, they are quite simply two normal girls made good through hard work and attitude. Since they founded Your Impact in 2004, Sue and Audra have successfully expanded the business into the Middle East where they launched Dubai-based Kawader Impact.  Having worked with  clients such as Microsoft, AIG, MOD and the NHS, the dynamic duo currently employ at least 40 trainers and have worked in over 20 countries worldwide, delivering programmes into both the public and private sectors.

“Having your own business is scary and difficult, especially in the current climate, yet Audra and Sue have proven that they’ve got what it takes to run an extremely successful business. Blondes in Business is one of the most ‘un-boring’ business books I’ve ever come across, full of real life stories that everyone can relate to and shows anyone that they too can be successful if they truly believe in themselves,” says Mindy Gibbins-Klein of publisher Ecademy Press.

The official book launch for Blondes in Business takes place on 3^rd September at London’s newest 5* luxury hotel, The Grange St.Pauls.

The book is available to order online at www.blondesinbusiness.com priced £10.99.

Editors Notes:

Title:                                     Blondes in Business

Author:                                Sue Gilkes & Audra Lamoon

Production:                       Paperback 132pp

Details:                                216mm x 140mm

Publication Date:            17^th August 2009

ISBN:                                    978-1-905823-60-4

Category:                            KJC, KJVS

Price:                                    £10.99

Market:                                Small Business, Women, Self-employed

Social Media Retreat Reveals Power Behind Online Success

Nine business owners are now basking in a wealth of social media knowledge thanks to the first Social Media Retreat hosted by Ecademy Chairman and ‘Master of social media’ Thomas Power.

The first of what will become a regular programme of social media training retreats was held at Warren House on 20-21st August 2009 and has received unprecedented praise from attendees.

During the two-day programme, Thomas Power delved into the science of social networking and in particular the difference of approach between open and closed networks, also exploring issues surrounding personal branding and the importance of establishing a core process so that other users are clear about the attendees’ character.

Power’s new course is designed to facilitate just nine attendees at any one time in order to provide a highly personalized, tailored environment with plenty of time for one on one coaching, perfect for embracing the true potential of social networking for business and an approach that delighted the attendees.

Ivor Kellock of Social Networking International said:

“The last 2 days have highlighted for me especially the importance of understanding your own personal reason for getting up in the morning and incorporating this into your brand image. No rocket science there maybe but the key learning point has been then how to tweak this to fit the new world of social media – there is more to it than I ever thought possible.”

Ruth Edwards of SmartStart Media said:

“You have opened my eyes to the true potential of networking through social media, so I can understand its role in my world and my life and how my contribution can help.”

Mark Rhodes of Rhodes2Success said:

“Fascinating two days during which we learnt that social media is so much more than just using the tools and systems. Thomas showed us how we needed to discover what our brand was really all about and more importantly what our contribution to the world is. We learnt that the power of social media networking is about giving and sharing knowledge and ideas that people are interested in and looking for, and then in turn they are interested in you.”

Thomas Power is delighted with the success of his first social media retreat and with more dates in the pipeline said,

“Our first Social Media Retreat was a resounding success and the attendees were so willing to absorb what can be quite complicated concepts when seen for the first time. Warren House was the perfect venue for the event and we look forward to returning in the very near future for our next event.”

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Safer Social Networking as Ecademy Launches Indentity Verification

The UK’s largest business social network Ecademy is introducing a new Identity Verification System to ensure members are using their real name on the site in a move to help improve trust and security between members of the network.

As part of the all new web site due to launch in September, paid subscribers to Ecademy (www.ecademy.com) will be able to display an “Account Verified” badge on their profile by confirming that they are the person named in the account and that they will abide by the terms and conditions of this initiative. This initiative will then enable Ecademy to check that a payment record (not the card details) has been stored on their systems using a valid credit or debit card via Worldpay, or through Paypal, which also incorporates identity validation in their systems.

Non-verified accounts will be identified and members who have never made a validated payment will be able to validate their account through a small one-off payment. Once cleared, this payment will enable them to confirm that the account is in their real name and display the Account Verified Safe Networking badge.

The announcement comes after revelations that a high court has thrown out an attempt by a detective constable, to stop him from being named as the author of the cult Night Jack blog, highlighting the issue that confidentiality of identities online is not legally protected and is deemed a public, rather than a private activity.

Penny Power, founder of Ecademy says that this has been critical in creating feelings of open trust and trading between its members.

“Ecademy is now present in over 200 countries and the safety of our members has been and is always going to be our top priority. With the rising cases of identity theft, anonymous abuse and cyber bullying across the web, we wanted to reassure our members that we are doing everything we can to ensure that Ecademy is a safe and trusted place to do business. Our new Safe Networking Initiative shows our commitment to a future based on safe social networking for everyone,” says Power.

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Editors Notes

Ecademy connects business people all over the world. It is a self-development, business and branding tool, which enable business people to achieve immediate visibility. The relationships, advocates and knowledge subsequently shared through the network provides individuals with the credibility they need to grow their business.

Ecademy’s core intention is to help business people to be more successful and promotes the values of a business community who no longer wish to be broadcast to, but demand engagement and conversation

Founded in 1998 by husband and wife team Thomas and Penny Power, Ecademy is privately owned and sustains itself through subscription, with only ten percent of Ecademy’s revenue coming from advertising and partnerships. The Ecademy business model is a classic example of a 21st Century business, operating virtually, with minimal operational costs.

For more information visit www.ecademy.com

For press information, hi res images or to arrange an interview please contact Rebecca King on 01603 283 506 or email rebecca@mediajems.co.uk

EU proposed maternity changes spells bad news for all

Radical EU plans which would see women entitled to full pay for the first 18 weeks of maternity have ‘little positive benefit’ for working women and could be the final straw for UK’s struggling small business, according to HR specialists at Dynamic Transitions.

The proposed changes, which could be enforced as early as this year, will have a profound impact on small businesses, especially those that are cash tight. Dynamic Transitions’ MD Judith Germain is concerned that many businesses will simply not be able to cope.

Germain says:

“This move may well be the final straw for small businesses as they struggle to pay bills at a time when resources are low and cash flow is at a premium. Particularly for businesses that employ only a handful of people, losing one member of staff can have a huge impact on the day to day business and this is just yet another added stress that is not needed in the current climate.”

Despite the fact that UK businesses would have two years to implement the new regulations, Germain has real concerns for the immediate impact on the employment opportunities for young women, as businesses feel less inclined to hire and retain women of childbearing age.

“We already know that the recession is bringing about a steep decline in graduate opportunities and moves like this will only serve to see yet more incredibly talented young women unable to secure work and lose out on opportunities to progress their career in a similar way to their male counterparts.”

“The short term financial gain of increased maternity pay for 18 weeks clearly does not outweigh the widespread long term effects on opportunities for women who want to work and have a family. In its attempt to encourage fairer working practices for men and women, Brussels is just pushing the divide further apart”.

Judith Germain is founder and principle consultant of Dynamic Transitions Ltd, a leadership company specialising in managing Troublesome Talent® and improving leadership performance in companies. For further information or to find out more about Dynamic Transitions visit www.developing-leadership.com or telephone +44 (0) 208 288 0512.

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For press enquiries please contact Rebecca King on Rebecca@mediajems.co.uk or 01603 283506

Poor weather is snow excuse for low sales productivity

Businesses across the country may have missed out on lucrative sales deals as their sales executives took unnecessary ‘duvet days’ during the recent bad weather, says leading sales expert Andy Preston.

With reports claiming that one in five adults stayed away from work and that some employers were instructing their staff not to even attempt to travel in, Preston, MD and Head Trainer at sales performance training company Outstanding Results, believes that many businesses missed out on crucial opportunities to make headway with calls at precisely the time when others were not.

“The snow has the same effect on people as ‘Friday afternoon’ syndrome, when people assume there is no point in making any calls as no-one will be there or they won’t want to take the call. I’ve closed many major sales leads on a Friday afternoon and I’m pretty sure there were deals to be made this week too for those who were bold enough to make the calls in the first place”, says Preston.

‘I’ve lost count of the number of sales reps who’ve complained to me that they have trouble getting through to the right person, or getting blocked by a gatekeeper or voicemail’ says Preston. ‘Yet on the days when they had most chance of getting through, some sales reps took that as a chance to have a ‘playstation day’. One rep even decided to spend all day in the pub!”

Preston claims that it’s often their attitude when adversity strikes that separates the top salespeople from the rest. The top salespeople will find a way to make something happen, while the rest complain that someone or something else is to blame for their poor performance – most of which comes from low activity! And for those people, the excuse to take a ‘snow day’ came all too easily.

“Those same salespeople will be back at their desks this week, complaining how bad things are, while the top salespeople took the snow as a great opportunity to build connection and rapport with new clients, and this week they’ll be reaping the benefit of that activity with new appointments in their diary”, says Preston.

Biggest business asset in 2009 will be ‘influence’

Forget price cuts, special offers and other short term gimmicks designed to bring in more business during the crunch, the biggest asset for any business in the coming year will be its ability to influence others, says business specialist William Buist.

Rather than focusing on price-led tactics, Managing Director of Abelard Management Services William Buist believes that smaller businesses in particular should be focusing on engaging with their audience through the art of conversation. Success in 2009 will come to those who can learn how to use debate to influence rather than to defend.

In order to help people to develop these much needed communication skills, Buist launched The Debating Society earlier this year on popular social networking site Ecademy (www.ecademy.com) and the club now boasts over 1200 members, who recognise the value to their business of perfecting the art of debating for influence and of being able to clarify their messages and thoughts to a wider audience.

Buist, a specialist in the Societal Web, collaboration and building business by word of mouth says “The biggest problems facing businesses in the current economic climate is poor communication skills and the ability to separate personality from principle when it comes to dealing with objections or simply another point of view. Mastering the art of debate is something that has been lacking on the business scene in recent years. It is an incredibly valuable skill in 21st Century business, especially with the increase in online conversations where people have no visual or verbal clues and have to rely on words alone to understand meaning and context”.

The Debating Society has also proved that providing an environment which encourages stimulating and lively debate actually works to eliminate negative banter and instances of online bullying which can sometimes occur in social networking sites and forums and Buist claims that this is why The Debating Society forum needs very little moderation.

“The Debating Society is working proof that it is possible to have good, robust, and open conversations with many alternate, and often opposing viewpoints expressed online. Give people the opportunity to discuss their point of view without fear of attack or rebuke and they will show the same behaviour to others. The result is an opportunity to gain valuable thoughts and opinions from a large group of people who are actively engaging, collaborating and building deeper, more meaningful relationships with each other, based on mutual respect for their differences as well as similarities”, explains Buist.

To find out more information about The Debating Society visit www.performing-teams.co.uk

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Editors’ Notes

William Buist is Managing Director of Abelard Management Services, which specialises in building trust in teams and communities within its corporate and SME client base.  William has had a 22-year career in Insurance, including serving as Head of Business Risk Management and Chief Underwriter for Lloyds TSB Insurance, where he also engaged with a number of consultations with Government on behalf of insurance industry bodies.

In 2001 he became a director of a consultancy company that focuses on supporting corporate teams delivering major change, where he has achieved substantial success with many medium and large clients.

William personally focuses on online community development, social networking and collaborative development within and between businesses.   He is also president of the Ecademy Life Members Community – a premium global group of Entrepreneurs and Business Owners.

For further information, to arrange an interview or for hi-res images please contact:

Rebecca King
01603 283 506
Rebecca@mediajems.co.uk

Sales inspiration at dawn brings in 20K just in time for Christmas

A businessman from Farnham will be having a very merry Christmas this year after sealing a last minute business deal worth over 20K, following inspiration from an early morning sales training breakfast event in London.

After attending the highly acclaimed Sales Training Breakfast Club on 3^rd December, Colin Marks*, a recruitment specialist, was at Waterloo station intending to catch his train home. Emboldened by training breakfast, delivered by international speaker and leading sales trainer Andy Preston, Marks decided on the spur of the moment to ring up one of his clients and get a meeting then and there and subsequently secured over £21k of retained business.

“I don’t consider myself a salesperson, but as the owner of a small business, I don’t have much choice but to sell to my customers. Andy is well known for training sales professionals but he can also provide the same inspiration and motivation to those of us who have to do it ourselves because the very survival of our business depends on it”, says Marks, 41.

First launched in Manchester in March 2008, the club is designed to help small business owners and sales people who often do not have access to good sales training, as it is usually very costly.  In the face of difficult trading conditions, Preston believes the Sales Training Breakfast Club gives people the ideal opportunity to learn how to make their business thrive, even during a recession.

“It was attending Andy’s breakfast club that spurred me on to making the call to the client. Small businesses really need to push forward during the credit crunch and take advantage of any opportunity to gain new skills and this was definitely worth getting up at 5am for”, adds Marks.

Preston, who is director of sales performance training company Outstanding Results, says “I started the Sales Training Breakfast Club to give small business owners like Colin a unique opportunity to get involved with something that suits their budget, their diary and provides instant return-on-investment”.

The next Sales Training Breakfast will be held in Manchester on Wednesday 10^th December 2008. The next London event will be held on Wednesday 11^th February 2009. For more information visit www.salestrainingbreakfastclub.com or call 0845 130 6779.

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* Due to client confidentiality agreements, Colin Marks’ name has been changed.

Small businesses hit hardest by VAT cut

In an effort to grab the headlines with the latest VAT cuts, the Chancellor has simply repeated the same mistake made by his predecessor. Only this time the impact will be noticed much faster, will backfire like the 10p tax rate cut, and will hit small businesses hardest, warn specialists at the Tax Advice Network. 

With retailers already slashing sales prices to 20-30% lower than before the recession, the impact of a cut in VAT from 17.5% to 15% will only have a marginal impact, and only serve to impact business productivity further as time and effort will have to be diverted to producing new price labels, catalogues, websites and promotional literature, according to Mark Lee, Chairman of The Tax Advice Network, who believes that the move is yet another futile attempt to stimulate spending without realising the knock-on effect on businesses.

“There are two things the Chancellor seems to have forgotten”, says Lee. “Firstly there is no obligation to pass on the VAT cut. Most traders will pocket the difference as the time and effort required to update information is enormous. But most importantly, the real negative impact will be felt by small business owners, who will have to divert their attention from generating additional profits whether they pass on the cut or not. And those who do change prices, even at the tills, will spend much more than the £90 cost included in the official ‘Impact assessment’.

“They will continue to be unpaid tax collectors for HMRC – collecting VAT from customers and paying this over, net of the VAT on their business expenses. They simply don’t have the time to get to grips with the added burden of working through the new obligations and may be unable to afford to pay for the necessary specialist tax help required to get it right”, adds Lee, who believes that the worst is still to come when the tax cuts come to an end next year.

“Get ready for next year’s VAT Nightmare before Christmas when everyone HAS to implement changes to reflect the increase in VAT from 1 January 2010. No one will want to absorb the cost of the increased VAT charge.  I’ll bet you now that there will be significant relaxations announced next year, when the full impact of the administrative burden on small businesses has been fully appreciated”, says Lee. 

The Tax Advice Network is UK’s first independent specialist tax advice network. For more information visit www.TaxAdviceNetwork.co.uk

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Manchester Sales Training Expert speaks at Ultimate Business Seminar

One of the UK’s leading sales experts is set to help over a thousand attendees to improve their sales skills at this weekend’s Ultimate Business Seminar in London.

Stockport-based Andy Preston of Outstanding Results will be helping attendees to get more comfortable, confident and motivated to sell their products or services to the world through his seminar “If you can’t sell, there’s no point being in business”, which takes place on the show’s opening day on Friday 21^st November.

Preston, an internationally renowned sales trainer, founder of Outstanding Results and the UK’s first Sales Training Breakfast Club, will be addressing issues such as why people fail in sales and how to overcome the fear of cold calling and believes that now is the time for businesses to take action and get ready to take 2009 by storm with a new, positive approach to driving their business forward, despite the continuing credit crunch.

“Many people have succumbed to the mindset that as we are in a recession, people won’t be buying, and so there’s no point in me trying to sell to them as they’ll just say no. This really couldn’t be further from the truth and people are still buying and will continue to do so! If anything, they are simply a little more choosy with who they do business with, which is why your selling skills have never been more crucial in getting ahead during the crunch”, explains Preston, a former Sales Director with over a decade of experience in the sales industry.

Preston will be speaking alongside top experts including top Tony Robbins’ trainer Keith Cunningham, and New York Times Bestselling Author Loral Langemeier at the three day event, organised by NLP specialists Christopher Howard Events.

The Ultimate Business Seminar, will take place from 21-23^rd November 2008 at The Ibis Hotel, Earls Court, London. For more information visit www.ultimatebusinesseminar.eu.

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For press enquiries please contact Rebecca King at Rebecca@mediajems.co.uk or on 01603 283506