Author: etcwebsite

There are many reasons we end up saying farewell to clients, some are completely beyond our control, others not so much. But have you ever considered the true value of that loss? It’s far more than the fee they were paying you!

Client retention, in my opinion, is something that should be managed and monitored as closely as the cash flow in your business – however, it very rarely is.

Losing clients for legitimate reasons is one thing, but often I find businesses are far too flippant about letting customers go. “Oh, they were only paying £100 per month,” “We’ve finished their job,” etcetera, etcetera.

If I ever hear this from a coaching client – I give them a little exercise to do. Don’t consider the income you’ve lost, consider the costs to you of replacing that business.

How much does it cost you to bring in a new client?
Think about what you spend on marketing and advertising; the time and money spent on networking; how many hours do you spend sitting in sales meetings and drawing up proposals and quotes? Try adding it up – I’m sure you’ll be surprised!

For argument’s sake, let’s say each new client costs you £1,000 in time and money before they sign on the dotted line. Would you rather keep earning £100 per month guaranteed income, or spend £1,000 just to stand still?

Client retention makes sense from an economic point of view – so it’s really important to keep track of how many clients you’re keeping and losing as well as monitoring the new business you’re winning. To successfully grow a business – yes, you need new customers, but you want to build your client list, not replenish it!

If you’re losing clients on a regular basis, it really is worth the time and effort considering what you can do to keep them. Here are a few of my suggestions:

1 – Get feedback

Do you know the real reason they’ve left?  It’s always worth a frank conversation asking for honest feedback of your service, and an explanation of why they’re leaving. You may just pick up some pointers that can prevent you losing another client. After all, how can you hope to improve if you don’t know where you’re going wrong? I like to ask, too, if there’s anything we could have done differently to make them stay.

2 – Communication is key

Client relationships often fail due to lack of communication, so make sure you’re in regular contact with all your existing clients. Ask them while they are still with you – what can we do better? It could make all the difference!

3 – Address their niggles

It’s not always big things that can strain a client relationship, it’s the little niggles – if they get ignored. By keeping in regular contact, you can find out about any issues before they become major problems. The important thing is to sort them out promptly, and show you take customer service seriously!

4 – Deal with complaints

If it does get to the stage where you’re faced with a customer complaint, you need to take 3 steps:

• Fix the problem (as quickly, thoroughly and professionally as possible)
• Investigate why the problem occurred in the first place
• Put measures in place to prevent it happening again.

We’re only human and things do go wrong, but you will be remembered for how you put things right! And always keep the customer apprised with what you are doing to correct the issue.

In conclusion – ensure your customer service and communication is top-notch, and you’ll reap the rewards in client retention and customer loyalty. And to go the extra mile – think about offering a customer loyalty scheme to sweeten the deal for staying with you. Keep in mind the value to you – saving you heaps in winning new business!

It will probably come as no surprise to hear that the top New Year’s resolutions in the UK are about getting fitter in one way or another.

It might be to lose weight, give up smoking, eat healthier or go to the gym – and possibly all of the above! The reason? We all want to improve ourselves, and we know that our health and wellbeing is something that we can control to some degree.

Have you thought, however, that this could also be a great analogy for improving your business in the year ahead? After all, we never stop wanting to improve our business in some way – and it is completely under our control! So, I’ve put together my thoughts on how you can tone up your business in the year ahead.

Be specific – what does ‘fit’ look like to you?

People’s ideas of getting fit differ greatly. It depends on their current condition, what their priorities are and their ultimate goal. One may want to lose three stone, another may want to climb Everest.  In the same way, each business’s idea of ‘fit’ will vary. One manager may want to double their turnover, another may want to restructure to free up their time. The important thing is to have a vision of what fit looks like to you. Be specific. Picture it and write down exactly what you want to achieve. This is setting and defining your goal, covered in greater depth in my previous post here.

Share your goal

The brave amongst us will share what we want to do with those around us. They’ll tell their partner not to buy them that squidgy cream cake because they’re trying to lose weight, or will announce their intentions to the world on Facebook. This isn’t about showing off or making everything about you – it’s about asking for support to keep you on track. Sharing can give you the extra motivation you need to keep going when things get tough, because no-one wants to admit to others that they’ve failed. In business, think about sharing your vision with your team, so they can help push you towards your goal. Or, if you don’t have a team, share with another business owner you know well – or a coach.

Set targets

It can feel overwhelming thinking you’ve got three stone to lose – so you need to break your bigger goal down into smaller targets that sound much easier to achieve. Lose half a stone in the first three weeks, for example. In business – think about the smaller targets you can set yourself that are stepping-stones to your big goal. To increase turnover, how many more customers do you need? How many can you get in the first three months?

Plan, plan, plan!

You know what you want to achieve, and have set yourself targets to reach – now you need to write your action plan – and I mean write! Don’t just think about it and keep it all in your head, it’s too easy to forget important steps or ‘adjust’ the plan to suit you. Write down what you need to do to achieve your first target. To lose weight it might be go to the gym twice a week and plan your weekly meals. Business planning is no different. Look at your first target and schedule the actions you will take to achieve it. If you want to get three new customers in January, think about who you want to target and what marketing activity you will do to attract them.

Keep track of how you’re doing

It’s the dreaded scales moment! When you’re losing weight, you hate stepping on the scales in case the results are disappointing – and we have the same fears in business. But, if we don’t measure how we’re getting on, we can’t rejoice in the successes or take the necessary steps to improve. If you have reached your target – hurray!  You know your action plan worked and can keep doing the same. If you didn’t quite make it – don’t worry! Analyse where you went wrong and adjust your plan accordingly to do better next time.

Get a gym buddy or personal trainer

Do you have someone to hold you accountable for your results? Someone who will push you when you’re not feeling it – or help you work out a better way to reach your target? We talked about sharing your goal, which is all well and good, but you also need someone behind you to keep you on track – asking how you are doing and keeping you motivated. Consider joining with a group of like-minded business owners to share ideas and encourage each other. Or invest in a business coach. Even top athletes need help to improve. Business managers, no matter how experienced, can benefit from coaching too.

Reward your achievements

We’re often our own worst critics! We’re very quick to berate ourselves for failures – and often don’t congratulate ourselves when we succeed. But this is really important! Recognise your victories. Even if you haven’t quite made a target – you only lost two pounds instead of the three you wanted this week – you’ve still achieved! You are still two pounds lighter and that much closer to the big goal.  In business, every step forward should be celebrated. If you don’t praise yourself when you accomplish something, you can soon get jaded and feel deflated. Buoy yourself up with a little treat every now and again to acknowledge that you’re getting there! The dieter’s little chocolate indulgence! Perhaps finish early on a Friday and enjoy some family or hobby time – or just relax.

No matter what stage your business is at, why not think about how you can get it fitter for the New Year? Good Luck!

Why not book a FREE business review with Doug to kick-start your New Year goal-setting and planning? There is no obligation to take up Doug’s coaching, but you will glean some interesting insights that will help you take your business forward.

Has anyone you know ever stuck to a New Year’s resolution? I can guess the answer – it’s probably a resounding no!

Like New Year itself, resolutions are fleeting. They’re often made in haste and forgotten just as quickly, packed away with the festive finery never to be seen until the following New Year!

The idea behind them, however, is a great one. New year, new start. It is a perfect time to reflect on the year that’s passed and decide what you want to achieve in the year ahead. But, like many things in life, the label matters. It has become the norm that a New Year resolution doesn’t make it past January – so alter the label and you might have a chance of making it stick! Set a goal.

I’ve written at length on the importance of goal setting, it helps you move forward both in business and in your personal life, so I thought a bit of a flashback post might be just what’s needed here. This will help you find all the information you need to set goals – and go for them! Let’s call it my go-getters goal-setting guide.

1 – Know your goal.

You may think you have a goal in mind, but it might just be a target. Yes, there is a difference! The first step to achieving a goal is to fully understand what it is – then you can set the target you need to reach to achieve it.  These will help:

Do you know what your goal is?
Targets – v – Goals: Can you spot the difference?

2 – Set your personal and business goals.

The two may be intertwined, but it’s important that you set distinct personal and business goals.  Think about where you want to be personally and professionally this time next year – or in five years.  Here’s some advice on how to go about doing that:

Setting your goal – the know how
Business goals and personal goals

3 – Plan your attack!

Knowing your goal is all well and good – but how are you going to achieve it? You need a battle plan! Read my advice on effective planning to help you achieve your goals once they’re set:

Goals set – but how can I achieve them effectively?
Short term goals and long term goals

4 – Get help!

Running your own business can be a lonely experience. Even if you have a team of people around you, when you’re the driver and the decision maker – it can feel like you have no-one to turn to for advice and support. But this is vital to success! Not only does it help to have a sounding board, it’s great to have people around you keeping you on track – making you accountable for getting things done. There are two really effective ways of getting constructive help – join a masterminding group, or invest in a business coach. Here’s the lowdown on each:

Achieving your goals – the Mastermind effect
Is a business coach really for me?

5 – Remember why you set those goals.

My final tip would be – keep in mind why you set those goals. Everyone in business faces tough times, there will be challenges to overcome in reaching for your goals – so it’s important to remember a) what those goals are and b) why you set them for yourself.  Listen to my podcast about the importance of goal setting, and keep in mind the ‘why’.

Goal setting and how important it is (Podcast – £4.95)

Now it’s down to you! Good luck and go set ‘em!

Goal-setting (and achieving) is covered in detail in Doug’s book ‘Getting Down to Business’. Buy a copy direct for just £19.99 here.

A business can succeed or fail on effective scheduling, so it’s really important to have a procedure in place for planning upcoming projects – setting timescales and managing operational delivery of work.

My previous blog post ‘Order! Order! How an order book can help keep your business in line’ discusses how essential it is to set up and maintain an order book, documenting all current projects and placing them in a monthly schedule of works to be completed – but there are steps you need to take to ensure your order book works effectively.

Here are a few tips on scheduling your work – so that you are able to set realistic deadlines that you can stick to!

Take a comprehensive brief
This should be a given – that you understand exactly what is required of you before you even put in your proposal or quote.  All too often, however, sales teams fail to take a comprehensive brief, which leads to all sorts of problems down the line.  Not only can this cause your quotation to be askew, if you find out later that more is expected of you than you thought, it makes scheduling impossible. Make sure you understand, in as much detail as possible, what the client wants!

Monitor how long different project tasks take
To schedule your workload effectively, you need to understand your output levels. How long does each task take? Do you need to allow extra time to troubleshoot any problems? Is your work dependent on receiving information or products from others that could cause delays? Try and set a maximum delivery time for each project task.

Match projects to work hours available
To ensure you meet deadlines, you need to schedule new work into your existing production programme.  If you don’t have the man hours to start work on a project for a couple of weeks, make sure you take this into account when calculating your deadlines. You will need to consider staffing levels, allowing for holidays etc.

Communicate with your client!
One of the most vital steps in scheduling works is communicating your plans to the client to ensure your potential deadline meets with their expectation.  If they have a distinct deadline, you need to know you can meet it.  If you can’t, you need to tell them – it’s just good customer service.

Monitor your schedule regularly
Things do crop up in business that can mess up even the most meticulous plans. Unexpected staff absences, urgent jobs that must be prioritised, unanticipated delays, the list goes on. Regular monitoring of your work schedule is, therefore, essential. You may need to shuffle tasks around, speak to clients about moving deadlines or enlist more help to get work completed – so ongoing management of scheduled works is vital.

Update your order book accordingly
Make sure you keep your order book updated! Add in new work according to your planning, with a realistic deadline. If you have to shuffle tasks, change the details in your order book so that it doesn’t throw your invoicing or cash flow predictions out.

For more in-depth advice on project scheduling, take a look at Doug’s practical guidebook ‘Getting Down to Business’ or speak to him direct about the support he can offer.

Some may think it’s an outdated practice, but keeping your order book in order can really help you keep your business in check.  It may be seen as an ‘old way’ of doing things, but my argument has always been – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

On my initial visits to clients, I often hear they have no order book system in place.  Very much like the sales board I advocate for tracking your sales pipeline, an order book is essential to track and plan your operational delivery.

Whilst updating the order book is still seen as an essential process in the manufacturing industry, to keep a check on how much output you need through the production line each month to fulfil your orders, it is often overlooked in the service industries.  Keeping an order book, however, is a useful tool in any business.

Here are just some of the ways it can help you:

1 – Scheduling client work
One of the worst things you can do with client work is over-promise and under-deliver.  This often happens when we set unrealistic deadlines for completion of client work – and are left struggling to fulfil orders as promised.  But there really is no excuse for mis-scheduling!  An order book allows you to check your current workload in any given month, so you can schedule new orders around it.

2 – To do list
An order book will help you plan your task sheet, or to do list.  Let’s face it, if you have no easy way to see at a glance what jobs you have on your books each month – how are you going to plan the delivery of the work?  Instead of writing a day-to-day to do list, and risk missing tasks in the process, an order book will help you plan your work production in advance.

3 – Forecasting cash flow
An order book helps you predict your company’s income – a necessity to ensure you have enough work to sustain you.  It allows you to see exactly how much you should be able to invoice in any given month.  As long as you understand your break-even figures, you can work out whether you are meeting that as a minimum each month.

4 – Marketing and sales activity
A glance at your order book will tell you in an instant where you need to focus your marketing and sales activity.  You might find you’re stacked out with work for the next three months, but then have nothing – or you’ve pre-booked loads of work for three months time, but have nothing now.  Use this information to focus your marketing and sales activity.  Run a marketing campaign that encourages orders in your quiet months, maybe running a short-term offer, or prioritise the sales calls you think will bring work in when it is needed most.

5 – Invoicing
Your monthly invoicing will be so much easier if you have a record of work completed each month.  When work is signed off as delivered successfully, mark your order as complete in your order book and date it.  This then becomes your working document to charge clients for finished projects.

These are my top five reasons, but I’m certain that once you start using an order book system, you will discover many more benefits.

Doug’s book ‘Getting Down to Business’ includes a more in-depth look at how to set up and maintain an order book – as well as covering other essentials of business success. Buy it here now!

If you’re left wondering month after month why you haven’t got enough prospects converting to customers, or why your customer numbers are rising but your profits aren’t, you’re probably not tracking your numbers effectively.

It’s not uncommon, and is often because business owners simply don’t know where to start to get the information they need. Following a step-by-step sales process and keeping a track of your pipeline can make a huge difference, however, and help you to plan for a profitable future.

It might not be sexy, but gathering stats will help you sell!

So, here’s my simple, step-by-step guide to tracking your sales numbers:

1.     Understand your sales process

Every business might have a slightly different sales process, but it’s important to have one – and to understand what yours is!  A simple example would be:

• Initial contact with prospect
• Follow up call to book appointment
• Send relevant information before meeting
• Meeting to discuss requirements
• Send proposal/quote
• Follow up
• Close

2.     Set up a sales board

It may take some time initially, but setting up and maintaining a sales board will pay dividends in terms of streamlining and tracking your sales. It allows you to see in an instant where each of your prospects are in the sales pipeline and ensures you keep on top of follow ups. Check out this earlier blog about the sales board to find out more.

3.     Track your numbers!

Once all this is in place, tracking your numbers becomes very easy. The information you want to record might include:

• Number of prospects
• Number of proposals sent
• Number of closes
• Value per close
• Length of time taken from initial contact to close

Only when you have all of this information in front of you can you work out where improvements are needed for you to grow your business.

You can work out how many closes you are getting in relation to prospects, how much your average close is worth and how long your sales process is taking.

For example:

• You have 15 prospects
• You close 5 deals
• Average of £10,000 per close
• Sales process takes one month

If this is a regular pattern, you can deduce that you are closing one in three deals and for every 15 prospects you bring in, you are closing deals  worth £50,000 of business.

From here you can now start to plan. If this is the average activity in one month, you can project your annual figures.

If you want to see that sales figure grow, you have to do one of three things – bring in more prospects, get better at closing or work on getting higher value clients.

So, if your sales figures are running away with you, implement these simple steps to get back on track!

Doug D’Aubrey has helped hundreds of companies grow and become more profitable with his practical, straight-forward advice. To find out if his growth or mentoring programmes could help you, request a free business review here.

As a business coach, I talk a lot about the sales process. It’s vital in a business to know how to find and follow-up on leads, how to approach and negotiate with customers and how to close a deal.

One of the issues that crops up time and again when talking sales with clients, however, is helping them appreciate the difference between the price of their product or service and its value to the customer.

A common mistake salespeople make is to negotiate on price, without considering the true value of their proposition to the customer.

So, what do I mean by value?

Think about why the customer is talking to you about your product or service. There must be a need there, usually a problem that they need solving. You simply need to identify what the problem is and what value they place on solving that problem.

Assessing the needs of a potential client should be the first conversation you have in any sales process. Listening is so much more important than talking in the early stages of communication with prospects – learning about their business and how you can help them.  Only then can you fully understand the value of what you’re offering.

For example…

The easiest way to illustrate the difference between price and value, is by citing some examples I’ve come across.

Example 1

A roofer receives a call from a factory owner.  The factory roof is leaking – so requires a quick fix.

The problem the roofer can solve here isn’t just the leaky roof. Consider the other problems that may occur.

The leak will probably be causing water damage inside the building – and possibly to stock, equipment or other contents. It could be causing operational disruption, requiring them to move operations to a different area, reducing workspace or making it difficult to maintain productivity levels. Depending on the severity of the problem, they might not be able to operate at all, and could be losing £1,000s in business. Left unchecked for any length of time, the cost incurred could inflate to a full replacement roof.

The value to the customer of fixing the roof, and doing so speedily, therefore, is being able to continue their daily operations unhindered, preventing the loss or damage of factory contents and preventing further expense if the problem gets worse. What is this worth to them?

Example 2

A payroll specialist is contacted by a care home. They are about to be inspected by HMRC and are concerned their payroll is not being done correctly. To the specialist, this is a simple job that won’t take a great deal of time so their initial thought is to charge a reasonable hourly rate for the time it takes to fix. But, consider the value of this job to the care home.

The specialist is not only being asked to ensure legal compliance for the future, offering peace of mind, they are preventing the client being fined £15,000 for non-compliance. This is a huge saving in financial terms, but will also save them the stress and inconvenience of legal proceedings, and help uphold their professional reputation. What value would they place on all of that?

Communicate all of that to the customer and they may well agree a much higher hourly rate!

And it’s not just the service we offer that we often undervalue – we undervalue ourselves and the skills and experience we bring.

Example 3

A counsellor was revising her fees and wasn’t sure what she should charge for her services.  She had always tried to remain in-line with the government’s fees for offering mental health support to children and families, which was around £20 per hour, thinking that people wouldn’t pay more. But her qualifications and experience far out-weighed those of the counsellors offered under the state mental health provision.

The years of specialist training undertaken in the area of child and family counselling has a value! To a family experiencing difficulties, the knowledge that they are going to get the right advice from someone who is fully versed in their problems, that will bring real results, is worth paying extra for.

Ironically, when this particular counsellor amended her prices to reflect her experience, and started charging £75 per hour, rather than struggling to fill spaces – she found herself with a waiting list.

It just goes to show, if you value yourself and your services highly, others tend to too.

Hopefully, you can now see why knowing and understanding the value of your service is so important before you try and agree on a price. Solving the customer’s problems is your selling point, and you should lead any discussions about price based on value.

During Doug D’Aubrey’s time working in business development for global corporations, he helped turn failing and unprofitable enterprises into multi-million pound businesses. He now shares his wealth of experience in business operations with others, helping them develop and grow in line with their business goals. His expertise spans all the core issues faced by corporate bodies, large or small, such as employee training, team management, HR, logistics, sales development, sales management and customer service.

To discover how Doug’s help could improve your business, request a free business review here.

If you own or manage a company, chances are you’ve been invited to at least one networking event.

They come in all shapes and sizes: big and small; morning, lunch or evening; weekly, fortnightly or one-off events; paid membership or free to attend… you get the picture! The burning question is, however, do any of them work?

The short answer is yes – but I do need to qualify that by saying yes, if you understand what networking is all about and do it the right way! You can’t expect to turn up at a networking event for the first time and leave with 20 new customers. There’s a networking etiquette that you need to understand and appreciate before you swagger in with a handful of business cards.

So, let’s start with the basics.

What is networking?

I quite like the description of networking on Wikipedia: “Networking is a socioeconomic business activity by which businesspeople and entrepreneurs meet to form business relationships and to recognise, create, or act upon business opportunities, share information and seek potential partners for ventures.”

Notice, nowhere does it say businesspeople go to sell their products or services! In my own words, networking is a marketing activity, the aim of which is to grow your contacts, meet people you may have a business affinity with and find potential referral partners.

What is a referral partner?

A referral partner is someone you could form a mutually beneficial business relationship with – someone you could pass contacts or work to and who can reciprocate, in turn passing useful contacts and opportunities to you.  In the wedding industry, for example, bridalwear shops, cake-makers, venues, photographers, florists and hair and beauty salons could all be great referral partners for each other.  Working together, a group of referral partners can become a power team that continually generate business for each other.

A great referral partner will generally:

• Work alongside or within the same industry as you
• Have a similar client base
• Be a well established and trusted supplier with a proven reputation
• Be someone you like or feel you can get on well with!

That last point may not sound particularly politically correct but, for any business partnership to work, it has to be based on mutual respect and trust and you need to feel a willingness to work together.

How do I go about finding referral partners?

Attending networking events and business exhibitions is a great first step to finding potential referral partners, but you have to go with the right attitude.  Turn up with the intention of finding out as much as you can about the other businesses attending.  Ask questions first, before mentioning what it is you do.  Here are some great questions, after ‘What do you do?’ that will help you glean the information you need to determine whether or not they will be a good ‘match’ for you and a potential referral partner:

• Who do you work with already?
• Who is your ideal customer?
• Are you looking to connect with anyone specific today?
• How can I help you?

People generally like to talk about themselves, so it shouldn’t be hard to get a conversation started.  If you think there is a genuine affinity, ask to book a one-to-one meeting at a later date where you can talk at greater length.

Which networking events are best?

As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, there are a huge variety of networking events out there.  Which one is best will differ for everyone.  Not all networking events will necessarily suit you and your business, so I always suggest you attend a few to:

• Discover what other businesses attend
• Decide if you like the meeting structure – some are very formal and some informal, for example
• Work out if you can commit to the group – some have certain expectations of their members, like bringing visitors to the group or passing a certain amount of referrals to other members
• Determine whether you feel it is worth the investment, both in terms of your time and any membership or meeting fees

If you are going to commit to attending one networking group regularly, make it one that you’re comfortable with, and that you feel you can benefit from.  Set yourself a time limit – say six months. If you haven’t found any opportunities with other members in this time, move on!

Do I have to attend meetings to network?

To meet new people and find fresh opportunities, attending events and meetings is the best way. Before you do that, however, just take a look through your existing database of contacts. Think about the qualities I set out above that make a great referral partner. You may have contacts that fit the bill already, but have never thought to explore the potential for passing referrals to one another. Find five influential people in your business circle – ask them how you can help each other.

The best advice I can offer is to give networking a go with the above in mind. You’re not looking for hundreds of people, just a select few that can become key referral partners. Offer to help others and you will usually find they are willing to help you in return.

If you would like to join me as a visitor at a networking group in Wolverhampton, I attend a weekly meeting at The Goldthorn Hotel on a Thursday morning.  There is no obligation to join.  For more information, please give me a call on 01384 355 444.

There’s not many people who are ‘natural networkers’, who feel totally comfortable mingling in a room full of strangers.
It’s something I’ve had to work at as a businessman, which is why the horrified look I get from clients when I suggest they start networking doesn’t surprise me. The worry of feeling like an outsider in a group, combined with the terrifying possibility of having to stand up and say something, stop a lot of people embracing this element of marketing.

Public speaking remains one of the top fears amongst the business community. In fact, a poll in 2013 placed public speaking above death in a list of people’s greatest fears – which explains why many find the thought of networking nerve-wracking. The study even prompted the publication of a book ‘…and Death Came Third!: The Definitive Guide to Networking and Speaking in Public’ by Andy Lopata and Peter Roper. It’s worth a read if you want some lengthier advice on how to fight the fear.

I’ve heard some coaches tell their clients ‘practise makes perfect’ and advise them to just get out there and do it. I’ve also heard coaches come out with the old adage ‘do something every day that scares you, or pushes your boundaries’, but neither of these nuggets of advice really help dispel those nerves! What has proved helpful with some of my clients, however, is giving them a few facts to remember when they’re faced with entering and addressing a room full of business peers.  So, I thought I’d share them with you.

Here are my top five fear-busting facts to take with you next time you go networking:

1 – Everyone else in the room is there to do the same as you – they want to talk to you and they want to hear what you have to say.  And the majority probably have the same fears as you, some simply hide it better than others!

2 – Networking is simply about conversing with people. Whether you’re asked to tell one person or 20 about your business, think of it as nothing more than a conversation. Answer the question as if you were in a one-to-one situation – it’s exactly the same.

3 – No-one is waiting to throw rotten tomatoes at you – they want you to succeed.

4 – You don’t have to be an outgoing person to network, people will come to you. New faces at networking events are generally welcomed with open arms, it’s very rare you’ll be left a wilting wallflower.  Embrace the interest and chat to people.  They’ll usually do their best to help you feel at ease.

5 – Remember why you’re there. This is a business meeting, and it will make a difference to your business by being there. Focus on the goal, you want to meet like-minded professional people who you may be able to work with in the future. Put on your best professional persona – it helps keep the personal feelings under control.

It is true that your confidence will grow with experience, so although it may feel very strange and a little scary at first, it will get better. If you feel more comfortable taking a friend or colleague the first time, then do that.  It never hurts to have a friendly face in the crowd and a fallback to talk to.

Just don’t let the fear stand in your way!

I’m thrilled to announce I’ve been invited to run a series of mentoring workshops for the Black Country Chamber of Commerce, offering expert support and advice on growing your business and becoming more profitable.

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘to achieve something different – you have to do something different’?

As a busy company director or manager, it can be easy to get tied up in the day-to-day operations of your business – working all hours to keep afloat and wondering why you’re still struggling with cash flow.  Does this sound familiar?

Unless you sit back and evaluate how the company is performing, and make changes to improve, however, you will never develop and grow.

Can you give just two hours per month to make your business more profitable?

Sometimes, it only takes small changes to create big differences in your fortunes.  This is what I demonstrate day-in, day-out with my clients.

It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is currently, or what industry you work in, the challenges we face in business are very much the same.

These workshops are designed to help you re-focus on the bigger picture, ensuring business essentials are not only in place, but are working effectively for you – leading to better profits and a smoother-running operation.

The three mentoring workshops will develop your skills constructively, helping you plan more strategically and offering practical take-away tips that you can implement straight away.

Here’s a breakdown of the workshop dates and content:

Mentoring Workshop One
Monday 3rd October
A Marketing Strategy

Create a marketing plan, understand which prospects to target and how to generate the right leads, and decide on the action you need to take to promote yourself effectively.

Mentoring Workshop Two
Thursday 3rd November
The Sales Strategy

Discover the best way to make contact with prospects, set appointments, and ultimately close the deal.

Mentoring Workshop Three
Tuesday 6th December
The Customer Retention Strategy

Once you have a customer base, it’s important to nurture it! Learn what activities and actions can reduce customer defections and grow customer and brand loyalty.

Each workshop runs from 9:30am to 11:30am at the Black Country Chamber Of Commerce, Creative Industries Centre, Wolverhampton Science Park, Wolverhampton, WV10 9TG.

Sessions are just £10 each for Black Country Chamber members, or £20 each for non-members (a total of £30 or £60 for all three)*  I hope you’ll agree that’s fantastic value!

*Prices are subject to VAT

Book your place today

To book online visit the BCC website at www.blackcountrychamber.co.uk/bcc-events or telephone 01902 912305 or email events@blackcountrychamber.co.uk.

Please note that cancellations are required in writing 7 days prior to the event, at which point an official cancellation number will be issued. Unfortunately cancellations within this time cannot be accommodated by a full refund.  PLEASE NOTE WE CANNOT ACCEPT BOOKING WITHOUT PRIOR PAYMENT.