Blog | SME Skills Academy

Nov 2, 2018
7 min

Follow up!

Leading by following…up. I did a speaking gig earlier this year and followed up an attendee on the off chance they might buy by sending some case studies over. We traded emails trying to find a suitable time to meet to discuss a discovery session to discuss elevating their sales. I added value to the prospect by inviting them to events I was running and sending educational material and content. When I write this out as a storyboard of contact between us I reached no less than

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Optimise yourself… You can have it all! Part 2

Danielle Wade

Oct 11, 2018
4 min

Optimise yourself… You can have it all! Part 2

So, how did you get on with writing out your detailed goals in Part 1? Easier than you thought? If you went through and answered each question in detail, what you should have ended up with is a clearer picture of what your goal is, what it means to you, why you want to achieve it, how you will achieve it and by when… if you now have all of this written down… Well done! This is a huge step in the right direction… In my previous post we were looking at the meaning of the word ‘

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Optimise yourself… You can have it all! Part 1

Danielle Wade

Oct 4, 2018
3 min

Optimise yourself… You can have it all! Part 1

So who feels like they could do a better job of managing their time? Every single one of us… I love quality time with my nearest & dearest, letting my hair down, great food & wine and going on some sort of holiday 6 times a year — so you could say I’m on a quest to prove (to myself more than anyone else I hasten to add) that you can have it all! Now ‘having it all’ will mean something different to each of us… and usually compromises of a number of things… For me it means havi

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Darren Garraghan

Sep 15, 2018
2 min

Don’t lower your prices to compete.

Value can be described as the extent to which a customer is willing to go to buy your product or service. This isn’t always dependant on price. Have you ever considered two products with similar attributes where one is more expensive; somehow you consider buying the one at a higher value believing it to be a better product. Something can be seen as having value even at a higher price. The fact is, most people see a products price as an indication of its value. Something highe

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Forget what you think you do. YOUR JOB IS SALES.

Darren Garraghan

Sep 3, 2018
4 min

Forget what you think you do. YOUR JOB IS SALES.

It doesn’t matter what business you think you are in; YOU ARE IN SALES! Whether you are someone selling a product, or a service or simply selling yourself. You must sell. You need to think this way to grow your business or strive for success within the company you work. Sales is a tough business. Fact. When the economy is down, or the competition is tough, or the weather is too good or it’s the summer holidays soon there is always a time when selling is tough. Hearing a lot o

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Nigel Brookes

Aug 18, 2018
4 min

WHY do we communicate VALUE?

Those of you that saw my latest video on communicating value (Adding Value video) will know that recently my mindset got blindsided, I received news affecting me in a way that I didn't expect. I followed up on a prospect I met some months ago, seemed like a promising opportunity for me, the director was torn between running the company and keeping his hand on training his new sales recruit. A gift opportunity for a sales consultant: "Enlist me to train your staff, you can run

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Follow a Process... Your Path to Success

Nigel Brookes

Jun 23, 2018
12 min

Follow a Process... Your Path to Success

How do you break out of your niche? How can you plan to double or triple your sales and get a decision from every customer? How can you treat every customer the same if everyone is different? The last time you went on a trip, part of that probably involved some form of planning or itinerary of the journey. You will have mapped out how you were going to get from Point 'A' to Point 'B'...and maybe if like me you have small children had to include stops 'C' through 'K' just to d

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Nigel Brookes

Jun 23, 2018
5 min

The Formula For Growing your Business

Is it a secret? No! Is it painstakingly obvious? Maybe...like an optical illusion, the one that's all black and white squares hiding a picture of a boat which takes a few minutes to see. Do you need to know this? Yes!!! But like most things: it's simply the case of looking at the same thing you always do from a different perspective or "frame of reference" as my Physics teacher used to say. I felt it important to write this article because once I started to appreciate this fo

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How many dead cats do you have in your sales pipeline? Why you need to be brave and look inside the

Sharon Bartlett

May 3, 2018
2 min

How many dead cats do you have in your sales pipeline? Why you need to be brave and look inside the

Disclaimer: No imaginary cats were harmed during the writing of this blog. When you are growing a business a large part of your effort is focused on getting your message out there and generating enquiries and leads for your new business. You work hard at defining your niche, identifying your target market and directing your marketing activity for maximum effect. Slowly, but surely, those enquiries start to build. You diligently log every one of them, and you watch the list de

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Value Vs. Price...It's All In The Pitch.

Nigel Brookes

May 2, 2018
8 min

Value Vs. Price...It's All In The Pitch.

I saw a question in one of my news-feeds this week about pricing a product and when you should reveal the price to prospects: upfront in your proposal or not? Initially my first thought went to my blog article entitled 'Sales Over Marketing' and how many marketers would probably do something akin to an information dump and hope that the prospect generates their own buying impulse from what they receive and make a decision. But then after reading ALL the comments of people bra

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Nigel Brookes

Apr 28, 2018
6 min

Sales over Marketing!

A few years ago I looked into developing a website and running my own business as a digital entrepreneur. A very popular decision these days for those wanting to earn a primary or even secondary income in today's job market. The ideas of: 'Make money whilst you sleep', 'Live a digital lifestyle', 'run an entire business from the comfort of your dressing gown' all sounded great to me and even now I could easily leap at any one of those strap lines because I still find them app

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Jan Kelly

Apr 4, 2018
2 min

Pitching for success!

Yes, I know this is the one area which a lot of businesses, and individuals have that ‘scare moment’ with. I would like to share with you how I helped one healthcare professional, overcome the fear of pitching her business to end users… even though she could cope with disabilities, which would make the rest of us humble and insignificant. “Will I be found out that I don’t understand how to pitch for toffee, and I can’t make a good impression straight away” This is the stateme

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Get your head in the game and think BIG!!!

Nigel Brookes

Mar 29, 2018
5 min

Get your head in the game and think BIG!!!

Getting out of bed in the morning sometimes, used to be a struggle before I started treating my Sales Attitude like a companion: along for the journey, never absent and directly responsible for my activity, productivity and mental wellbeing. Your mindset and sales attitude in particular, isn't just about feeling chirpy all the time, or always having a smile on your face; its bouncing back from a bad day, picking yourself up after you've been chewed up by a bad sales meeting o

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You can teach an old dog new tricks – the hidden power of coaching

Sharon Bartlett

Mar 23, 2018
2 min

You can teach an old dog new tricks – the hidden power of coaching

OK, confession time – I am a geek. There, it’s out there… I absolutely love science, and neuroscience is my favourite of them all. There used to be a theory that after a certain age the brain was not capable of creating new synapses and therefore you couldn’t really learn any new skills, hence the old wives’ tale ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’. Fortunately for those of us who are reaching a certain age, in 2014 neuroscientists were able to prove that the striatum, a

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Changing mindset to improve business development

Jan Kelly

Mar 16, 2018
2 min

Changing mindset to improve business development

We all have that little person sat on our shoulder, ready to give us nagging doubt or criticism when we are about to do something different, or out of our comfort zone. This applies to attitude… when we are faced with developing our business sales and ideas – but how do we manage our mindset? And above all, how do we change to stay focused and to grow? Step 1 – lets fix that mindset 'voice' – this is the voice that says “are you sure you can do this?”, “told you it was a risk

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SME SKILLS ACADEMY

Sales Consulting, Training and Coaching

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Follow up!

Optimise yourself… You can have it all! Part 2

Optimise yourself… You can have it all! Part 1

Don’t lower your prices to compete.

Forget what you think you do. YOUR JOB IS SALES.

WHY do we communicate VALUE?

Follow a Process... Your Path to Success

The Formula For Growing your Business

How many dead cats do you have in your sales pipeline? Why you need to be brave and look inside the

Value Vs. Price...It's All In The Pitch.

Sales over Marketing!

Pitching for success!

Get your head in the game and think BIG!!!

You can teach an old dog new tricks – the hidden power of coaching

Changing mindset to improve business development

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