It’s an all too typical situation. Your candidate accepts your offer, they get excited about the new job, and they go to see their boss to resign. Then….. BUY-BACK happens. 

Always a hot topic, buy-back is a nightmare when it happens, but it is also one of the potential pitfalls of the offer management process that we can easily head off before it occurs.…

One of the easiest, and best ways to increase your business’s revenue and profitability is to sell more services to your existing clients. Cross-selling and up-selling.

Of all the business issues I discuss with my clients, the one that comes up over and over again as a real opportunity area is cross-selling. In fact, I’m yet…

It’s a funny recruitment world we live in these days. Funny, in that so many new consultants (and to be fair the managers who teach them) have grown up in a world dominated by email, and on-line recruitment systems. Funny, for those of us who grew up in a world of desk phones, private incoming phone lines and fax machines.…

In an age where good customer service is so hard to get and business is often tough, I am amazed at how little attention some businesses pay to the first, whilst moaning on and on about the second.

Hello, can someone serve me please?

This morning I went into the village to get something from the chemist. I…

In the music business there are a two main ways to succeed. You can work like crazy and hope to be found, doing what you need to do until stardom breaks, or you can apply to an advert, audition for a band or singing group and be produced into a star.

Both are legitimate ways to succeed. …

It’s interesting to look at successful businesses and understand the factors that make them such a success. There are of course many many of these, great product or service, great people, great hiring, great training, great value proposition – the list goes on and on….

The one thing that they all have in common however, is that they all get the job done right the…

So, people have mentioned that you should write a blog. You think you should too, but where to start? What would you write about? Will anyone read it anyway? And what about all the time it takes? You are busy, right? Where will you find the extra time? 

The list can go on and on. All the excuses under the…

How often do you ask your clients for feedback – you know when you have finished a job for them, or part way through a project? How happy are they with what you have done?

And when you do ask, isn’t it great when they tell you how fantastic they think you are and how great the service was from you. It makes us feel awesome doesn’t it, nice, warm and fuzzy inside. But, as awesome as it makes you feel how useful is it to help you grow your business?

Of course we…

When we introduce children to Rugby, one of the first things we teach them is how to pass a ball. 

Passing is a fundamental of the game and really important to learn well early on. To help children learn to pass we teach them a technique called the Magic W. 

This…

We all know that first impressions count. In business it is so important and in the world of social media platforms that first impression can cost you dearly if you get it wrong. 

There are many horror stories of people posting mad things to Facebook etc, but historically most have been more conservative…

When I first started life as a recruitment consultant my manager and mentor at the time told me that there are only three things that are important in the hiring process:

1. personality

2. personality

3.…

Like most businesses, you want to grow. This growth plan is a mixture of organic building and investing in hiring externally. Ideally, a person with a strong experience, who is a perfect cultural fit for your business.

So you meet with a recruitment consultancy who spend hours with you, understanding your business, and getting a very clear picture of your need and…

It’s such a common story. You get great at your day job, and start become one of the company’s rising stars. You bill at very high levels compared with your colleagues and people begin to talk about you. You are a high flyer, a top performer, one to watch.

Then one day your ambitions become reality. Your boss pulls you into a meeting room…

So how do you go from nothing to the top of www.google.co.uk’s natural search? This is a massive question and not one easily answered. There are plenty of ‘gurus’ who are happy to tell you their thoughts.…

I’ve recently had a call from a good client of mine, asking if I was able to run a new training programme for them.

Sounds great doesn’t it? Well, ordinarily yes, but in this instance I wasn’t sure.

Like most people I love being asked to do more work for my clients, but the problem was that what they were asking for wasn’t really my main area of expertise.

It was something that I touch on in other courses…

Do you X-ray?

No? What’s X-ray? Have I lost you already? Okay then, let me start at the beginning..…

When we search the internet for information, most of us open up a search engine in our browser – in fact, most of us open up the world’s No.1 search engine – Google. If we don’t use Google, then we are likely to open up the world’s No.2 search engine…

I've talked with a lot of people lately who are keen to improve their ranking on the search engines, and in particular Google.

This isn't a straight forward conversation, and truth is that Google changes it's search algorithm all the time. Unless you are a web wiz, keeping up with these changes and implementing the latest best practice is not easy. But…

“Under promise and over deliver” – these are the very wise words of Tom Peters. It’s such a simple concept but in practice so few businesses manage to do it.

This baffles me.

If we manage our client’s expectations, if we let them know exactly what they can expect and then deliver on, and if possible over that expectation – every one is happy. And we all want…