I love a good Butt Kick! As in, provided I’m the one delivering said ‘kick’ rather than being the recipient! Obviously. In fact, I’ve built my ‘ButtKicker’ persona on the back of this. People have come to expect ‘say it like it is’ talk from me when they attend one of my mentoring sessions, or book in for one of my free ButtKicker calls. It might sound as though I choose to be deliberately harsh in these calls – but that’s not really the case. It’s more about just being honest with people.  After 32 years running my own business and mentoring others running theirs, I really have ..read more

The original title of this week’s blog was ‘What a pizza of a PR strategy’. I’ll let you decide what the subject matter was going to be! As the days have gone by this week I have decided it would be inappropriate to say more about the lessons businesses can learn from the risks of ill-conceived PR. ‘Nuff said. So, at the 11th hour, I’ll return to one of my well-worn themes for a quick business lesson that everyone should review – that of following up. I’m getting to that age where my family history is becoming more and more important – no more old folks left to ask and all that. It just took a ..read more

I’m no stranger to feeling tad miffed from time to time – it’s all part of the human condition! And I was properly miffed just the other day … and it’s reminded me of an important business lesson. I did one of my talks recently and, as is my wont, I invited participants to connect with me at the end of the session, also offering one of my trademark ‘Buttkicker’ calls to anyone who was feeling stuck in their business growth. As per normal, a few people took me up on this offer. In fact, one of the new connections went so far as to introduce me to their husband later that day, via ..read more

It was Steve’s birthday the other day and I always try to challenge myself to come up with a ‘birthday experience’; after all, we’ve got to ‘that age’ when we have enough stuff – but you can’t beat creating a great memory. And I think I excelled myself on this occasion – three experiences no less! Tonight we are off to attend our ‘steak and sauces’ cookery experience in Albury; in August I’ve booked a gin tour but, in birthday week itself, we did the Amazon Fulfilment Centre tour! When I told my niece about it afterwards, she exclaimed, “Blimey Auntie V, that’s something you buy s ..read more

I did a talk on sales structure and sales process recently – and what happened 2 weeks later really made me stop and think. The primary point being that most people have neither structure nor process and rely on the ‘wing it, hope and pray’ approach to selling. Which, in their defence, is probably the most popular strategy in use by UK small business owners today. It’s not great at delivering results but it has the benefit of being ‘comfortable’ and low stress. I took it that everyone who attended the talk must have felt they had something they wanted to learn about sales, so I wa ..read more

The cost of First Class stamp is now 70p. Back in 1971, when the UK first went decimal (I remember it well because I was the class dinner money monitor on decimalisation day!), First Class Post cost just 3p. As recently as 2005 the cost had only reached 10 times that – at 30p. And here we are in 2019 at 23 times that cost. So, have you noticed how little post you get these days? Hardly surprising you might say. There was a time that your letter would be submerged in the mountain of other mail – but now it has the very real chance of it lurking on doormats and reception desks all ..read more

Or so one of my clients said to me the other day. I believe it was meant in a good way – we were discussing the merits of planning and preparation and it seems I fall at one very far end of the spectrum in that regard. I believe ‘anally retentive’ is another phrase that’s sometimes used to describe my approach! But her comment made me stop and think. Because she’s right, I do like to plan for every eventuality in a given situation. For example, preparing for the implementation of GDPR last year; doing a presentation to a room full of business owners; or planning the giant surprise ..read more

Well, my Mum always said it pays to be nice. And so it proved to be last weekend when I won and iPad and Apple Pencil, worth $1000 or more. Just for being nice. Or, more to the point, just being honest. You see, the guys who run the CRM I use – called AllClients – were asking their clients for video testimonials. They had an IPad Pro and Apple Pencil on offer for the lucky winner of their draw – all participants had to do was deliver a video by the 5pm deadline last Friday. They understand that social proof is important in the way we ALL make decisions – essentially, has someone else like me ..read more

In this last week I have had TWO of these conversations. And in 2019 so far, I’ve probably had half a dozen similar conversations. And it’s almost always about websites. Or, more to the point, lack of websites! They tend to sound something like this …     I can’t launch until my new website is finished and I can’t get them to commit to a date     I’ve just briefed my third lot of web designers – the others have let me down and it’s cost me a fortune     The web people say it will be another 3 weeks – but they’ve been saying that for months     My web designer hasn’t replied to me ..read more

In Part One of my ‘Nose to tail marketing’ article, I was looking at why so many potential sales and connections are lost because a website landing environment has simply failed to understand the problem the customer is facing. Whether that’s from ‘normal’ Google searching or paid-for advertising (PPC). Often landing pages are too generic; don’t cover the product or service that was ‘Googled’; don’t answer the right questions; or simply fail to ‘move customers forward’. All criminal in my book! Helping the prospect to ‘move forward’ is key. ‘Googling’ is a very uncommitted search ..read more