With each day that passes

A proof of concept is an exercise in which work is focused on determining whether an idea can be turned into a reality. A proof of concept is meant to determine the feasibility of the idea or to verify that the idea will function as envisioned. As soon as the proof of concept is in place, all the motivation to close the sale is already there. All the energy you need to have that sale cross the line in the right way at the right time is also in your hands.

“To know others is knowledge.
To know oneself is wisdom.
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— Lao Tzu

Anxieties darken the skies

Look at what the world believes about selling, the world believes selling is about pitching and persuading. The way targets are set up are for example, how much did you sell this month? The problem is salespersons dive into pitching before creating an urgency for the product or service they are selling and this causes pipelines to clog, and sales cycles to slow down. Just imagine if the sales managers better understood the psychology of selling and trained their sales teams to listen to the buyers and understand the problem they are trying to solve. The better the salespersons understand what it costs them by not solving the buyers’ problems, the more likely they will change the way they approach sales meetings and presentations. 

A need is a necessity arising from a certain problem, a real problem; and a want is what people think or say they need. I think salesperson’s really need to learn how to listen to their buyers and not to pitch or persuade them before clearly understanding their needs. Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.

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Self reflection

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According to Indeed business leadership refers to how individuals make decisions, set goals, and provide direction in a professional environment. Business leadership can take many different forms, but usually involves a CEO or higher-level employees guiding and inspiring the rest of the team. I have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the core elements of business leadership and I think the essential business management skills should include:

  • Critical and strategic thinking

  • Communication

  • Problem-solving

  • Organisation

  • Presenting

  • Reporting

  • Leadership

  • Project management

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A simple buying process

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I love to simplify complex things and I think that buyers go through 3 stages before purchase:

⁃  Awareness: What’s the problem and what’s the desired outcome?
⁃  Consideration: How can we achieve these things?
⁃  Decision: Who are we going to do this with?

The first two platforms are a battle over ideas and as a salesperson you must come into buying meetings with good questions and ideas. Buyers usually do their research and will get the facts and figures online, so salespersons have to step their game. We have start getting salespersons to start having conversations instead of giving presentations - true storytelling with references and testimonials. Contact me via e-mail when you are ready for a sales training and storytelling workshops.

Speakers' corner

Storytelling is an undervalued and underused art in the world of business. I think it’s unfortunate that it’s only in our roles as businesspeople that we avoid using stories. We share the latest organisational gossip with our colleagues, and we tell our friends stories about our personal lives. Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park has been a traditional site for public speeches and debates since the mid 1800's when protests and demonstrations took place there. As a child my parents would take us to Speakers' Corner. 

When was the last time you heard a story used to introduce and discuss a business issue? Do you have high anxiety around public speaking? Contact me via e-mail if you are interested in learning how to share a short story that other people in the room can relate to.

How clear are your questions?

After you ask a question, be silent and listen for their answer. 

⁃ Active listening means you’re concentrating on their response, making direct eye contact, and taking notes.

⁃ Are you paying attention to nonverbal cues?

⁃ What’s not being said is usually more important than what is said.

⁃ Keep it positive and focus on what can be done, not what can’t be done.

It’s the cornerstone

Critical thinking is the ability and eagerness to identify gaps in logic or shortfalls in evidence-based argumentation. Sympathetic listening is that commitment to understanding the argument from the other person’s perspective. For example: “Am I really understanding this or that from the other person’s point of view?”

Now what sympathy means in these cases is I am willing to set aside, even if it’s just temporarily, that hunt for the slightest mistake in logic or reasoning. Setting that aside for a moment, so that you can listen really carefully to what your conversation partner is saying, so you can understand from their perspective what their intellectual project is or why it is that they are looking at the same world you are looking at but coming to a very, very different conclusion. I think critical thinking and sympathetic listening are both facets of a great conversation.

The 4 C's

Why are these skills important?

1. Communication
I think communication is all about sharing thoughts, ideas, and questions. Communication can come in many it’s not just speaking verbally as non-verbal cues such as hand gestures and facial expressions are just as important. And nowadays, as we live in a digital world, it is also important to learn how to responsibly navigate digital spaces.

2. Collaboration
I think the ability to collaborate and work together to reach a common goal is a skill worth practicing. Problem solving and tackling issues in which are bigger is essential if you want a career in any field. 

3. Critical Thinking
I think by looking at problems in a new way and simply asking “Why?” in today’s world where we can get information at the click of a button, a large part of critical thinking is being able to look at information and decide if it is credible or not.

4. Creativity
I think being creative is trying new approaches to solve problems by simply thinking outside the box in any area. Creativity can be taught and fostered by encouraging your team to try new things and by creating a safe space for them to express themselves.

Setting goals

I wrote it down, put a date on it, listed the obstacles I had to overcome, identified the people, the groups, the organisations I needed to work with, spelled out a plan of action, set that time limit in there, and identified all the benefits to me. It was only when I did that, that the goal became a reality.

“If you want to achieve your goals, help others achieve their goals.”
— Zig Ziglar

How creative are you?

How creative do you think you are? 

Creativity comes from inside and I believe that having the ability to think out of the box and experiment with things is the engine of achievement. We live on the fruits of rationalism and curiosity is the fuel to keep us awake and aware. I think that when you are creative, you will be able to turn new and imaginative ideas into reality.

Dancing with fear

F.E.A.R. is an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real”.
There's no true threat of immediate physical danger, no threat of a loss of someone or something dear to us, actually nothing there at all. F.E.A.R. is an illusion. Something we fabricate in our own minds and pretend is real. Fear is something normal, your reaction to fear tells you who you are…

Lucky gene club

I won the birthday lottery and was privileged to being born in South London and to have Jamaican parents. I grew up thinking that it was normal to contribute in some way, whether it was by direct economic contribution, social presence or giving food and drink. It was expected of me to be part of something to make “something” better and this energy made it easy for other people to act on it. Character is not something that you buy; it is not a commodity that can be bartered for; it is not a quality suited for only the rich and famous; rather, character is built upon the foundational commitment of love, honesty, and compassion for others.

If it bleeds, it leads

What happens when you give everyone a microphone?

There will be a lot of noise out there. 
In the past when we had a gatekeeper who chose who had a microphone was both good and bad. It was bad because it silenced voices immediately and it was good because it kept microphones away from people who wanted to tear things down. When I think about what is on offer from the social media networks, it’s really important to decode this and understand that we are not their customers, we are their products. We do not pay to use any social media platforms and these companies (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are selling us and our data to someone else and have created a regime where they make us feel bad all day and the only way to feel less bad is to click something. That’s the cycle they have built and the problem with that cycle and the easily measured metrics of how many followers you have, pushes people to be purist, it pushes people to be angry and it pushes people to tear folks down. 

The phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads” basically means that the media loves violence. In other words, if a story involves a brutal death or injury of some kind (or the likelihood of it), it is likely to get higher ratings. 

Talk is cheap

What are the changes we seek to make, in order to become the type of person we want to be?

There are a series of choices we have to make, and I think these choices are easier if we have habits. Habits get us results; goals are results! Having a goal that you are going to for example, go to lose weight does not tell me anything. Whereas having the goal to go to the gym every other day for 6 months and you are going to get as fit as a fiddle is a way more specific goal and is totally in your control.

Success is a numbers game

Do you consistently ask yourself the question, “What am I doing that someone else can do just as well?” Don't let others define what “success” is for you. Once you have defined your idea of success, commit yourself to doing all the great things you can do to achieve it.

Here’s a few factors of success:
1. Purpose
2. Vision
3. Goals
4. Choices
5. Reasons
6. Environment
7. Attitude
8. Time
9. Energy
10. Results

The Chocolate War

We live in a society where we spend so much time doing, we fail to take time to celebrate and acknowledge the things that we have done. As you may know, I have spent a great deal of my career in the lifestyle industry, and I think fashion can be a brilliant mirror of the moment.

Last night I attended the world premiere of “The Chocolate Wars” in Copenhagen. The film director, Miki Mistrati is an old friend of mine who currently lives in London and the film highlights the modern-day slave trade issues in the manufacturing of chocolate. The fact of the matter is we live in a society where profit and growth are the key performance indicators, and I have posed this question many times before: Can we have both sustainability (ethical sourcing of materials, paying a fair wage throughout the supply chain, etc.) and economic growth?