Category The Art of Influencing and Selling

March 27, 2015,  Events, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

On the 26 March 2015, the Faculty of Business and Law at Kingston University London was host to a delegation of students from the University of Berlin that were on an exchange visit.

Part of the itinerary, organised by Dr Amelia Au-Yeung was to explore whether students are adequately prepared for life in the world of commerce and whether business schools are doing enough to equip them to be effective salespeople.

To help stimulate debate as to whether it’s ‘nature or nurture’, I was asked was asked to pull together a panel of experts to debate the issue with our visitors from Germany.

Fatima Annan-Diab, Associate professor at the Faculty of Business and Law referred t...

June 30, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, Marketing practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

Retailers that simply try to appeal to shoppers during waking hours may be in for a shock, according to new research from the US by brand strategy consultants Vivaldi Partners Group.

There’s a new breed of consumer that can’t actually be reached through traditional marketing channels and marketers need to have deployed strategies in order to reach this group who are active at any time of day.

And it’s not enough to break your customer base down into groups according to age and gender – marketers need to build up the fullest possible picture of each customer in order to target them with highly individualised messages.

The days of traditional bricks and mortar, 9am to ...

June 28, 2014,  Brand marketing, Guru in a Bottle, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Sponsorship News, The Art of Influencing and Selling  One comment

The company says it’s “definitely” on track to break trading records this year having registered strong sales figures pre and during the current World Cup. Adidas has been gradually building demand for its shirts, boots and balls since last November to try and ease the pressure on its retail network during the tournament trading period.

As a sponsor of nine national teams, Adidas has sold more than 8m shirts, a significant increase on the 6.5m shirt sales it achieved for the 2010 World Cup...

May 15, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, Sales practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

Yesterday I had a wonderful lunch at my club Bafta in Piccadilly with a great friend of mine, Lena Robinson.

Lena is one of the most gifted business development professionals I’ve ever worked with when we were together at WPP and she now runs an incredible business development powerhouse for agency entrepreneurs called KiwiGirl.

Check it out!  Lena is an inspiration of ideas and new ways of thinking. And yesterday she shared something very special that I wanted to share with you too.

But before I share this with you, let me take you briefly into the conversation we started with over sausages, crab bites, burger and chips and a very nice bottle of wine!

We talked about Guru...

April 11, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, Marketing practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling, Thought Leadership  No comments

Choice is now something we all take for granted – from the type of product or service we desire, the features we look for that best suit our particular needs and requirements and even how much we’re prepared to pay for this.

Traditional marketing thinking went something like this: “Increase levels of customer satisfaction and give customers more of what they want is the key to commercial success.”

Well, the reality is somewhat different in 2014.

Much of the time, most of us don’t think too deeply about how happy we are about the product we’ve just bought at the supermarket or the service we’ve received at the local shoe repairer or whether it completely fulfils our ne...

February 15, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

Amazon built a gigantic global business on the back of choice and delivering products when the customer wants it.

As I mention in my previous blog, Amazon has taken this a step further and is planning to box and deliver products that it expects customers in a specific area will want based on previous orders, product searches, wish lists, shopping cart contents, returns and other online shopping practices it gleans from its customers’ shopping patterns, even before they’ve clicked ‘buy.’

However, some researchers are predicting a backlash to these and other strategies that are all designed to get us to spend more.

The main contentious point of consumer-ology, a term coin...

January 23, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Sales practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

There was a time when global brand owners thought all that mattered was their own brand. Coca-Cola led the way in showing how powerful the monolithic brand of its eponymous carbonated drink can be around the world. And of course the same could also be said of other great global brands like McDonalds, KFC, Levis and Microsoft.

However, the assumptions about power of brands and the way they need to be built in emerging markets are being turned on their head.

Let’s take the humble cup of coffee and what US-giant Starbucks is doing in India right now to get Indian consumers to drink more coffee rather than just tea...

January 16, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Essential Law for Marketers, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Social marketing practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

Mobile device adoption is growing exponentially and if you look at almost any industry metric the trajectory for mobile growth over the next five years is stratospheric.

In fact, it’s so ubiquitous it’s hard to image a time when there wasn’t a cacophony of cheesy ringtones chirping happily away in the pockets and handbags of its owners signalling another email, text message or in-coming call.

Along with the growth of the mobile platform has been a lot of hot air and nonsense about mobile marketing or what it’s now more frequently referred to as m-marketing.

Myth #1: To do mobile marketing you need an app

This is the biggest myth and a few years’ ago a bunch of devel...

January 9, 2014,  Marketing practice, Sales practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

The primary difference between a poor and a great ‘pitch’ is in its delivery.

It’s not just what’s being said but how it’s said that can really make the difference. 

But that doesn’t mean you have to put on a gorilla suit to get noticed!

If you’ve ever been in a situation where there isn’t much time to deliver a ‘knock em dead’ sales and marketing pitch fear not!

By following these Top 10 Tips you’ll soon become an expert at delivering the perfect ‘pitch’.  And you can read more about how to make a great pitch in The Art of Influencing and Selling!

#1: Conquer your nerves

Most people get nervous when doing a sales and marketing pitch and that’...

December 22, 2013,  News, Sales practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

With just two more shopping days to go before Christmas Day, there’s evidence that the UK’s high street retailers are in panic mode over generating sales as nearly 75% are holding sales or promotions in a last-ditch attempt to attract shoppers.

The average discounts rose to 46% compared with 42% last week and 44% in the same week last year, according to the accountancy firm PwC.

Today, Marks & Spencer is planning to extend 30% discounts across all its non-food product lines and has already introduced 30% reductions on its knitwear as well as beauty items, nightwear and Per Una clothing range...