Archive for the ‘Finance & Accounting’ Category

A gentle puzzle for you!

March 26th, 2010 Linda Mattacks

A woman had built a successful service business from scratch and enjoyed the lifestyle that went with it – nice house, top of the range car, holidays abroad, dining out, classy clothes, trips to the theatre – she’d earned it all.

She had a permanent workforce of fifteen people and about thirty-five part time outworkers who all relied on her for their income.

Then the bottom fell out of the market and the only way for her and the company to survive was to change direction. The car, her pride and joy, was the first to go along with the dining out and theatre.

She had enough good clothes to still ‘look the part’ and they’d last a while. But, as time went on, employees became disaffected, morale was low and she was losing confidence in her own abilities to successfully ride the storm.

Could she do it?

The answer at this stage was: Possibly. Yet she was smart enough to realise she’d reached a point where she was ‘too close to the wood to see the trees’ and couldn’t do it on her own.

She didn’t wheel in a business coach with a track record running companies; she approached someone who would help her think differently. And, together they got results within weeks:

  • After a get together of the core workforce fourteen were totally ‘onside’ and the remaining one, who clearly wasn’t, left the company.
  • She was made to follow up a potential contract that had gone suddenly quiet: She discovered there’d been a misunderstanding that was about to scupper the deal. She was able to clear it up and get an order that immediately put £25,000 into her company’s funds and not only considerably eased the financial pressure but also boosted her personal confidence.
  • She was made to ‘go play’ with those who still owned the make of car she’d had and found they automatically regarded her as one of them – whether she happened to actually own one at the moment or not.

She and her company did ride the storm; she got another dream car, a second home in Europe, where she now spends much of her time…

The ‘moral of the tale’ is in the story – what’s your view on what it is? Post your thoughts in the comments here :-)

Linda Mattacks - Small Business Training

A gentle puzzle for you!
Posted in Business, Finance & Accounting, Marketing, Sales Tags: 5 Comments »

Did you say something BAD about me?

February 3rd, 2010 Linda Mattacks

We often feature customer service here and the importance of getting it right – never more so than dealing with a customer complaint. Or even preventing a problem turning into a complaint… so I thought I’d share this with you…

Background

A land line went down here the other day and I was having real hassle getting through to the telecomm provider to report it.

  • The recorded service I got through to (using a cable line) said it couldn’t run the test on the faulty line as it was busy… and suggested I call back…
  • The form on the website accepted all the details I inputted then wouldn’t process…
  • When I finally got through to a human being, English wasn’t her first language and she insisted on trying the web route again on my behalf – only to discover it wouldn’t register the fault…

I was eventually transferred to someone in the UK who manually logged the necessary information and started the process of sorting it out. From then on, I must admit in all fairness, it all happened pretty quickly.

Meanwhile, the interesting bit

Half an hour into this malarkey I was really getting hacked off, so I tweeted about it on Twitter, naming the company. Within about a further 20 minutes I had a direct tweet from its Care team inviting me to email them the info and they’d get on the case!

I did email them and thanked them for spotting my dilemma and offering to help. I also suggested they get the ‘powers that be’ at their (blue chip) company to phone in with problems/ use the website to try and solve them and see how they get on see how they like the experience.

Even when I received a follow up call the next day to check that everything was okay I still felt that they were playing catch up from a customer service viewpoint:

The competent human interaction should be there right from the first contact.

Now a question for You

What happens when a customer phones your company with a complaint?

PS: You Plc coming soon – Customer service happened to be more topical for me right now ;-)

Did you say something BAD about me?
Posted in Business, Finance & Accounting, Marketing, Sales Tags: , No Comments »

Are 12 of you ready to up your game?

January 16th, 2010 Linda Mattacks

As you can see by the side bar, we’ve been concentrating on helping people who are finding themselves out of a job get the best possible perspective on how to handle their predicament and get themselves back earning.

So apologies to the thousands of you who visit this site and read our blogs if you feel we’ve been neglecting you over the last couple of months!

We really appreciate all of you yet are currently looking to work directly with 12 special people. Are you one of those 12?

Many people who come to us want things in their business and their lives to be better. They’re genuine and they mean it but often not enough to put the effort into making it happen: That’s mind, body and soul.

How many times do you think, just before sleep takes over: “Wow! Today was awesome!”?

So try this equation:

Self esteem = Reality
__________
Expectation

If your reality isn’t what you want it to be, just a little way off, or nowhere near, do you say: “I deserve more than this and so do the people I care about” and up your game? Or do you lower your expectations?

We’re looking for 12 people who are determined to up their game – are you one of them?

If you believe you are, give us a call on +44 (0)20 7209 1284 business hours GMT

Are 12 of you ready to up your game?
Posted in Business, Finance & Accounting, Market/Marketing Research, Marketing, Sales Tags: No Comments »
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"I was struggling to move ahead and had lost my direction and really was in the mood for packing it all in... that has changed, there is now light at the end of the tunnel, I am feeling better, more confident and the sun has finally risen. I learned so much in a short amount of time... (Linda is)Worth her weight in gold..."

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"I was very impressed by Linda's determination to help and the constructive, but persistent, manner in which she identified issues and then tried to resolve them. After recent progress I was again reaching a stage where I seemed to be spinning my wheels, and she has given me fresh impetus to start moving forward again."

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