http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk Improve your sales and marketing skills: Win and grow more profitable business Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:28:22 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en No; nothing to do with the world cup - that's done and dusted for now. You know how there are times when someone else can not only say something much better than you could have, they'll say something you wouldn't have said in a million years because it would have sounded ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/are-you-having-a-ball Do you really know the answer? Do they buy IT equipment & support? Management consultancy? Marketing services? Accountancy service? Legal advice? Courier service? Web design? Web SEO? Sales training? Sales & marketing communications training? Business coaching? Widgets? Plumbing? Clothes? Shoes? If your customers are buying any of the above from you, you are providing a commodity; they'll buy on price and convenience and will be wooed by ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/what-do-your-customers-buy-from-you 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 ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/a-gentle-puzzle-for-you Don't adjust your set! Regular visitors will notice changes to the look and feel of this site over the coming days. We took a long hard look at the theme and had to admit that what seemed really cool before quite frankly had become dated. And it didn't allow us ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/time-to-spring-clean-your-business I read in the news earlier about Kraft's decision to continue with the closure of the Somerdale factory in Keynsham after the takeover of Cadbury. This was despite its alleged earlier indication that it would keep it open even though plans to close it were already well advanced. It's not ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/crafty-kraft-or-long-term-own-goal Okay, so you run or work for a company. That may be a big part of you. Yet it's not the whole story by a long shot, is it? How often do you step back to get a perspective of the whole, great big picture and see how your work is ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/you-plc 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 ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/did-you-say-something-bad-about-me With recruitment issues way at the back of many companies' minds in the current economy, this may seem like weird timing to raise the issue of the potential 'risk' involved in employing young women: Will she decide to go off and have babies? If she's already a mother, what happens when ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/employing-young-women When the manufacturer long upheld as a shining example of Gemba kaizen and the use of PDCA, quality management and all things 'lean' gets it wrong, it does so in the unrelenting glare of the global media! Toyota car recall hits US, Europe and China pulls no punches and shows the ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/business/when-toyota-gets-it-wrong Reading an article this morning that said: "Many small business owners do not have the complete range of skills required and are forced to learn as they go along." Well there's a surprise ;-)! It went on to say: "A recent survey we carried out at Made Simple Group clearly showed ... http://www.smallbusinesstraining.co.uk/marketing/make-your-website-work