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Business Skills

man and woman near table — Reading Time: 13 minutesSelling is at the heart of business, even if you’re not in ‘Direct Sales’. Think about the following scenarios: You’re trying to convince your manager to develop a new product, but can’t get him or her to take things further You’d like to introduce [...]

A to Z of Direct Sales

March 5, 2013 in Business Skills / Personal Development tagged Customer / Forecasting / Pipeline / Relationships / Sales / Selling / Teamwork by markconwayuk

Oak Consult, A to Z of Employability — Reading Time: 9 minutesI often get asked by teachers, lecturers and students what are the key skills and qualities that businesses are looking for in young people leaving full-time education for a career in business. In this A – Z I’d like to give some pointers on the very important topic of Employability. [...]

A to Z of Employability

February 28, 2013 in Business Skills / Employability / Personal Development tagged Attitude / Behaviour / Digital Literacy / Numeracy / Teamwork by markconwayuk

Reading Time: 7 minutesFollowing on from my last post the A-Z of Business Social Media, I’ve had some feedback that whilst the A-Z was really useful, for people who are new to social media, particularly in a business sense, they don’t know where to start and how to get the most out of their limited [...]

The New SMS – Social Media Strategy

February 18, 2013 in Business Skills tagged Content / Facebook / LinkedIn / social-media / Strategy / Twitter by markconwayuk

Reading Time: 14 minutesA – Alerts You can sign up for Google Alerts quickly and easily. Using those keywords and phrases from your preliminary research online, you can elect to have any instance of those keywords and phrases as Google finds them sent straight to your inbox. Enter the topic you wish to [...]

A to Z of Business Social Media

February 11, 2013 in Business Skills / Employability / Personal Development tagged Blogging / blogging tools / Facebook / Google / internet / LinkedIn / PS4 / social-media / Xbox 720 by markconwayuk

Managing Poor Performance — Reading Time: 5 minutesIn part 1 of this two-part post I covered the potential impacts of poor performance, the causes and your responsibilities as a manager. In part 2, I’ll be guiding you through a seven-step process to help you deal with a poor performer. Tackling Poor Performance Many businesses do have policies and [...]

Stop the Rot – Managing Poor Performance ~ Part 2

January 2, 2013 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Personal Development / Teams tagged Feedback / Performance / Performance Management / SMART Goals by markconwayuk

Managing Poor Performance — Reading Time: 4 minutesEarlier this year the Roffey Park Institute published their excellent annual report – The Management Agenda. A staggering 46% of UK managers reported that poor performance is not tackled at all well in their organisation, rising to 60% in Public Sector managers. So what do I mean by Poor Performance? Simply put, poor performance is the failure [...]

Stop the Rot – Managing Poor Performance ~ Part 1

December 24, 2012 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams tagged Performance Management / Roffey Park Institute / The Management Agenda by markconwayuk

James Dyson — Reading Time: 5 minutesFollowing on from my last post Fail to Learn, Learn to Fail, I’ve done some research into some famous business people to see how rocky their road to success was. I was surprised by a few names and fascinated by others, so I thought I’d share six of the best [...]

Six of the Best …. Failures

September 29, 2012 in Business Skills / People tagged Albert Einstein / Failure / J.K. Rowling / James Dyson / Richard Branson / Success / Walt Disney / Winston Churchill by markconwayuk

Pace in your Organisation, Execution — Reading Time: 5 minutesIn part 3 of this 4 part series of blogs I covered the importance of PACE to improve organisational effectiveness and speed and specifically Communication: PACE = Planning + Alignment + Communication + Execution The fourth and final part of The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation [...]

The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation ...

August 27, 2012 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams tagged Accountability / Decision Making / Delivery / Execution / Goals / Targets by markconwayuk

Driving PACE in your organisation — Reading Time: 5 minutesSucceeding in today’s competitive business environment requires that your organisation be agile enough to respond quickly to internal and external change. To stay ahead, you have to explore new ways to grow your business – for example, by launching a new product or service or targeting a different marketplace. Speed [...]

The Need for Speed ~ Driving Pace in Your Organisation ...

August 3, 2012 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People / Teams tagged Amazon / Audi / BHAG / Business / Goals / JFK / Markets / Nike / Pace / Plan; Planning / Stratgey by markconwayuk

Politics without the Politics — Reading Time: 7 minutesOffice politics is a fact of company life. Wherever there are two or more people working together, there will be politics and there will be opportunity for conflict. However, destructive office politics can demoralise people in an organisation, hamper productivity, and increase turnover of good staff,. Much as you might [...]

Playing Politics without the Politics

July 23, 2012 in Business Skills / Leadership / Management / People tagged Network / Politically Savvy / Politics by markconwayuk