When delivering a sales presentation, one of your aims is to build trust with your audience. As sales guru Zig Ziglar says; if you get people to like you, they will listen to you, but if they trust you they will do business with you. So how do you build trust? Essie Rewane-Adejare from Toastmasters International suggests eight ways to gain your audience’s trust during a sales presentation:

Demonstrate your personal credibility.Know the product or service, and your company, inside out. Be knowledgeable about your industry and relevant news. Trust depends …

If you’re planning to monetise your knowledge and skills into e-courses and info-products then you may like to offer audio content to your online “tribe.” Here are two surprising reasons why you might like to deliver some of your learning materials as audio files.
Learning Styles
Offering audio content as well as videos and reading materials means that you will appeal to several different learning styles. Neil Fleming’s VARK model suggests that people learn in four different ways; visual, auditory, read/write learning and kinaesthetic or physical learning, (using your body, hands and …

By Garry Smith, business coach at Advantage Business Partnerships and the co-author of Creating Business Advantage: Setting Up and Running A Successful Business
Perhaps the most important thing for any new business owner to realise is that you need to be ready for constant change, and the stress which can result. Change is now normal and, if you’re not equipped to deal with it, you will fall behind very quickly. However, you can reduce the stress of this by setting up a solid base of policies for your business early on, …

With the Brexit result we know there is a huge split in how people in Britain feel about Europe – and therefore bound to be a few heated discussions in workplaces, kitchens and pubs across the UK. So how do we turn conflict, which seems like a bad thing, into a good thing? Here Jean Gamester of Semaphora shares her tips on creative conflict – whether it’s about Brexit or other challenges at work or at home:
Bring it out in the open
Unaddressed conflict can eat away at a relationship and …

New adult learning report reveals online tech revolution
The What Britain’s Learning Report from Udemy, the global online education marketplace, reveals that 390,000 UK students taking 1.3 million courses are turning to online learning to keep up with the pace of change in working life and manage their wellbeing. This is the first report of its kind on online learning in the UK.
Top report findings include:

There have been more than 660,000 enrolments in Udemy’s technical courses to learn to programme, build apps and games, or design websites in the UK to …

Family Friendly Working is packed with articles on all sorts of topics, whether you want to run your own business, join a party plan or direct sales business, or buy a franchise. On top of start up tips, we also have lots of tips on how to succeed. In this article. I round up some of our news and advice about sales and selling, one of the toughest yet most essential areas for all business owners.
There’s much more to selling than meets the eye, and developing a process can make …

Owning and running your own business when you’re a mother is incredibly rewarding, empowering and fun. However, it’s important to add that running a business is hard work too. But with so many parents choosing to work for themselves, how can existing businesses make their work more enriching and profitable? By learning new skills, of course!
What skills should I learn?
This is quite a personal question, as it will depend on your business and the types of services or products that you offer to your customers.
However, for some, a new skill …

When it comes to the lucrative job market, investing in your skill set is paramount if your goal is to up the stakes and exceed the competition out there. One of the best ways to ensure that you’re really setting yourself apart from fellow job seekers applying for the same job is to hone the skills you know you’re already good at. Employable qualities are likely to encourage recruiters and potential new employers to look out for tell-tale character traits and past experience when they’re deciding which candidates to …

Ever had a great idea – but not followed it through? The most common excuse is “Too busy”, or “Not enough time”.
The decision to prioritise work that is more important to you than for the good of the business is a recurring theme that lies at the heart of many workplace problems.
Kieran Hearty, author of ‘How to Eat the Elephant in the Room’ believes this is a misplaced work ethic that damages results.
 As you follow your upward career trajectory, are you too willing to make personal sacrifices and out-work your …

Having, and projecting, confidence is probably the single most importantaspect to get right when delivering a speech or presentation.
Sandy Eifion-Jones, of Toastmasters International offers some tips to help you build your confidence when delivering a talk:
1. Imagine yourself
If you are concerned your confidence will falter then mentally ‘role play’ your way into the scenario several times, beforehand.
Close your eyes, visualise yourself in front of your audience. Let the words run through your mind. Envisage how good you will sound, in front of an appreciative audience as they engage with you.
Watch …