A Free Car Changed the Course of my Career!
This article tackles the problem: every organisation wishing to grow their business needs to do BETTER. Shortly after I got married, I was told that I should get into sales. Why? Because back then, you were given a company car and told to drive around your patch, meet people and win sales. (The attraction to […]
Traps to Avoid When Presenting
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Recently I went down to the practice area at my Golf Club to work on my bunker shots. The problem I had was, I did not know what I should be doing. I tried different approaches based on various snippets of advice I remembered from previous lessons and […]
Sunflowers and Startups – the Similarities!
Pitching Skill Workshop: This morning I sat in my creative chair, hoping that a topic for my next article would emerge. While writing my morning pages, I looked around my office, realizing the subject matter was right under my nose. I have a renewed interest in my garden as a result of the pandemic. I […]
The Three Questions Every Winning Pitch Must Answer
I am very sad to see Niamh Collins depart the DCU Ryan Academy for pastures new. Over the last ten years, she was the heart and soul of the ‘Female High Fliers’ programme in particular, but also the other programmes, such as Illuminate, Propeller and numerous SFI programmes. Niamh was the most caring, well organised, […]
The “Fly Me to the Moon” Pitch
Pitching Skill Workshop: “Fly me to the Moon Let me play among the stars Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars In other words,” … Words & Music by Bart Howard 1954 Excite me Today I will show you how to create a pitch that excites both customers and investors. This […]
A New Sales Message For a New Era
Pitching Skill Workshop: Now that everyone is awakening from their enforced slumber [hesitantly], it’s time for me to help and support you in creating and delivering a refocused “Killer Elevator Pitch”. It’s likely your old message will not suffice in these changed times. I can help you to create a new sales story (or stories), […]
A Pitch – the 5 Minute Trailer of Your Movie
Pitching Skill Workshop: Pitching Tips & Skills to Master I find that creatives in the visual arts and spoken word are often the most challenged when it comes to pitching for sales or investment. What they do is set aside all the creative skills they have, while attempting to be salespeople! Their creativity, imagination, visualization skills get put aside […]
The (little known) Secret to a Successful Pitch
Executive Coaching Skills: The key to a successful pitch is your preparation and research. The conversation and face to face meeting prior to having the opportunity to deliver a pitch, or send a proposal, is where the groundwork for winning proposals are established. The images above are four of my top interviewers who always ask […]
Start-ups are Changing the World
Coaching Start-Ups to Pitch & Sell Their Business Ideas I have been coaching start-ups for 13 years and in the beginning, when working on programmes like StartUpBootCamp (2010) and several University programmes, the majority of the start-ups were very hopeful, but with very little of substance behind them. How things are changing! A couple of […]
Speak Up and Earn More (Eat the Frog)
Improve Your Communication Skills I was recently in a conversation with a prospective new client, who was interested in engaging me to speak to his team. During the meeting, he asked me to answer the following question. How do I describe to my colleagues what you do in a sentence? My answer was as […]