help – Graham Bunting -The Catalyst

Why “we never get asked for that” is a terrible response

Care to join the debate?

When you are considering your business operations, with a thought for your portfolio of offerings and what your prospective customers seek you out for, do you ever find yourself saying to potential suppliers “we never get asked for that”?

Do you also ever stop to consider why that might be? Could it be that it is so far away from your core business activities that it just wouldn’t happen – e.g. are customers likely to ask an IT reseller for HR assistance? Could it be that your business is seen as a very niche provider? Could it be that you seem unapproachable, or that your skillset is focussed?

Whether or not any of these reasons apply, wouldn’t you like to grow your business by helping more customers solve more business problems and you are their “go-to” person for all advice? For me, “Trusted Advisor” is an extremely aspirational position to be in where your knowledge, experience, and opinions are deemed valuable

Agree? Whats your view?

Business

I’ve got all the technology I need ok!

It often feels like there’s always someone trying to sell us something doesn’t it?

And that’s certainly true to some degree, because there’s always something new to be sold. That’s the nature of innovation and progress.

However, there’s often a lot of great technology already invested within a business, but it’s just not been put to good use for some reason. It could be lack of knowledge, or loss of knowledge with staff movements, or supplier relationship continuity issues. Whatever the cause, help is at hand

As experienced business and technology consultants, Trust Business Partners offer technology agnostic consultancy that help you evaluate your position and plot a map of development activities to get you where you want to be, and no product brochures in sight.

If you’re keen to grow and develop your business and don’t think you need even more technology adding, then contact us to find out how we help.

People + Technology + Know how = Growth

Get in touch now

Business, Leadership, Personal Management

Who is coaching you?

never quit Whether you are Jonny Wilkinson, Steph Houghton or Mo Farah, the one thing they all have in common is that they all had, and continue to have support to develop their skills and success – a sports coach – in fact probably several coaches with differing and complementary skills.

How about you? Are you so talented that you don’t need coaching? Maybe it’s more simple than that – you simply lack ambition?

No of course not, It’s none of the above is it….you just haven’t been thinking in these terms have you? But now that we are discussing it, it makes sense doesn’t it? In fact it’s rather more common than most of us might think.

So now you are thinking about it – what will you do differently?

Give me a call now – that’s right be a “do it now” person of action.

Success awaits you – the bold and audacious, I salute you.

Family, Learning

My parents continue to teach me

My mum has recently been diagnosed with a life threatening illness and yet she remains the strongest and bravest member of our family.
My mum and my dad have been together for 57 years and their love is as strong today is it ever was.

My older brother shows strength, patience and caring like I’ve never experienced before and all of this is teaching me so much (he’s always all of these things, but I’m witnessing it for myself at an important life moment).

We are not a Walton-esque family by any means. We all lead fairly independent lives and I live a distance away, but we are a family that cares for and about each other.

My parents can be trying (more so as they have aged) because I’ve not been as patient as I could or should be. This I have learnt in the last few days and I’m grateful for the lesson.

When horrible things happen, I firmly believe that there must be something positive to take from it and in this case I’m still learning to be a better person – with the help of my family and friends I’m a better man today than I was yesterday – or at least this is my hope.

Business, partnership, Sales, Selling

Is Partner becoming an overused term for suppliers?

I was musing language (as I often do) again today and thinking about the initial engagement in any situation, but probably I was thinking mostly about the very first engagement in a sales situation. This could be a conversation, either by phone or face to face, or more often these days, an email or other form of non-real time communication. Whatever the channel, I was considering the impact of language and in particular the meaning that the recipient makes of the words and structure of those critical first few phrases. I am a firm believer that the conversation needs to be about “the client” and not about me and more importantly what the purpose of the contact is! This thought process led me to consider the positioning of the potential relationship and the consideration from the recipient’s perspective as to whether this was at all important at this early stage, or actually at all.

Inevitably when language becomes mainstream, or commonplace, it loses some of its caché and “advantage” (if it ever had any), and can become almost counter-productive as we see it as “hackneyed” or over-used, and this could be the case if positioning yourself as a partner – rather than just another supplier.

I like to seek out relationships whereby my value can be of real benefit to a client and that is all about “valuing the difference”. In this case the difference is the particular skills and knowledge I have acquired over many years in the telecoms and Unified Communications space, and that which can be of use to the client. I might frame this as me being a “partner” rather than a supplier, i.e. my value is not about a race to provide the lowest cost items, but about taking the stress out of understanding the options and possibilities as well as the unique aims and business values the client holds dear. Marrying these pieces together and considering the real business value of the solutions available merits additional value, which is often unappreciated. My view – for what it’s worth is that if you are investing in a technology that is dynamically changing and evolving, and competitive with multiple strong vendors in the race, then looking way beyond the investment is critical and a trusted advisor relationship is definitely desirable – But what do I know

Leadership

Can your Leadership repertoire run to coaching too?

I was watching the TV earlier in the week – Vera was the name of the programme in question and for those not acquainted, it’s a police detective drama.

There is the usual hierarchy on display with a hard working sergeant who is smart and growing in confidence in his role and adding enormous value to the case currently under investigation. What struck me about this particular episode was the fact that the Inspector, whilst valuing the sergeant’s inputs, was not particularly OPEN with him, and in fact the communication was pretty one-way traffic, apart from the issuing of instructions and orders – sound familiar?

At the end of this episode, there is a moment where the inspector and her sergeant are sitting in a car and the conversation takes a turn to matters of a more “personal” nature, and the sergeant speaks up to say that he learns a lot from her, and he needs her to share more with him to help him to develop……how true this must be for organisations around the World! The old paradigm of “knowledge is power” still rings through the corporate corridors and business “leaders” are jealously guarding their knowledge for fear that giving it away makes them somehow impotent. The reality is that this very act is holding back the success of the “group” and ultimately the business. This outdated thinking is also creating a positive reason why those very individuals being starved of help and support will most likely entertain the call from the “head-hunter” when he comes knocking.

Don’t let your fear and neurosis halt your progress, as it is through the success and development of the people you are responsible for, that you will deliver the result that you and your business are seeking.

But hey – what do I know!

Business, Personal Management, Social

Together Everyone achieves More – It’s true

I wonder when, during your busy schedule and heavy demands on your time, you last thought about an old (or current) friend or colleague for whom life has dealt a different set of cards!

We all know that we are enduring a tough downturn in the global economy, and the result for employment numbers is not great. However, pragmatically, times of change often present opportunities albeit that uncovering them is sometimes a little more challenging. Thinking about others is a great way of taking some of the personal stress away – especially when licking your wounds because you’ve not had your best day.

I decided recently, as I was thinking about what I could do to help, that I would use my online presence to assist my friends to raise awareness for them. I decided to dedicate a page of my blog to promoting their profiles and CVs as my part in helping them to secure a new role. Follow this Link to review them

I read an article recently that bemoaned larger “corporates” who were taking the lions share of the available “talent” and I felt compelled to comment that this was not the case. There is an fact a lot of talent available, it just doesn’t shout about it. Their CV might not be the best written in the pile, or they might not use sufficient wow words (my daughter in year 6 has used this descriptor recently) to showcase their capabilities, but it is there.

I would urge you to do a couple of things:

1. Think today (and every day) what little thing can I do to help – and do it

2. Doing what I have always done to recruit will get me the same results I have always got, so think about a small change and look beyond the CV and you might strike gold

But what do I know

Care to join the debate?

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