Business Essentials

Too many client presentations are self-serving with badly organised and complex content. Moreover, great ideas are often lost in a sea of slides that don’t connect with the audience. That’s according to David Fish, a globally recognised strategist and business leader, who’s worked with some of the world’s largest advertisers. He’s also author of ‘What it takes to create winning presentations’, in...

Numbers have a magnetic effect on people and can anchor their behaviour. Behavioural specialist, Bri Williams discusses a golf study which found that professional golfers tended to take fewer strokes when the same hole was labelled as a par four compared to when it was labelled as a par five. The implications of this research extend beyond golf and into daily business life. It highlights how expec...

How does a busy business person slow down and take back control in a world of constant noise and interruption? Occupational therapist, Angela Lockwood, addresses those issues in her new book “Switch Off: How to find calm in a noisy world”. She has espoused everyday activities to cut out the clutter and bring focus back into our lives, including breathing exercises, outdoor play, healthy eating, la...

Give your team the tools to do their job and watch your business shine. That’s one of the messages from Diederik Gelderman, a successful veterinarian, who now advises others – not just vets – on how to grow successful businesses via his consulting firm, Turbo Charge Your Practice. He says being nice to people is important for not only business success but in its own right. Business Essentials Dail...

As business owners, we often get stuck in the day-to-day activities, and neglect working on the business. Systemising business processes will allow us to break free. That's according to Joel Gerschman, Managing Dire­­ctor of The Change Coach, who’s written a book on escaping the shackles of your business to achieve wealth, freedom and fulfilment. ‘The Mindful Entrepreneur’ is all about how to make...

Swearing is becoming more commonplace in the media, in social circles and at work. It’s not necessarily a bad thing – in fact, Adrian Baillargeon reckons it can be good for you and your team. Adrian is a leadership team performance specialist and author of ‘Teams That Swear: By each other, not about each other’. Swearing can be cathartic and it can build connection within the team. But Adrian errs...

If you find that you’re spending more time working on your business but getting little reward for it, you may have hit an ‘entrepreneurial ceiling’. Now’s the time to look at your systems, redesign your strategy and shift your mindset. Chris Green is a mentor, strategist and author of ‘Business by Design: Take your business from chaos and overwhelm to scalable and rewarding’. He says, if you’re th...

How persuasive are you really? Do you struggle to win more business? Do you want to get better at convincing others of your ideas? Well, if you cultivated some persuasion techniques into habits, you’ll feel more confident to win over the other party. Presentation guru Michelle Bowden spells this out in her latest book, ‘How to Persuade: The skills you need to get what you want’. Business Essential...

With interest rates and inflation dominating the headlines, our regular economics commentator, University of Melbourne, Professor Neville Norman, is asking us to challenge how the two are connected — or not. He says the Reserve Bank appears to be living in a “fairytale” world, where big, external price makers do not exist. Nevertheless, Neville says inflation is likely to have peaked, and he outli...

Consumers trust word of mouth 2.4 times more than branded content. With this in mind, James Smith, CEO of digital agency, Smith Brothers Media, believes that making people feel like they’re part of the experience, and having users generate their own content for your brand can be a match made in heaven. Business Essentials Daily is produced by: SoundCartel soundcartel.com.au +61 3 9882 8333 See omn...

Have you set up your company social media accounts, but struggle to maintain them? It takes patience, time, money and above all consistency to keep your messaging top of mind. Financial expert Helen Baker says it’s important to be able to measure the return on social media marketing investment. Business Essentials Daily is produced by: SoundCartel soundcartel.com.au +61 3 9882 8333 See omnystudio....

One of the issues facing struggling sales teams is a lack of consistency. If they have a sound strategy and process in place, then the results can flow from that. Sales expert Sue Barrett says online consumers are inundated with advertising, which makes it tough for any marketing to cut through all the noise. Businesses need to adopt the old-fashioned sales technique of prospecting – that ability...

What steps are needed to be a great leader and can anyone become one? Ricky Nowak, a leadership speaker and facilitator, has spent much of her career pondering those questions and has some practical solutions. She details her thoughts in her book, ‘How to make good people great leaders …and reap the reward!’. She outlines what she calls the three Rs of leadership, including great relationships, re...

It’s a new world of communication for small business, with customers able to make contact on multiple platforms, often in very demanding terms. But according to Elise Balsillie, Head of Thryv small business software, Australia, those businesses who don’t respond in a timely manner are being left behind. She says it’s critical to build channels that ensure frictionless communication and, to embrace...

Consumers are spoilt for choice. Confronted with so many shopping options every day, people perform shortcuts when making purchasing decisions. But building brand value is more important than short-term sales results. Troy McKinna, Co-Founder of Agents of Spring, identifies four keys to building brand value: find your consumers' most valuable problem; design a clear solution that delivers results;...

With so many marketing channels to choose from, how do you know which is the right one for you and your business? How do you turn strangers into paying customers? Well, rather than a scatter-gun approach, the best strategy is to choose one marketing channel for 90-days with 100% commitment. Amy Miocevich, Founder of Lumos Marketing says, if it doesn’t work, then move on to something else. If it do...

We’ve all heard about high-profile construction companies becoming insolvent. But the scary thing is that the number of businesses across all sectors going bust has skyrocketed this year. That’s according to Jacqui Clarke, who urges you to start planning now to ensure you don’t end up on the scrap heap. Jacqui is author of ‘Stop worrying about money – start planning now to secure your financial fu...

The way social media works has changed dramatically over the past few years, with most businesses needing to adapt the way they promote themselves. George Hawwa is Growth Director for social media marketing agency, Attention Experts, he outlines three methods for encouraging social media engagement, explains how businesses should see themselves as content creators, and explains the value of retarg...

Managing a team is not set and forget. Tony Gattari, Achievers Group, Founder and Managing Director, likens it to sport – your players have a KPI scoreboard which keeps them on track every single day. Tony says if you want to improve the performance of your team members, you must set regular targets and keep revisiting them. Tony's a stickler for performance review meetings. They’ll keep your staf...

Living up to the expectations of others can be a heavy weight. From childhood to our working lives and beyond, we’re largely driven by what’s expected of us. But what if those expectations tie us down and prevent us from reaching our dreams? As a keynote speaker, author and mentor John Di Natale, knows first-hand about managing expectations of others and going his own instead. Business Essentials...

Sales teams tend to focus a lot on efficiency, for example, how to make cold calls, how to overcome objections, and how to spot a good lead. But by focusing solely on efficiency, they’ve forgotten about the importance of effectiveness . Entrepreneur, Roy Osing says that rather than being comfortable with sub par performance, sales needs to be transformed into a strategic asset, demonstrating outst...

When it comes to influencing people to change their behaviour, we tend to use logic. That doesn’t work, says behavioural specialist Bri Williams. Humans are emotional creatures: we’re lazy, scared and confused, she insists. By lazy, she means we’re creatures of habit and therefore behaving in a new way takes effort. We’re scared because we don’t want to try something different in case it fails. An...

How often do we hear that there’s never enough time in the day? Often, right? Well, perhaps if those meetings were purpose-driven, you and the team could get more of the important work done. Leadership and productivity expert Scott Stein says it might help to adopt one of four meeting types – that way, the attendees’ time isn’t wasted and you can achieve greater outcomes. Business Essentials Daily...

New businesses that survey potential customers, and established businesses that make a customer blueprint, are setting themselves up to become a customer-centric success. That’s according to Ruchi Gupta, Founder and CEO of The Launchpad Co. She says that too many small businesses fail to do their due diligence and can rapidly improve their prospects by increasing the value of their customer experi...

Change is inevitable but managing it badly can lead to an exodus of great staff. So, change specialist Esther De La Cruz has some advice, be as transparent and communicative as possible. Esther says responses to change are largely biological, so keeping this in mind when formulating a change strategy is a recipe for success. Business Essentials Daily is produced by: SoundCartel soundcartel.com.au...