The Reality of Business

Over 50s have been retiring in droves since the pandemic, many have moved more quickly and this has adversely affected lots of organisations.   On this podcast, episode Bob & Jeremy explore: a) the reasons why and the stats of early retirement; b) the alternatives to retirement; and c) some avant-garde ideas about how to live in retirement if you don't have much of a financial cushion. Th...

How do people sell things? What is the history of modern sales? And sales techniques? What can we learn from 200 years of selling and sales structures?  In this podcast episode, Bob and Jeremy explore how sales structures and methodologies have developed and changed over the years.  If you’re a customer, you will be on the receiving end of a sales structure; if you’re in sales, you will be learnin...

Ever wondered what motivation is and how to increase it? This episode looks at areas that are within your control to improve your own motivation and to motivate others.  Why you should be careful with incentives.  The art of reflection to work out when you’re at you’re best.  We are often so tough on ourselves that we don’t give ourselves a break - it is about recognising a setback and then making...

How are your New Year's resolutions?  In this podcast, Bob & Jeremy look at why we set resolutions and how poorly we keep them. What was Bob's impossible goal and how does Jeremy help him? What are the most common resolutions?  Please listen, and share.  To find out more about our work and to see what we could do to help your organisation, visit www.realitytraining.com .

Are you moving towards a 4-day week for your company? There are a number of major trials taking place to see if society and business can cope with working 4 days instead of 5. Does this mean longer hours on the 4 days? Does it mean your holiday entitlement and contractual obligations change? In this podcast Bob and Jeremy explore the pros and cons of working 4 days. For some organisations it’s goi...

In this episode Jeremy interviews Professor Nigel Adams of Buckingham University.  Nigel runs the Business Enterprise and Innovation Unit there. We look at the topic of entrepreneurialism, can it be taught? How entrepreneurship is evolving, the need for more female entrepreneurs and much more. Leave with some valuable insights and ideas when it comes to the people you employ or the mindset you can...

Are your people Quietly Quitting? Or are you Quietly Firing someone? Is the discretionary effort you expect from people declining?  And what does that mean for businesses and organisations? Are 50% of the World’s workforce quietly quitting?  This podcast explores the issues and helps you think about how you respond.  To find out more about our work and to see what we could do to help your organisa...

New Managers – what do they need?  There are 55,000 plus vacancies for managers in the UK. Some people want to advance, but many don’t. Many managers have left their professions so new ones could feasibly be pretty clueless and unsure what to do. Most managers have had no training. We talk about received behaviour.  How does ‘stepping into management’ really work? We look at how you manage people,...

With the cost-of-living crisis continuing and prices increasing faster than wages who we employ and how we employ them is important. It is also urgent for many industries and sectors.  The great resignation has meant lots of people in their 50s have chosen to stop working, 1.5 million in the UK.  With that knowledge and experience disappearing, what are your options as an employer? We look at peop...

Special Edition: Bob & Ann’s Conflab. Bob talks to Ann Harris, Ops Manager, Executive Coach and Sales Trainer of Reality Training. She gives her many years of experience and perspective on how companies can manage a large scale training project. To train hundreds, or thousands of people is a difficult project to make happen, and there are many tips, ideas and strategies that should be engaged...

In this short punchy episode we go back over two decades and select the five best clients we have ever and look at exactly how we won them with five very different business development methods.  In a digital age how can you use some of the methods we used to win new clients for your business? It’s likely you or your organisation are using only one or two of these methods and not in the same way we...

Leaders need principles and beliefs to follow. What are your values? What rules do you follow to help you lead effectively? Bob and Jeremy look at inspirational quotes and strategies from leaders and thinkers that are highly effective. Drucker, Seddon, Alexander the Great, Wellington, Nelson, Jobs, Joubert, Diogenes, Laloux, Blake, Morrell, and the Dalai Lama, some of the greatest leaders ever – a...

Looking for some Inspiration? What inspires you? This podcast highlights some memorable, entertaining and sometimes, life changing quotes, and strategies that anyone can take, be inspired by, and be helped by. Jerry Maguire, (Tom Cruise), Gore Vidal, David Niven, Judi Dench, Charles Dickens, Julian Blake, Dudley Moore, Daniel Auteuil, Laura, (French-Spanish) Fabrice Luccini, – all of these are sou...

One definition of a maxim is ‘a short, pithy statement expressing a general truth or rule of conduct’. We’re aiming for less pith and more general rule of conduct.  After talking about my early obsession of collecting stickers from car part manufacturers, we move into the words, phrases and ways to behave that have and continue to mean a lot to us. We express and expand on what our favourite maxim...

Sales Managers are employed to maximise the efforts of the sales team. They are charged with assessing and improving the sales skills, knowledge and increasing the performance of each salesperson. One the best ways to do this, but one of the least used, is what they call ‘ride along’ in the US, or sales accompaniment in the UK, where the Sales Manager attends the meetings with the salesperson, wit...

Lifetime Value is a concept that values the true worth of a customer. It’s a difficult metric because most of us work to short term targets. Many organisations forget about the true value and focus on now or the next 2 years. This skews the way we serve and sell, and the two terms fight for prominence. In this podcast Bob and Jeremy debate and relate stories that illustrate these issues and sugges...

In a time of soaring prices customers need to work out how they can afford things, and salespeople need to work on how to sell things at a higher price. This podcast gives top tips on how to sell with confidence, how to negotiate, and discount, and handle price objections. People and companies will still need to buy stuff, but they will need to pay more. So the way we explain the new prices, and a...

Is sales the centre of your world? The responsibility to sales performance rests with you for your team, department or the whole business?    If so, this podcast episode is for you.    We look at the position and define the priorities. We discuss sales leader as motivator and give you ideas on how to plan to be far more effective this year.   People need priorities. They need to know what wastes t...

In the light of a recent politician’s car crash speech at the CBI, we unpick what went wrong from a presentation skills perspective.  We’ve been training people to present for many years and this disaster gives us all some key tips to use in the future to make sure we don’t ever need to ask for forgiveness because our presentation has fallen apart. As veterans of many conference sessions these tip...

After a digression taking us through the byways and back roads of Kent and Bucks, we focus in on the world of conferences.  Over the years we’ve been double act speakers at many types of company and association conferences all over the UK and also in the US, Middle East and Europe.  Why are you having an annual conference? What are you getting everyone together for? What’s the purpose of this even...

Most salespeople work for commission and bonuses. The question is are these still motivational reasons to perform well, or do they skew performance? This podcast explores the world of commissions and basic pay, and suggests some new ways to remunerate people that might be more motivational. After training salespeople for more than 20 years we have seen many new commission plans introduced – and no...

By 1910 5.8 million phones were in use and five years later the transcontinental telephone line began to operate. Now there are an estimated 53 plus million people using a smart phone, and the phone is so smart that people don’t use the phone element as much! They use their email. In this episode we look at what you should really not be doing in your emails to engage prospects, and which phrases y...

McKellen has just completed his second run as Hamlet, his first was 50 years ago. Sir Ian is 82 and played the lead in Sean Mathias’s age, gender and colour blind production.  After a brief reminiscence over cigarette brands of the past and wondering how vapers can get excited by branding and advertising as we once did; we look at the play, the character of Hamlet and his skills. This version prov...

Following our recent podcast about ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ this episode takes a brief look at other, famous sales related films. These include, ‘Boiler Room’, ‘Tin Men’ ‘The Wolf on Wall Street’ ‘Fargo’ and ‘Jerry Maguire’. What are the scenes, lines and scenarios that get across the talent, skill or cunning of the salesperson? Are all the portrayals negative stereotypes? What are the positives we c...

We explore this stellar sales film of 1992, which began life as a stage play at the National with Bob’s best man playing the prospect who changes his mind. What is it that David Mamet does so well with his writing that makes this story one of the films sales professional love and want to recount lines from? Well the characters are as sharply drawn as they are filthy tongued for one thing, so the d...