How quickly do you filter out the expert buyer from the amateur buyer?Shift Control

The only thing that matters is making yourself understood. Good communication is critical to any aspect of our lives and despite the dominance of moving image, writing is an important aspect of good sellingTake away exaggeration, superlatives, adverbs and adjectives you start to get close to the heart of good writing. Truth.Ernest Hemmingway said t…

Two weekends spent at GAA matches - football and hurling - and guess which one didn't need the rule changes.Shift Control

Something ive wanted to talk about for a long time - my love of music. Trying to make it relevant to the theme of the Shift Control Podcast isnt easy - so for this one time - I'd like to talk about Roru Gallagher, in a week where his immortalised Fender Strat was sold to a lucky buyer and gifted back to the State.…

How many of you are actively and knowingly integrating AI into your business development process? I think at this point everyone has gotten over themselves - even copywriters - and begrudgingly admitted that generative AI can be a great thing for creating content both in the arena of sales and marketing.But beyond that, what else can it do...?A fir…

The boys are back in town - the bad ones.As Ireland continues to punch above it's weight in global sport - like it does in the arts, music and film - 2 opposing belief systems are clashing in Belfast.Anti-immigrants v anti racists are rioting in Wellington Place - mirroring events in Sunderland, Stoke and Leeds.Bored, undervalued, ignored, badly re…

No doubt things had changed significantly in the world of sales after COVID. Sales BC - is that a thing?Some of the outcomes and consequences have been beneficial for sure - but as a business have you moved forward strategically or have you been moved along by the tide of change and have kept moving.For me it is about taking control of that destiny…

Best Hurling Final Ever, Wise Up. by Shift ControlShift Control

On holiday mode but still find myself thinking about work - what;'s needed to finish this year with a flourish and then what lies beyond 2024.in battle mode - doing the stuff you strategised about last year - you don't get much time to think about beyond the short term. Firefighters are only thinking abut this fire - the job in hand.When you get th…

A Dudley Moore movie that should speak to anyone in communications - sales, marketing etc...Crazy People.I now know that its Boxy, but good but I always remember it being boxy but safe.Anyway..Marcus Sheridan's book They Ask, You Answer, reminded me of the movie - as it did LIAR, LIAR with Jim Carey - the idea of telling the truth despite knowing t…

Follow up from the last episode where I talked about managing your energy - never said it was easy, no way. But it is doable.Stendhal Festival would be the perfect place to tune into nature and get into some great local music and art, unwind, chill out and relax.Changing of the guard in Derry GAA - rumour has it that the county plan to revert to th…

'Lively up yourself and don't be no drag'The first line of the Bob Marley song is a call to arms for everyone to raise your vibration - get your energy levels up.Bring your A game to everywhere, everything and everyone.And into work. Especially in sales, the energy we bring to our work impacts directly the success of our work and therefore the over…

How is your sales team set up? Motivated or disciplined? Neither or both? A trip to IFAT in Munch teaches me a lot about both and 2 trips to see Bruce Springsteen reminds me about the importance of thoughtShift Control

I'm sat here waiting for an engineer to arrive to install broadband. They'll be here soon, well some time but it might not be soon at all, in fact just like last Friday, they might not arrive at all...Shift Control

Spending 2 days at an exhibition in Birmingham with plenty of time to think and a cancelled flight with the Irish national air carrier of real choice - not Ryan Air - gave me some food or thought on how some of the very basic sales techniques of the past can compete with the very best the digital world has to offer…

Sales momentum is critical for any business - are you able to turn the heat up when you need to or does your team operate at inconsistent levels across the year?Would you trade of 3 hours of flow sales for a day of?Shift Control

This podcast gives a brief insight into a project that I had the good fortune to work on over the last 3 years that culminated in a customer service charter.All the good work of a business that has a clear focus on driving value through a better working relationship with customers - something that ill clearly differentiate them from their competiti…

For so long we only thought in terms of academic intelligence. Along came Daniel Goleman and Emotional intelligence in the mid 90s and yet before in 1938 - Howard Gardner had introduced Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences where he talks about multiple intelligences, 8 and how they can impact our world view and our engagement with o…

Fergal Keane is a renowned journalist, war correspondent and author of 'Madness: A memoir of war, fear and PTSD.'Not a normal read for me but a brilliant biography and my first encounter with epigenetics and generational trauma.And a good reason to be reminded about the importance of screening your media intake…

Too often the focus is on asking questions rather than analysing what you know.In this podcast I talk about the origins of critical thinking and how it can be applied to your sales process along with EQ, to help deliver greater success.Shift Control

As luck would have it I ended up speaking to someone with the inside track on customer service at the MerrionShift Control

Found myself back at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin, last weekend...just 3 days after the deployment of the largest number of Garda in riot gear.(If this podcast was part of the BBCNI offering, Garda would be described as *the Irish Police....)Interesting times on all fronts - but no change at The Merrion where customer service was exemplar.Worth taki…

My work recently with a client has put me on the other side of the buyer - seller relationship, as we build a new business development team.I have been amazed at the approach taken to my interest in their 'Sales SaaS' resulting with the feeling that outbound sales are deemed more precious than their inbound counterparts.In the podcast I go a little…

An episode that I had threatened to record at least 3 times - about the GAA and their response to the alleged abuse by Rory Gallagher to his wife Nicola. The recent events in Spanish football and the threat of prosecution against Luis Rubiales has persuaded me to record this.I hope that the GAA can learn and learn quickly from what's going on in Sp…

What else would you be at on a bank holiday except recording a podcast on life as a start up against life as a mature business. My work with a few of these clients recently has prompted me to record this - also watching some of the 2014 Queens Sigerson team flourish in the start up world.Some clear differences in setting up a business in 2023 v 199…

Selling is not a symmetrical process. It's far from it. Once a seller makes a connection with a business thats when the hard work starts but it's important that to understand that most of the hard work should be done before the selling even starts.This podcast covers a methodology to consider when you are looking at the other person's(the buyer) pe…

For me the jury is out when it comes to NLP, DISC profiles and the rest...learned recently that I'm more of a skeptic than a cynic when it comes to this sort of thing but it made me wonder about other aspects of personality and the softer skills when it comes to selling.I also learned that there are as many as 12 learning styles - I had thought the…

Some thoughts on what might well be the most important part of the sales role - territory planning and forecasting.There is an obvious logic to planning in almost every aspect of our lives and yet when it comes to sales management and sales that's not often the case.This podcast is a quick run through some tips and ideas to help with planning a sal…

Around this time each year, I get asked to speak to a group of business owners from across Northern Ireland - the brief: "What's new in sales?"Everyone wants to hear what's new in sales - quite rightly. Any new methodologies? Technologies? Routes to market? What is everyone else doing?The truth is that pretty much everyone else is making some basic…

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer.We all know that relationships ar…

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer.It all depends on the sales cycle…

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer.A classic here - many people ridi…

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer.This one is about all those times…

A series of short-form podcasts - only a few minutes long - with some areas that I think are worthy of consideration if you are struggling in sales. All based on experience as a sales person - been guilty of a few of these myself for sure - and most of them I have seen from the position of a sales coach and trainer.This episode is where we find our…

A week has passed since I made the veneration at the altar of Bruce Springsteen whilst making my first stay at the Merrion hotel.It made me think about what good customer service looks like - how good brands not only read the room, they anticipate it.Again and again.Against a back drop of the music, whiskey and craic was the headline dominating dom…

How do you decompress from a hard shift in the office or out in the field?"Climb a mountain or jump in a lake?"Shift Control

A busy time of year for many businesses as they close off 2023 and gear up for 2024. By the end of March 2023, 5 of my customers will have activated significant campaigns to target new business across the North of Ireland - from completely different sectors.Great to see sales and marketing teams working together for that common goal - I have always…

This podcast takes a few left turns on the way to talking about the 3 fundamental reasons why you should consider sales training for your business...there might even be a fourth.On the way I talk about the cost of creativity - thanks to ChatGPT, MidJourney, Fiverr etc...creativity can be funded from petty cash compared to 'back in the day.' Less th…

This episode is nothing short of a signpost to another podcaster and a specific podcast - Lex Fridman and Chris Voss on the Lex Fridman Podcast.If you're interested in fine-tuning your negotiation skills this episode gives a brilliant insight into human behaviour, emotional intelligence and helps explain some of the common stumbling blocks that we …

In the world of sales, closing deals and generating revenue are often seen as the most important metrics of success. However, what is often overlooked is the role that empathy plays in achieving those goals. Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is a crucial skill that sales professionals need to possess in order to s…

Root cause analysis is a method used to identify the underlying reasons or causes of a problem or issue. The goal of root cause analysis is to uncover the source of the problem and address it at its root, rather than simply treating its symptoms. This approach to problem-solving has been widely adopted across a range of industries, including busine…

The quality of the work at the very first stage of any sales process usually defines the success of the campaign – get it wrong at the start and the ending will be predictably bad.Get it right and it can be a game changer.For salespeople and sales management alike, the art of prospecting is a double-edged sword.On one hand, it is the lifeblood of s…

I reckon I'm qualified to post this podcast based as much on a legacy of failures in negotiation and the odd success.I have been holding back on recording a podcast on negotiation - it's a complex area, with hours of content but you have to start somewhere.Negotiation is the business end of sales - where you earn your commission or get sacked, as I…

January is a tough month for most of us - it's especially tough if you work in sales, either as a sales leader or in business development.January is usually a time for rate increases. It's also the time of year that buyers and prospects can easily avoid your calls - which leads to no meetings for the month. Unless you have planned. Seasonal mood sw…

If you've tried writing a blog for your website, what is the most important thing for you? Creating more SEO content? Posting engaging and meaningful content for prospects and potential customers? Satisfying Google? Making sales? Some of the above?Over the last year I had been looking at a number of AI content providers - Jasper being the first and…

Three weeks from now the Qatar World Cup will be over and our news media will be filled with other local, regional, national or international stories, all made important by editorial staff, driving circulations and audience figures to satisfy greedy media owners and large corporations.Think of everything else that's ongoing in our world just now - …

If you think you don't have enough acronyms in your life then this podcast is for you. Thinking acronyms in sales - BANT, ANUM, FAINT...so many that are centred on the N word...NEED.I share a story about working in a start up and building a pipeline of sales to almost £2m...based on what the customer needed...Except it turns out that they didn't ne…

Oonagh O'Reilly has been involved in sales in one form or another from the early days learning on the farm to various high performing roles with the NI Chamber of Commerce, The IFA and the ICC Belfast.We have a varied conversation - the importance of having a purpose and vision, getting a handle on the basics of sales and marketing which allows you…

With sales training there aren't many guarantees although the degree of certainty does improve dependant on a number of factors.A clear strategy, willingness to learn & coach-ability, strong leadership, a sound and understood culture, buy-in.I try hard to live by the idiom "it's not about being right but about doing the right thing that matters." B…

Emotional intelligence fits in as a logical 3rd episode in this series...all about being more self aware, understanding what prompts your feelings and the responses to those feelings.2 men that I worked with in the past used to say: 'Try and see the picture in the other man's head.'Says it all - or most of it anyway - Daniel Goleman gets the credit…