I help professionals and firms become the Go-To-Expert. Unusually for someone with an Engineering Degree, I accidentally became a writer and used my knowledge on social media to write the current best-selling and award-winning book on networking, The FT Guide To Business Networking. (75 five star reviews on Amazon- and read the 1st chapter for free here) People frequently talk about me as someone who really knows her stuff – which may be the reason I have, over the last decade, worked with over 100 partners, coached and trained over 1000 professionals at every level of the UK’s most ambitious professional practices.
I’ve always loved a challenge which is why I have solved the problem in my next book, which has perplexed many consultants, lawyers, surveyors, architects and accountants – ‘How to make partner and still have a life’. (Published by Kogan Page in November 2012)
The Excedia Group was founded by myself and Jon Baker to bring clarity, perspective and knowledge to help our clients achieve their business goals. Over 75% of our work comes from professional service firms - both large and small, helping them get more clients via referrals utilising networking and social media. Over 50% of the Excedia group’s clients are small professional practices of between 1-50 employees.
My work splits into about 50% Executive & Business Coaching with Partners, Practice Owners & Potential Partners, with the rest split between training, consultancy and writing.
I adore writing, (as well as helping others achieve their goals without having to sell their soul) which is why I blog regularly at Partnership Potential, Joined Up Networking, How to make partner and still have a life and venture-Now
2012-07-30 18:40 - 1830 reads -
When I started my own training business I had a 20 month old and a 3 year old. My decision to be my own boss had been preceded being made redundant, whilst the global economy crashed. Yes, that was three years ago. As my business was started in haste, I didn’t have the luxury of pots of savings to full back on or months of diligent preparation. My redundancy pay was, shall we say, not as generous as I would have liked it to be. All these reasons meant I needed to put food on the table quickly, but without the luxury of being at every networking opportunity available. Childcare made it difficult to get out there. For example, I’ve not yet found a nanny or childminder who is willing to start at 06:00 at the morning to let me go breakfast networking. In addition, evening networking events tends to get expensive when you factor in the cost of a babysitter for the evening.
2012-07-23 19:08 - 1083 reads
… and I’m not talking cheese sandwich type conversations. I’m talking about the type of tweets that people post without really thinking about their target audience and what they want to read. After all, the point of being on Twitter is almost always three fold:
1) Attract your target audience to you by providing valuable content
2) Attract your target audience to your blog by providing valuable content
2012-07-15 19:55 - 2413 reads
I have literally 70+ invitations to ‘connect’ on LinkedIn. They are all sitting there, waiting for me to do something. I don’t know any of these people who have asked me to connect. Each and everyone of these LinkedIn requests says exactly the same thing:
I would like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn
It’s not exactly inspiring is it? That’s why they are all sitting there… waiting until I have a spare hour to go through and message each one to find out what has prompted them to connect.
Now contrast this request to connect that I received on LinkedIn last week
2012-07-09 08:20 - 1109 reads
I have a local electrician in my network and he wins all his business via referral. In fact, his business is growing at a rate of knots and he has a steadily growing team of electricians working for him. He makes it incredibly easy for his network to think of him and refer him to work winning opportunities. Plus, he’s a nice lad who is always helping others out.
So, how does he does this?
2012-07-01 18:01 - 487 reads
To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question? With apologies to Shakespeare, that is the question, which many small business owners are still pondering. Is Twitter a waste of time or a serious business marketing tool? In my opinion, and the managing director’s opinion, whom I was lunching with yesterday, the answer is well and truly yes. As my companion put it, her fellow directors tended to be less scathing and far more interested in using twitter after she won a £100k piece of business using it. That’s a sizeable piece of business for any firm…
So, what are the secrets to winning referrals via twitter:
Dragons' Den judges James Caan and Deborah Meaden and social entrepreneur Karen Darby are some of the successful entrepreneurs who feature in our exclusive videos.