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
2012-05-14 08:43 - 1407 reads -
It was all going so well. In fact, as it turned out too well… All I needed to do was agree dates with the client for a series of workshops worth nearly £10k to us.
That should be the easy part? Right? Wrong! I delegated the job of agreeing dates to my chief organiser, Lisa. Lisa diligently chased her opposite number at the potential client’s organization, but e-mails, messages and phone calls were just not returned. So, I took the task back and went straight to my contact. I got the silent treatment as well…
It’s at this point that you tend to think that the worst has happened. i.e. the client has decided to not proceed – even though they were so keen just a few weeks ago. However, most of the time it’s not that the worst has happened. In fact here are just a few reasons why your phone call is not being returned:
1) The work is now no longer an organisational priority – however, this could change.
2012-04-30 08:38 - 399 reads
I was sitting down with one of my favourite clients for our scores on the doors monthly KPI review. As always we look at her marketing activity and the leads it is producing. As we looking through which sources her leads had come from, she mentioned to me that she was really pleased to have nearly hit her target, but they hadn’t come from where she had expected them to come from. As we went through where each lead had come from, what seemed like a random collection of leads corresponded rather well to where we had expected them to come from. Towards the end of the conversation, my client remembered a lead she had forgotten about.
2012-04-16 10:55 - 1523 reads -
I was having some fun when I wrote this blog post – and despite anyone thinking otherwise, I have not based this article on any one individual or group of individuals.
2012-04-02 12:12 - 509 reads
After training over 200+ professionals in the last 6 months on their networking skills, I noticed that there was a common theme to what people found hard to do when networking. This theme, went something like this:
“how do I start and maintain an interesting conversation, whilst not being boring, but use this conversation to showcase what I do (but not selling)”
Tough ask!
Starting a conversation is easy – see my previous post on 27 great conversation starters. It’s the maintaining whilst highlighting your credentials, without being boring that’s tough. It’s also harder when your profession, like the accountants, has gained a reputation/stereotype (often very unfairly) for being boring.
So, what’s the solution here?
2012-03-26 18:41 - 1044 reads
I was asked to endorse someone on LinkedIn yesterday. Nothing unusual in that. However, I’d never worked with them, in any capacity, never known anyone who had worked with them. I’d only exchanged one or two tweets…. I also vaguely remember my suggestion, some time ago, to help strengthen his LinkedIn profile was not well received. So, you can imagine the slightly flippant recommendation I was thinking of writing… However, I behaved myself and wrote a polite little note back explaining that as I had never worked with him, I didn’t want to damage either of our credibility by writing him a recommendation.
Asking people you have never worked with – or even met in person – is a really stupid and desperate thing to do on LinkedIn.
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