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The Quirky Side of Doing Business With the British

One of the less obvious rewards of travelling is catching a glimpse of your own culture through the prism of other nationalities’ perception. For many in business here in the UK, a placement abroad is an expected part of the job and with that comes some form of cultural training relevant to the destination. Imagine […]

An Appreciation of Yodeling

When was the last time you yodeled? In our super shiny digital age this pastime has been consigned as a relic of a prehistoric, and rather naff, era in history when fun was defined by methods of cheap (ergo free) entertainment. However, fun it was, and across the world, between the 1920s – 1940s, have […]

Is it a Question of Courtesy?

Courtesy as a word is on the decline. I know this thanks to the latest Google gizmo (or perhaps I have only just discovered it) that charts the usage of the word in language. Apparently it peaked somewhere in the 1950s and has been on the slide since then. Of course this was always the […]

Have We Forgotten How to Listen?

It wasn’t all that long ago that if one accidentally nudged the CapsLk key AND WROTE SOMETHING before realising, one would tut, delete and start again. Nowadays however it’s often more common to apologise for ‘shouting’ (followed by the ubiquitous LOL). We shout a lot these days. But we seem to have forgotten how to […]

How not to be skewered by hubris in a pitch

Did you know that, given the chance, a goldfish will eat itself to death because it doesn’t know when to stop? A more commonly known fact is that a goldfish has a 9 second attention span (unless of course you are continuously shovelling fish flakes into the bowl). If you’ve finished the last paragraph your […]

How to find your natural voice

Nigel Farage has been in the headlines again. In fact, he has been on the front page thanks to his Brexit opinions and new found belief that we should have a second referendum on the topic. Perhaps the real significance of this story is that a radio show host, who no longer has anything to […]

Win Over a Business Crowd. Tell Them a Story

Let me tell you about something that happened to me on the way to work today. It’s a funny story and pertinent to what I am writing about in this first blog of 2018. By the way, before I continue, Happy New Year to you! A week has now eclipsed since the arrival of 2018 […]

Christmas… But which version?

Ah the old Yule Tide! Christmas t’is the time of year when traditions and clichés fall thick and fast – a bit like that snowy Christmas card scene that for most UK dwellers is as alien as getting through the festive period without stacking on a couple of extra pounds. I must say it has […]

Business Dining Etiquette

Business parties, business lunches, business dinners, drinks and nibbles – all staged around a vaguely festive theme – will proliferate this December as diaries are wound down, decisions are delayed and appointments are rearranged for the new year. Dining etiquette for business is a topic well covered for good reason – nothing turns off a […]

Budget Speech Tips (and Tipples)

Spare a thought for ‘Friendless Phil’ this week. It’s that time of year when the Chancellor of the Exchequer reaches into the closet for his super villain costume and leaves Number 11 Downing Street to deliver another Budget. The only certainty of this week’s Budget is that we all have a grumble, of varying degrees, […]

Personality and Persuasion – New Seminar

We have launched a new seminar ‘Personality and Persuasion‘. This seminar examines how psychometrics are useful, why conscious self-awareness is important and how to persuade different personality types. Please contact us on 020 7416 6076 for more information.

The Stuff of Nightmares

Let me cast your mind back to a rather dreary day in June 2016. Then PM, David Cameron, had had quite a night. It began, according to sources, with a confident late night Downing Street dinner and ended with a rather sorry breakfast, after which he tendered his resignation. Sources report that Mr Cameron had […]

One year on – still Trump first

In October of last year, I wrote a blog entitled ‘What can Donald Trump teach us about speechmaking?’ Clearly, very little. At the time, Trump was languishing in the polls and reeling (a bit) from the leak of the tapes we all unfortunately all had to hear and many didn’t expect him to win. It’s […]

How to Talk Yourself Down

President Obama did it quite effectively. President Reagan did it quite effectively. President Bush even did it quite effectively. President Trump doesn’t do it all. To the British it’s almost a national sport although Michael Gove should definitely give it a rest. What am I talking about? Self-deprecation – the act (and sometimes the art) […]