Grant Stanley Consulting

I was recently visiting an established client and saw the opportunity to “Drop In” on a potential client that I had been repeatedly trying to contact.   Why wouldn’t you, I hear you ask?   I approached reception and Introduced myself and asked to speak to the Principle of the College (Let’s call her Bernie for Anonymity sake) and was told to wait in reception.   After 2 minutes of waiting, out storms this petite lady with a decidedly angry expression and the first words out of her mouth were; “I don’t know you, I don’t know your company and I never asked to see you!” Well, the consummate professional that I am, I didn’t balk at this onslaught and asked her for 5 minutes of her time.   It was wasted by the way, but I’ll explain why.   For those who study body language or NLP I could instantly tell that “Bernie” was not giving an inch; with her crossed arms and crossed legs, coupled with the etched scowl.   It turns out that my calls to her off...

For many years I have struggled and beaten off my competition through hard work and failures.   I have read many books and many articles on how to be the best Salesperson or the Best Marketer and have tried implementing all the advice.   I am sick to death of all of these How-To guides and the lack of actual real life examples of when these tips actually worked! A bit about me first so you can understand my frustrations.   I left the British Army in 1995 and having no actual trade to fall back on (well not one that would be of use in Civvy Street) I stumbled into Sales.   I found that I had a natural ability to listen to people, identify opportunities and close business, so did quite well.   For three years I worked for a small Sales and Marketing company that sold products and services on behalf of developing companies.   I managed to save enough money to put myself through University and in 1999 started a 3 year Bachelor of Science degree in Comp...

A powerful way to develop creative solutions is with storytelling.  Today companies are looking for ways to solve problems using creative processes. Creative storytelling offers significant benefits to every company. This process is not only much more rewarding for everyone involved , it actually produces more innovative and longer lasting results.   Here are just a few of the reasons why storytelling can help your company to develop collaborative solutions that deliver a genuine return on investment. Creativity and Ideas Generation Creative thinking in business yields measurable results. A culture of creativity within an organisation fosters idea generation and nurtures innovation. A co-creation process involves more people, which in turn generates more ideas. These people can include employees, customers and the wider community. Ideas that are developed within this group inform the story behind your business and your brand. Make use of the experiences of these pe...

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom ruled by a pretty good king. And, through this kingdom, there was a road. And, on this road, there was a big rock right in the middle of the road. One of the king's embassadors returning from a trip complained about how the kingdom was going to pot and rode his horse around the rock. A rich merchant came by and complained about the delay as his driver slowly edged around the rock and hurried on. A countess in her carriage whined that the king should take better care of the road system. Many other people came by and went around the rock throughout the day. Then, a poor peasant came by carrying a large load of vegetables he hoped to sell in the market. When he approached the rock, he set down his burden. He pushed and pulled at the rock until he finally got it moved to the side of the road. Where the rock had been was a leather purse. The peasant opened it and saw many gold coins and a note. The note read, "These coins are ...