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...

Selling can be sleazy when it’s manipulative. “Let me convince you to do something so I’ll get what I want.” If you want to grow your business, and feel good about yourself at the same time, it’s necessary to change the way you think about “selling.” Everyone buys things. If you provide a product or service that has real value and helps people solve real problems, there is someone who will want to buy it. That someone is struggling with the problem you’re prepared to solve. They wouldn’t want a solution if solving the problem wasn’t important to them. So if you can help them solve their problem and do a good job of it, you have become their new best friend. They not only will want to buy what you have to sell, they will want to buy from you again and again because now they have begun to trust that you are someone who can help them solve their problems. When you are able to shift your thinking from “I’m selling something” to “I’m serving someone by helping them solve a probl...

Let’s face it. Your boss might not be the most emotionally evolved mammal on the planet.   Chances are you will have to deal with (or have already dealt with) a boss that is all too like the chicanery you see from Dunder Mifflin’s leadership team. No matter what you do, it’s never enough.   Your results are never big enough or fast enough.   Even though the boss is never there, when he/she does decide to show up they “second guesses” all your decisions and keeps asking “what the hell is going on around here?” All the while you are using all your big people skills to not shout out the obvious answer — “You would know if you were here…”   But you shut your mouth and pretend to take notes on the clipboard you are holding.   Muttering to yourself if having a job is really all that worth it. Not for bosses like that! The extra stress and chaos does nothing but bring you years closer to your death.   It’s not only stupid, it’s dangerous – to you...

You might have noticed a lot of recent complaints about what’s known as “page view journalism.” Thanks to the way online advertising works, many online publishers push out tons of daily content, most of it filler. Or it’s overtly controversial — not on its merits — but for the sake of controversy (and page views). Many attribute this approach to greed. I attribute it to a marginal revenue model. Online advertising has grown by leaps and bounds since its collapse at the dot-com implosion. And yet it’s still not the best way to monetise content and run an online business in 2015. Here’s why: 1. You Need Lots of Traffic. Lots! A general rule of thumb is that you’ll need a million monthly page views before online advertising will begin to pay off. You’ll need more in highly general niches (like celebrity), and less in highly specialised ones where advertisers will pay a premium to reach certain people (like mesothelioma). Regardless, you need a lot of traffic . And...

In days gone by small business advertising was a simple task. You would call up either the local newspaper or the Yellow Pages, get a borderline-extortionate quote and then pay it. Advertising was expensive, but it was simple and, when done well, it worked. Today the opportunities for small businesses have proliferated and become much more targeted thanks to the internet, but with so many options available it can be difficult to decide which the best fit is for you. Ultimately, advertising is only worth the money if it drives people to buy your company’s products or services. So here’s a run through of the main opportunities you should consider investing your advertising budget in, in order to reach your target audience and generate leads for your small business: Google Adwords Adwords is the single biggest system for small business advertising. Google will display your website’s ad above results generated from particular searches. Choosing to display your ads against the r...

Innovators or Sheep? Have you ever notice that so many companies want to be visionary? Able to predict future products and services you need; but yet they also say they respond to market demand by being market-driven . Seems to me that’s an oxymoron. Can you be both market-driving and market-driven? To disruptively break free from reactive business strategy and accelerate the agile and pivot-able strategy, we need to understand the difference between market-driving and market-driven companies. In his 2004 book, “Marketing as Strategy,” Nurmalya Kumar characterised these two types of strategies. Market-driving companies rule the future – they push the envelope of possibility and consistently surprise customers by introducing unique value in exceptional brand new products and services. Market driven companies are doomed to fall increasingly further behind as they react to customer needs that will surely change by the time they deliver the ultimately out of date p...