The Sales Masters Guild

Feeling frustrated? It doesn’t have to be that way, While it's been a tough year for many in the business owners who’ve had to handle increasing competition, costs, cashflow and HR challenges, the shrewd and switched on are looking for the angles to grow and flourish regardless of how the economy looks for the year ahead. If you choose to sit down with a blank sheet of paper, to design a brand-new pan of action I can almost guarantee that you’ll find ways (strategies) that will firmly put you on the front foot as we turn the page of the year. Having been in tricky situations many times over the last 4 decades I know from personal experience that the answers are NOT (except in a one scenario) to simply borrow more money to tackle the cashflow challenges. I’ve learned from experience a basic 4-step method that works in virtually 90% of of situations when a business owner shares their business frustrations. (1) CALIBRATE – by which I mean get out a blank sheet of A3 paper and mind map the entire business canvas. Only by doing this can you start to see the bigger picture. (2) IDENTIFY – the subjects that are causing ‘you’ the greatest amount of anxiety and impeding the positive cashflow profitability you want from your business. (3) PRIORITISE – the subjects that must be solved to increase revenues, cashflow & profitability (4) SYSTEMATICALLY – action each step of your plan to immediately rectify each and every impediment to increased revenue, cashflow and profitability In all honesty, while this is a very simple process it can be incredibly challenging to do on their own without a third party ‘working with you’ because of being so close to the mirror so to speak (It’s amazing how creative your mind can be when you are bouncing it off someone else!!) I hope this simple process will help you to recalibrate over these next few days before the new year. If you want to bounce a conundrum off me or you want to have a chat with someone who has genuinely been where you are on your business journey, please do get in touch..

Is there an appetite for this ? I speak to a lot of business owners in the course of what I do, some own traditional business's, some own consultancy's and others own M&A practices but all of these conversations generally orientate around asking me the same 3 core questions (1) How do I get more business's to come to me? (2) How do I convert more of my conversations into business? (3) What should I do next? In the past I've done a huge number of 1-2-1 mentoring, live training courses and peer mentoring groups, all of which I've really enjoyed delivering over the last decade and a half, but I'm wondering if it's now time to convert all of the knowledge, methodologies and tactical strategies I've acquired over the years into a range of video based tutorials with supporting exercise docs and playbooks? I'm really just putting this out there to see if there's an appetite and would love to gain your feedback as to whether you would genuinely invest in any of the following potential interactive training courses? 1.     How to set up shop as an M&A specialist 2.    How to qualify and close an M&A deal 3.    How to sell a WIBO deal 4.    How to Turnaround & Grow a business 5.    How to build a successful Coaching/Mentoring business 6.    How to become a successful deal maker 7.    How to become successful in business I know there's a ton of online courses, but do they actually sell? and do people actually complete and profit from them?? I would sincerely appreciate your thoughts in the comments below or if you prefer to share privately in a direct message to me here on lInkedin. Thank you in advance

Time to think outside the box!! When everyone appears to be looking at it one way, it’s time to look the other way… The media and social media are all talking about how tough it is at the minute e.g. how 2 tier Keir and his chancellor have no clue what they’re doing and how Mr Trump is going to solve his country’s problems by insulating it from the rest of the world back. Personally, I think Trump and Elon Musk are going to achieve things that the world’s leaders are going to fight against but will ultimately replicate parts of, to solve the same challenges they are up against. My take is that they are coming at their challenges with BIG thinking, disregarding the past norms and creating new ways of tackling those challenges for the greater goal of reducing costs and creating massive potential growth for their country. Whether in the sands of time they are proved right or wrong only time will tell. If we are to achieve something epic in our own lives, we too must think outside the box and on a big scale (for us) regardless of how those around us will say they can’t see it working… Herein lays the challenge for us in the SME business world; our financial institutions only ever see the world through an empirical lens which is why they have fixed ideas around how business works, but as we’ve seen from the past, it’s the mavericks like Henry Ford, Richard Branson and Elon Musk who find new ways of achieving things that most say cannot be done While clearly I’m not remotely on a par with these titans of business, what I can see, is a huge amount of turbulence on the business landscape across 2025, by way of example it’s clear that the repercussions from the recent UK budget will see unemployment, inflation and interest rates rise in the months ahead which of course will have huge effects on the SME business landscape for those who are not already planning what they’ll do to dissolve these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities that will inevitably materialise. It’s time to think big and create strategies for growth through the impending recession, especially as we are fast approaching a new year so that we are ready to pivot towards where most are NOT looking. The 3 main areas that I believe will sail through the upcoming turbulent times are specific areas in the construction sector, longevity med tech and renewables, if you’re in one of these sectors it’s going to be a very interesting time ahead. Please do share your thought about how you see the business landscape over the next 12 months…

Well, that was illuminating!! As entrepreneurs, we become acclimatised to handling the unexpected as well as planning how to handle what ‘looks’ to be coming down the tracks that will affect our master plan. We also know from experience that how we react to what happens outside of our control, is the thing that carves out the successful from those who are paralysed by not knowing what to do next. Much has been said about how de-motivational this week’s budget has been for us in the SME space & how much harder it will be to survive let alone thrive from here on. BUT & I rarely use that ‘word’ for good reason, it punctuates that we must be even shrewder about the strategies we must run to stay profitable, & the playbook to achieve our ultimate goals in what I believe will be a turbulent & challenging few years ahead i.e. My belief is that tomorrows US election will to some extent, be the last piece of the puzzle in us all forming a master plan for the next 24 months!! If Donald Trump is elected, I believe he and Elon Musk will begin turning Americas direction around from the inside out, in other words they’ll be reducing big state to reduce the cost of government while rebalancing their relationships with China, the EU and the UK. This my friends doesn’t put the UK in a great place, especially given what our foreign minister has been saying about Trump; add to this that our current government looks to be following the big state, high tax philosophy that has got France, Italy and most of Europe into dire straits and we can see that we're in for a few turbulent years ahead. Forewarned is forearmed as they say, which means that we (business owners) must develop strategies to deal with that turbulence, which of course means that we MUST be 100% focused on doing 'good profitable business' and not simply ‘buy low-profit turnover’ as a means to keeping the cashflow flowing. I would personally rather 'halve my turnover' next year but make a solid profit than be chasing the same turnover at the cost of bottom-line profitability. By way of example, I can afford to lose a good percentage of turnover if I put my prices up e.g. if my company is making a gross profit of 25% and I put my prices up by 10%, I would have to lose over a quarter (28.6% to be exact) of my customers to be worse off!! Now let’s talk ‘Capital gains’ i.e. the main reason most of us entrepreneurs work so hard on our business’s. The bottom line is, it’s a waste of energy crying about what Rachel Reeves has done, we simply have to suck it up and be smarter in how we achieve our end goals, I for one am now seriously looking at the alternatives and while I won’t be sharing these in public, I will say that they won’t be inline with our current government leaders’ utopian ideas of taking the lion’s share of what I’ve ‘worked’ so hard and risked all to achieve… If there was one thing you’ve taken from this past week that will alter your master plan I would love to hear your thoughts.

What is your master plan? Now is an ideal time to take stock and assess where you are. With 4 months left in 2024, how have the first 8 months of this year been like for you? Having returned from the holidays, most of us are now “back in the saddle.” Time to get stuck in work… of course! But let’s not under-estimate the value of taking the time to think through what has gone well, where we’ve stumbled perhaps and what we could have done differently. Such a great way to tackle the next 4 months with renewed focus and make the last part of the year even better. But how? After years of working in the growth area with many business owners and organisation leaders in 12 different countries, I have seen many times that new habits are hard to form. To avoid repeating everything you did before and running the same old routines and achieving the same old results, what you need isn’t just any plan, but a master plan. This isn’t just about jotting down a few goals; it’s the “driving force” behind everything you do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It’s like having a roadmap that guides you, keeps you moving forward, and keeps you from getting side-tracked. So, why don’t more of us have a clear and compelling master plan? The answer is very simple: clarity. Most people haven’t got a crystal-clear vision of what they want. It’s hard to imagine having the perfect life and what it feels like to achieve it. For many, it seems like a distant dream, so they never take the time to dive into the detail of what that end goal looks and feels like. They never set that ‘special day’ for themselves when they sit down and really work out their master plan that will give them this clarity. Does it ring a bell? At this particular juncture, you’ve got three choices: (1) Acknowledge the problem and carry on as before, stuck in the same old routine. (2) Take a day in the next week to craft your master plan. (3) Be honest with yourself and realise you might need a dedicated mentor to guide you through the process. The good news? There is still much ground to cover before we get to the end of 2024. Make the last 4 months of the year better than the first 8 with a real transformation. So, don’t delay and get this ‘special day’ in your diary now. If you struggle with personal clarity and creating a milestone-driven plan, consider investing in yourself. Get the help of a mentor who can sit down with you for a “deep dive” day. It could be the game changer you need, leaving you with a clear vision and the confidence to turn your aspirations into reality. Time to grab the bull by the horn? The choice is yours: you can either seize the opportunity and make it happen, or let it slip by.

The reason your company is not growing as fast as you want it too Is not just because of what’s happening on the business landscape, the economy or any one of a number of reasons that most will blame, it’s often comes down to two core reasons: - A robust reverse engineered battle board ‘and’ a team who are all on the same page from a motivational lens!! Having built many, many companies over the sands of time, and been parachuted in to turnaround scores of companies I can tell you with conviction that most well-established companies have fallen into the hamster wheel of just repeating what they do on a week to week basis. Very few business owners or their management teams stop on a regular basis to calibrate and analyse where the business landscape is moving towards within their subject matter, and what their competitors are doing to fine tune their ‘focus’ for the next 90 days i.e. their 90-day battle board that maps out the actions and KPI’s we must achieve to grow and flourish. Sales, is the subject most think this is all about, and of course sales is always a top 3 priority, but what is just as important is having a team who are as motivated as the business owner to make the company’s targets a reality, so for me a bigger question to know the answer too is… Are your team as motivated as you? This my friend is a question very few business owners ask of themselves and one that just as few will actually invest their time and money in investigating and solving. Here’s how to confirm the answer and inject a shot of umph into your team. “Motivational Mapping’ – is an in-depth analysis of each and every team member done by a professional motivation mapping specialist, in which each member of the team completes a simple online isometric exercise which results in both an individual analysis of each team member’s true ‘motivational drivers’ and the team’s real world effectiveness to perform and achieve its goals. The results are often quite an eye opener in that it often reveals who the real super stars are in the team, who are the bottle necks and where certain members of the team need to be promoted to different positions or moved to another area of the business in order to make the team and the company accelerate its growth. I’ve personally seen this tactic (bringing in a motivational mapping specialist) make a massive difference to the bottom-line profitability of a business in a very short space of time. If you want to find out more about Motivational mapping and how it could make a huge difference to your business, I highly recommend that you get in touch with Toby Acton. https://lnkd.in/dBxHQi4X

So the launch of the Artemis II moon rocket has been delayed to September 2025 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗼𝗻 (𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗲) 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝟵𝟬% 𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲! The course is constantly monitored and little course corrections are made - small minor adjustments - to get it back on track. Not major changes of direction, just 1 or 2 degree adjustments. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨. We need to constantly monitor our businesses to ensure that we are on track to our ultimately goals and we have to make minor adjustments to keep it on course. Normally not major changes, just little 1 or 2 degree corrections to make sure that we stay on track. If we don't make the small adjustments along the way, we are likely to be well off course further down the line. 𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨? 𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙙𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙞𝙩 𝙤𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚? #smallbusiness #entrepreneurs #businessmentoring

What’s my business really worth? It’s a question that business owners only think about when they begin thinking about exiting their business! Most will immediately think that their turnover is a major point in the value of their business when in fact it’s almost nothing to do with the value and here is the first truth that many miss. The first thing a potential buyer really wants to know is… how much ‘net profit’ has the business made in each of the last few years which is why it’s crucial to have a ‘shareholder’s ‘mindset when running a business and not a ‘owner operator mindset’ i.e. keeping tax bill as low possible. I came across a business owner recently who was turning over £2,7m and was forecasting sales over the next 2 years to take the business to £5m hence he wanted £5m for the business! A look through the financials revealed that the business had averaged only £270K net profit over the previous 3 years with a heavy dependence on new business and only a small amount of reoccurring revenue. Based on the profit he’s been making over the past 3 years he owned what we call a zombie business, and one that was really worth somewhere in the region of £1m (a considerable gap on what he thought it was worth) Clearly for this chap to achieve his goal, he’s going to have to make a massive shift in his mind and go all in on a new strategy… If you were to buy this business what would be the driving force behind how you would value it? I think it’s fair to say that you would probably say your first focus would be on how quickly you could get a return on your investment, the second question would be, “what is the potential return in the long run”? and “how certain are you that you could achieve those goals”? Selling a business is completely different from selling a company’s products or services and requires that we approach this well in advance so that we have enough time to put those things in place that will make the acquirer believe that this is the best opportunity they’ve seen in years in order to make achieve the highest possible valuation. While selling a business is not in of itself a complicated thing to achieve, it does require a level of experience and knowledge of ‘how’ to do it in the right way that only comes from having been through the experience many times before, which is why I highly recommend that you bring someone in who has been where you want to go in order to make the experience as easy and profitable as is possible…

Public speaking, Love it or Hate it? I think it's fair to say that your success in business depends heavily on your ability to communicate in a way that others perceive you to be experienced, knowledgable, likeable and easy to listen too. Now take this to the next level by being absolutely at ease in speaking to groups of people and you take your potential for success to a whole new level... I'm sure that you, like me, have been sat listening to many many people over the years in seminars and business meetings in which we were either incredibly engaged with the speaker or NOT, which is why it's so important that you and I hone our speaking skills to be the person that others see as a true professional and remember long after we meet them or have spoken from the stage. I'm lucky in that I've never struggled when speaking on stage as I've always thought that the key is to stay in my lane, and only speak about those things that I'm 100% certain and knowledgeable of, that way you can't go far wrong as long as we remember that the audience want to walk away with at least once thing that was of true value to 'them' from our presentation. This said I know a lot of people find public speaking to be a real challenge and this is where I tell people to go and work with a good friend of mine Paul Ward, he has a genuine talent for helping people to master their emotions when speaking and give truly inspirational presentations. If you know in your heart that this is a subject you simply must become stronger at, I highly recommend that you get in contact with Paul or better still jump onto one of his public speaking courses, I truly believe it will dramatically increase your professional standing... https://lnkd.in/eCZ6nrFQ

NLP Breakthrough: Unleash Your Potential in a Single Day! Join us for a fun and enlightening journey with an exciting introduction to NLP! #NLP #personaldevelopment #whatinspiresme #communication