Tired of making expensive hiring mistakes?

Well, Nik can help with that!

Today's episode covers how to build a hiring process that finds the right people, not just the best CV.

Nik Plevan from eTalent is an expert in behavioural recruitment and he covers four practical steps to hire with confidence.

➡️ Capture - Nik shares how to write job adverts that attract the right candidates, including why being transparent about salary makes a bigger difference than you might think.

➡️ Assess - find out why CVs are not a reliable screening tool, and what to look at instead to identify candidates with the right soft skills for your role.

➡️ Learn - how to use behavioural profiling to understand what motivates a candidate and whether they will thrive in your team and your environment.

➡️ Match - how to structure your final selection process, from group interviews through to background checks, so you make the right offer to the right person.

You can watch the episode on our website, link below, and then take our quiz where you'll get bespoke advice from Nik with implementable advice for you in your business.

We're using our C-A-L-M acronym as the podcast is going to cover everything from sales and marketing, IT, professional services, property and FM, net zero, utilities, business support and HR so we'll have a wide variety of guests and topics to come.

Are your sales and marketing teams both focused on the same objectives?

If not, today's episode of our podcast can help with that!

Today's guest, Gordon Ross from GR23 Marketing covers how to align your sales and marketing teams so they are pulling in the same direction.

Gordon is an expert in sales and marketing alignment and he covers four practical steps to get both teams working towards the same goals.

➡️ Collaborate - build a simple, consistent rhythm between sales and marketing for shared insights

➡️ Align - find out how to agree on what a good lead looks like, so both teams are measuring success in the same way.

➡️ Link - how to connect your systems and processes so that collaboration happens day to day

➡️ Measure - how to move beyond individual team metrics and track the numbers that show whether the business is actually growing.

Watch this episode and then take our quiz where you'll get bespoke advice from Gordon with implementable advice for you in your business.

We're using our C-A-L-M acronym as the podcast is going to cover everything from sales and marketing, IT, professional services, property and FM, net zero, utilities, business support and HR so we'll have a wide variety of guests and topics to come.

Struggling to reach your ideal customers? Well, Kirsty can help you!

Todays episode covers how to develop your go-to-market strategy for business owners.

Kirsty Jagielko is an expert in marketing strategy and she covers four practical steps to identify your customer and improve your marketing activity.

➡️Customer clarity - Kirsty shares how to define exactly who your ideal customer is, so your whole team is working towards the same target.

➡️Address pain points - find out how to identify what your customers actually need to solve, and make sure your messaging speaks to that.

➡️Locate your audience - how to find where your customers are and focus on the right one or two channels, rather than spreading yourself too thin.

➡️Motivate to act - how to create urgency and build enough trust that your ideal customer chooses you over everyone else.

You can watch the episode on our website, link below, and then take our quiz where you'll get bespoke advice from Kirsty with implementable advice for you in your business.

We're using our C-A-L-M acronym as the podcast is going to cover everything from sales & marketing, IT, professional services, property & FM, net zero, utilities, business support and HR so we'll have a wide variety of guests and topics to come.

Most business owners know they should be doing more sales activity.

But, doing it consistently can be so, so hard to implement when life is busy!

In this episode of our podcast I am talking to Anna Payne - Sales Training about this very thing.

Anna is an expert sales coach who works with business owners to improve their sales activities.

In our conversation we cover 4 aspects to improve your sales activities:

➡️ Consistency - Anna shares her advice on how to block out time for sales activities.

➡️Attraction - find out about the key aspect to attract your potential customers

➡️Leads - how to maximise the warm leads you already have before looking for new ones

➡️Mindset - the big one! Ensure your mindset is working with you to support your sales activities.

Sales doesn't need to be sleezy.

Once you've watched the episode take our quiz where you'll get bespoke advice from Anna with implementable advice for you in your business.

We're using our C-A-L-M acronym as the podcast is going to cover everything from sales & marketing, IT, professional services, property & FM, net zero, utilities, business support and HR so we'll have a wide variety of guests and topics to come.

Today I'd love to share the first episode I recorded with Stephen O'Donnell.

He has so much knowledge to share on business planning so our chat only scratches the surface however we do cover some critical points to think about in your business:

➡️ Clarity - without it, you and your team will be reactive rather than focused on your strategic goals.

➡️Alignment - if your team don't know the priorities they will struggle to deliver

➡️Leverage - how to ensure you (as the owner) don't become the bottleneck and you can leverage the skills around you

➡️Measurement - the old chestnut of you can't manage what you can't measure is true but measurement also lets you see your progress.

You can watch the episode and then take our quiz where you'll get bespoke advice from Stephen with implementable advice for you in your business.

We're using our C-A-L-M acronym as the podcast is going to cover everything from sales & marketing, IT, professional services, property & FM, net zero, utilities, business support and HR so we'll have a wide variety of guests and topics to come.

Introducing The CALM Business Podcast where I, Shona Motherwell Founder of The Independent Buying Group, get a chance to talk to some of our expert, vetted suppliers and industry experts.

Our guests will share some of their advice about how to tackle common issues they see in business and give you practical, expert advice on what to do next.

Each episode comes with a quiz aligned to the conversation so you can do a quick self assessment and then get a detailed report from our guest with bespoke advice for you.

If you're wondering where the "CALM" comes from, it's our Code of Conduct for all suppliers and buyers we work with:

• Clear communications
• Accountable behaviour
• Legal standards and
• Moral & ethical business

We've kept the "CALM" theme going through the podcast for two reasons.

1. We will be interviewing guests from a diverse range of industries so we're using that acronym to create a consistent format for each episode where guests choose some words as a kick off point for each part of our conversation but more importantly
2. Our Code of Conduct has been designed to ensure we don't need to work with arseholes - life is too short

We want to to bring some CALM to your life by only working with trusted, expert suppliers (and customers) who sign up to our Code of Conduct & won't leave you tearing your hair out!