One of the most important elements in any business growth coaching program is setting a vision for the company in the near future.

This vision should reflect the ambition together with the needs of the owners and directors, and it will be eventually refined into a working blueprint of the perfect business. It gives the directors a chance to anticipate problems ahead of the event and to develop powerful solutions. It also enables the management to optimise and automate workflows and build robust corporate structures before pressure and stresses create the operational fog that hinders rational thought and decision making.

The vision must go beyond the commercial demands of the business. It must address the personal needs of all parties involved and it will undoubtedly provide a desirable work-life balance, as well as satisfy the commercial needs of turnover, profits and liquidity. A good quality of life is essential as a powerful motivational force to achieve your ambition, and the better your quality of life the stronger the motivation.

So important are the personal aspects of the vision it is the focus of the first questions I ask. What do you want? How much money do you want to earn? How many weeks holiday do you want?

There is of course an advantage to demanding a lot. A company that can satisfy ambitious needs requires a good structure, is efficient in its processes and tends to be very resilient. These are very valuable attributes.

Why not like to find out how growth coaching can enable you to achieve your ambitions not just by growing your profits but also in improving your quality of life. I offer a free consultation with to anyone who is interested. It just takes an email or a phone call to arrange.

One of my biggest surprises in four years of coaching has been discovering how little we use persuasive techniques in our negations to help us sell our products, and influence people to make them want to do business with us.

It is surprising because of the abundance of convincing research that indicates not only is a decision to buy frequently made at the very early, often opening, stages of negotiations, but that we are also predisposed as human beings to want to do business with people we like.

Despite this, all too frequently we focus our sales pitch to be logical and rational with little regard to the personal and emotional issues of the people we want to negotiate with. All too often our arguments appear to be unheard and unnoticed and we are surprised and disappointed by the failure of our efforts.

My experience of helping my clients improve their negotiating skills leaves me with no doubt that putting the same effort into building rapport as you would constructing a convincing cost benefit analysis dramatically increases the success rate of any negotiations. In the context of sales this means achieving a significantly greater conversion rate, higher prices and better compliance. All this is possible as a consequence of listening, showing empathy and carefully choosing your words.

Whenever I have helped my clients develop persuasive arguments the response has been fantastic, so much so that I now explain the techniques in my coaching sessions as a matter of course. To help develop their skills even further I have organised some workshops to give them a thorough grounding in the techniques.

If any LinkedIn member would like to know more there is more information at http://pjbeard.co.uk/influence-and-persuasion-one-day-workshop/