Executive Playground

Do you face these challenges?

You struggle to achieve sales targets

Poor teamwork or communication

Your managers need to become leaders

If so we can help.

WELCOME to Executive Playground, a uniquely creative Business Development and Training Consultancy specialising in Sales Growth, Leadership & Management and Team Development.

But it's not what we do, it's the way that we do it, that's what get results.

Press article April 2008: Bishop’s Move Luton looks to customer service to face down adversity

A new staff training initiative ensures high customer retention and referrals despite a slowing housing market.

Bishop’s Move Luton, part of the largest privately owned removals company in the UK, is taking a unique approach to talk of a downturn in the local removals and storage market by looking to excellent customer service as a way to ensure existing customers are retained, and new ones found via referrals.

A three-day training programme, held in February, gave all 36 members of staff the opportunity to enhance their existing customer service skills and to see how, when applied correctly, such skills can make the difference during challenging times.

Bishop’s Move Luton employed specialist external company, Executive Playground, to deliver their TeamVention Challenge programme.

Why The Apprentice is Bad for Business

I suppose like Big Brother, the events unfolding in The Apprentice have many people talking about it and so in media terms, it's a success. However The Apprentice paints a really bad, outdated picture of how good business is conducted and is unrepresentative of what we see and experience. Of course there are always exceptions.

Alan Sugar has certainly achieved things in the past, maybe in the 80's when his particularly aggressive and rude style of communication would have served him well and made him a lot of money. But a lot has changed since then and thank heavens it has. It's just that the TV companies, like the newspapers are only interested the negative side of life to bring in the viewers. And it works sadly.

Was it something I said?

When meeting someone for the first time we do our best to 'get on' with them don't we? Particularly in sales when we meet prospects or customers for the first time. Those first few minutes are crucial to the first and often lasting impression.

Communication is both simple and complex. It can easily go right or easily go wrong. Our choice of words, our voice, tonality, pitch, intonation, speed and volume, our facial expressions, degree of eye contact, gestures and body language - we use them all instinctively and unconsciously to communicate the little and the large things in life.

We may even get a 'gut feeling' about how things are going as we decide 'I like this person or I don't like this person'; often without really knowing what it is that leads us to these decisions.

Here's a true story.

Choosing the best sales strategies for your product

The strategy you choose to get your product or service to its target market will determine how big or small your market is, how quickly you can access it and how much profit you will make.

Simple I know, but it's amazing how many small businesses get it wrong from day one. 

Here's a true story.....

This week I was approached by the owner of a young business who needed help. We'll call her Jo. Jo made music recordings for a niche market. A great start for any business - a niche product for a niche market.

Jo told me that her business was less than a year old and although she really believed in the product which 'sold itself', she was struggling with sales and not earning enough money. Getting through the door was the problem she said, she felt stressed out and stuck - could we help her?