Online Video & Virtual Events Blog

At what level of the career ladder do some people find it acceptable to treat people like s***?

26th October 2011 by Rachel Willis 5 comments

I’ve seen a man in his 40’s brought to tears by his boss, watched many Business Mangers shaking with panic and even witnessed an MD of a multinational company throw a plate full of food across a roomful of people in a feat of anger.

Unfortunately, I have found myself witnessing these scenes while working on Live Events and Conferences over the last 10 years or so and have often wondered at what level of the career ladder do some people find it acceptable to treat people like s***?

The Perfect Business Handshake: How to Shake Hands Well & Why It’s So Important

7th October 2011 by Rachel Willis 232 comments

In my first role as an Account Executive I was taught one great skill by the MD at the time; the art of a good handshake.

I was asked to be part of a pitch team (I was asked to carry the bags actually, but you have to start somewhere!) As part of the team I would have to shake hands with the potential new client that we were pitching to. With the panic of dropping the bags and sitting on the edge of proceedings like a mute lemon, I thought the hand shake was the least of my worries – wrong!

How to deal with difficult people in business

29th July 2011 by Rachel Willis 3 comments

There are loads of A Team people in every industry. Typically A Team people make things look easy, work hard, prepare, never take anything for granted and perhaps, most importantly, they trust the people they work with.

The A Team isn’t the only team though. There is another; the “B Team”.

The B Team typically lack confidence, don’t prepare, take most things for granted and don’t trust anyone.

In simple terms the A Team’s objective is to complete the job in hand and in our case, make the show happen. The B Team spend their time and effort doing everything they can to stop that happening!

You will all have met B Team members, you might know them well, you might work with them; you might even be one!

5 Tips on how to write better business emails

6th July 2011 by Rachel Willis 23 comments

I really didn’t want this blog post to turn into a rant, but I can feel it going in that direction! I know we all receive endless e-mails but the difference between a good email and a bad one can have a huge impact on peoples’ moods, desire to complete a task on your behalf and the receiver’s general perception towards you, and your organisation. I always try to follow some simple guidelines when writing an e-mail and I thought I would share them with you to see if you think I am right to get on my high horse about email etiquette!

Why we need to bring back the real Bank Managers!

6th June 2011 by Lorna Malone 5 comments

I worked for one of the High Street Banks many years ago. Since then there have been huge changes in banking, and having spent more than 20 years running my own businesses, I feel very few have been positive! Back then we then had a Bank Manager who was in charge of a particular branch or in some cases in rural areas 2 or three branches. They were part of the community and knew their customers and their needs very well.

Now when I ring the Bank who deals with our business, I am rarely connected to the same person twice. More often than not, I can’t speak to that person immediately but have to wait up to 24 hours for a response to my call. Then I have to go through the whole story again to the so called “Business Manager”. Not the best way of building up a relationship with your bank – hence I very rarely ring the Bank!

What's the best way to stop spam comments on your blog?

28th February 2011 by Simon Malone 425 comments

In its electronic form “Spam” covers a huge range of items and includes unsolicited bulk e-mails, unsolicited social networking posts and the most irritating for me, blog comment spam.

Every week we receive around 75 junk blog comments from a wide variety of robot sources commenting on an even wider variety of topics. We have it all from Viagra sales to African lotteries and then back to cruder methods of penis enlargement. I have held back from adding content moderating software as I think it might discourage “real people” to post on our blog, but after deleting 23 spam posts this morning I have decided enough is enough!

The secret of successful networking? Be nice!

14th February 2011 by Sean Malone 17 comments

I’ve discovered the secret of successful networking: the thing which underpins all successful business networking. I made my discovery last Thursday when I had the fortune to meet the rudest man in the world and the nicest woman, all on the same day.

Here’s my story.

“The Government is supporting UK Businesses” – are you having a laugh?

4th February 2011 by Sean Malone 8 comments

I’m at that funny age of 58, where I’ve still got lots to learn, but know too much. I know when somebody is talking a load of baloney. I think that I first acquired the skill at the age of about 52. After years of attending endless, dreary business meetings and enduring hundreds of mind-numbing presentations, I seem to have grown an invisible aerial perched on top of my head which can instantly detect insincerity – and an atomic level of bullshit.

The invisible aerial is infallible; your feedback is welcome (which means, don’t call us again)… thank you for your custom (who are you?)… we’ll make this a high priority (It doesn’t happen)...

Could WikiLeaks lead to internet censorship?

10th December 2010 by Simon Malone 1 comments

Whether you agree with the information distributed by WikiLeaks or not, the fact a national government is going out of its way to deny freedom of speech and information on the internet should be of concern to all of us. I believe one of the internet’s greatest attributes is the way it enables people to share information content with other people all over the world. This debate has gone beyond the distribution of confidential documents and has evolved into a greater argument of censorship and government control over the internet. I for one hope that regardless of what happens to WikiLeaks, the future of the internet remains free and unrestricted. If that freedom is in any way taken away or lost it is something I believe we will all suffer for in the future.

10 Worst habits of the bad business presenter

11th October 2010 by Sean Malone 5 comments

1. No clear audience benefit (why are we listening to this rubbish?)

Every bad presenter believes that their presentation is all about them and that the audience are simply there to witness the genius of it all. If you are not sure why the audience should bother listening to you, then postpone the event until you can answer the question...

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