Perception V Reality

In his book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, the late Dale Carnegie tells the story of Two Gun Crowley.  This is a man who was sent to the […]

Taking the ‘lead in’ questions

It is not easy asking leading questions. No wonder – it is hardly natural.  You would wouldn’t walk up to someone you didn’t know in the pub and ask them […]

My Boomerang’s Just Come Back

I can’t believe it is ten months since I posted my last blog on this site.  To be fair I have been messing about with the BusinessXchange website copy since January […]

One-liners

My Blog this week continues the story telling theme.  However, this is about shortening the story to a one liner that really gets the message across. The thought was kick started […]

Let me tell you a story

Over the last couple of weeks the benefit of telling stories (not untruths of course) has come up in various different guises.  The great thing about telling a story is […]

If you don’t ask …

If you don’t ask …You don’t get; won’t get but more importantly in business if your business connections don’t know what you want, you can’t possibly get. Rudyard Kipling oft […]

Back of an Envelope

It’s another of those quirky idioms.  It refers to a quick and dirty calculation jotted on a scrap of paper.  However quick and dirty, the impact is only achieved if […]

KISS – (Love Me Feb challenge #9)

A cliché symbolised by the mnemonic KISS.  I have always found the phase slightly insulting. What is so stupid about keeping things simple?  Or is it saying that if you […]

Siphoning the Sales Funnel

To put this into context; this post is not about marketing, PR and lead generation, it assumes that you already have an abundance of enquiries that are filling up your […]

Write your Epitaph

This You Tube link is quite a long one so I have placed it at the front of this Blog.  It’s the sort of music that you will be able […]

Champions – who do they know …

The most important thing you can do when you are looking for clients is to find your champion. That is someone who will introduce and preferably recommend your abilities. These […]

Decisions; Decisions

A couple of questions to get you thinking:  What was the worst business decision you ever made?  What did it cost you?  And what was the best business decision you […]

Surefire Social Wins

Cisco Systems reported the results of a survey they completed last year that businesses that took a strategic and tactical approach to online social networking made an 18% increase in […]

Paws for Thought! – THE Eulogy

We lost, today a faithful friend, Came to a short and early end, He was only three, still half grown, Thank you Angus, do have a bone. This cheeky chocolate […]

Naked Selling – aka without close!

Here are the 7 Secrets of the ‘Triple S’ Structured System of Selling that helps you close deals without ever having to sell.  It is about having a sales system.  […]

Sticks and Stones …

… may break my bones but words can never hurt me? If I ever needed confirmation that I didn’t want kids of my own, then last weekend was it!  These […]

About The Hidden Edge

For more information about the professional me, Laura McHarrie at The Hidden Edge please click-through to my LinkedIn profile.  It illustrates my career history and business credibility.  If you scroll […]

No Go Sligo :0(

Last May, I spent a weekend in Cirencester with 200 people that I had never met before.  I know it seems odd!  The Friday evening buffet was a fancy dress […]

Orchidaceae

Here’s hoping that I am out the other side of a blog block period!  It’s been going on for a couple of months now.  It’s not that I don’t have […]

Dungeons and Dragons

Many, many years ago – 22 to be exact I played Dungeons and Dragons down the pub with a bunch of Debenhams colleagues for the best part of a year, […]

Our Loss; God’s Gain – Eulogy

Heaven won’t know what hit it last night!  The Passionate PA has left us wanting. Sarah Howells died this afternoon after a short but courageous and public fight with breast, […]

In the Air Tonight – Brand Recognition

It is possible you can learn a lot about communicating by checking out some of the big brand success stories.  We receive somewhere in the region of 3000 commercial messages […]

What’s the point? – Grammar et al

There are fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar. They are the full stop, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses. Check this … Punctuation […]

Information Booklets

Writing a series of information booklets that can be downloaded from your website is a great way to gather contact data for target consumers of your product or service, especially […]

The Knowledge Economy

Knowledge is very powerful.  It is the single most important asset the country owns at the moment.  It differentiates the UK from most other trading nations.  The majority of businesses […]