Claire Sewell joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio to talk through how you can increase your sales and build better relationships. Building relationships is the biggest thing in sales, yet so many salespeople go straight in for the kill without building those foundations. You need to be adding value and looking to solve problems, rather than pitching a solution you don’t know will work. Sales isn’t the easiest industry to do well in, but when you stop making it all about you and start paying attention to the businesses or people you’re selling to, it will come much more naturally.

Rav Panesar joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio to talk through how to improve and power your projects. Whether you’re in project management or not, you’ll at some point be involved in making sure a project or programme gets delivered properly on time and as planned. But when there are so many factors in project and programme management that can lead it to go wrong, people get stuck in bad habitz and end up losing sight of their objectives and aren’t able to identify risks as they appear. Rav has over 20 years experience, 10 of which he’s run an independent business consultancy that has delivered 27 projects on £166m worth of business transformations.

Tim Duncombe joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio to talk through ways to get a better telecoms deal. In the telecoms industry there’s a lot of unethical practise. Between lengthy contracts, hidden charges and misselling, you’re more often than not bound to come up short against the companies you buy from. When you’re working with technology you’re always going to want to be up to date and future proof. But when businesses have sales goals and often very little interest in your actual needs, you’re not guaranteed to be sold to properly. Tim gives some good tips for how to decide what is best for your business and not be swung a deal you didn’t sign up for.

Stuart Clark joins us in the studio to talk through some mistakes you’re making with your business accounts and how to manage them more effectively. When it comes to managing your business accounts, taking the easiest and cheapest accounting options may seem like the best choice, but usually it’ll come back to bite you. Likewise with tax, you want to find out how to pay less tax and end up running your business from your bank account with account books that are 8 months out of date and only look at your profit margins and tax figures – all rookie mistakes but easily rectified. Stuart explains some easy ways to understand your business accounts.

Graham Hawkins joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio talking through how to improve your social selling skills. Graham works with salespeople who are looking to improve their social selling

technique and survive in the industry. Considering people claim to be in sales, their go - to B2B sales techniques are arguably, well, terrible. LinkedIn pitch on connection, no re search on who they’re selling to, and just a general spray and pray – the likelihood of any of these working

is so slim you’re almost better off not trying at all. But if you want to, Graham has some good habitz to start implementing.

Joe Glover joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio to talk you through how to build a community people care about. Marketing has never been as big of a focus in business as it is now. Joe has built a community of 21,000 engaged marketers from across the world on the premise of looking after each other just a bit more. Whether you’re a seasoned marketing director or a social exec starting out, Joe has some decent tips to keep in mind when planning your marketing – and some things to avoid. People should always be central to everything you do as a marketer, so take your time to sort your values and know that the rewards aren’t instant, but always worthwhile in the long run.

Becky Lodge joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio to talk about how to build a successful start up. Being a first time business owner or entrepreneur isn’t easy. Trying to learn how to manage different projects at once, wear 10 different hats and make your business profitable is hard. And that’s why most start ups fail. With the right funding and good people around you, there’s no reason your business can’t be a success. From hiring a business coach or mentor to focusing on your mental health and mindset, Becky talks through some simple ways to make your start up successful.

Jamie Dixon joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio to talk about how to make training practical. It’s all well and good spending hours on a training module for it to go in one ear and out the other. Making your training practical is another story. Most people focus on the wrong things when training, like focusing on a topic instead of finding a solution. So find your goals, set your targets and train towards them, not around them. Learning and development is never going to be a one size fits all, but L&D coaches and trainers know how to get the best out of people. Listen to some of Jamie’s tips to improve your training.

Katie Thompson joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio to talk about content marketing and how to build better communities. Since Katie trained with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and the Chartered Institute of Marketing, she’s worked with some of the biggest global brands. She knows the dos and don’ts when it comes to creating content and marketing both with old school editorial standards and the new age digital techniques. Building brands and communities online isn’t easy, and will never be an overnight win, but with some of these good and bad habitz to pick up and drop, you’ll be a step closer to creating some thought provoking, and decent content that makes people buy.

Chris Williamson joins us in the Habitz Podcast studio giving you his tips on starting a podcast. Chris has his own successful podcast called Modern Wisdom which has had over 10 million plays in the last few years. Everyone listens to podcasts now, so people see it as an easy way to get noticed. But it’s a hard platform to launch on when you’re not sure on the direction. It’s more than just speaking into a microphone. You need to be speaking about the right topics for your audience, interviewing people, giving value that can’t be found elsewhere. Putting out content needs to have half a thought behind it, so take some of Chris’ tips if you’ve just launched a podcast or you’re wondering how to start one soon.