Meet, Mix and Make Business Happen

Companies have been getting the new year off to a great start in Coventry as hundreds of businesses from around the region attended the B2B Expo, which the Federation of Small Businesses runs in conjunction with the local paper, The Telegraph. With 54 exhibitors and a packed programme of speakers and seminars, there was much to keep the delegates engaged. One of the attractions was the networking breakfast which brought together 250 businesses for that perfect opportunity to make new contacts and generate leads for business potential. Events such as the B2B Expo are an ideal mix of learning opportunities, marketing vehicles and new business development, so they are great for moving your business forward. Looked at in the right way, every aspect of these events can be seen as preparation for making the sale. At seminars and talks you might learn of a new selling technique or an innovative way to market your business or maximise the effectiveness of your operations. As an exhibitor you get to overtly promote your brand in a professional business atmosphere to a captive audience. And with networking opportunities, either as a formally staged event or casually as you meet other delegates or exhibitors during the day, every encounter can be the start of a relationship that can lead to new business. Even just experiencing an event such as the B2B Expo can give new sales staff a quick introduction to and feel for the business environment they are now part of and how their competitors or customers are operating. B2B events and exhibitions can be great ways to develop contacts to help with your future recruitment needs as sales recruitment agencies in Coventry will often exhibit or may even deliver seminars. At the Coventry B2B Expo, the council made a special pitch to promote their 'Get An Apprentice' scheme, highlighting the different ways you can develop your future resource requirements. Networking and opportunities to meet other businesses can also be a great way to subtly scout out your next career move. As a sales professional, you will be good at striking up conversations, but you should be equally good at listening, so these can be great opportunities to learn about the developments within companies before hiring plans are made known to the outside world. If sales recruitment agencies in Coventry happen to be exhibiting at a B2B conference or exhibition alongside companies you would like to work for, then make the most of the connections to garner the perfect introduction. You can do so by engaging the recruitment representatives as your introducer or by gaining insight from the recruiter about potential positions vacant or the best contact for speculative applications. This will allow you to introduce yourself appropriately to the people who matter. Whatever your professional or personal objectives are when attending a B2B event, remember that you are a representative of your company, so it is not just about what you can get from the opportunity. Your presence makes an impression about the company you represent and the product or service you sell. Even when engaged in an interaction that you think won't benefit you personally, remember that it is an interaction with your company so it is always an opportunity to shine.

A Little More Learning to Get Ahead

Sometimes no matter what your experience or achievements at work are, you might keep coming second to another candidate in a recruitment process because you haven't got the same training or qualifications as they have. Very often employers will look for experience over qualifications, but sometimes it can require a mixture of the two to secure that ideal job. If you want to make the move up the career ladder but you don't have the qualifications, then it's time to look at some training or education opportunities for yourself if there are no training routes open to you in your current job. There are hundreds of different training courses you can take, ranging from half-day workshops to longer-term study courses, so you need to decide how much time you can commit to studying and what courses or programmes will fit well around your hours of work. Some courses you will be able to do remotely, while with others you will need to attend a class or training centre. There are many examples of marketing-related training courses available to boost the weaker aspects of your skills and experience. You may need to work on your copywriting skills if you want to focus on direct mail marketing or producing marketing literature. You may need to get to grips with the latest possibilities that have opened up with social media, or you may need media training if you want to focus your career towards PR. Decide where you want your career path to go and see what the most regular vacancy opportunities are with your local marketing recruitment agencies in Wolverhampton to make sure you are choosing something that has real opportunities. It might not be specific marketing qualifications that you need to set you apart from your peers. Marketing has many aspects, from strategy development and budget planning to implementation planning or communications co-ordination, amongst other elements. So you could benefit from gaining more general qualifications to boost your career, such as business management, finance, or project management. Speak to marketing recruitment agencies in Wolverhampton to see what are the most popular qualifications or examples of training courses that can boost your career. As well as giving you the extra qualifications that you need, setting about improving your skills will also mark you out as a self-starter who can assess what is required of a situation and seek out the means to address it. This use of initiative is something all employers will be pleased to see in applicants for their jobs, so make sure you don't hide this in your application. If you were never a fan of learning or exams when you were at school, don't let that put you off. Remember that as a teenager it could be difficult to see the point of essays and tests and you might have developed a phobia about the exam situation. To get past this fear, you just need to alter your mindset and focus on the very real benefits that applying yourself to learning again can bring. Being able to see the point and wanting to learn is more than half the battle won.

Mis-Selling Boosts Other Sales

The amount of compensation that customers have been receiving from mis-selling things such as PPI has been linked to the increase in car sales as consumers find themselves with lump sums they hadn't expected. While these are serious and extreme cases of misconduct within the sales and financial services professions, they are timely reminders that the effect of a poor approach to selling can mean sales for other businesses, but usually those other businesses will be your competitors. Think beyond the temptation to make the sale at all costs. Remember that the sales process for the customer doesn't end at the point that the customer signs on the dotted line or hands over the cash. That is the point at which it begins. To be successful at sales you need to operate honestly and with integrity and truly understand the value of the product or service you are selling. By believing in what you sell, your passion will come through, and when that is matched with the knowledge that you are totally trustworthy, your customer base will keep growing — largely though word-of-mouth recommendations. However, in just the same way that a great customer experience can be quickly communicated, the news of bad experiences spreads even faster. If you stretch the truth about what a product or service can deliver, it is only a matter of time before that is discovered and the after-sales service will be left to pick up the pieces. So the sale must be successful throughout the process, and that means that all follow-ups such as receipt and performance of the product and the interactions with customer services must meet the expectations set by you in the initial sale. Anything less and you will find your competitors benefiting from your poor conduct. Feeling confident about the reputation and operations of the company you work for can be central to you being able to confidently sell. If you have even the smallest doubts, then this can start to affect your performance and that will quickly show in your results. If in doubt, it's time to start looking for a new job and a new company to represent. See what sales recruitment agencies in Birmingham have on their vacancy lists and do some research into the companies hiring. If there is a specific company you would like to work for, then let the sales recruitment agencies in Birmingham know in case they are contacted about any opportunities or they already work with that company and are able to forward your details speculatively.

Shropshire Welcomes the World

The watch words for many businesses coming out of the recession are 'international trade'. The hopes for survival and expansion for many businesses will depend on finding new markets and customers overseas. However, this is just one way of engaging with international businesses to boost the economy. The other option is to make use of your country or region's best assets, such as an existing industrial or manufacturing base, and invite inward investment from overseas companies. If sufficient trade doesn't exist at home, but you still have the means of production, it makes sense to market that capability overseas. This is just what has been happening in Shropshire, as the mayor of Shrewsbury, Jon Tandy, recently hosted a visit from the managing director of a Shanghai-based automotive company. The Chinese delegation visited Stadco and Salop Design and Engineering, which are both involved in the manufacture of components used in the automotive industry. The West Midlands can certainly be proud of its heritage of excellence in manufacturing and engineering, so building on this capability is the natural next step. Promoting and selling a region can be a very different kind of marketing challenge. A mixture of a real passion for an area along with a keen understanding of its economic potential for investors is required to really do a region justice on the international stage. It is useful to be able to look at an area from the outside in and be able to assess how it might come across to someone who knows nothing of its hidden gems. While assessing and presenting a region in its best light, it is also vital that you are keeping an eye on the efforts of other regions with similar investment opportunities taking the same approach. What have they got to offer that your region hasn't? This is a truly exciting area of marketing to be involved with, and as more and more places seek international inward investment the likelihood is that more marketers will be required to facilitate the process. If this sounds like something you would like to move into, then why not visit marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire to see what opportunities are available. While the task of promoting a region is a huge undertaking, it is not a one-man band. Whole teams of people are involved, from events management to PR and communications, relationship building and overall economic strategy. So as marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire will be able to advise you, there are many routes into this career.

New Beginnings for Stafford Town Centre

Staffordshire has long been anticipating the start of work on the town's new retail and leisure complex, but the news is that it is due to start this month. The Riverside development will be situated in the town centre of Stafford and is likely to include big-name department stores and a multi-cinema complex. Further details of what the development will deliver will be made available at an exhibition which will be held soon. Depending on what outlets and businesses take up space in the new development, marketing recruitment agencies in Staffordshire could find themselves busy helping businesses to secure the talent needed to market these new concerns. The building and development of the complex itself will create new jobs for the residents of Staffordshire, but if you are looking to take advantage of the new jobs it will create once it is completed and new offices, stores and facilities ready themselves to open for business, you will have to wait a while as the development is expected to take around a year and a half to complete. However, if you are keen to secure a job in this new development, then make sure you go along to the exhibition to find out as much as you can about the companies likely to be taking up spaces. Then you can follow the workforce development and recruitment activities of the companies named so that you are ready with your application when the hiring process starts. If you are really proactive, you might decide to send a speculative application to the companies, noting that you are interested in opportunities which may arise from the new development. It is also worth registering with marketing recruitment agencies in Staffordshire and letting them know what your career development interests are and that you are prepared to wait for the right job if that is what you really want. If the recruitment agencies already work with any of the companies which will be involved in the new complex, they might have advance knowledge of what positions will be recruited for. Whatever career options this development might generate, it is a timely reminder that things don't stay the same. If you want to be ready for new opportunities, then it pays to keep your career performance record and CV up to date. It can be very easy to forget or overlook your achievements at work when you are not applying for jobs, and they can become just passing notes in a performance review or a thank-you email. As a New Year's resolution, why not make an effort to record all your achievements and save copies of any thank-you notes and recognition you received for your good work? When it comes to applying for that perfect job, you will want all the evidence you can get to prove you are the ideal candidate. Don't be afraid to ask colleagues or managers who praise your work verbally to put it in an email for you — they are always good to have for performance reviews.

Should You Apply If There Is a Strong Internal Candidate?

Putting in a proper application for a job can take a lot of work and effort if you want to be taken seriously. It is not good enough to simply fire off CVs to anything and everything that takes your fancy. For each job opportunity you should be taking the time to illustrate how you meet all the criteria required of the applicant and highlight your suitability for the specifics of the role. So when you consider the time and effort that a good application can take, is it really worth applying for a job if you think there is already a strong internal candidate lined up for the position? The simple answer is yes. At a very basic level, whether you get the job or not you should always view the recruitment process as a valuable experience you can learn from. When you have been through a process for a job you thought you were ideal for but are unsuccessful, you should review what you could have done better. Did you dress appropriately, did you present well, did you provide sufficient evidence when answering questions and were you confident enough or over-confident? Learn from any mistakes and apply that learning to the next application. The recruitment process can cost a lot of money, so ask yourself if a company would go through the expense of advertising, interviewing and possibly even employing the services of marketing recruitment agencies in Worcestershire if they weren't seriously interested in checking out external talent? Even if there are strong candidates within a company, sometimes what is most needed is a fresh pair of eyes to tackle a role. You may be just as strong as the internal candidates but with the added value of being external, and therefore having different recent experience and a new perspective that could make you the stronger candidate. So be sure to emphasise what it is you can bring to the company to benefit it. If there is an internal candidate being interviewed for the role, but you sufficiently impress at interview, then a serious employer will look to find positions for both of you. If you are unsuccessful in this instance, they may ask you apply again for future opportunities. So whatever effort you have put into your application, whether it's successful or not it is never a waste of time. Whenever you are unsuccessful ask for feedback on your application — you won't always get it but it's worth asking. If you apply through marketing recruitment agencies in Worcestershire, they can get feedback for you.