Prometheus Consultancy Services Ltd
promethean adj.
– daringly original or creative
Sales & Customer Engagement
Coaching
Helping you reforge your sales strategy, and increase your selling confidence
To get to where you want to be
You have to move from where you are now
The hero’s journey starts with just one step
10% Referral Bonus
Refer a business friend to me who you feel is constantly frustrated with the process of selling their products + services. Once they sign up to a coaching package with me, you’ll earn a 10% cashback reward
Sales Coaching
Do you want to feel more confident in selling your products and services?
Do you want to understand how to communicate more effectively with other people?
Book a call with me to discuss how I can help you sell more ideas, products and services to your ideal buyers
Customer Engagement Coaching
Would you like to organically grow a loyal customer base to encourage them to become active advocates for your brand?
Book a call with me to discuss how I can help you develop the language you use with your audience
Strategy
Systems & Process Consultancy
Conversational Techniques
Mindset Coaching
Why do you need coaching?
Coaching offers a number of benefits above traditional training, especially for business and sales growth. Often, business owners, sales leaders and salespeople are simply focused on hitting their target numbers. It’s natural to focus on finding ways in which to consistently hit those numbers. It’s easy to fall into the trap of making everything you do seem like it’s all about the numbers – where to find the biggest audience for your offerings, how to develop opportunities, generate leads, track the pipeline and so on.
This view tends to make people less effective. This often leads to people feeling stressed about keeping their job or their business going, and how others may view them if they fail. It becomes a downward vortex of negative mental and physical health.
Focusing on this misses one of the primary goals of coaching: Your own and your team’s personal and professional growth.
An external coach has been and is continually coached by others to ensure the overall positive mental and physical health of themselves, so they are optimally placed to help those they coach. To help reduce stress, overcome anxieties and develop rock-solid confidence.
Coaching is a particularly useful tool for helping people to find the resources inside themselves which they may be unaware already exist. Often, people going through a process of being coached can struggle with being asked to be resourceful, having worked for managers and leaders who only told them what to do and how they should do it, not to question the whys. Once unleashed, resourcefulness is a game-changer for helping people solve their own problems.
A good coach encourages people to take the initiative in their own life and work roles, to take responsibility and to be held accountable for their decisions. Through coaching, ultimately you will decide what is important to you, why it’s important, when and how you will take action. You are in control of what you learn, whilst using the Coach as a guide to help you on your undoubtedly rocky road to success*. It allows you and your team to uncover the obstacles blocking your way to success (usually these are internal blocks caused by anxiety or confidence in some form).
When working with a team or business partners, coaching allows for the development of individuals as well as the whole team. If you are a leader, allowing me to focus on individuals within your team may unlock a high performer. Allowing someone the space to find out where they fit may help you to become the best leader they’ve ever had. Of course, all good leaders want their team to succeed. With empathetic action and challenges designed to fit the individuals’ personality, coaching becomes the most effective learning tool available over time.
*Let’s be realistic here – life isn’t easy, it’s a challenge getting what you want from it, but luckily I love a challenge and love helping people to challenge themselves. I’m easily bored if I don’t set myself any goals of challenges. Plus, I fully believe in the idea that:
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”
“If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. Staying comfortable is not part of the deal”
I can, however, help you feel comfortable in feeling uncomfortable.
What makes a great coach?
Some questions to ask yourself about the coach you hire.
- Do they believe in you?
If you’ve ever had a great leader or teacher in the past, you remember those who have believed in your abilities possibly more than you did, especially during those difficult times, don’t you? They had the natural empathy to see something in you that you couldn’t and helped you unlock your own belief to show you that you are capable of more than you believed.
A great coach will be able to see the qualities in you that you don’t yet believe are there, and will help you find a way to unleash them.
- Can they see your blindspots?
Everything in the world is a delicate balance. Whilst unleashing buried qualities is a powerful force, without keeping them in check they can be a force of destructive arrogance, potentially destroying well-earned trust from those around you in your network and client base.
Surely you want someone who can easily recognise which of your beliefs need to change in order to grow safely? And you need to be able to trust them enough to provide you with alternative, healthier and balanced beliefs.
- Will they tell it to you straight?
When it comes to our own ability to succeed, it’s usually our own inner beliefs and negative thoughts which cause us to hold back from our fullest potential. When you are relying on someone to help guide you to success, and when there is limited time together, the last thing you want is for that coach to beat around the bush and be overly “fluffy” lest they upset you, the client.
A great coach will professionally tell you to stop when you are talking or thinking in destructive ways, or in ways which mean you aren’t making progress towards your goals despite best efforts to overcome those blocks.
They will let you try a hypothesised action in your world if it makes sense and seems safe. They want you to become resilient to setbacks and to learn how to learn from failure. Yet they won’t let you go too far down what seems to be the wrong path for you. They will stop you, help you reason logically why it’s not the best idea and will help get you back on the right path.
Who is coaching for?
I work with open-minded, visionary clients who, in selling Business to Business (B2B), relish the idea of being challenged, who never settle.
The best performing people in every type of activity, career and goal have coaches. This includes business leaders, athletes, artists, salespeople, and entrepreneurs.
The tools I offer include everything needed for solid, reforged sales lifecycles. They are adaptable and scalable no matter whether you are setting out on your own for the first time, or if you have fully fledged teams of sales and customer engagement staff.
They include analytical tools to build strategies and processes, conversational techniques based on the psychology of communication and behavioural psychology. Plus techniques to grow a resilient, confident and positive mindset.
Three common reasons why people might resist coaching, and why it’s important to overcome them:
- They’re unwilling to make the necessary changes
Although coaching is obviously aimed at helping make positive changes in a person’s life, those being coached still need to do the work necessary to effect that change even though it means allowing you and the coach to gently push you out of your comfort zone (see the quote about this elsewhere).
- They feel it means they aren’t capable on their own
Coaching doesn’t mean that you aren’t a capable person. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have the abilities or resources within you to achieve your goals.
Even looking at hiring a Coach is an indication that you are capable. It’s evidence that someone (maybe yourself) believes that with the right additional insight and ideas from a professional coach who’s coming from a fresh, external perspective, you can perform better.
No one invests in coaching when they believe that they are hopeless. No company ever invests in coaching for people they believe are not capable of unlocking their best performance.
- They‘re afraid of being held accountable
Some people don’t like to be held accountable. They don’t want to be asked about how they feel their performance will or has changed after the coaching finishes. They don’t want anyone asking difficult questions, or why there’s a difference between what they say and what they do.
More than anything, they don’t want to have to answer to someone – especially true of business owners and their leadership teams.
But the best performers embrace accountability. They openly investigate the lulls in their performance so they can work on ways to decrease the frequency and depth of those lulls. They look at a coach as an accountability partner. They expect tough questions, and they relish the opportunity to be guided to their own answers to help them expand what they believe is possible, to see where they are capable of going.
Isn't coaching expensive?
You think self-development is expensive? What’s really expensive is not training and coaching your people.
The real expense comes from inaction, from having resources that aren’t fully present, developed and utilised. What does cost you is the time you lose in not producing the results you are really capable of producing. The lost opportunity cost far exceeds anything you might pay for coaching, regardless of the investment in helping you and your staff to develop.
What is The Process Like?
I have found that working through a “Test Operate Test Exit” model allows us to ensure you can test how the things we discuss in coaching session work in your world. In subsequent sessions, we will continue to introduce and tweak ideas until you are satisfied you are able to build on those lessons learned yourself.
To create the best possible results from the work we do together, I offer monthly coaching service packages with a choice of a set number of hours per month, with a minimum commitment of 3 months. This allows you to increase your skills by a method of reinforced learning techniques over time. The Return on Investment for your time and money is much more rewarding than hiring a trainer for a handful of days.
I also use industry standard SMART(ER)* and GROW models for goal setting which are proven to help you succeed.
*Trust me, you’ll like the “ER”
1. Make The Call
2. Discussing The Way Forward
You’ll receive a detailed proposal from me which will include a summary of the discussions along with my recommended solution. This will include a number of areas I feel will be most useful to help you build on your own skills.
Once you agree this is the plan for you, we will book the first session.
3. The First Step - The Initial Coaching Session
What we start with will depend entirely on you. It is important that my clients feel fully in control of how their hours are used so they feel they are consistently receiving the best value for their money and time.
Typically, I start by looking at the current Sales Strategy and any processes and systems in place as a “Health” or “Sense” check against industry standard “best practices” to check it all makes sense for your unique business. This ensures you have a solid foundation on which to build.
4. Guidance On Your Quest - The Coaching Sessions
What we cover and in which order is entirely dependent on your thoughts and feelings on the way ahead, whilst keeping an eye on your goal.
The majority of my clients feel it is wise to look at the basic structures and whether it all makes sense for their business. Then we look into the systems and processes they currently use.
Drawing on my own interests and lengthy experience in IT System Implementation, I can advise on a variety of easy to use, modern systems to quickly implement more efficient processes and flows of communication with everyone you ever talk to.
After that, you will learn a variety of tools, techniques and structures of conversation based in the psychology of communication. We will also discuss the behaviours of your audience. This will help you bring clarity of your offerings to those you sell to so there is no room for ambiguity, confusion or any unwanted surprises which will result in a “Closed – Lost” scenario (or worse).
I will continually monitor progress towards your agreed goals with an eye on how much time we have left together to ensure you are on the right track.
5. Your Solo Journey Ahead
*But I’m always on the end of the phone or email for quick messages if you really need me. I would never refuse to help any clients who need it!
“We were looking to develop our sales strategy and develop the sales skills amongst our team. My main concern was in finding someone who could support and understand the strategic side of what we were doing and help shape plans for the future. The sales process has been refined and our team have further developed their skills. It’s really useful to get an external perspective.”
On the Sales Portraits and Lumina Sales Lifecycle work: “We enjoyed the Lumina training as it gave a good insight into the personality of people we were selling to.”
When asked whether he would recommend others to buy into my knowledge and experience, Adam said “Yes.”
Don’t Hesitate. Start Forging Your Own Path Today!
Coaching Packages
Stay focused
Do you ever feel it’s easy to become distracted by a hundred small tasks, emails, calls and other jobs during your working week?
In your role, it’ll be easy to get overwhelmed and lose focus on what needs to be done
to move forward with all the work and projects you have going on.
Accountability Calls
I work with a purposely limited number of clients to help them maintain focus on the most important tasks for the week ahead. I ensure they are also making progress on a small number of “Passion Projects”- developing those ideas into realistic and achievable goals that truly inspire and energise them.
The passionate energy built here naturally flows into all the work they do for their own clients, helping them to deliver their best ever work.
For a relatively low monthly cost, you can arrange a weekly call of up to 1 hour to:
– define your top 5 most important tasks
– define up to 3 “Passion Projects”
Every week we discuss what you have done (great job!)
Plus go over the items you haven’t been able to progress and the reasons for that
(I’ll help you overcome those blocks)
Having accountability calls with Joe has helped me focus on what the important tasks are for the coming week, for both client work and my own projects. This is helping me move towards my goals rather than working in a reactive way. While there are no dire consequences for not achieving my list of agreed goals, knowing that I will need to give a reason for not doing the tasks motivates me to complete them.”
Firestorm
12 Hours
per month
Designed for SMEs with Sales or Business Development staff.
12 hours a month with me is enough time to check and reforge or refresh every aspect of your sales team with increased clarity and confidence including:
– your existing strategies
– processes
– conversational techniques to increase closed-won outcomes and reduce the time-to-close
– mindset techniques to stay positive and inspired no matter the market conditions
Blaze
6 Hours
per month
For those established and new business owners, with no staff, or with a small team of up to 5.
This package will give enough time to health check your:
– strategies
– gain insight into helpful systems & processes, get tips for implementation and usage.
– work on psychological skills & mindset development to help you overcome any blocks holding you back from success
Spark
4 Hours
per month
For individuals – either business owners or private individuals looking for professional sales and mindset coaching.
This package offers enough time to cover the basics of:
– forging a solid sales strategy
– introducing you to the systems which will help you succeed
– coaching to help you overcome any blocks holding you back from success
About Me
I like a challenge.
For about 30 years people have been telling me they very quickly feel unusually comfortable in sharing their life’s issues with me to seek advice to help them feel better about it.
It’s taken about 30 years for me to accept this is my “purpose” in life – to help people overcome their life, work and relationship challenges.
I was born in the deep north of England, in a small shipbuilding town many people have seemingly been to once, called Barrow. My family were all in science, logical based careers.
It seemed logical that I follow in their footsteps and go into Engineering. That lasted about 2 years before realising it wasn’t for me. I still tried wading through 2 years of resits, though, before giving up. Luckily personal computing had started to become a thing, and along with it a career in IT Support happened for the following 10 years. I worked my way up to Network Administrator for an entire NHS Trust and started Project Management.
Other events happened in my life then that gave me the opportunity to give up a perfectly good career and eventually sell practically everything I owned to go travelling around the world for a year. A delayed gap year aged 30something. And that was the start of a number of “best decisions in my life”.
I met some incredible people who influenced my life in a myriad of tiny and major ways. I stayed near Seoul for 6 months, then Toronto for 8 months with a new job in sales and account management. As Fate would have it, I decided to return to University to take up a degree I knew nothing about, Zero. Nada. Except for the things I had observed and learned on my travels. So I ended up facing a nemesis of completing an undergrad degree at Nottingham Trent University with a degree in International Relations with Mandarin Chinese.
Told you I like a challenge
Four years later, including one living and studying in a part of China most people I speak to have never heard of (Kunming), I came out with a 2:1 BA (Hons) degree. No, I am far from fluent. I can probably introduce myself slowly, direct a taxi and order a couple of beers. Crucial skills, no?
After that I went back into roles in account management, then sales, mostly selling to US clients which meant getting used to a slightly different manner of speaking and a different culture again.
Then in late 2015 my life changed again and in mid-2016 I was afforded the incredible opportunity to chase a life-long goal of starting my own business. Coaching was undoubtedly the choice, and after gaining my NLP Practitioner certification in 2017, I am now successfully coaching all manner of people to help them to challenge themselves to unlock their fullest potential and achieve whatever goals they set themselves.
It’s been quite a journey and it’s only just beginning
“For introverts like myself, ‘sales’ is a scary word. It is something with which I have had no prior experience. My career has generally been within technical roles where I am most comfortable, dealing with and solving technical problems.
Starting my own business, I knew I would need to adopt the role of sales. This fact left me feeling very uneasy. Having little to no real experience in this field I knew I needed help…
… Joe helped to demystify the sales process and give me a practical framework to utilise and build on, including making good use of a CRM. Since then I worked to get out of my comfort zone, build my sales process and a routine for seeking out and contacting new leads.
Joe once asked me, ‘Why did you seek out sales coaching’ Why didn’t you just go for it and do it anyway?’
My answer to that, ‘Why repeat the mistakes other have already made when you can simply learn from their experience instead?'”
“Joe has an amazing insight into people, sales and business. This shone through his supportive nature, approachable and willingness to share great gems of knowledge and experience. Especially taking a big leap into starting a fresh business.
Adding NLP Practioner to his array of knowledge, experience and support shows he is committed.
In business it’s hard to trust in other business. I can put my hand on my heart you can trust Joe.”
On the Sales Portraits and Lumina Sales Lifecycle work: “We enjoyed the Lumina training as it gave a good insight into the personality of people we were selling to.”
When asked whether he would recommend others to buy into my knowledge and experience, Adam said “Yes.”
Why Prometheus?
promethean adj.
– daringly original or creative
The Mythology
Prometheus Mythology Reference
“The Titan Prometheus is usually regarded as one of the greatest friends of mankind, and the saviour of all men.”
“Having stolen fire from the Greek gods, he gave it to mankind, teaching them the arts of civilisation, such as writing, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and science as means of survival.”
This is, in essence why I chose Prometheus – not because of the Ridley Scott film* but because of the allegory that the fire of the gods in Prometheus’ story signifies passing of knowledge and skills to others to help them survive (in my case, in the business world).
“Prometheus was depicted in “Prometheus Bound” by Aeschylus, who made him not only the bringer of fire and civilisation to mortals but also their preserver, giving them all the arts and sciences as well as the means of survival.
When Zeus attempted to destroy the men of the Bronze Age through The Flood, he gave instructions to his son Deucalion, so that he could survive and mankind could start anew. Some have even asserted that man was moulded out of water and earth by Prometheus himself, who gave him the form of the gods and ‘…bade him stand erect and turn his eyes to heaven.’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.85).
But others say that he and his brother just distributed abilities among creatures: The myth says it has been told that when the time arrived for mortal creatures to be created, the gods, after moulding their forms, charged Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus to deal faculties to each creature.
Epimetheus, they say, persuaded Prometheus to let him do the dealing himself, saying that afterwards, Prometheus could examine what he had done.
To some creatures Epimetheus gave strength, and to others speed; some he armed and others he left unarmed, though giving them some other means to survival. To
This is how Epimetheus, lacking in wisdom and forethought, distributed all properties suited for survival among animals, leaving unequipped the race of men.
Now, when the day arrived for the emergence of all creatures and Prometheus came to examine his brother’s work, he noticed that Epimetheus had not devised anything for the preservation of humans. So in order to correct his brother’s mistake, Prometheus stole wisdom in arts from Hephaestus and Athena, along with fire from Zeus, so that men could exercise those crafts, and gave all these gifts to humanity.”
*I’m more than happy to discuss how I believe the Ridley Scott film is related to the Greek mythology, if interested 🙂