Support Your Local Book Shops

Here's a message from the owners of two independent book shops.

We run the Warwick and Kenilworth bookshops, independent retailers which have been a proud part of our local high streets for many years.

As we run into the busy Christmas period, we face unrelenting pressure from huge online retailers, like Amazon, undercutting prices -- and it's pushing businesses like ours to the brink.

But what’s even worse is that Amazon, despite making sales of £2.9 billion in the UK last year, does not pay any UK corporation tax on the profits from those sales.

In our book, that is not a level playing field and leaves independent retailers like us struggling to compete just because we do the right thing.

That's why we've started a petition on Change.org calling on Amazon to pay their corporation tax in the UK. Click here to join us.

All Amazon UK book and toy sales are routed through its Luxembourg subsidiary. So when the British public buy goods from Amazon, they are in fact paying a Luxembourg company.

This means Amazon can avoid paying British corporation tax on the profits it makes. Tax experts say if Amazon's total UK sales profits were not funnelled to Luxembourg, it could be paying as much as £100m a year in British corporation tax.

As Independent booksellers, we are happy with competition in the market but believe it should be on level terms and by dodging corporation tax in this way, Amazon start with an unfair advantage.

As they grow bigger it’s inevitable that shops like ours will be under even more pressure. That’s bad for customers, bad for the high street and bad for the UK.

Amazon may be obeying the letter of the law - but they’re certainly not being fair. Recently Starbucks announced that they had caved to public pressure and would look at their tax affairs in the UK. It’s time that Amazon did the same.

We pay our taxes and so should they -- please take a stand with us and tell Amazon to pay their fair share.

Thank you for your support,

Frances and Keith

Warwick & Kenilworth bookshops


PS - The Independent has already picked up on our campaign. Please share this campaign with your friends by forwarding this email or sharing this link: www.change.org/amazon

See Michael Heath's New Video for 40 Interview Icebergs

Michael Heath has been busy promoting his new book, 40 Interview Icebergs and How to Sail Around Them, and he's just released a new promotional video for it.

Take a look on YouTube and also on Michael's website, www.mhconsult.com

Revelation Launch a New Website

Revelation have launched their new website today.

The new book, Genius at Work, is featured, along with the Business Model Canvas toolkit that is getting more and more attention in the consultancy marketplace.

See what you think: www.askrevelation.com

The Revelation Survey is Back

The authors of the upcoming book Revelation have asked us to let you know that their new survey into the business impact of office politics is now up and running.


www.askrevelation.com/survey.htm

Please take part and help us to build an even better picture of the business impact of corporate politics, and share this with all your colleagues and friends too.

Learn How to Sell More and Support BBC Children in Need

Peter Freeth was again interviewed on BBC Radio earlier this week as part of the BBC's Children in Need annual charity fundraising event.

Mike Zeller wanted to know how they could make more money in an Apprentice-style cake selling competition.

Peter drew on all of the best performance that he could think of, across the various industry sectors he has worked with as well as The Apprentice itself, to give Mike and Sara a head start and of course raise a lot of money for a great cause.

Listen to the radio interview here and find out how you can sell more too!

And of course, if you're in Carlisle on Saturday 16th November, go along and buy some cakes - and tell them that Peter sent you!

Visit us on LinkedIn

We're now building up our social media strategy, so if you're on LinkedIn, why not connect with us?

uk.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-greenaway-independent-business-publisher/5b/705/721

Peter Freeth Interviewed on BBC Radio

Peter Freeth, author of Genius at Work and other books, was interviewed by BBC Radio recently on the subject of how to train sales people.

(You can listen to the full interview by clicking here)

"It seems that the public are becoming more resistant to 'pushy' sales techniques, and that could be one reason why many people are choosing to shop online", he says. "Of course, declining footfall in stores means that if any sales assistant has pushy tendencies, they'll become more pushy out of desperation. When people have their backs to the wall, that's when you see their true nature."

But is sales training helping or hindering?

"All too often, sales training focuses on the mechanics of the interaction and how to get someone to buy. It's nonsensical actually. You're standing in a shop because you know that it's a place to spend money! You don't need to be persuaded to buy, that's why you're there - if the product and price are right. The problem with the majority of sales training, especially retail sales, is that the focus is on the sale as the objective, and that shouldn't be the case. Whenever I use the modelling process described in Genius at Work, I almost always discover that the really high performers in any field have an aim that is counter-intuitive, and seems contrary to the results that they achieve."

"The Genius at Work process is effective because it looks not only at the person's innate qualities and behaviours, but also the cultural context that they're working within. The highest performers innately know that a customer walks into the shop in order to buy something, and their job is to make that as easy as possible. Therefore, their primary focus isn't on the sale but on the service. What constitutes good service differs from one shop to another, of course, but the underlying common trait is an understanding that they're in a sales environment, and when a customer walks through the door, they implicitly accept that. The people who don't aren't going to walk through the door anyway."


In true 'quick fix' fashion, Peter was asked for his top three tips for retail sales people:

1. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. How would you want to be approached? Would you want to be hounded? Would you want recommendations? Would you want advice? What works for you will work for your customers too, otherwise you’re not being true to yourself and your customers are unlikely to believe what you say anyway.

2. Don’t pretend that you’re not selling. After all, that’s why the customer came into the store or accepted the meeting! They know it’s a sales transaction, so there’s no need to be heavy handed and no need to ‘convince’ them to buy. They’re already there to buy, but the product and price have to be right.

3. Be honest. If, in your heart, you know that your product isn’t right for the customer, say so instead of seeing ‘Pound signs’ and going for the short term sale. You will win far more respect from the customer, and you’ll see them – and their friends – again.

Random Penguins

One of the oldest British publishers is to be lost to the Americans, as Penguin, on our shelves since 1935, merges with Random House to become 'Penguin Random House'.

This is just another sign of the top-heavy nature of traditional publishing houses, blamed on e-books but actually it's caused by ageing businesses too tied into their old commercial models and unwilling to turn their sails into the winds of change.

We're sorry to say that the traditional publishers have had their heads in the sand for too long. How many wake-up-calls do they need?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/business/global/random-house-and-penguin-to-be-combined.html

Two New Books From Peter Freeth

Business author Peter Freeth has released two new books which are due in print by the end of October 2012.

But why two books at the same time?

"About four years ago, I started writing a book on the process of modelling excellence, that's where you uncover the hidden, innate talents of your highest performers and create a template that will allow you to reproduce that excellence across your business, in everything from the way that you recruit high performers to the way that you coach and train them. You would use it in building competency frameworks and talent management programs, and the most important feature is that it preserves the best aspects of your organisation's culture."

"But as I did more and more research for the book and incorporated more examples from my own work, I found it harder to keep the book focused on a coherent theme. One audience for the book is anyone who has trained in NLP and wants to really get to grips with the modelling process which underpins it, because that's something sadly lacking from almost all NLP Master Practitioner training. The second audience is anyone working in corporate Human Resources or Learning & Development. So the problem I had was how to address both of these audiences in the same book."

"Then, as the book neared completion I realised that it really wasn't that difficult to split the book into two, so now there are two books, Genius at Work and The NLP Master Practitioner Manual. So the end result is two books based on the same basic process for modelling excellence but aimed at the needs of two very different readers."

You can hear Peter being interviewed on BBC's Annie Othen show about the changing nature of selling in the UK.

How Good a Presenter Are You?

The Pitch Doctor's annual survey is online, find out how good you are at presenting and pitching, and when the results are published, compare yourself to other professionals across the world.

Visit http://www.cgwpublishing.com/pitching-survey.htm to complete the survey.