business and money
Founders, business owners, sellers and freelancers win or lose work in conversations: the first call, the price said out loud, the follow-up, the buyer abroad. Practical scripts for every one of them.
Selling, pitching, pricing and the conversations that keep a business alive.
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selling without pushing: objections, follow-ups and the honest ask
Many people who are excellent at their work go quiet when it is time to sell it. They over-explain, drop the price before anyone asks, or send "just checking in" messages that go unanswered. Selling well is mostly listening, then asking clearly. Here is how to do both.
Case studiesCase studythe home baker who froze on camera
Beautiful cakes, a growing Instagram page, and an owner who could talk for an hour about ganache in her kitchen but went silent the moment she pressed record. Then a local TV channel called. What the coaching worked on, session by session.
Case studiesCase studythe clinic owner who had to raise her fees
A physiotherapist in Thrissur, a rent increase, two loyal staff, patients who have come to her for years, and a corporate client in Dubai. She knew she had to raise her fees. What she did not know was how to say the number out loud without apologising for it.
Careers and moneynetworking without the cringe: introducing yourself so people remember you
Most of us dread the moment a stranger asks, "So, what do you do?" We either give a job title nobody remembers or a five-minute history nobody asked for. Networking gets easier when you have one clear line, one good question, and a graceful way out.
Speaking at workstorytelling people repeat: turning an experience into a two-minute story
Facts inform. Stories are what people repeat at dinner. Yet most professionals say they have no stories, then describe a week full of them. Here is a simple five-part shape for turning ordinary work into a two-minute story, and how to cut, sharpen and practise it.
Voice and deliverythe podcast guest: sounding like yourself with a microphone in front of you
An invitation to a podcast is flattering, until you realise you will be talking for forty-five minutes, recorded, with no slides. The best guests do not sound rehearsed. They sound prepared. Here is how to get ready, what to say, and how to set up the room.
Case studiesCase studythe business owner and the export client
A family business with an excellent product, a new buyer in the Netherlands, and an owner who could run a factory floor in Malayalam but went stiff the moment the video call opened. What the coaching worked on, call by call.
Careers and moneyhow to negotiate without feeling like you are begging
Whether it is your salary, a freelance rate, a supplier's price or a business deal, many capable people go quiet the moment money enters the conversation. Negotiation is not pleading. It is a structured conversation between two people who both want a deal. Here is how to prepare it and what to say.
Case studiesCase studythe founder before the investor pitch
A good business, a strong deck, and a founder who explained everything except why it mattered. What changed when the coaching moved from the slides to the questions.
Landmark MomentsSan Francisco, 9 January 2007three products, one device: how Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone
In January 2007, Steve Jobs walked onto a stage in San Francisco and told the audience he was about to introduce three new products. He named them one by one. Then he revealed that they were all the same thing. Behind that simple moment sat an unfinished phone and a carefully planned route through it.
Landmark MomentsChicago area, September to November 1982the Tylenol recall of 1982: what really happened, and what the legend leaves out
In the autumn of 1982, seven people in and around Chicago died after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules that someone had laced with cyanide. Johnson & Johnson's response is taught in business schools as a model of how to handle a crisis. Much of that reputation is earned. Some of it is legend.
Landmark MomentsUtah, Alabama and Florida, 27 to 28 January 1986the Challenger charts: when the warning was there but the message did not land
On the night before the space shuttle Challenger was launched, engineers who feared the cold argued against it on a long teleconference. They were overruled. Seven people died the next morning. The way their evidence was presented has been debated ever since, and the debate itself holds a lesson.
Landmark MomentsPhoenix, Arizona, 9 October 2014the same-day correction: Satya Nadella, a wrong answer and a culture of learning
Eight months into his job as Microsoft's chief executive, Satya Nadella gave a bad answer on a stage full of women in computing. By the evening he had told every employee he was wrong. The episode became part of the story he told about learning in public, with a lesson for anyone who has misspoken in public.
Landmark MomentsMadras and PepsiCo, from 2006the gift of your child: Indra Nooyi's letters to her executives' parents
When Indra Nooyi became chief executive of PepsiCo, relatives who came to see her family in India congratulated her mother, not her. That small scene, as she tells it, led her to write to the parents of her senior executives. It is a story about a very old form of communication: the specific, handwritten kind of thanks.
The ExperimentsMixed evidencethe photocopier study: what the word because really does
A famous 1978 experiment at a university photocopier is often summed up as "just say because and people will comply". The real result was more interesting, and more useful. The empty reason worked only for a tiny favour. When the ask got bigger, people wanted an actual reason.
The ExperimentsReplicated, with limitsthe tapping study: why your explanation sounds clearer to you than to anyone else
A graduate student at Stanford asked people to tap out well-known songs on a table while a partner tried to name them. The tappers were sure the tunes were obvious. They were not. The study became one of the most retold stories about expertise and explanation, and it is worth knowing what it did and did not show.
The ExperimentsReplicated, with limitspsychological safety and Google's Project Aristotle: what the research says about teams that speak up
A hospital study that seemed to show the best nursing units making the most mistakes. A factory study of 51 teams. A Google project on 180 of its own teams. Together they made "psychological safety" one of the most quoted ideas in management. The core idea is well supported. Some of what gets bundled with it is not.
Thought StudiesEssaythe room where nobody speaks English as a first language
A Kochi engineer, a Brazilian product lead, a German buyer and a Japanese supplier get on a call. Nobody in it learned English at home. And quite often, it goes beautifully. We think there is something in that room worth studying, and something in it that native speakers could borrow.
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