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Bob Etherington(Born London 22nd April 1948) is an author, trainer and business speaker. He is acknowledged as one of the 21st century’s leading authorities on modern face to face selling, negotiating and public speaking.
He is owner of his own boutique sales consultancy based in London (UK) Bob Etherington Ltd. Through this international company he lectures and trains business executives in the skills required to persuade customers and colleagues to buy their products, services and ideas. He works in Europe, USA, Middle East and Asia. His first book published in 2006 was entitled ‘Presentation Skills for Quivering Wrecks’ and is consistently in the top 10 business books listed on amazon.co.uk, see amazon.com. In 2008 he was elected a Freeman of the City of London.
Background
editPrior to founding the company which bears his name, he was Managing Director of SpokenWord Ltd a sales training company which he founded in 1993 with his business partner and ex-Reuters colleague, Frances Tipper. This company offers bespoke training courses in the whole field of business persuasion and has the motto: “Now you’re talking business”. The company name SpokenWord was actually suggested by the late Jennifer d’Abo ( The successful serial- entrepreneur who turned round Rymans [Stationery] and Moyses Stevens [Florists]) . He sat next to d’Abo on a Transatlatic flight in the early 1990’s. During the journey they got talking about his business idea. When he told her he was considering the name, “Business Speaking International “ the, slightly eccentric, lady is reported to have said loudly, “Terrible name dear !! You’re going to be training people in the use of the spoken word in business; so call it "Spoken Word". The name has stuck to this day although he retired from SpokenWord Ltd in 2008; his business partner Frances Tipper now runs the company. For 22 years from 1979 to 2001 Etherington was a senior executive at international news and information organisation Reuters (Now ThomsonReuters ) . In this employment he travelled the world extensively and lived and worked in both London and New York. From the start of his Reuters career he grew a reputation for accepting tough product-launch assignments and making them work around the World. Among his various sales successes were The Reuter Money Dealing Service- the World’s first international electronic trading system for bank currency dealers , Dealing 2000 the first electronic deal-matching system for foreign exchange dealers and Reuters Plus2 a brand new financial information system for Reuters customers in North America.
When he was about to return to London in 1997, at the end of his three year assignment in New York, he was requested, by the current ThomsonReuters President Tom Glocer, to extend his assignment for another two years. He agreed and presided over the training of the US sales force as the American division of the company achieved record sales and profits for the first time in living memory. In 1990 he became a Main Board Director for Reuters Transaction Services Ltd. Prior to his Reuters career Bob was at various times between 1965 and 1979 a UK based sales executive firstly for Rank Xerox and then for Bateman Catering (Grand Metropolitan Hotels). He was also, for a while, a currency trader for the London money brokers MW Marshall and corporate dealer for the US Crocker National Bank also in London. This was all a long way from the direction he believed his working life was going to follow as an electronics engineer initially for The Telephone Manufacturing Company and Burroughs Machines UK where he worked between 1965 and 1970.
Selling in Hard Times “There is no evidence that customers stop buying in a recession”, is a favourite motto uttered by Etherington in most of his lectures. “I learnt to sell in a recession in the early 1970’s. I joined Reuters as a salesman in a recession in the early 1980’s. I moved to New York in a recession in the early 1990’s…I’ve always done well out of ‘hard times’. In hard times most of my competitors do one of four things: they do nothing and hope for the best; they cut their prices ; they bully their salesforce into more activity (‘knock on more doors’) ; they fiddle with their advertising. All these strategies always fail because the only thing customers want in a recession is reduction in risk and they are prepared to pay for it. If you know how to sell that (and I’ll show you) you will always make money out of hard times.”
Persuasion Philosophy In all his books and teaching Etherington demonstrates the importance of Attitude and Aspiration when successfully communicating with other humans. “How you decide to feel inside is picked up by colleagues, customers in fact everyone you meet, much faster than anything you say or do. The right internal attitude makes 75% of the difference to your success as a persuader… 75% !! Ask any woman how quickly it takes her to assess the status of a strange man who has just entered the room ….so far she has only seen him…she doesn’t know him…she hasn’t heard his voice yet …he may or may not be handsome…but it takes most women only a couple of seconds to make up her mind whether or not he’s the Alpha male; a man who she might be open to being influenced by. Men also make these assessments but are much slower than women. Yet most trainers spend only 1% of the available training time in the one area that makes 75% of the difference.” He also shows the power of simple questions as the most effective tool in the business persuader’s arsenal. Etherington says that most intending ‘persuaders’ in business are searching for the Holy Grail – an intergalactic formula - they can incant over a prospective persuadee who will then buy whatever it is that’s being sold. Unfortunately they are usually wasting both their time and money. The way to become a great influencer is knowing the correct answers to the simple question, “How well do you do the ordinary things?” 3 After attending one of his seminars in London in 2003 The Times journalist Alan Jackson wrote a complimentary article over four pages in the paper’s Weekend Magazine in which he enthused, “It’s empowering..Just try it….You’ll see” 4
Website www.bobetherington.com
Books
editBob Etherington currently has four books in publication: Presentation Skills for Quivering Wrecks (2006); Cold Calling for Chickens (2006) ; Selling Skills for Complete Amateurs (2008) ; Negotiating Skills for Virgins (2008) Publisher for all titles: Cyan Marshall Cavendish (London)
Education
editCity and Guilds of London Institute Electrical Engineering (Hons) 1969
Personal
editTwo children, one son (money broker) one daughter (interior designer). Two homes: central London and Kent (UK) where he has a live-steam railway in his garden. He also maintains a Private Pilots Licence in UK and USA. For five years whilst living in New York he was on the main board of the popular off-Broadway theatre company Village Light Opera Group .
Interests
editFlying, Theatre, and Steam Railways
Notes
edit1. “The Power of News” The history of Reuters1949-1989 (Professor Donald Read) 2. Securities Industry Association Report 2008 (www.a-teamgroup.com/article/my-first-sifma-show-by-herbie-skeete) 3. “Director Magazine” 2007 Institute of Directors (UK) 4. The Times (UK) newspaper (‘Weekend’ colour magazine) August 2003
External Links
edit*http://www.spokenwordltd.com/about.htm *http://www.amazon.co.uk/Presentation-Skills-Quivering-Wrecks-Etherington/dp/1904879802 *http://www.cqout.com/item.asp?id=3942182 *http://shop.webforumz.com/design-659930-Bob+Etherington-Author-sr-1