If you want to master the art of influencing and become a skilled communicator, then you’ll want to understand Cialdini's 6 key principles of influence.

…. I feel as though I’m surfacing slowly from a deep sleep. I can hear Luisa talking about me in an urgent voice. I slowly open my eyes to find myself lying on the floor by the fire. Oh, and the zoom is still happening, but I seem to be the subject of the conversation. What the hell…?

10 years ago I was asked to run a customer service course – that I’ll never forget.

Most of us think of ‘customers’ as people who voluntarily chose to buy from us, and that we have to care for, if we want to keep them.

For most of my career, the work arena was the office. Not any more – at least for now. What’s happened, what have we lost, and do we need to get the office back?

Like everyone, I was banished to the virtual world of Zoom by the pandemic. However hard you try, it’s hard to get by the lack of casual spontaneity compared with having real people working together in a real room. So it was a breath of fresh air to be back working on a client’s premises last week.

Zoom isn’t an ice lolly anymore, but an application allowing us all to fly out into cyberspace to meet up; fighting coronavirus and saving our social lives in lockdown.. And it doesn’t even cost six new pence -it’s free.