blog

Below you can find links to the products and services I mention in the Zoom 101 webinar. If you haven't seen the webinar yet, sign up here. You'll also receive security tips. Be aware that I may benefit if you ...

Who would have thought this?!Can you believe we'd all get so fixated on toilet paper? Of have such opinions about distance? I've spent time listening to concerns and here are my 7 tips for crazy times. I hope you'll find ...

So, you’ve got yourself an online team. Congratulations! You’re ready to go places. But how should you lead a team meeting? Especially when you have no experience with this role. And if you have an international team. Read this article ...

Whether you’re a native or non-native speaker of English, Facebook can be a source of stress. Going live on Facebook can be tough anyway, but if you speak another language, adding English into the mix can make your blood pressure ...

Going international with your business isn't for the faint-hearted. It will challenge you in many different ways, but there are so many benefits too. In this blog you'll read about some of the benefits that I've noticed and some that ...

Over the weekend I was watching a tv discussion programme. It started off as a discussion about whether countries could get involved with matters in a different country. It was a fascinating discussion, with very different view points. They are ...

3 things I learned last week. Again. In this blog I talk about why self-care matters for us as entrepreneurs and how down time can boost our business in 3 separate ways. Last week was a tough one Shivers, coughing, ...

In business you can be too flexible. Even if everyone around you is asking you to be flexible, you still need some boundaries if you want to progress. One of the wonderful things about having my own company is that ...

How to prepare to go international with your online business The idea of switching to English in your online business is a no brainer. You can dramatically increase your audience and your sales. You meet people from all over the ...

When I was a small child, Thursday was my favourite day of the week. It was pocket money day. Every week I had the same routine. I would take my 1 shilling and threepence (it really was a long time ...

Yesterday, I was blown away. Any of you who have older kids will recognize this feeling. Waiting by the phone to hear how your kid’s final exams have gone. Having spent hours encouraging them (=your interpretation), nagging them (=their interpretation) ...

One of the most important reasons given for starting a company is self-determination or making your own mind up what you’re going to do and when. It’s all about freedom and sharing your talents with the world. So, it’s frustrating ...

As an entrepreneur, you need to connect to others. People need to have a feeling of who you are and what you could do for them. They need to get goosebumps listening to you. Goosebumps are a sign that what ...

There’s a phase in language learning that I call the headache phase. You’re understanding more and more, but you can’t yet express yourself as you would like to. It means you’re working really hard, get very tired and frustrated and ...

Language (or any) learning works in a number of phases. In this blog I explain how this works and how to work out which phase you are in. This will help you minimise frustration when you learn English and hopefully ...

There is no such thing as one kind of English. So, even if you use international words, you still have to make a choice which English your company is going to use. In this article you’ll find out if you ...

Having a business can be really tough at times. Sometimes you don't know what to do next. Sometimes life is tugging at your arm, trying to get your attention. I went through this last week and realised that I could ...

Emoji’s are here to stay. It’s hard to remember that even 10 years ago, we were hardly using them. 20 years ago we wouldn’t have understood most of them. And now they have become an essential part of our online ...

Rhyme is probably not the first thing you think about when you're improving your English for your business, but it can be really useful. Just think about how many rhyming slogans you know. This blog talks about how to use ...

A lot of people I speak to tell me they don’t like phoning in English. When I ask them about this, they usually tell me that they don’t like phoning much anyway, but English is even worse. I get this ...

You probably once learnt that you should use long forms like ‘do not’ when you are writing and ‘don’t’ when you’re speaking. But there’s a bit more to long and short forms in English than that. Scroll down to the ...

The Easier English guide to getting it right. I often tell clients that a quick way to sound more polite is to use ‘would like’ instead of ‘want’. And it’s true. If you’re meeting someone in person, using ‘would like’ ...

English isn’t phonetic. That means that spelling isn’t easy, because you have to remember how to write a word, how it sounds and what it means all at the same time. That means that there are a lot of frequently ...

This week I was talking to Ellen about English. She was telling me about her passion for coaching and said “I guess English is like that for you”. Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, even though I can ...

Recognise this? You’ve giving a presentation, a live or a webinar and all the time, there’s a little voice talking at you. It’s telling you everything you’re doing wrong, as you're doing it and it’s getting louder and louder and ...

Why putting English off can be a sign that you've forgotten something important You know, there’s a story I hear all the time when I’m teaching English. It’s the ‘My teacher told me I was no good at English’ story ...

Listening is an important skill. In business it can make the difference between a sale or no sale, between understanding feedback from a client or not, between understanding new information at an event or not and many other situations. So, ...

’No’ is a tricky word in English. If you say “No” by itself, you’re likely to sound irritated or even angry. I call it the Naked No. If a Brit uses the naked No, you can safely assume that you’re ...

One of the most annoying things about learning English is not being able to find a word. Added to that, English has a lot of words, for this to happen with. So, this is a situation that you can expect ...

Let's put the record straight - I have nothing against Americans or American English. I lived in Texas for a while and I loved it. However, I do think it's important that you realise that mixing up US and UK ...

Last weekend I was at Schiphol, picking up my son. It's a convenient place to meet and we both love the energy of the airport. We were waiting on the platform for a train and overheard a conductor making an ...

I was asked about the phrase ‘turning tables’. You might know this phrase from the Adele song of the same name, which is, as in quite a few Adele songs, about things that can go wrong in love. So what ...