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Welcome to Better Business Skills™.

Our site is a work in progress at the moment, with the essentials on view for now, like who we are, what we’re about and how to contact us.

We’re here to help you develop your business super-powers.

Your needs

Why people change jobsYou run the company, you’ve employed great people. Or you’re a manager in a business looking to take your team to the next level.

“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (J–B Lencioni Series)

You need to develop your team, but taking out days at a time, and securing budget isn’t always an option.

Toolkits

We offer high value, easy to follow learning content:-

For individuals

For companies

    • Comprehensive packages that include full course material with detailed instructor notes plus the individual toolkits made available for each participant 
    • Use the talent already in your company, to deliver the course in your timeframe, when it suits you and your team 

Check out the topics available and those coming soon for individuals as well as companies

High-value low-cost training

If you’re working on your own development, get started from as little as £45 (excl VAT) per toolkit or from £1.99 (excl VAT) for the mini-toolkits.

For companies, great deals mean you can train all your staff to suit your budget for £, not £££££.

You’ve got to that point of growth and expansion where you know you need to invest in Management, Leadership and Better Business Skills.

With our company packages, the price is per company, not per person.

Elite packages

Get access through the Elite packages to a full set of presentation materials for the chosen course, detailed Train the Trainer notes, and the self-study toolkit so that each participant has the study material in their hand. All you do is Add-your-Facilitator.

Enterprise packages

And get a little more support by taking the Enterprise package: everything that’s in the Elite package plus a 1-hour virtual Train-the-Trainer session.

Can you afford not to develop yourself and your team?

Keep in the loop and get notified when our toolkits go live

If you’d like to know more about when the toolkits in our pipeline are available, then add your details here:-

Keep me in the loop

(We respect your PRIVACY if this isn’t for you, unsubscribe anytime.)

We’ll keep you informed, and in due course send you tips and stuff from the blog when that goes live soon.

Can you afford not to keep up?

Consulting Services

For those looking to build and deploy programs and systems, we also offer Consulting Services in Digital SkillsHR Technology & Organisational Health, as well as services to help you define and build Induction and Onboarding programs and deliverables (and especially for the techies in your workforce).

A recent analysis from Deloitte noted that “Only 12% of leaders believe that UK school leavers and graduates have the right digital skills, down from 20% who said the same in 2017.”

About

About Better Business Skills™

by Bill’s Girls

About you

You run the company, you’ve employed great people. Or you’re a manager in a business looking to take your team to the next level.

A study in 2015 concluded that:

“UK businesses miss out on £84 billion a year due to poor people management”.

(InvestorsInPeople)

Whether you’re self-funding for your own personal growth and development or helping your team by investing in their skills to grow your business, we have something for you.

Our aim

Our aim is to help you grow your business by developing your business super-powers. And at a price you can afford. Not everyone has a budget for external consultants, and not every company is able to invest as much as they’d like in team development.

We help you develop yourself, your team, the team of your team. At your own pace, and at a price point you choose. Helping you be a true servant leader.

We create and deliver learning, education and training around the world, working with major IT, Pharmaceutical, Banking and Retail customers. Between us, we have more than  60 years of experience. Wow.

All of that knowledge is in each toolkit we’re working on, ready for you to deliver to your team.

About us

Better Business Skills by Bill’s Girls owes its existence to Bill Mills.

Bill was our father and a businessman who practised what he preached:

“Look after people and the rest will take care of itself.”

 

That simple statement encapsulates his values where good things happen as a natural consequence of treating people fairly and ethically. He always stuck to his ethical principles no matter what.

This meant a world of happy memories since he taught us to enjoy the simple things in life that cost nothing. Like going for a walk in the countryside, being grateful for the good things in your life and standing up for yourself.

By nature and nurture we, his girls, share these values.

Between us we’ve a scary 60 years of experience, where we’ve delivered learning, education and training around the world, working with major IT, pharmaceutical, banking and retail customers.

Now, as Bill’s Girls, we’re here to help businesses of all sizes with team, manager and leadership development courses and services.

We’re busy distilling all of our knowledge into a range of toolkits, ready for you to deliver and reap results with your team.

Who are Bill’s Girls?

Karen McKenzie Mills

Dr Karen McKenzie Mills
Dr Karen McKenzie Mills

Karen is a business person, learning and development professional, and awkward Aquarian. (INTJ on the Myers-Briggs scale.)

She’s also a Certified Scrum Product Owner. 

Scrum Alliance Certification
Certfied Scrum Product Owner

 

 

 

 

 

Before moving on to conquer the world of IT commerce, Karen started her professional life in academia.

Before that, her early love of spreadsheets and cheerful bossy nature led her at the tender age of 16 to manage the bottom line in the family business, convincing Bill where to focus his efforts to grow profits.

She also kept the company’s accountancy firm in check when their figures didn’t reconcile with hers. They lived in fear of getting a call from her. (She’s always been a bit of a finance detail freak.)

Fun fact: Karen is a creative crocheter in her downtime. She likes to keep busy even when she’s relaxing. It’s her way of calming her busy mind. 

Marie McKenzie Mills

Dr Marie McKenzie Mills
Dr Marie McKenzie Mills CBiol, CSci, MRSB

Marie is a pharmaceutical industry specialist whose most recent mission is to ease exam candidates’ rite of passage through the pharmaceutical industry’s challenging ABPI exam.

She’s on the opposite side of the horoscope wheel to Karen, and has the characteristics of a typical Leo on a bad day: bossy, dictatorial and loud. (ENTJ on the Myers-Briggs scale.)

She started McKenzie Mills Partnership Ltd more than twenty years ago built on a foundation of extensive experience across medical research, healthcare, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Bill’s support was instrumental in helping Marie to make the leap from the corporate world to running her own business. Bill would be proud that his girls are now in business together.

Fun fact: Star Trek Next Generation is one of Marie’s favourite old TV shows, along with the original Star Trek. She’s a Trekkie at heart.

Mr Spock from the original Star Trek series
Mr Spock

Both Data and Spock are her heroes ‘cos of their logical minds.

But, she always wondered how the concept of money disappeared from their Universe.

Anyone know? 

 

Julie Taylor

Julie Taylor
Julie Taylor

Julie is an honorary Bill’s Girl – people focused and results driven. 

She has a warm, down to earth approach and a natural ability to gain trust quickly, putting people at ease and establishing a strong rapport. This creates the right environment for open and honest dialogue and genuine self-assessment.  Julie builds strong relationships based on old-fashioned values such as trust, integrity, openness, commitment and respect (that’s what makes her a Bill’s Girl).

Relentless in her passion to help others succeed, with 25 years of experience to boot, she has a fresh, engaging and dynamic training style; facilitating with authenticity, credibility, high energy, openness, integrity and humour. Julie provides valuable insight into human behaviour: why people behave as they do, the impact this has on the individual, others, the team and ultimately the end results. 

Fun fact: Julie is a natural pack leader of big dogs, from Rotties to Springer Spaniels – the bigger the better. They know she’s the boss.

 

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Self Study

Bite-sized learning or the full Company Package?

Passion led us hereYou’re always on the lookout to improve your business skills.

You want to grow in your career.

You’ve accomplished a lot already and…you want more.

You can choose from our comprehensive Company Toolkits, or our Toolkits for those working solo on their development, such as Help Me! I’m a Manager for new and aspiring managers, covering the core aspects of Managing Yourself and Others.

And check out our BetterBusiness-Skills offerings coming soon for individual contributors, team members and managers across a wide range of topics including:-

  • Customer Service Fundamentals
  • Managing your Backlog
  • Presentation Skills
  • Coaching, and more.

Or, want to take things in smaller bite-size chunks to help you focus on one key topic? Then go for our Mini-Toolkits, for less than the cost of a latte (or hot chocolate).

The full Toolkits for Solo self-study cover:

  • A downloadable guide, which we encourage you to interact with electronically
    • Get that touchscreen pen out and start adding your notes
    • Printable if you choose (although that may take a fair amount of paper and ink, just saying…)
  • A module by module guide to the core topic with: introduction, self-assessment, self-reflection and action plan exercises in each module
  • Remember This! Quick reference guides that you can refer to just in time, for that upcoming difficult conversation, performance review and building trust chat
Read more about Toolkit topics

The Mini-Toolkits cover:

  • A downloadable (and printable) quick reference guide
  • A focused look at one particular topic, in around 10 pages
  • Introduction, self-reflection and action plan exercise

Mini-Toolkit topics include:-

  • Giving Feedback
  • Receiving Feedback
  • What’s my story?
  • Managing Up
  • Appropriate Questions
  • Empathy and Leadership
  • Trust and Leadership
  • Teamwork and the Manager
  • Listening
  • Communication
  • Leading Conversations
  • Driving Great Performance 
  • Successful Meetings
  • Managing Conflict

Blog

Our site is a work in progress at the moment, with the essentials on view for now, like who we are, what we’re about and how to contact us.

Find out more here.

Get notified when our toolkits go live

Want to know when our toolkits are available?

Add your details here:-

Keep me in the loop

(We respect your PRIVACY if this isn’t for you, unsubscribe anytime.)

We’ll keep you informed, and send you tips and stuff from the blog.

Can you afford not to keep up?

Contact us

How to contact Better Business Skills

by Bill’s Girls

Thanks for stopping by.

We’re here to help, so whether you’ve a query about our products, or services, or would like to discuss how we can help you with your team learning and development a business, please don’t be shy: contact us.

When you get in touch, rest assured that one of Bill’s girls will get back to you ASAP (during the usual office hours, that is).

Why not contact us today?

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