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”.
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
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.
Who are Bill’s Girls?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
