12 Acquisition International - November 2017 Grant Pearson Brown Consulting Ltd (GPB.EU) is a respected specialist communications adviser. Ewan Pearson gives us a breakdown of the company’s services, as well as the future of the company. PB.EU is a London-based management consultancy, specialising in advice, coaching and training in effective and persuasive communications. The firm covers the full range of presentations, pitches, business development, media interviews, negotiations, telephone skills and written documents, as well as providing voice-over services for adverts and events. Ewan talks about the firm’s philosophy, highlighting the client-oriented nature of the services that staff offer. “At GPB.EU, our mission and focuses is very deliberately focused on our clients, not on ourselves. We truly do put clients first, and can evidence that by still having 8 ‘founder clients’ from our first year in business,1993. We would much rather look after our clients than for our clients, so we focus on retaining clients and not on selling to them, so our own BD activity, once a client has come on board and usually through a referral, is to serve them in the way they want, and to the best of our abilities.” Following on from outlining the company’s mission, Ewan discusses how it utilises the services the team offers to help the clients. With a lot of work coming in physical areas such as presentations and interviews to name a few, the team also deal in written communications, as Ewan alludes to. This versatility helps the company attract the best business and best clients. “Essentially, the team’s work ends up being mostly in spoken and persuasive communications, in a variety of areas, but also in written communications such as proposals and tenders, business development, pitching and information memoranda. We work ‘pan economy’ with many clients from some of the largest global banks, through a range of pharmaceutical companies to some of the smallest product suppliers, and we do that in most of the main economic areas of the world, based from our head office in London. If we have a sectoral bias, it is to Financial Services, as some one third of our clients come from that sector. “Additionally, we work on all the types of spoken and written communication events that exist, such Company: Grant Pearson Brown Consulting Ltd Contact: Ewan Pearson Contact Email:
[email protected] Address: 4 Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2RP, UK Phone: 0207 831 1000 Web Address: www.gpb.eu “For you to be yourself at your best, even in the toughest situations” G 1711AI19 as on investor presentations for banks, fundraisings for PE and VC firms, annual results and investor presentations, pitches by individuals, law firms, banks, accountants and other service and product providers. We have also helped people to get jobs, promotions, and even places at university. We worked on the London 2012 Olympic bid (and one other successful one since), on the UK Govt enquiry into Private Equity, and are currently working on sporting and cultural hosting bids. “That work is important enough to occur often at C Suite and CEO level in some of the world’s largest enterprises, but we also work with line and departmental management, and go right through to new intakes and graduate recruits. If we get to work with the critical mass of people within a client we can even improve significantly the way an organisation communicates, whether externally or internally. Distinguishing itself from other similar firms within the industry, GPB.EU is unique in the way that it combines its science analysis and art to produce the best advice in its specialist areas. “In science, we are unique on offering the full set of three objective Scientific Analyses, on content, and on vocal and visual communication. They are offered in two forms, detailed analyses where budgets and requirements indicate, and short analyses where timings are tight and the results and subsequent coaching are needed asap. These analyses help us to focus the coaching where it is most needed, so getting better and more enduring results in less time and at less overall cost. “From the art side, we pull in the best ideas on rhetoric, argumentation, and even Aristotle’s and Socrates’ teachings on persuasion. The ideas of examples, analogy, metaphor, quotation and anecdote are all important to us. This brings an elegance, possibly even a beauty to the act of communication that we are advising and coaching on. “Together the effect is to create pieces of communication that are easy to understand, remember and retell. Where the goal is influence