Author & Business Speaker

Business speaker, Mike Southon, will inspire, entertain and inform your audience.

"Mike Southon is more than Quite Interesting. He spreads insight and cheerfulness in equal measure, like an ambidextrous chef icing two cakes at once."

John Lloyd producer of Blackadder, Spitting Image,
Not The Nine O'Clock News and QI

Mike Southon is a serially successful entrepreneur and best-selling business author.

Mike built and sold his own company in the 80s and worked with seventeen different start-ups in the 90s. Two of these companies later went public, while three went broke!

A Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association, Mike speaks at over 100 events every year all over the world, to a wide variety of multi-national audiences, everyone from students to board-level executives.

Mike is also a very experienced conference moderator and facilitator, having interviewed over 100 people on stage and for his Financial Times column, including Sir Richard Branson for his new book Screw Business As Usual.

Recent speaking engagements include GDF Suez (Spain), The Metabridge Conference (Canada), The University of Bristol, the PDSA, Rolls Royce, Tourism South East, Aylesbury Vale District Council, Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce and Finance Wales.

Mike is co-author of several best-selling business books, including The Beermat Entrepreneur, Sales on a Beermat and This is How Yoodoo It, a collection of his Financial Times columns.

He is also a very experienced entrepreneur mentor, having provided face-to-face mentoring for over 1,000 people in the last ten years.

Mike is proud to be an ambassador for the Federation of Small Businesses, The City of Liverpool and is a Freeman of the City of London.

Business speaker topics

Mike's keynote presentation will be specifically designed and tailored for your audience, but two common themes are:

• Helping people to be more creative and entrepreneurial in both small and large organisations
• Helping people to be more effective at sales, especially non-salespeople

Above all, Mike explains that business should be fun. Everyone should enjoy their work, and feel they have a real sense of purpose.

Some example keynotes

SOMETHING ABOUT THE BEATLES

Everyone has a great business idea, whether they are looking to set up their own company or would like to be more creative in their corporate environment.

Mike Southon uses The Beatles as an example of how to be creative and entrepreneurial, and explains how to overcome the challenges you will face along the way. Something About The Beatles is highly inspiring, entertaining and informative keynote presentation suitable for everyone: schools, universities, entrepreneurs, small businesses and large companies.

This presentation is very flexible and covers a wide range of key business

issues, including:

• creativity
• innovation
• leadership
• teamwork
• mentoring
• branding
• business ethics

The presentation is packed with great music and practical learning points from Mike's own twin careers as a highly successful serial entrepreneur and professional musician, all delivered with energy, style and humour. Find out more by watching the video below:

'Something About The Beatles' - the one-day workshop

'Something About The Beatles' is also available as a one-day creativity, innovation and sales workshop for people in large organisations.

Combining elements of 'The Beermat Entrepreneur', 'The Boardroom Entrepreneur' (Mike Southon and Chris West's best-selling book on enterprise in large companies) and 'Sales on a Beermat', this one-day workshop shows how everyone can use the techniques of successful entrepreneurs to generate new ideas and boost the organisation's bottom line, using The Beatles' story as a model of successful British entrepreneurship.

Sales on a Beermat (Sales for Non-Salespeople)

We would all like to increase the revenue of our companies, but not all of us are experienced salespeople.

Small businesses have to generate revenue but often do not have a purpose-built salesperson. Larger organisations have many people involved in the sales process who do not have much formal sales training, such as consultants, engineers, lawyers and accountants.

Mike Southon shows how everybody can sell, featuring material from UK best-sellerSales on a Beermat.

Mike's presentation explains the simple steps any company can take to double their sales immediately without spending money on expensive marketing campaigns. It also shows how everyone, especially non-salespeople can be involved in the sales process without feeling sleazy or uncomfortable.

Sales on a Beermat is packed with practical tips and real life examples from Mike's many years as a highly successful salesman, all delivered with energy, style and humour.

Videos