Salvete, amici.
After taking inspiration in last few weeks from the rugby, I am going to draw a veil over that particular source of creativity for now and move swiftly on. I would, however, like to acknowledge Erin’s historic triumph which I know will delight Cicero’s Hibernian devotees.
You will be pleased to know that Cicero is now giving his marketing advice and counsel to national governments. For reasons of national security I am unable to disclose which organ of the state apparatus, and indeed which government, I am now advising, but I would like you to know that you can sleep safely in your beds at night knowing that I am on the case.
As part of my meet and greet tour of the offices and of the people who have the great fortune to work with moi, I have been asking them searching and difficult questions like’ ‘what do you’, ‘what business are you in’ and the like.
Again for reasons of national security I am unable to divulge the answers to these questions but conversations like those I am having right now remind me of the need for us all to have our lift conversations at the ready. In my case this is especially true. The head honcho here told me last week that he has adopted the practice of speaking to people in lifts and actually talking to them. This person, whose identity I am unable to reveal lest it compromise national security, is a Very Very Important Person, doing the kind of role where you do not strike up unsolicited conversations in lifts with people as lowly as me.
Do I hear you ask ‘what is a lift conversation’? As usual Cicero will seek to illuminate in his usual entertaining and educational way.
I want you to imagine you are in a lift and someone asks you who and what you do or what business you are in. You have got to tell your story before the lift stops. If you are lucky you might be in a very tall building with the opportunity to recite in voluminous and pedantic detail the ins and outs of your business’s 5 Year Plan. However the chances are that you will not have read the 5 Year Plan and, more likely, that you have only got at most a couple of floors to capture the imagination of the person asking you the question so your answer must be quick, succinct and compelling. My usual rule that if it cannot fit onto the front of a T-Shirt holds true in this instance too.
We are all asked that question from time to time, in lifts, in the pub, by our family and not just by Very Very Important Persons. We could be speaking to a potential customer and since all of us are in the communication business with the potential to promote and advertise our brand and our business, having a compelling lift conversation to hand can be a very powerful advert for our business.
Remember, as I have pointed out over recent weeks (see panel to right for evidence), that despite the advances in technology and the millions poured each year by businesses like ours into advertising and other forms of communication, the human voice is still the most communications medium known to man. People buy people, not adverts.
For reasons of national security I am unable to share with you my lift conversation to describe what I and my team do, but let me give you some examples from some well known brands and businesses that are not required to operate under such constraints. There is a common theme which, as a bright and intelligent student of this column you will be, I am sure you will spot straight away.
Revlon which others less enlightened as you might think make women’s cosmetics say that they sell hope to women. Black and Decker are not manufacturers of drills but sell holes. And Volvo will tell you that they don’t make cars but sell safety on wheels.
These might be rather short lift conversations but they are a great starting point to describe what they do and what business they are in. And what is truly great about these lift conversations is that they look at their business from the view point of the customer and not from what they supply or manufacture. They describe the business in emotional and not in rational or functional terms.
We should all have a lift conversation and I would be really keen to hear how you would describe what your business does in no more than 3 sentences. And in the rare event that you might be finding it difficult to define your lift conversation let me know through the wonders of Google’s technology on this page and I will see what I can do to help.
Is it just me?
Can anyone explain to me why it is not possible for manufacturers of mobile electronic equipment to come up with a standard plug that is compatible across my range of personal gizmos and executive toys. Surely a plug is a plug. However when I travel these days I seem to be carrying more portable power plants than clothes and smalls. With plugs and adaptors for PCs, MP3, my fruity PDA and mobile to ensure constant connectivity and permanent capability to work, it is no wonder that more and more of us wage slaves are resorting to trolley dolly briefcases and creating traffic and health and safety havoc across our towns and cities at rush hour. Can anyone help explain this or even better come up with a solution.
Have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
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Sunday 29 March 2009
Saturday 21 March 2009
For the Long Jump
A friend of mine recently went for an interview. Because I am nice, kind and thoughtful, as I am sure you already know, I sent a message to say good luck and hoping interview went well. According to my friend ‘it is now all down to the competition’.
This is nonsense and I want to explain to you why today. But first let me tell you a story which I think is true.
Once upon a time, in 1968 to be precise, at the Olympic Games in Mexico, there were two great high jumpers-Lyn Davies from Britain and Bob Beamon from America. At the time Lyn Davis was the favourite for the gold medal but with his very first leap, in the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico, Beamon almost jumped out of the sand pit setting a world record that was not beaten for decades. Davies was shattered, failed to win a medal of any colour and never scaled the same heights, or jumped the same lengths, again.
In interviews afterwards the difference in mindsets was stark. Davies’s personal goal was to win the gold medal. Beamon’s was to jump 29 feet. He reckoned that would win the gold medal. Davies’s goal was not in his gift, that was out of his control. He could only control his own performance, not that of the competition. Beamon, on the other hand, could deliver his goal through his performance and his alone. Beamon only had one thing to worry about. Davies had the rest of the field to think about. Beamon had focus. Davies did not. Beamon minimised his interferences. Davies maximised his.
For me at an individual or even at business level, potential equals performance minus interferences. For us and our businesses to be successful and to be as great as they can be, we must work to reduce the interferences and by focusing on controlling those factors which are within our control and within our gift. Worrying about issues outwith and beyond our control is a waste of physical and emotional energy, energy that is better harnessed on helping us be the best we can be.
Let us take the example of my friend. By thinking about the competition for the role, energy was being dissipated, energy which would have been better deployed. Focus was being lost. Performance might suffer.
Similarly fears and negative doubts would start to creep in; what if conversations would be running through the head; interferences in the mind would grow and potential not realised. Fear of and intimidation by the competition was now the focus rather than a concentration on ensuring the key points were made in the interview or that the body language was correct in the meeting. We only have so many brain cells we can devote to a given subject at any one time so why not use these brain cells in a positive way on factors we can control.
And what is true of the individual is also true of the businesses and the brands we manage.
I have no problem with businesses who want to beat the competition or which want to grow at the expense of the competition or who carefully watch and monitor what their competitors do. Indeed I think these are perfectly healthy things for any ambitious and growing business to want to do. But I do not believe that businesses should be built around chasing market share, for example. Market share is a by product of doing a lot of other things very well. Market share is the business equivalent of trying to win the gold medal in the long jump-if someone comes along with a killer strategy which results in your market share being eroded, what do you do now? What interferences to great performance are now in your business, in the minds of your people?
Focus instead on having a great strategy which maximises the assets and capabilities within your business and keep your organisational focus on these factors. You control these. Let market share or similar outcome metrics follow.
It is also worth remembering that great brands and businesses do not even acknowledge there is a competition. Doing this confers legitimacy. Doing this distracts.
Sure some brand and businesses revel in their challenger status, see virgin and Avis for examples. But this is a carefully considered positioning strategy to differentiate. Do you think Apple acknowledges the existence of Microsoft? Or Coke acknowledges the presence of Pepsi? Or Tesco even knows Sainsbury’s exists? You might call it arrogance. They would call it being No 1.
In other words be Bob Beamon, not Lyn Davies.
Is it me?
Is it just me who gets up tight about the creeping absurdity of our approach to health and safety? I think not? On a train to Manchester the other day I was forced, and I mean that, forced, to carry my cup of coffee in a brown bag to my seat as if it was illegal contraband. And yet when I get to London I am almost and repeatedly bowled over by those stupid trolley dolly briefcase on wheels that now seem to be the briefcase of choice by those too lazy to carry their work like people once did in ye olden days.
Has it never occurred to our health and safety gualeiters just how dangerous these contraptions are compared to a cup of hot coffee and just how much space someone using one of these instruments of injury occupies? I bet that there is someone out there reading these words planning a campaign to outlaw these monsters or maybe even introduce a tax. Anyone else think coffee should be freed from the health and safety vice and a campaign launched to better regulate and control the use of trolley dolly briefcases.
Have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
This is nonsense and I want to explain to you why today. But first let me tell you a story which I think is true.
Once upon a time, in 1968 to be precise, at the Olympic Games in Mexico, there were two great high jumpers-Lyn Davies from Britain and Bob Beamon from America. At the time Lyn Davis was the favourite for the gold medal but with his very first leap, in the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico, Beamon almost jumped out of the sand pit setting a world record that was not beaten for decades. Davies was shattered, failed to win a medal of any colour and never scaled the same heights, or jumped the same lengths, again.
In interviews afterwards the difference in mindsets was stark. Davies’s personal goal was to win the gold medal. Beamon’s was to jump 29 feet. He reckoned that would win the gold medal. Davies’s goal was not in his gift, that was out of his control. He could only control his own performance, not that of the competition. Beamon, on the other hand, could deliver his goal through his performance and his alone. Beamon only had one thing to worry about. Davies had the rest of the field to think about. Beamon had focus. Davies did not. Beamon minimised his interferences. Davies maximised his.
For me at an individual or even at business level, potential equals performance minus interferences. For us and our businesses to be successful and to be as great as they can be, we must work to reduce the interferences and by focusing on controlling those factors which are within our control and within our gift. Worrying about issues outwith and beyond our control is a waste of physical and emotional energy, energy that is better harnessed on helping us be the best we can be.
Let us take the example of my friend. By thinking about the competition for the role, energy was being dissipated, energy which would have been better deployed. Focus was being lost. Performance might suffer.
Similarly fears and negative doubts would start to creep in; what if conversations would be running through the head; interferences in the mind would grow and potential not realised. Fear of and intimidation by the competition was now the focus rather than a concentration on ensuring the key points were made in the interview or that the body language was correct in the meeting. We only have so many brain cells we can devote to a given subject at any one time so why not use these brain cells in a positive way on factors we can control.
And what is true of the individual is also true of the businesses and the brands we manage.
I have no problem with businesses who want to beat the competition or which want to grow at the expense of the competition or who carefully watch and monitor what their competitors do. Indeed I think these are perfectly healthy things for any ambitious and growing business to want to do. But I do not believe that businesses should be built around chasing market share, for example. Market share is a by product of doing a lot of other things very well. Market share is the business equivalent of trying to win the gold medal in the long jump-if someone comes along with a killer strategy which results in your market share being eroded, what do you do now? What interferences to great performance are now in your business, in the minds of your people?
Focus instead on having a great strategy which maximises the assets and capabilities within your business and keep your organisational focus on these factors. You control these. Let market share or similar outcome metrics follow.
It is also worth remembering that great brands and businesses do not even acknowledge there is a competition. Doing this confers legitimacy. Doing this distracts.
Sure some brand and businesses revel in their challenger status, see virgin and Avis for examples. But this is a carefully considered positioning strategy to differentiate. Do you think Apple acknowledges the existence of Microsoft? Or Coke acknowledges the presence of Pepsi? Or Tesco even knows Sainsbury’s exists? You might call it arrogance. They would call it being No 1.
In other words be Bob Beamon, not Lyn Davies.
Is it me?
Is it just me who gets up tight about the creeping absurdity of our approach to health and safety? I think not? On a train to Manchester the other day I was forced, and I mean that, forced, to carry my cup of coffee in a brown bag to my seat as if it was illegal contraband. And yet when I get to London I am almost and repeatedly bowled over by those stupid trolley dolly briefcase on wheels that now seem to be the briefcase of choice by those too lazy to carry their work like people once did in ye olden days.
Has it never occurred to our health and safety gualeiters just how dangerous these contraptions are compared to a cup of hot coffee and just how much space someone using one of these instruments of injury occupies? I bet that there is someone out there reading these words planning a campaign to outlaw these monsters or maybe even introduce a tax. Anyone else think coffee should be freed from the health and safety vice and a campaign launched to better regulate and control the use of trolley dolly briefcases.
Have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Friday 13 March 2009
Start Spreading The News
Welcome back.
Clearly you have nothing better to do with your time this week but thanks for dropping by to keep me company on the blogosphere. And just like the BBC I shall endeavour yet again to educate, inform and entertain with my musings, insight and warm wit
The title of this week’s blog is the opening line from one of Frank Sinatra’s finest songs and the climax of many a party or dance, ‘New York, New York’. Many a time has that song brought to a rousing close a great party……..just before the girl you have spent the whole evening disappears to powder her nose, never to be seen again. C’est la vie.
But what has this got to do with marketing? Please be patient and I will explain.
Last week I introduced you to the concept of peer to peer marketing through the use of testimonials and case studies across the full range of your businesses’ marketing collateral and in particular in your PR strategy. As I said last week marketing like this can be immensely powerful and hugely cost effective. People trust people like themselves. It demonstrates relevance. And it moves your marketing from monologue big brand deference advertising to a more human and personal form of marketing. If you want to know more turn your eyes to the right of these fine words and click on last week’s musings.
Can I continue……?
I want to stay on this theme and develop our thinking on peer to peer marketing and move further into the territory of word of mouth marketing.
As I have already said when a brand, a product or a service is personally recommended, this can be one of the most effective, most powerful and most cost efficient channels of communication there is. Loads of research has been done over the years by fantastically bright people (so not me then) to show the powerful influence friends and family can have on consumers’ purchasing habits.
People trust their friends and family, though they obviously have not met my family, more than they trust claims made in the press and far more than they trust advertising claims. We all listen to the recommendations of our friends and family for everything from holidays to cars to the best place to go for a meal. We trust personal recommendations from people we know and like.
A lot of businesses derive a lot of their business from the word of mouth recommendation of people who have done business with them in the past and who pass their name on. It’s a cheap and effective way to recruit customers.
And it is possible to build a marketing strategy to stimulate word of mouth recommendation, to encourage customers and staff, it is important not to forget staff in this, to become brand and product advocates and to start spreading the news. Staff and customers can be an important distribution and communication channel and should be managed just like any other distribution and communication channel, Managing and monitoring key metrics such as cost of recruitment.
Obviously having a great product and delivering great customer service is key to being talked about and recommended but it’s also possible to incentivise recommendations through the introduction of recommend a friend or customer get customer schemes. Or even by adding an icon on your website allowing customers to send key information and details to a friend.
Some brands, keen to develop a word of mouth marketing strategy, have even been known to employ resting actors and students to talk loudly about their brand in public spaces like buses and trains so that they might be overhead.
I agree this might be a step too far but hopefully you get the point. Getting the advocates among your customer and employee base to talk about you is highly effective and hugely efficient marketing. Get it right and by getting everyone singing from the same hymn sheet to spread the news and everyone ‘will want to be a part of it’. Who would have thought that Ole Blue Eyes was a marketing genius?
Is it me?
You may or not now know that I have spent the best part of my marketing career in banking. I have now quit the industry for pastures new and I am sure it is just coincidence that we have financial meltdown with me out of the way. But one thing about the credit crunch and the banking industry perplexes me. It is often said that one of the reasons for the current downturn is because the banks won’t lend to each other. Now I might be missing something but I don’t want the banks to lend to each other. Surely it would be better for the economy if they were to start lending to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. Am I missing something here? After all I am pretty sure that Mr Tesco does not lend or sell its carrots to Mr Sainsbury or Mr Marks and Mr Spencer sell its red jumpers to Next just because Next has a shortage that week. Why are banks so different? If Mr Peston is reading this and can explain this to me, or if anyone else out there knows the answer, please do get in touch. It’s easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Have a great big week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Clearly you have nothing better to do with your time this week but thanks for dropping by to keep me company on the blogosphere. And just like the BBC I shall endeavour yet again to educate, inform and entertain with my musings, insight and warm wit
The title of this week’s blog is the opening line from one of Frank Sinatra’s finest songs and the climax of many a party or dance, ‘New York, New York’. Many a time has that song brought to a rousing close a great party……..just before the girl you have spent the whole evening disappears to powder her nose, never to be seen again. C’est la vie.
But what has this got to do with marketing? Please be patient and I will explain.
Last week I introduced you to the concept of peer to peer marketing through the use of testimonials and case studies across the full range of your businesses’ marketing collateral and in particular in your PR strategy. As I said last week marketing like this can be immensely powerful and hugely cost effective. People trust people like themselves. It demonstrates relevance. And it moves your marketing from monologue big brand deference advertising to a more human and personal form of marketing. If you want to know more turn your eyes to the right of these fine words and click on last week’s musings.
Can I continue……?
I want to stay on this theme and develop our thinking on peer to peer marketing and move further into the territory of word of mouth marketing.
As I have already said when a brand, a product or a service is personally recommended, this can be one of the most effective, most powerful and most cost efficient channels of communication there is. Loads of research has been done over the years by fantastically bright people (so not me then) to show the powerful influence friends and family can have on consumers’ purchasing habits.
People trust their friends and family, though they obviously have not met my family, more than they trust claims made in the press and far more than they trust advertising claims. We all listen to the recommendations of our friends and family for everything from holidays to cars to the best place to go for a meal. We trust personal recommendations from people we know and like.
A lot of businesses derive a lot of their business from the word of mouth recommendation of people who have done business with them in the past and who pass their name on. It’s a cheap and effective way to recruit customers.
And it is possible to build a marketing strategy to stimulate word of mouth recommendation, to encourage customers and staff, it is important not to forget staff in this, to become brand and product advocates and to start spreading the news. Staff and customers can be an important distribution and communication channel and should be managed just like any other distribution and communication channel, Managing and monitoring key metrics such as cost of recruitment.
Obviously having a great product and delivering great customer service is key to being talked about and recommended but it’s also possible to incentivise recommendations through the introduction of recommend a friend or customer get customer schemes. Or even by adding an icon on your website allowing customers to send key information and details to a friend.
Some brands, keen to develop a word of mouth marketing strategy, have even been known to employ resting actors and students to talk loudly about their brand in public spaces like buses and trains so that they might be overhead.
I agree this might be a step too far but hopefully you get the point. Getting the advocates among your customer and employee base to talk about you is highly effective and hugely efficient marketing. Get it right and by getting everyone singing from the same hymn sheet to spread the news and everyone ‘will want to be a part of it’. Who would have thought that Ole Blue Eyes was a marketing genius?
Is it me?
You may or not now know that I have spent the best part of my marketing career in banking. I have now quit the industry for pastures new and I am sure it is just coincidence that we have financial meltdown with me out of the way. But one thing about the credit crunch and the banking industry perplexes me. It is often said that one of the reasons for the current downturn is because the banks won’t lend to each other. Now I might be missing something but I don’t want the banks to lend to each other. Surely it would be better for the economy if they were to start lending to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. Am I missing something here? After all I am pretty sure that Mr Tesco does not lend or sell its carrots to Mr Sainsbury or Mr Marks and Mr Spencer sell its red jumpers to Next just because Next has a shortage that week. Why are banks so different? If Mr Peston is reading this and can explain this to me, or if anyone else out there knows the answer, please do get in touch. It’s easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Have a great big week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Everybody's talking about me!
Welcome back and thanks for dropping by for some more marketing intelligence, if that is not an oxymoron. I hope I am not going to let you down.
As you may know from my previous words, I now have businesses paying for my insight and wisdom, which is very scary for me as well as for them.
One of these businesses which has sought Cicero’s advice has limited money to invest in what you might call traditional marketing communication channels and so I am constantly looking for new and interesting ways to bring their proposition to as broad a range of audiences I can. And this week I am recommending a really powerful marketing technique and, just like me, it’s free.
I have previously spoken about the communications model and the need to take your customer on a journey through this model. Shame on you if you don’t remember but if you look to the right you can see that all my words and wisdom are being kept for future generations to learn from and you may wish to refresh your memory.
But back to my model…….
I am convinced that the age of monologue advertising is dead and we are seeing the start of dialogue advertising, aided and abetted by new online tools and technologies. Key to this is the growing power and use of references for any business.
No matter how powerful your communications might be; no matter how strong your marketing skills; no matter how much money you throw at getting your message out there, nothing communicates as strongly as the words of other people who have experienced doing business with you. It is called word of mouth marketing and this should be a key element in how you promote your business, how you build awareness and how you build relevance among your target audience.
This communications channel can take many forms but why not include what people are saying about you across all your marketing material? Cinemas and theatres have been using this approach for years to great effect, sometimes through careful editing of what the critics, as key opinion formers, might be saying.
But for any business the use of testimonials like these as well case studies of your customers using your product or service work best when you give a detailed and specific description of how the person has benefited from what you have to offer. ‘ They are nice people to do with’ is not as powerful as ‘ By using the full range of their products and services I not only got the job done quicker than I thought I would but I also saved myself over £5000. And they were always there when I needed them’.
Testimonials or case studies like this powerfully demonstrate the benefits of using your business by peers of the people you are trying to reach and will showcase the relevance of your business or brand to your target market in the words of the market. One of the biggest obstacles to growing your business is convincing people that you really can deliver on your promises. A testimonial does it for you. So when customers tell you they’re pleased with you, don’t be shy. Ask if they would be willing to share their experience with others. Most will actually jump at the chance to write you a testimonial. You know what it’s like to experience a great product or service. It’s so unusual you want to let others know about it.
I have read somewhere that great testimonials and case studies can increase conversion rates by 30%. I have no idea if this is true but what have you got to lose.
So get your advocates out there working for you now. Incorporate this approach into your marketing and communications strategy today. With immediate effect find ways to include the thoughts, views and expressions of your keenest customers onto your website, and it might even be possible to use video stream of these fans and devotees of your business to bring their words even more to life, include in brochures, incorporate into your advertising, let your sales people and other channels of distribution know. In other words get your customers shouting about you and your business from every rooftop.
But remember anonymous testimonials don’t work and are rarely believed.
Believe me, get this working right and as they say in movie pictures ‘you ain’t heard nothing yet’.
Is it me?
I had the misfortune earlier in week to phone a government department though the point I am going to make is not confined to those trying to do good for the citizenry of this fine country. No, this is a fault shared by so many so- called consumer focused organisations. Why is that before anyone will do anything when you phone these places you have to give them an account number, your NI number or any other sort of number? It is surely possible for them to ask for your name first and then ask politely for your number so that they can speak to the computer.
I am not in a re-make of ‘The Prisoner’. I am not a number but a person with a name. I am sure that the person I spoke to last week will not make that mistake again. Needless to say the conversation was unnecessarily prolonged as I refused to hand over my number until he asked for and used my name. As Ghandi said ‘we can become the change we want to see in the world’.
Have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
As you may know from my previous words, I now have businesses paying for my insight and wisdom, which is very scary for me as well as for them.
One of these businesses which has sought Cicero’s advice has limited money to invest in what you might call traditional marketing communication channels and so I am constantly looking for new and interesting ways to bring their proposition to as broad a range of audiences I can. And this week I am recommending a really powerful marketing technique and, just like me, it’s free.
I have previously spoken about the communications model and the need to take your customer on a journey through this model. Shame on you if you don’t remember but if you look to the right you can see that all my words and wisdom are being kept for future generations to learn from and you may wish to refresh your memory.
But back to my model…….
I am convinced that the age of monologue advertising is dead and we are seeing the start of dialogue advertising, aided and abetted by new online tools and technologies. Key to this is the growing power and use of references for any business.
No matter how powerful your communications might be; no matter how strong your marketing skills; no matter how much money you throw at getting your message out there, nothing communicates as strongly as the words of other people who have experienced doing business with you. It is called word of mouth marketing and this should be a key element in how you promote your business, how you build awareness and how you build relevance among your target audience.
This communications channel can take many forms but why not include what people are saying about you across all your marketing material? Cinemas and theatres have been using this approach for years to great effect, sometimes through careful editing of what the critics, as key opinion formers, might be saying.
But for any business the use of testimonials like these as well case studies of your customers using your product or service work best when you give a detailed and specific description of how the person has benefited from what you have to offer. ‘ They are nice people to do with’ is not as powerful as ‘ By using the full range of their products and services I not only got the job done quicker than I thought I would but I also saved myself over £5000. And they were always there when I needed them’.
Testimonials or case studies like this powerfully demonstrate the benefits of using your business by peers of the people you are trying to reach and will showcase the relevance of your business or brand to your target market in the words of the market. One of the biggest obstacles to growing your business is convincing people that you really can deliver on your promises. A testimonial does it for you. So when customers tell you they’re pleased with you, don’t be shy. Ask if they would be willing to share their experience with others. Most will actually jump at the chance to write you a testimonial. You know what it’s like to experience a great product or service. It’s so unusual you want to let others know about it.
I have read somewhere that great testimonials and case studies can increase conversion rates by 30%. I have no idea if this is true but what have you got to lose.
So get your advocates out there working for you now. Incorporate this approach into your marketing and communications strategy today. With immediate effect find ways to include the thoughts, views and expressions of your keenest customers onto your website, and it might even be possible to use video stream of these fans and devotees of your business to bring their words even more to life, include in brochures, incorporate into your advertising, let your sales people and other channels of distribution know. In other words get your customers shouting about you and your business from every rooftop.
But remember anonymous testimonials don’t work and are rarely believed.
Believe me, get this working right and as they say in movie pictures ‘you ain’t heard nothing yet’.
Is it me?
I had the misfortune earlier in week to phone a government department though the point I am going to make is not confined to those trying to do good for the citizenry of this fine country. No, this is a fault shared by so many so- called consumer focused organisations. Why is that before anyone will do anything when you phone these places you have to give them an account number, your NI number or any other sort of number? It is surely possible for them to ask for your name first and then ask politely for your number so that they can speak to the computer.
I am not in a re-make of ‘The Prisoner’. I am not a number but a person with a name. I am sure that the person I spoke to last week will not make that mistake again. Needless to say the conversation was unnecessarily prolonged as I refused to hand over my number until he asked for and used my name. As Ghandi said ‘we can become the change we want to see in the world’.
Have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Monday 2 March 2009
Tight Rugby Shirts
Great to see you again.
And since the Six Nations, excuse me the RBS Six Nations in association with The Taxpayer, is still occupying my attention, I thought that I would take a risk and stay with the rugby theme this week. If you are English, or even Scottish, you can look away now though I am going to break the habits of a lifetime and desist going for the cheap and obvious gag..
Instead I want to talk about tight rugby shirts and their importance to my and your business and our marketing programmes. As always bear with me. All will become very clear. It is all do with critical non-essentials.
In 2003 England won the Rugby World Cup. I think you may have read or heard about it. It is sometimes mentioned. Anyway they did this because of critical non-essentials. They recognised that on technical skills alone there were four or five teams capable of winning, and I don’t think Scotland was one of them. The team that would win would be the one that identified those little edges, the critical non-essentials that would make the fine difference between defeat and victory. One of these was the introduction of tight rugby shirts, and England were at that time one of the first teams to put squeeze their bodies into these corset like structures, making it more difficult for opponents to grab hold of the jersey and pull the player down. They would also run off the pitch at half time to demonstrate they still had energy in the tank and thereby get the psychological edge over their opponents.
Now you will be grateful to know that I am not advocating that we turn up to work in tight fit clothing. The sight of me wearing a tight fighting shirt is not a pretty sight. Instead I am suggesting that we look to find those critical non-essentials in our business to gain little edges over our competitors. All our businesses are trying to compete in a society where there is a surplus of people exactly like us, sitting in offices like ours, coming up with similar ideas and deals like us. The businesses which will succeed will be those which can identify enough of those little edges to make a difference and get real stand out in the eyes of their customers and potential customers. We all have to be different to get noticed.
It might be what we do as much as how we do it. The way we answer the phone. The way we write our letters. The typefaces we use. Or the willingness of our people to go the extra mile for our customers. It could be anything and everything we do but the business that wins will be just like the England rugby team of 6 years ago, the one that finds enough of these critical non-essentials to make it sound, appear and look different or better from the competition.
In past week I came across a contract cleaning company. Now I thought that contract cleaning companies were all pretty similar and that the only thing that mattered was the quality of cleaning. Well the owner of this company may well have been in the England rugby world cup winning squad as he obviously realised that there was a surplus of contract cleaning companies all capable of cleaning offices to the same standard. And so he came up with his own critical non-essential. Every night his cleaners left a chocolate on every desk in the office. His business was known as the ‘chocolate company’ and when the contract came up for renewal he was told that there would be a staff walk out if the contract was not renewed. Another successful critical non-essential.
So start now and try to identify the tight rugby shirts in your business, the critical non-essentials that will give your business stand out and the edge, the differences that will make you succeed.
Now is it me?
Many businesses these days seem to have adopted a dress down policy, sometimes for only one day. But is it only me that thinks that dress down policies lead to dress down attitudes, loose thinking and a decline in professional standards? I know for a fact that in some areas of Royal Bank of Scotland they allow dress downs on a Friday. And it is surely no coincidence that it was on a Friday that they bought ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, that was the source of their and Fred the Shred’s fall from the grace. So let that be a warning to us all. Dress down codes lead to sloppy thinking and a decline in business performance and the shredding of managerial reputations. QED.
Do you have any other examples where dress down codes have seriously impacted on business performance?
Have great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
And since the Six Nations, excuse me the RBS Six Nations in association with The Taxpayer, is still occupying my attention, I thought that I would take a risk and stay with the rugby theme this week. If you are English, or even Scottish, you can look away now though I am going to break the habits of a lifetime and desist going for the cheap and obvious gag..
Instead I want to talk about tight rugby shirts and their importance to my and your business and our marketing programmes. As always bear with me. All will become very clear. It is all do with critical non-essentials.
In 2003 England won the Rugby World Cup. I think you may have read or heard about it. It is sometimes mentioned. Anyway they did this because of critical non-essentials. They recognised that on technical skills alone there were four or five teams capable of winning, and I don’t think Scotland was one of them. The team that would win would be the one that identified those little edges, the critical non-essentials that would make the fine difference between defeat and victory. One of these was the introduction of tight rugby shirts, and England were at that time one of the first teams to put squeeze their bodies into these corset like structures, making it more difficult for opponents to grab hold of the jersey and pull the player down. They would also run off the pitch at half time to demonstrate they still had energy in the tank and thereby get the psychological edge over their opponents.
Now you will be grateful to know that I am not advocating that we turn up to work in tight fit clothing. The sight of me wearing a tight fighting shirt is not a pretty sight. Instead I am suggesting that we look to find those critical non-essentials in our business to gain little edges over our competitors. All our businesses are trying to compete in a society where there is a surplus of people exactly like us, sitting in offices like ours, coming up with similar ideas and deals like us. The businesses which will succeed will be those which can identify enough of those little edges to make a difference and get real stand out in the eyes of their customers and potential customers. We all have to be different to get noticed.
It might be what we do as much as how we do it. The way we answer the phone. The way we write our letters. The typefaces we use. Or the willingness of our people to go the extra mile for our customers. It could be anything and everything we do but the business that wins will be just like the England rugby team of 6 years ago, the one that finds enough of these critical non-essentials to make it sound, appear and look different or better from the competition.
In past week I came across a contract cleaning company. Now I thought that contract cleaning companies were all pretty similar and that the only thing that mattered was the quality of cleaning. Well the owner of this company may well have been in the England rugby world cup winning squad as he obviously realised that there was a surplus of contract cleaning companies all capable of cleaning offices to the same standard. And so he came up with his own critical non-essential. Every night his cleaners left a chocolate on every desk in the office. His business was known as the ‘chocolate company’ and when the contract came up for renewal he was told that there would be a staff walk out if the contract was not renewed. Another successful critical non-essential.
So start now and try to identify the tight rugby shirts in your business, the critical non-essentials that will give your business stand out and the edge, the differences that will make you succeed.
Now is it me?
Many businesses these days seem to have adopted a dress down policy, sometimes for only one day. But is it only me that thinks that dress down policies lead to dress down attitudes, loose thinking and a decline in professional standards? I know for a fact that in some areas of Royal Bank of Scotland they allow dress downs on a Friday. And it is surely no coincidence that it was on a Friday that they bought ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, that was the source of their and Fred the Shred’s fall from the grace. So let that be a warning to us all. Dress down codes lead to sloppy thinking and a decline in business performance and the shredding of managerial reputations. QED.
Do you have any other examples where dress down codes have seriously impacted on business performance?
Have great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
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