It was the chocs wot won it!

Someone has tried to accuse Cicero of historical inaccuracy. As if.

In last week’s thoughts a certain Mr Perry was linked to British naval stalwarts such as Drake, Raleigh and Nelson, and one correspondent tried to point out that the Perry who opened up Japan was an American naval officer. You are quite right but the Perry who was in Cicero’s thoughts is truly a present day British naval hero, fully deserving to be linked in the same sentence to historical Royal Navy legends.

You are not going to believe this.

You will recall a few weeks back Cicero’s rant (and yes, this was a rant) about length of time it was taking to fix a short stretch of road in his neighbourhood compared to speed at which Japanese Navvies worked. Well the self same bit of tarmac has been ripped up yet again and once more drivers are being inconvenienced by the traffic chaos. This takes publicly funded job creation programmes to a whole new level-dig a trench in the road, take ages to fix, dig it up again and then presumably take another age to fix. You will be kept posted on the latest developments though to Cicero’s untrained eye progress looks like it is going to be slow. To date not one Navvie, Japanese or otherwise, has been spotted working.

Cicero was communing last week with like minded marketing Head Honchos when he heard a great story. It was so good that he wanted to share it with you.

Once upon a time there was a block of offices where some suits worked for a major financial services business, not one owned by us the taxpayer, for the avoidance of doubt. Each evening an army of cleaners moved into this capitalist palace to make it all spick and span for the workers to do their stuff the next day.

Now all of us no doubt have a cleaning service which operates behind the scenes each and every night restoring cleanliness and hygiene to our workplace so we can give of our best in an environment which fully complies with the necessary hygiene standards.

Now how many times do you give a thought to your cleaning service and the cleaners who toil to clean up your mess? It is doubtful if you devote half a brain cell to this topic. You will only notice the cleaners if they are not there or don’t do their job.

Now back to the cleaners in the financial services office.

They knew and realised that they were not noticed or appreciated and they also knew that they were just a commodity which more often than not would be bought on price. And they determined to find a point of difference and so each night they would leave a chocolate on each desk they cleaned.

Now after a while their contract came round for renewal and the bean counting procurement people who bought these kinds of services with the same attention to detail that they bought pens, rubbers and elastic bands, decided not to renew their contract and went instead for a competitor.

There was uproar. Not because the offices were not being cleaned to the required standard but because people missed their chocs. So much uproar in fact that the original cleaning company was re-instated. It was the chocs wot won it!!!!

Now too often you will hear folk, and marketing folk are included in this, saying that they work in a commodity business. This is sloppy thinking. All businesses are commodities if you think of it-Coke is only fizzy brown water, Vodafone is just mobile telecommunications business like any other, Persil just a washing powder and there are plenty of these around. But does anyone want to bet that that they do not see themselves as a commodity?

As the cleaning company has shown with a little bit of creative understanding, any business can make itself distinctive and interesting in its market place. And that is the way to win and keep business.

Now this might only be me......but maybe we should all adopt this mentality.

Normally we end our weekly conversation with me pointing out some of the absurdities of the world in which we live. But now for something completely different. Today I want to leave you with a tale that should inspire you to live every day as if it is going to be your last.

Last week I came across the story of Alex Lewis who was diagnosed at 17 with bone cancer which had spread to his lungs but even while undergoing intensive treatment he was determined to cram as much life as possible into the time he had left. In three years he experienced what some people take a lifetime to achieve, including meeting and marrying the love of his life. He died shortly after his 22nd birthday.

Alex vowed to live each day with as much zest and energy as he could muster. He didn't want his life to be defined by his illness and crammed a lifetime of thrill and adventure into the time he had left. He went parachute jumping in New Zealand, dune buggy riding in Dubai and cliff diving in Cornwall. He took a spur of the moment trip to Australia, booking tickets just two days before he travelled to meet friends there for beach parties.

‘’It makes you realise just how precious life is. Life is actually amazing, but to make the most of every minute you do have to look at everything in a positive way," Alex said. "I'm having almost the time of my life in a way. I mean, imagine if you could feel like I do now, but just for your whole life - that would be incredible because you'd make the most of everything. You'd feel like I'm not wasting time."

Shortly before he died he told his family how incredible his life had been and how he felt like he had a complete life even though it had been cut short.

Now it might only be me but I think that this outlook is something we can all learn from.

Have a great week and hopefully we can all live it to the full.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.