I start this week with good news. The lift in my top secret bunker I referred to a few weeks back is now working. I never knew that Cicero had the power to move the State security apparatus in this way.
As a regular reader of my warm wit and wisdom, you will know, that despite spending all my life in some of the finest towns and cities in this green and pleasant land, I have a great love for country folk and for the country. You will also know that I think there are many lessons we can learn from those who labour long and hard to put food on our tables. And this week is going to be no exception.
I have just come across a report from researchers at Newcastle University which claims that cows that are given a name can produce up to 284 litres more per year compared to cows not given a name by Farmer Giles. As the leader of the research team said ‘ just as people respond more to the personal touch, cows also feel happier and more relaxed if they are given a bit more one to one attention’. And such strategies also work for pigs and sheep and for poultry.
It is good to see that the hard earned taxpayers’ pound was being deployed in such ground-breaking research. Forget a cure for cancer, now we know that all farming folk need to do to increase production and productivity is to give their stock names like Daisy, Ermentrude or even Nichola. Problem solved. And to think you get PhDs for this. I suppose it beats working and making sure that state safety and security is protected. I must ask my farming friends what they think of such research and whether or not they will be rushing out to buy name tags for their bovine, ovine and porcine produce.
But before we dismiss and rubbish such work completely, maybe there is some learning we can apply to others of the animal kingdom. Us. And not surprisingly I believe that the lessons applicable on the farm can also be applied to every other work place and across the species barrier. For me this learning works in two ways.
Firstly I firmly believe that the more we can get up close and personal to our customers, the more productive they will be to our business. Now this does not mean that we need to try to be their best friend but does mean we should recognise them as individuals with an identity; that we should speak to them across all our human and written touch points in a way which is warm, human and adult; and wherever possible show that we know them, who they are and we understand the nature of the relationship our customers have with us.
There are some simple things we can do to give our customers that personal touch. We can stop addressing letters ‘Dear Customer’ and ending with an indecipherable corporate squiggle. People deal with people and like doing so
We could ensure that we ask for names before asking for a number when dealing with our customers. And how about using active verbs and personal pronouns when writing our customer facing material. Hardly radical or difficult stuff but simple to do and a start on helping make our customer relationships as productive as Daisy the Cow or Nichola, the pretty little spring lamb. And please share with me and my devoted and interested readers any other tips to help improve milk production and/or customer productivity.
And there’s more.
For what works with customers and cows, might also work with our people. Does something happen when we cross the threshold of our business that stops us being human and stops us finding ways to demonstrate the personal touch to those we lead, those we work with?
Again why is it that the first thing we always get asked for us is our employee number rather than our name? Why is it that our business communicates with our people and us like we were androids? Again the use of some personality in our communications with our people may go a long way to humanising the businesses we work in. Do we take time out to say thank you, to celebrate individual and team success, to remember significant events in the lives of our people? It may come as a surprise to many, though not you of course, that our people do have lives and that they are exactly that, people-not employees, not staff, not human resources.
Again not difficult, not radical, not rocket science.
And as I have said many times before let’s not wait for them. Let’s start with ourselves and that part of our business we can influence. And let us become the change we want to see in the world around us.
And maybe that PhD research was not wasted after all. Maybe it’s not just about extra pintas, more rashers of streaky bacon or better woolly jumpers from calling our farm animals Daisy, Ermentrude or Nichola. Maybe we should look closer to home for the real benefits.
Is it just me?
You may or not know, you may or not care, but most mornings and evenings I can be found cycling into and out of my new office. The other day I was stuck at some road junction or other behind a White Van and its White Van Man driver. And on the rear of this particular White Van was a plea to be told how WVM was driving accompanied by a phone number.
I know this is not an unusual request on many trucks and lorries but it made me wonder if anyone had ever rung one of these numbers. What happens if you do? Does anyone even answer the phone? What did they say? I am so intrigued to know that next time I see one of these requests for feedback, and if I should happen to have pen and paper to hand to jot down the phone and registration number, I am going to provide feedback, good or bad. I will keep you posted.
As always have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
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Saturday, 25 April 2009
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Time to stop doing dumb things!
For this week, and for one week only, Cicero is not going to speak but to rant. Forgive me but I need to get something serious off my chest.
But I want to rant in a constructive way as is Cicero’s wont. My rant is designed to make a point to those of us who want our businesses to succeed. And I am also hoping that the company which is the subject of my ire and splenetic rage may, if I am lucky, hear my angst and fury through their blog monitoring and alert services and address the problem so that some other sucker does not experience what I experienced.
I am so raging with customer dissatisfaction and splenetic rage that I am going to break the habit of a lifetime and name the subject of my ire. It is Abbey. And I want them to know that I will no longer be acquiring the Abbey habit.
To start with did want to say ole and si, si to their blandishments. What transpired was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions that it inspired a play, ‘A Comedy of Errors’.
I will spare you all the details of my attempts to become an Abbey customer but one small episode should suffice to illustrate Abbey’s poor thinking and low levels of customer centricity.
According to my Iberian amigos I had not supplied with them with a crucial piece of information needed to open an account. This only occurred to them 4 weeks into the account opening process and after 4 weeks of my subtle blend of cajoling and pleading and chasing. Now in this day and age, and knowing how keen I was to help shore up Abbey’s balance sheet with my liquid funds, you would have thought they might try to get in touch with me soonest. We now have the technology to facilitate this.
But no.
They sent me a letter. And not just any letter but one sent to me by a class of mail which meant that it took 9 days to get to me. Hardly an organisation keen to help me as expeditiously as possible, keen to help me get up and running, keen to make it easy as possible for me to do business with them. And to cap it all the form they needed to send me was not even enclosed.
This was the last straw for me and I told them where they could put their account. And by a delicious irony the letter confirming that my account was now closed and the return of the cheque I sent them to open the account, was with me the next day. A business clearly more proficient at closing accounts than it is at opening them. Brilliant. Don’t you agree?
So what lessons can we draw from this.
Well there is the obvious lesson that if you want to open an account, don’t go to Abbey. But for me the key lesson for us all is to ensure that we are in same business as our customer. For me, as for you, opening a bank account is a means to an end. We open bank accounts to help us live our lives. For Abbey and its people thought they were in the business of processing application forms. This was an end in itself and procedures and processes must be followed at all costs even when these do not dovetail to deliver what the customer wants. Writing a customer service strategy is easy-do it quicker, do it more accurately and do it cheaper. QED.
Abbey’s people failed to look at their jobs from the customer’s point of view. They were not walking in the customer’s footsteps but expected the customer to follow in theirs. For any business this is the wrong way round. I hope Abbey has now learnt its lesson from Cicero. And for a fee, Cicero would be more than happy to help get their account opening processes as sharp and as crisp as their account closing processes. They do close accounts brilliantly..
I read recently that today’s customer service and satisfaction theories are urging businesses to forget trying to delight or even satisfy customers but instead are telling them to focus all their efforts on fixing things that put customers backs up or which even drive them away. In other words customer satisfaction is easy….just stop doing dumb things to customers.
Are you listening, Abbey?
Rant over. Is it just me?
This week I am going to spare the eco -and environ-mentalists and even the trolley dolly brigade, my questioning scepticism and ask if anyone can tell me what exactly is ‘a traffic investigation’?
I only ask because after the recent Bank Holiday and what seemed like carnage on the roads, there would be appear to be a growing trend for roads to be closed for hours and even days for at least one county length either side of the site of the accident for ‘accident investigation’.. What are they investigating that takes so long? What happens to the results of these investigations? Does anyone care about the log jam of traffic caused by these investigations? I get the impression that no one seems to be in a great hurry to conclude these investigations and to get the roads back to normal.
It occurs to me that in olden days the ambulance would turn up to cart away the injured; the fire brigade to douse the petrol with foam; and the police to breathalyse and to take statements. And all this would be done on the hard shoulder while traffic whizzed by. Roads would only be closed to sweep up debris and for as short a time as possible. But now we have these Traffic Officers in cars that look like police cars but aren’t really, and roads get closed for an age while investigations take place real time. I wonder if this is a coincidence. Or is this an example of Cicero’s’ Law which states that work expands to occupy the amount of people there are involved?
If anyone can help enlighten me please do let me know.
As always have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
But I want to rant in a constructive way as is Cicero’s wont. My rant is designed to make a point to those of us who want our businesses to succeed. And I am also hoping that the company which is the subject of my ire and splenetic rage may, if I am lucky, hear my angst and fury through their blog monitoring and alert services and address the problem so that some other sucker does not experience what I experienced.
I am so raging with customer dissatisfaction and splenetic rage that I am going to break the habit of a lifetime and name the subject of my ire. It is Abbey. And I want them to know that I will no longer be acquiring the Abbey habit.
To start with did want to say ole and si, si to their blandishments. What transpired was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions that it inspired a play, ‘A Comedy of Errors’.
I will spare you all the details of my attempts to become an Abbey customer but one small episode should suffice to illustrate Abbey’s poor thinking and low levels of customer centricity.
According to my Iberian amigos I had not supplied with them with a crucial piece of information needed to open an account. This only occurred to them 4 weeks into the account opening process and after 4 weeks of my subtle blend of cajoling and pleading and chasing. Now in this day and age, and knowing how keen I was to help shore up Abbey’s balance sheet with my liquid funds, you would have thought they might try to get in touch with me soonest. We now have the technology to facilitate this.
But no.
They sent me a letter. And not just any letter but one sent to me by a class of mail which meant that it took 9 days to get to me. Hardly an organisation keen to help me as expeditiously as possible, keen to help me get up and running, keen to make it easy as possible for me to do business with them. And to cap it all the form they needed to send me was not even enclosed.
This was the last straw for me and I told them where they could put their account. And by a delicious irony the letter confirming that my account was now closed and the return of the cheque I sent them to open the account, was with me the next day. A business clearly more proficient at closing accounts than it is at opening them. Brilliant. Don’t you agree?
So what lessons can we draw from this.
Well there is the obvious lesson that if you want to open an account, don’t go to Abbey. But for me the key lesson for us all is to ensure that we are in same business as our customer. For me, as for you, opening a bank account is a means to an end. We open bank accounts to help us live our lives. For Abbey and its people thought they were in the business of processing application forms. This was an end in itself and procedures and processes must be followed at all costs even when these do not dovetail to deliver what the customer wants. Writing a customer service strategy is easy-do it quicker, do it more accurately and do it cheaper. QED.
Abbey’s people failed to look at their jobs from the customer’s point of view. They were not walking in the customer’s footsteps but expected the customer to follow in theirs. For any business this is the wrong way round. I hope Abbey has now learnt its lesson from Cicero. And for a fee, Cicero would be more than happy to help get their account opening processes as sharp and as crisp as their account closing processes. They do close accounts brilliantly..
I read recently that today’s customer service and satisfaction theories are urging businesses to forget trying to delight or even satisfy customers but instead are telling them to focus all their efforts on fixing things that put customers backs up or which even drive them away. In other words customer satisfaction is easy….just stop doing dumb things to customers.
Are you listening, Abbey?
Rant over. Is it just me?
This week I am going to spare the eco -and environ-mentalists and even the trolley dolly brigade, my questioning scepticism and ask if anyone can tell me what exactly is ‘a traffic investigation’?
I only ask because after the recent Bank Holiday and what seemed like carnage on the roads, there would be appear to be a growing trend for roads to be closed for hours and even days for at least one county length either side of the site of the accident for ‘accident investigation’.. What are they investigating that takes so long? What happens to the results of these investigations? Does anyone care about the log jam of traffic caused by these investigations? I get the impression that no one seems to be in a great hurry to conclude these investigations and to get the roads back to normal.
It occurs to me that in olden days the ambulance would turn up to cart away the injured; the fire brigade to douse the petrol with foam; and the police to breathalyse and to take statements. And all this would be done on the hard shoulder while traffic whizzed by. Roads would only be closed to sweep up debris and for as short a time as possible. But now we have these Traffic Officers in cars that look like police cars but aren’t really, and roads get closed for an age while investigations take place real time. I wonder if this is a coincidence. Or is this an example of Cicero’s’ Law which states that work expands to occupy the amount of people there are involved?
If anyone can help enlighten me please do let me know.
As always have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Friday, 10 April 2009
The lift is up where we belong
Welcome back and I hope you had a great Easter.
Please don’t think I am getting obsessed with lifts. You will know that barely two weeks ago I was talking about lifts and the need for us all to have our lift conversations to hand, ready and primed for use. I want to return to the questions of lifts again today but in a different context.
I am inspired this week by the works of Matthew Parris. I don’t mean the 13th century Benedictine monk, author and philosopher, though he does provide plenty of inspiration, but the equally inspirational 21st century columnist of The Times. I will come back to him in a moment but first let me tell you a story.
As I have explained to you before I am now sharing my marketing and business wisdom with an unnamed department of an unnamed government dedicated to ensuring safety and security for all its citizens. I would love to share more with you but I am sure you will understand the need for security and sensitivity.
In the building in which I ply my trade there is a lift and for as long as I have worked there, all of 4 weeks, this lift has been out of order. And not once have I seen anyone working on it trying to get it going. And according to the apparatchiks who have dedicated their whole career to serving the State and its citizens, this lift has been broken since at least the start of the year. I cannot say any more about this lift and even to disclose that there is a broken lift might be putting at risk my career and you would not want that, would you?
As is my philosophy I have picked up the napkin and reported it broken and tried to find out when it might be fixed. No one knows. No one cares. No one is it all fazed by fact that the lift has been marked ‘out of order’ for so long. Indeed people are more fazed that I should be so concerned.
Well I am concerned.
As I have said so many times before, everything communicates. To me, a broken lift that has been marked unusable for so long, says an organisation that can’t be bothered, that it doesn’t care, that it couldn’t give a monkey’s how it is perceived by its people, by its customers, by its stakeholders.
And I know that it does care but it is not communicating this thought at all times and across all touch points. In my book, if you get the small things right then the big things will surely follow. If you remove the interferences and barriers and excuses to great work then you get great work. It is that simple.
So where and how does Matthew Parris fit in?
Well my broken lift reminded of his experience of a squeaky door at Derby station which squeaked and squeaked to the annoyance and irritation of staff and customers, aka passengers, alike. All noticed but no one cared enough to fix it. And his solution was to develop a new branch of management consultancy and investigation.
Instead of businesses being subjected to major management investigation or scrutiny on the big issues, when it thinks it might be good practice to take a long hard look at itself, or when something big has gone horribly wrong to identify what went wrong, what lessons can be learnt, who should be blamed, it might be a much better idea ‘to zoom in with massive management attention to something trivial that went wrong, something just so blindingly, obviously silly that no one in their right mind could possibly defend it…..an investigation into how and why the indefensible was tolerated’.
And so going back to my broken lift, just think of the key questions needing answered;
Who knew?
Were there communication channels in place to bring the broken lift to attention of a higher authority?
Who should have shouldered responsibility for fixing? Why didn’t they?
Were people confident that their request to have lift fixed would be taken seriously or were they in despair and give up?
Etc, etc
I am pretty sure that such an approach to corporate investigation would reveal far more to an organisation about itself. The solutions would be easier to fix and maybe just maybe demonstrate and communicate better and more appropriate and relevant messages to all who work there and all who want to do business with it.
And so I ask and call upon you yet again to find and try to fix your broken lifts to help make your business a better place for your people and for your customers. As someone much more intelligent than even I, once said ‘you can become the change you want to see in the world’. Or as Bob the Builder said in similar vein, and who else can link Ghandi to Bob the Builder in the one paragraph, ‘Can we do it? Yes, we can’
And now for your favourite piece of this column……is it just me?
I have had a complaint from an eco mentalist who wants to know why I am always having a go at them. Well you will be pleased to know that yet again I want to ponder out loud about an eco mentalist absurdity and enviro mentalist illogicality.
The Green Brigade are always going on about the need to invest in renewable energy such as wind farms and solar energy. Has it never occurred to anyone that in this country at least it is not always windy or even sunny? This might come as a surprise to the eco warriors but I am sure that if you check with our meteorological media lovelies you will find that I tell no lie. This means that if we want to have 20% of our energy needs met from sources like this we also have to invest in traditional so called non green energy sources to make sure our lights don’t go out and our heating switch off when our weather takes a turn for the better or the worse, depending on your point of view.
So not only do we still need the energy sources that are seen as the Devil’s work, we also need to pay for all this surplus energy capacity. And there is only one person who is going to pay for this. Yes, you got it, you and me. Am I right or am I wrong? It is surely no coincidence that the word ‘mental’ is embedded in ‘environmentalism’.
I await more complaints
Have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Please don’t think I am getting obsessed with lifts. You will know that barely two weeks ago I was talking about lifts and the need for us all to have our lift conversations to hand, ready and primed for use. I want to return to the questions of lifts again today but in a different context.
I am inspired this week by the works of Matthew Parris. I don’t mean the 13th century Benedictine monk, author and philosopher, though he does provide plenty of inspiration, but the equally inspirational 21st century columnist of The Times. I will come back to him in a moment but first let me tell you a story.
As I have explained to you before I am now sharing my marketing and business wisdom with an unnamed department of an unnamed government dedicated to ensuring safety and security for all its citizens. I would love to share more with you but I am sure you will understand the need for security and sensitivity.
In the building in which I ply my trade there is a lift and for as long as I have worked there, all of 4 weeks, this lift has been out of order. And not once have I seen anyone working on it trying to get it going. And according to the apparatchiks who have dedicated their whole career to serving the State and its citizens, this lift has been broken since at least the start of the year. I cannot say any more about this lift and even to disclose that there is a broken lift might be putting at risk my career and you would not want that, would you?
As is my philosophy I have picked up the napkin and reported it broken and tried to find out when it might be fixed. No one knows. No one cares. No one is it all fazed by fact that the lift has been marked ‘out of order’ for so long. Indeed people are more fazed that I should be so concerned.
Well I am concerned.
As I have said so many times before, everything communicates. To me, a broken lift that has been marked unusable for so long, says an organisation that can’t be bothered, that it doesn’t care, that it couldn’t give a monkey’s how it is perceived by its people, by its customers, by its stakeholders.
And I know that it does care but it is not communicating this thought at all times and across all touch points. In my book, if you get the small things right then the big things will surely follow. If you remove the interferences and barriers and excuses to great work then you get great work. It is that simple.
So where and how does Matthew Parris fit in?
Well my broken lift reminded of his experience of a squeaky door at Derby station which squeaked and squeaked to the annoyance and irritation of staff and customers, aka passengers, alike. All noticed but no one cared enough to fix it. And his solution was to develop a new branch of management consultancy and investigation.
Instead of businesses being subjected to major management investigation or scrutiny on the big issues, when it thinks it might be good practice to take a long hard look at itself, or when something big has gone horribly wrong to identify what went wrong, what lessons can be learnt, who should be blamed, it might be a much better idea ‘to zoom in with massive management attention to something trivial that went wrong, something just so blindingly, obviously silly that no one in their right mind could possibly defend it…..an investigation into how and why the indefensible was tolerated’.
And so going back to my broken lift, just think of the key questions needing answered;
Who knew?
Were there communication channels in place to bring the broken lift to attention of a higher authority?
Who should have shouldered responsibility for fixing? Why didn’t they?
Were people confident that their request to have lift fixed would be taken seriously or were they in despair and give up?
Etc, etc
I am pretty sure that such an approach to corporate investigation would reveal far more to an organisation about itself. The solutions would be easier to fix and maybe just maybe demonstrate and communicate better and more appropriate and relevant messages to all who work there and all who want to do business with it.
And so I ask and call upon you yet again to find and try to fix your broken lifts to help make your business a better place for your people and for your customers. As someone much more intelligent than even I, once said ‘you can become the change you want to see in the world’. Or as Bob the Builder said in similar vein, and who else can link Ghandi to Bob the Builder in the one paragraph, ‘Can we do it? Yes, we can’
And now for your favourite piece of this column……is it just me?
I have had a complaint from an eco mentalist who wants to know why I am always having a go at them. Well you will be pleased to know that yet again I want to ponder out loud about an eco mentalist absurdity and enviro mentalist illogicality.
The Green Brigade are always going on about the need to invest in renewable energy such as wind farms and solar energy. Has it never occurred to anyone that in this country at least it is not always windy or even sunny? This might come as a surprise to the eco warriors but I am sure that if you check with our meteorological media lovelies you will find that I tell no lie. This means that if we want to have 20% of our energy needs met from sources like this we also have to invest in traditional so called non green energy sources to make sure our lights don’t go out and our heating switch off when our weather takes a turn for the better or the worse, depending on your point of view.
So not only do we still need the energy sources that are seen as the Devil’s work, we also need to pay for all this surplus energy capacity. And there is only one person who is going to pay for this. Yes, you got it, you and me. Am I right or am I wrong? It is surely no coincidence that the word ‘mental’ is embedded in ‘environmentalism’.
I await more complaints
Have a great week.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
The most fun you can have with your clothes on!!!
I don’t know about you but I spend an inordinate amount of my time either at work or getting to work or even thinking about work. I know, I’m sad, very sad. But I don’t think I am unique and I would challenge you to tot up the amount of time in any given week you spend on work related matters. The answer might surprise you.
And so I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to spend that amount of time gainfully employed I am damn well going to enjoy it and I am going to try my hardest to make sure that those around me enjoy work as well.
For me work ought to be the most fun you can have with your clothes. I will leave it to your imagination to determine what is the most fun you can have with your clothes off. That is not my responsibility.
It might run counter to our Calvinist work ethic, and believe me, given my Pictish and Caledonian background, there are few more Calvinist than me, but I firmly believe that the more fun you can create at work the more motivated and engaged our people are. After all we manage people with hopes, fears and emotions not robots or machines. And if laughter is what distinguishes us from animals then why not utilise this unique gift in the workplace. Surely we all want to do our best work in an environment which is human and humane, don’t we?
Now I am not suggesting that our offices should be a laugh a minute environment with a clown in one corner and a stand up comic in the other. But as leaders, no matter the environment or management structures or culture we find ourselves in, it is our job to create a human and relaxed environment for our people that they might give their best and produce great work.
So as a leader in title or by popular acclaim do you do any of the following?
Celebrate birthdays and other significant events in someone’s life
Celebrate success
Wander around the office and speak to your team, even the most junior
Show an interest in their work and ask questions about it
Find a way to share a joke, a laugh, a smile
Be self deprecating about yourself
And if you do all of these things then your place must be a great place to work and I want to come and work for you. It could be fun.
You might be a leader, the manager, the boss, but you are still a member of the human race so be human, be humane.
And there’s another reason why I think it is important that we learn to have fun.
When we were children, and even I was a child once though these days I can barely recall those carefree days of endless summers and absence of health and safety rules, we learnt and developed through play. The sandpit was our classroom, paints and glue our personal development programme, and Play School and its geometric windows our MBA. So what happened? At what age were we when we decided that, or it was decided for us, that play was now a waste of time and energy and not relevant to us anymore.
Balderdash.
Play and channelled fun can be a source of great creativity. The suspension of disbelief that goes along with play techniques allows us to explore new opportunities and allows us to break free from the surplus society that produces a surfeit of similar ideas.
Actors use play techniques to create; visit an ad agency and you will find rooms devoted to encouraging people to play; and some of the biggest brands in the world built on creativity and imagination, brands like Sony, Apple and Hewlett Packard, constantly challenge their people to do the normal and mundane and the similar in new interesting and innovative ways designed to encourage creativity and innovation.
I heard of one company who held a meeting on the London Eye to crack an issue and the solution had to be found in one full revolution. And they did.
So tomorrow, make a vow right here and now, to do what you can to make your workplace or workspace, the most fun you and those around you are going to have with your clothes on. Don’t ask for or seek permission. Don’t wait for someone else to go first. Don’t put off because it’s not the culture of your place. As someone far greater than me once said ‘you can become the change you want to see in the world’. Go for it and let me know how you get on. I await your stories and feedback.
Now is it just me?
I have to let you know that I am getting more than a little fed up with the constant preaching and hectoring of the eco and enviro-mentalists. It now seems that they are even telling me what kind of light bulbs I must buy. It is alright for me to strain and damage my eyes to read in the dim glow of the new eco friendly light bulbs just as long as the polar bears have an ice floe on which to perch.
Is it only me who thinks a nice dose of global warming might be good for us? Heating bills would reduce, a considerable help to hard pressed families and those on fixed incomes. And if we need less power to heat our homes there will be less need for the coal fired and nuclear power stations which the eco mentalists see as the Devil’s work. Am I the only one who sees things like this?
Have a great week. And, if I don’t speak to you beforehand, have a great Easter.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
And so I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to spend that amount of time gainfully employed I am damn well going to enjoy it and I am going to try my hardest to make sure that those around me enjoy work as well.
For me work ought to be the most fun you can have with your clothes. I will leave it to your imagination to determine what is the most fun you can have with your clothes off. That is not my responsibility.
It might run counter to our Calvinist work ethic, and believe me, given my Pictish and Caledonian background, there are few more Calvinist than me, but I firmly believe that the more fun you can create at work the more motivated and engaged our people are. After all we manage people with hopes, fears and emotions not robots or machines. And if laughter is what distinguishes us from animals then why not utilise this unique gift in the workplace. Surely we all want to do our best work in an environment which is human and humane, don’t we?
Now I am not suggesting that our offices should be a laugh a minute environment with a clown in one corner and a stand up comic in the other. But as leaders, no matter the environment or management structures or culture we find ourselves in, it is our job to create a human and relaxed environment for our people that they might give their best and produce great work.
So as a leader in title or by popular acclaim do you do any of the following?
Celebrate birthdays and other significant events in someone’s life
Celebrate success
Wander around the office and speak to your team, even the most junior
Show an interest in their work and ask questions about it
Find a way to share a joke, a laugh, a smile
Be self deprecating about yourself
And if you do all of these things then your place must be a great place to work and I want to come and work for you. It could be fun.
You might be a leader, the manager, the boss, but you are still a member of the human race so be human, be humane.
And there’s another reason why I think it is important that we learn to have fun.
When we were children, and even I was a child once though these days I can barely recall those carefree days of endless summers and absence of health and safety rules, we learnt and developed through play. The sandpit was our classroom, paints and glue our personal development programme, and Play School and its geometric windows our MBA. So what happened? At what age were we when we decided that, or it was decided for us, that play was now a waste of time and energy and not relevant to us anymore.
Balderdash.
Play and channelled fun can be a source of great creativity. The suspension of disbelief that goes along with play techniques allows us to explore new opportunities and allows us to break free from the surplus society that produces a surfeit of similar ideas.
Actors use play techniques to create; visit an ad agency and you will find rooms devoted to encouraging people to play; and some of the biggest brands in the world built on creativity and imagination, brands like Sony, Apple and Hewlett Packard, constantly challenge their people to do the normal and mundane and the similar in new interesting and innovative ways designed to encourage creativity and innovation.
I heard of one company who held a meeting on the London Eye to crack an issue and the solution had to be found in one full revolution. And they did.
So tomorrow, make a vow right here and now, to do what you can to make your workplace or workspace, the most fun you and those around you are going to have with your clothes on. Don’t ask for or seek permission. Don’t wait for someone else to go first. Don’t put off because it’s not the culture of your place. As someone far greater than me once said ‘you can become the change you want to see in the world’. Go for it and let me know how you get on. I await your stories and feedback.
Now is it just me?
I have to let you know that I am getting more than a little fed up with the constant preaching and hectoring of the eco and enviro-mentalists. It now seems that they are even telling me what kind of light bulbs I must buy. It is alright for me to strain and damage my eyes to read in the dim glow of the new eco friendly light bulbs just as long as the polar bears have an ice floe on which to perch.
Is it only me who thinks a nice dose of global warming might be good for us? Heating bills would reduce, a considerable help to hard pressed families and those on fixed incomes. And if we need less power to heat our homes there will be less need for the coal fired and nuclear power stations which the eco mentalists see as the Devil’s work. Am I the only one who sees things like this?
Have a great week. And, if I don’t speak to you beforehand, have a great Easter.
Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Going Up!
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.
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.
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.
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