June 2009
June’s Ramble truly is Random.
- Push The Door
- We Have A Huge Competitor – Great!
- Avoiding Eurovision
- Missed Opportunities
- Please Take My Money
- Twittering Hubs
- Brilliant Button
- It’s Not Cricket!
- I’m Right!
- Circulation Details
- And Finally
Push The Door
Never be afraid to ask for help. If you push the door you might just find that it is open. Website forums demonstrate how many people are willing to offer help and advice for free. The more business people I talk to, the more I find people involved in voluntary activities. Most people are not totally motivated by money.
Last month’s Ramble talked about the Six Degree of Separation i.e. we all know someone who knows someone etc. Over the last few months I have seen this demonstrated several times. With no real expectation of a positive response, on behalf of others I have tagged, “By the way, do you know anyone who can ...” onto the end of a conversation. Several times I have been pleasantly surprised by a, “Yes, we can; get him/her to call us.”
Increasingly I realise that many people will help if they can. This lies at the core of networking. So don’t be afraid to push the door, it might just be open.
We Have A Huge Competitor – Great!
Last month I mentioned a few ‘new’ technologies that would never catch on – electricity, the telephone, computers and so on. Apart from the technical challenges to be faced, the innovator has to convince sceptics (that’s most of us) that the new idea/product really will work and is useful. It can take a huge marketing effort and a great deal of time to develop a new market. Entrepreneurs look for new ideas with which to make their fortunes and some of them succeed. But is this the best way?
Large organisations rarely do things particularly well, but what they do is to spend mega bucks promoting products and raising awareness. That’s great. Let them spend their millions to create the market, then follow on but do it better than them in some small way. They have created the market, now all you have to do is follow in their slipstream. Easy!
Avoiding Eurovision
Whilst avoiding the Eurovision Song Contest (will it ever be the same without Wogan?), I watched a splendid BBC2 programme about Handel, a composer who turned out quite a few good tunes. I was completely wowed by the performances of Danielle de Niese. This young soprano really understands ‘performance’. Even without subtitles for the Italian words it was easy to understand the emotions portrayed through her incredibly expressive face. If ever there were a demonstration that the actual words used are but a small part of the communication, this is it.
Handel was German, became a British citizen and wrote Italian operas. Danielle de Niese is Australian by birth, was brought up in the US and is of Dutch/Sri Lankan decent. Music truly is an international language.
Missed Opportunities
Over the last month or so I have been to a number of classical concerts as well as the opera. Predominantly, the audiences are white, middle-class and middle-aged to older. Most of the events attended have been in Birmingham, a city where nearly half the population is not white, a city with one of the youngest populations in Europe, a city with one of the finest concert halls in the world, a city with a world class orchestra and a visiting top opera company. Orchestras and opera companies, large and small, go into schools to perform, they involve young people in various ways, they try to engage with the community in general. And yet they still fail to attract a huge sector of the potential market.
La Boheme performed by Welsh National Opera in Birmingham attracted a full house and, in fact, the audience profile was younger than usual. Is that because it is a very well known opera or do WNO tackle their marketing differently? Actually, their operas do tend to have a slightly younger audience profile than for orchestral music. But still virtually 100% white.
I wonder how many other businesses and organisations miss out on big slices of the potential market? Does yours? And does anyone have any bright ideas as to how to address this challenging issue?
Please Take My Money
I have written before about how difficult it is to spend money with some businesses. Recently I read of the experience of someone in the US making enquiries of businesses by email. The majority of those approached failed to respond. That exactly mirrors my experience in the UK. Extraordinary!
Recently I contacted four local companies to ask for a quote for some work on the house. You know what they say about first impressions count? Well, two had ruled themselves out before I saw their quotes. I say ‘saw’. In fact one phoned to give me the price and was taken aback when I asked if he was going to confirm it in writing.
Begrudgingly he said he would until I pointed out that his price was way over the top, at which point he lost all interest and put the phone down. Whether relevant or not I do not know, but he was the only ‘salesman’, the other three being the company owners.
I have given the business to the smallest of the companies. The owner put himself out to accommodate my availability, he gave the impression of competence and reliability, and I liked him. From the first meeting I wanted to give him the business and so was pleased when his quote was competitive. It confirmed to me the adage that we do business with people we like.
Twittering Hubs
As mentioned last month, most people have relatively few contacts whilst a few have many and are in effect communication hubs. In an attempt to upgrade my hub status and to test the business benefits of social media I have become a Twitterer and have joined LinkedIn. First thoughts are that it requires a time commitment to generate and maintain contacts and that like face-to-face networking, it will take time for any benefits to become apparent. Like email it also requires discipline not to spend too much time tweeting just because it’s fun.
To take part in this evaluation of the business benefits accruing from social media, sign in to Twitter (
Brilliant Button
What turns a fairly ordinary Formula One driver into world championship material overnight? It’s the car of course. But is it that simple? An ordinary driver in the best car would be good but not brilliant. So there must be something else. The reality is that having the right car and the right team has allowed Jenson Button to demonstrate that he was never ordinary but in fact has extraordinary talent; that he can deliver when it counts. He had latent talent that hadn’t been allowed to develop fully previously.
I look back at my corporate career. Could I have delivered more? Could I have helped others to deliver more? I’m sure that the answer to both questions is yes. So what happened? Probably the same as in most businesses. Everyone is so preoccupied with day to day activities that they find it difficult to look beyond the immediate task and to find time to develop themselves and others. Of course, many companies send employees on training course, but how effective are they? Much of what we learn goes straight out of the window come Monday morning and the resumption of the usual hectic routine
It seems a shame that more organisations don’t have mentoring programmes that operate from top to bottom of the structure. It is a significant commitment to make, both monetarily and in time. But if it unearthed just one Jenson Button in your organisation, wouldn’t it be worth it? Of course, that assumes that the rest of the team is structured to support rising starts of all ages.
It’s Not Cricket!
I read an interesting article in the Radio Times. It was lamenting the demise of free-to-view Test Match cricket. When the England and Wales Cricket Board sold TV rights to Sky they automatically precluded 80% of the population from viewing it. Sure, they made a short-term financial gain, but what of the long-term effect on the game?
There are so many forms of entertainment competing for our money that it is easy to forget those that are not brought to our attention on a regular basis. In effect they fall off our radar. Or in the case of younger people, cricket may never get onto their radar in the first place. It seems to me, as it did to the writer of the article, that the cricket authorities may well have made a strategic error that will have a serious impact on the popularity of the game in the longer term.
It astonishes me that companies are prepared to spend thousands, even millions, on advertising but are reluctant to spend a few quid on better product quality or customer service. For long-term success, building a reputation for quality, dependability and accessibility is far more important than making short term gains.
I’m Right!
Every type of organisation likes to do surveys. You can’t go to an event or buy a product online without being asked to complete a survey about the experience. OK, so I’ve told you what I think. Now, what are you going to do about it? Let me warn you, if I’ve told you where you could improve or do things differently I expect you to take note and change things. I don’t care what you think or what other customers think. I’m right. Every customer that fills in the questionnaire is right. So unless you are going to do what I and they suggest, don’t even think of asking me to fill in another questionnaire!
Questionnaires raise expectations, expectations that something is going to change. If it doesn’t there is disappointment where previously there might have been contentment. If you go in to a restaurant, spend ten minutes pondering over the extensive menu, make your choice and are then told it’s off, you are disappointed. If the menu had been more limited but was able to deliver everything advertised you would be more satisfied.
It is all about managing expectations. Don’t offer what you can’t deliver. Put another way, under-promise and over-deliver.
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And Finally
Perhaps we over-complicate things sometimes. Maybe we should take Nike’s advice and ‘just do it’.
“If you're in the penalty area and don't know what to do with the ball, put it in the net and we'll discuss the options later.”
Bob Paisley, Liverpool FC manager 1974-83
Enjoy the sunshine (hopefully).
David