Off Your Desk

July 25, 2016 //
0

There’s something rewarding about getting something off your desk, and onto someone else’s. There’s a palpable sense of completion, even if it’s a first draft or a small milestone in a large project. It’s an even better feeling if it’s the end of a project. You got it done!

These days, it’s not that it’s off your desk or in your out-tray. It’s usually in your sent items, not weighing down your inbox or your task list. For now it’s someone’s else’s problem. Someone else has to complete the next stage in the process.

And feeling that sense of completion is OK too. It’s often your internal customer or boss who’s requested something from you, and here you are, delivering it to them, for them to review and kick it back to you for the next stage.

After I’ve prioritised my work for the week and for each day, I allocate a certain number of hours or part-days to each job, depending on how involved it is. This allows me to hit my own deadlines and keep to realistic targets. This also means that if I’m on time with a job I can get it off my desk at the end of a morning, the end of a day, or before a break and the start of the next job.

When it’s off your desk, it’s a demarcation point, a chance to take a breather and re-set for the next piece of work. And when it’s off your desk, it’s on someone else’s :-). Speaking of which, I must click Schedule and get this post off my desk…

Tags , ,
Categories Communication, General, Marketing

Star Struck

July 22, 2016 //
0

I get star struck, I admit it. It very rarely happens that I meet someone famous, but when it does I revert to excitable 12-year-old mode.

Many years ago I was at a computer software award function in Ireland and the well known designer John Rocha was there. I didn’t even meet him, but I was in his presence, within a couple of metres.

I was very excited. My girlfriend and my colleagues were wondering what on earth was up with me, as I pointed discreetly and mouthed the words ‘That’s John Rocha’ with a idiotic grin on my face. They didn’t get what all the fuss was about.

This is why. I’m English, from England, a country of 60 million people. Famous people are very, very thin on the ground. You occasionally see them in the street, but hardly ever, in my experience.

Ireland, on the other hand, is small, a fifteenth of the English population. Famous people are, comparatively speaking, all over the place. There are much fewer degrees of separation in Ireland. As a consequence, Irish people acknowledge – but don’t go doolally around – famous people. They leave them alone. I was walking down the main shopping street of Dublin about a year later and said to my girlfriend ‘bloody hell, that’s John Malcovich!’ rather loudly, just as he was walking past. ‘Can you say that any louder?’ was my girlfriend’s reply.

Perhaps that’s why famous people like Ireland. They are left alone – by Irish people. Bono can have a quiet drink in the back of a pub and he’ll get a few nods and ‘howyas’, but he won’t be mauled. That would only happen with foreigners like me – or ‘furners’ as we’re called in the west of Ireland.

Speaking of Bono, I heard a story about him drinking in a pub with a mate of his and he was approached by a couple of people and asked for a photo. His mate duly obliged and took the photo for them. They then left, not knowing that Bruce Springsteen was the volunteer behind the camera.

Tags ,
Categories General

All Good Things

July 20, 2016 //
0

All good things must come to an end, or so the saying goes. The implication being that they wouldn’t be good things otherwise.

This is usually my standard retort when my daughter is complaining about the limits on her screen time, the last day of a holiday, or the time she has to come back from a friend’s house.

Sometimes this is a hard argument for me to make, as it would take a long time for an extended holiday to become boring and not like a holiday, I think. To a child, the idea that all good things need to have an end-point is a hard one to grasp.

When this conversation was last revisited in our house, I offered my standard objection-handling response, to which my daughter replied, ‘Yeah, if they didn’t come to an end, they’d be great things.’

Which got me thinking: why should all good things have to come to an end? Furthermore, why do we even have that mindset, namely that if one thing is good then another thing we don’t enjoy as much can’t be good as well?

Shouldn’t we strive to make good things everlasting, for our customers, friends, family, so that they might at least last longer? Shouldn’t we strive to make the less good things good as well, by working harder to make them enjoyable and goal-oriented?

Tags , ,
Categories Communication, General

Moving People

July 18, 2016 //
0

I was at a music concert the other day. Popular music. It was the main act of the gig and featured a band who were not stellar or globally known but have a few hits under the belt that you would recognise.

I couldn’t name any of their songs while we were driving to the gig, but when they came on you knew them, and could sing along. There were 2 or 3 thousand at the gig, most of whom, I would guess, were fans.

Like a lot of bands, they had a new album coming out and so played a lot of new stuff. Whenever they played one of their big songs, however, the reaction of the audience was immediate and immense, visceral really.

It got me thinking, saddo that I am, about B2B marketing. This connection, this way of moving people, this level of engagement in a band/brand is something that B2B marketers can only dream about. After all, when you hear your favourite song come on, from your favourite band, the song that evokes a great holiday or time in your life, a song that you named your first child after, it inspires a feeling that you’re unlikely to see replicated when you come into work on the Monday and fire up the software that you couldn’t do your job without.

Both things, work and play, are interactions on a 1:1 basis, and even though B2B is selling to a business not a consumer, you’re still selling to an individual, or more likely a collection of individuals, each with a degree of influence and power, but individuals nonetheless, with their own set of likes, dislikes, preferences, reasons for deciding one way or the other.

Perhaps it’s wrong of us as B2B marketers to even think about trying to emulate the kind of engagement that brands strive for with people when they’re out of business, away from work.

Then again, perhaps moving people as consumers and moving people in work is not so different after all.

Tags , ,
Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Strategy

The 30% Efficient Marketer

July 15, 2016 //
0

You wouldn’t hire a marketer who was 30% efficient, would you? They don’t strike us as very efficient or effective.

Consider this though; as marketers we spend a lot of our time being creative, coming up with new ideas for a range of different things. We’re trying to stand out, to be different, and that takes effort.

We might spend some time putting together a proposal for something, only for it not to be selected by our line manager, for a host of reasons. Then it might get through the first gate and so we spend time – and sometimes money on a third party – developing the idea and finalising it for sign-off by the budget-holder. Sometimes the budget-holder might dismiss it out of hand, in which case the effort is gone. Or, they might ask for a few changes, and because they’re super-busy the revised version might languish in their inbox for a while, by which time we and they have moved onto other things. If enough time has elapsed, and we get back to it, the business has moved on and it needs extensive re-work. This is how it is working for a business of any size with lots of interconnected priorities and resources.

When I worked in an agency, we would be commissioned to come up with a campaign. We would brainstorm a bunch of ideas, work up the 3 or 4 best ideas, and present them. Only 1 idea was selected, or sometimes elements of a couple of them. You could argue that the other 75% of the effort was wasted, except that it wasn’t because it was part of the creative process that enabled us to get to the best solution.

I used to feel that when I was a marketing employee about 70% of my output did not end up being put to wealth-generating use. The other 30% was. This is the natural, organic nature of things in a business. It’s not unusual. That doesn’t mean, however, that we shouldn’t strive to improve the ratio of successful to unsuccessful output.

As a consultant, I find the efficiency rate is good bit higher, perhaps because I’m better at what I do now, and perhaps because a company is more careful with the time it spends with external suppliers, and more profligate and cavalier with its own staff’s time.

When you think about it, then, the 30% efficient marketer is a lot better than we first thought.

Tags ,
Categories Marketing, Planning, Strategy

Sporting Nationalities and Planning

July 13, 2016 //
0

Sovereignty and nationality are interesting concepts where sport is concerned. National lines seem to blur and vary – at least in the islands of Britain and Ireland – depending on the particular sport.

When it comes to Brexit, the question of sporting nationality – UK, GB, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, to name but a few – could get a lot more complicated.

I’m sure sport was the last thing on people’s minds when they contemplated both the Brexit referendum and its aftermath.

I’m sure also that there was no plan for it. There was no ‘what if’ plan to withdraw from the Euro single currency when it was conceived and executed, so when a country does decide that it wants to abandon the Euro and reclaim its sovereign currency, it’ll make for some interesting fallout.

Similarly, it seems abundantly clear that there was no plan for Brexit either, judging by the scrambling around and hasty senior resignations from many of the architects of the shambles.

To brighten your day, here’s a well observed take on the difficulties of sporting nationalities in the current political climate from Foil Arms and Hog, somewhat in the style of CPG Grey. Enjoy.

Tags , ,
Categories General, Language, Planning

Missed Opportunities

July 11, 2016 //
0

Nothing rankles more and is harder to dismiss than a missed opportunity, I find. More than that, to have had the chance to do something, and to have passed it up, is hard to take.

Years and years ago, I was attending the British Open golf event (is there any better value sporting event than the first 2 days of the Open, over 12 hours of sport where you can get out for a walk, see some amazing shots, savour the atmosphere and get close enough to see what the guys are thinking and feeling?) as a spectator and wandering amongst the masses when my mate pointed out someone famous to me that has just walked past us. ‘Look’, he said, ‘there’s Ian Baker-Finch.’ I turned round to look behind me, as I walked, at this legend who had won the event a few years before, and bumped into a bloke who was much larger than me, but who, for some reason, came off from the contretemps in a worse state, one of those kind of knee-to-knee bump situations where one person can be unscathed and another in a bit of pain.

As it turned out, the chap I had bumped into was none other than fellow fan Ieuan Evans, who was a British Lion at the time and arguably much more famous than Mr Baker-Finch. I apologised and that was that.

Years later, I was invited to a corporate hospitality event by a mate of mine who was himself a guest of a logistics company. The event was the Ireland-Wales 6 Nations rugby clash in Dublin. One of the pundits who was booked to provide pre-show analysis and mingle among the guests was Mr Evans. I met him briefly, and was working up to telling him my golfing anecdote when our little enclave was joined by the event host, Keith Wood, himself no slouch on the rugger field. Mr Wood is a very charismatic individual, pronounced the group he had joined a follically challenged one – which was true, me and Mr Evans included, and proceeded to lead the conversation. During this, Ieuan left our group and went to mingle elsewhere. I didn’t get another chance to catch up with him.

Missed opportunities. To have failed to take the chance is far worse than to have taken it and failed.

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, General

Stansted-Standsted

July 8, 2016 //
0

I had the misfortune of flying to London Stansted a while ago. It’s not my normal choice of airport; in fact, I hadn’t flown to it in a long time.

It looks a little bit tired. I flew in on a spectacularly normal Saturday, and landed on time, in fact a little early. For some reason we landed about a county away from the terminal, so we got a bus into the complex, passed through non-existent passport control and into the baggage area.

Where we waited, along with hundreds of other passengers, for our flight to be shown. The baggage area is organised in a way that from some positions you can only see a small fraction of all the baggage belts. The signs for each belt are too small, and the belts themselves are configured in a way that makes it hard to find your belt. I know, 1 should be next to 2, and so on, but not here, at last as far as I could see.

There wasn’t a member of staff anywhere to be seen on the concourse, who we could ask to chase our bags. I went to the Ryanair service desk after 25 minutes, who peddled the line that they’d only just been told of the problem. Really? Do I look like I came in on the last flight?

All you could do was stand around, so stand we did. We finally got our bags after a 45 minute wait. Unacceptable.

Come on Ryanair, you can do better, you practically own Stansted.  It’s all very well claiming the most punctual, on-time service and ringing your precious trumpet when we land on time or early, but if your punters have to wait an hour landing to get their bags and exit the building, it’s not really on time, now is it?

I suppose I shouldn’t have decided to bring enough stuff for a checked-in bag…

Tags
Categories Communication, Customers, General

Three Times a Day

July 6, 2016 //
0

Whenever we want to improve at something, or fix something, we devise a plan – or an expert helps us do so. Then we have to commit to the plan. This is true for almost any change management exercise in business, which is another way of saying anything worth doing in business. Change is a constant after all.

This also applies to diet, exercise and health of course. It I want to get fitter, stronger or faster, I get a training program. If I’ve had an injury, an operation or an illness, I get a rehabilitation or recovery programme.

Let’s say you have a bad back, and you want to strengthen the lumbar region, improve your posture, or avoid slouching in your seat. You get some exercises.

But what’s the point of exercises that advise you to do them three times a day? We’re busy people and unless we do this stuff for a living it’s hard enough making time to do them once a day. Three times a day is too much of an ask.

I’ve had a few calf strains the last few years, and I’m advised to do sets of balancing and hopping exercises, three times a day. I’m usually good the first day or two, then I settle at one a day, then 3 times a week when I remember, for a few weeks until I decide I have recovered. Then I reoffend. My point is, I could probably spare 40-60 mins first thing in the morning and get it all over with in one go, but I can’t spare 20-30 mins spread over 3 instances in a 24-hour period. As George Herbert Walker Bush used to say, not gonna do it.

I know, if I was more organised, and maybe set my phone to remind me several times during the day, that I might increase my chances of success. I also know that there is a purpose to doing the exercises a few hours apart on a regular basis. What I don’t know is how you stay with the regime in a non-life threatening situation when you’re a busy person with demands on your time.

Tags , , ,
Categories Communication, Customers, General

Initiative

July 4, 2016 //
0

It’s always good to see people taking the initiative. It doesn’t happen anywhere near as often as it should. Having initiative and taking the initiative is a bit like putting ‘self-starter’ on your CV. Everyone feels it should be on there but few generally do it, at least not early in their careers.

I remember being on a train in London Paddington, about to head west, during the evening rush hour about a decade ago during the time when intercity trains were not just full, they were packed, in a Japanese commuting-style. This particular train was bound for south Wales, but stopped off at Reading, the first major stop 25 mins away and a city that was served by a train every 15 minutes or so. The train was packed, dangerously so.

Many of the travellers were heading for Reading, perhaps 40% of them in my very unscientific estimation. I happened to be standing wedged in a corner of one of the carriages when I overheard the conductor talking to a couple of colleagues. ‘I know what we can do,’ he said. Two minutes later, the conductor came onto the intercom, apologised for the schedule change and announced that the service would not be stopping at Reading.

There was a degree of huffing and puffing, the rain emptied to the point where everyone could just about get a seat, and we took off a few minutes late.

The conductor was probably not authorised to do what he did, but he got the train away, 500 passengers where able to get to their long distance destination on time, and 200 commuters to Reading were delayed 15 minutes getting home.

We need people to take the initiative and shoulder the consequences. That’s how we get stuff done.

Tags , ,
Categories Communication, Customers, General, Marketing, Sales
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »