300

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Dec 202011
 

I do not believe it! (Victor Meldrew) Since drafting this post, Seth Godin has blogged about the 4,300 items he’s written since starting his blog, originally in email format back in 1991. I think I’ve been trumped! Oh well, for what it’s worth, here’s my offering.

I’m going to bore you with a little history! This is the 300th post since this blog started in its original guise as The Watercooler. Some of the early posts were written by friends before I stopped nagging them and took full responsibility for what appears in print. However, my wandering mind first started dumping its thought in written form on the 26th April 2006 when Random Ramblings first appeared on my original website. Then, with the advent of my second website, RR became a monthly emailed newsletter. With this, my third website iteration, I started the Watercooler blog and for some while ran RR as a separate entity. But it seemed a bit unfair to inflict quite so much waffle on the world and so a few months back I merged the streams so now the monthly emailed Ramble is a collation of what appears in the blog, with a some mild editing.

Anyone who writes as much as I have over the years is either very creative or they nick ideas from elesewhere. I fall into the latter category. One of my key influencers is Seth Godin. I was rather taken with an eclectic list of a dozen pieces of advice Seth published recently. My favourites are:

  1. Borrow money to buy things that go up in value, but never to get something that decays over time. (If only the world had taken note!)
  2. It’s almost never necessary to use a semicolon. (He’s completely wrong on this!!!)
  3. Backup your hard drive. (Well reminded.)
  4. Taking your dog for a walk is usually better than whatever alternative use of your time you were considering. (Hmm, no dog.)

And just to finish off, here are three thoughts I’ve borrowed from elsewhere:

  1. A pessimist is never disappointed. (Eddie Kiely, a work colleague from many years back.)
  2. Smile – it confuses people. (Scott Adams – American humourist.)
  3. Strategies are okayed in boardrooms that even a child would say are bound to fail. The problem is there is never a child in the boardroom. (Victor Palmieri, US corporate turnaround specialist.)

Happy Christmas!

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Under Pressure

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Aug 312011
 

No, not a discussion of a Queen song, although it’s a pity I can’t add a sound track of Freddie Mercury. At the moment I have quite a few things that need doing in a short time. I’m under pressure. Or am I? As Seth Godin pointed out in his blog a couple of weeks back, I’m under pressure from myself. Most of the urgent items on my To Do list I have elected to add to it. Sure, if I didn’t do them one or two people might take a dim view but the world wouldn’t end, I doubt it would even make much difference to my life. And those disappointed folk would mostly forget pretty quickly.

Yesterday I was discussing fear of certain situations with Derek Norval, my co-facilitator of our Succesful Speaking workshops for people who are nervous of speaking in public. As Derek pointed out, although there may be deep seated reasons for our fears, we choose to be frightened. We can make a decision not to be. I remember reading a book where the author said that one day she took a decision to be happy. And so she was. In the latter days of my corporate career I would look for the positive in whatever situation presented itself. Sometimes I would make my colleagues laugh at the absurdity of my take on ‘positive’. But there is no doubt that if you look hard enough, there is nearly always that proverbial silver lining in every cloud.

By the way, I chose to write this post. Sure I hadn’t written anything for a while. But I could have let another week or two go by. After all, none of you has been banging on my door asking when I am going to write a new post. You have my full permission not to feel under any pressure to do so in future. And you can give yourself full permission not to do things that aren’t essential. And not to fear the consequences.

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From Virtual To Real

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Jul 032011
 

Taking my own advice from the previous post, last Wednesday I set out on a 300 mile round trip to buy a book. I could have stayed at home and bought it on Amazon with a few mouse clicks. But this was an opportunity to meet two people who were amongst my original Twitter friends and with whom I have built strong virtual relationships. When Dee Blick invited me to attend the launch of her new book and told me that Nicky Krielwould be there as well, the opportunity to meet face-to-face was too good to miss. And guess what? It was just like meeting up with friends I’d known personally over a period of time. We recognised each other instantly and the rapport we’d built up virtually transferred effortlessly into reality. And Dee has even offered to let me take them both out and buy them lunch next time I’m that way!

PS – Dee will probably withdraw her offer if I don’t mention that The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book is already at No.3 in the Small Business Sales & Marketing section of the aformentioned Amazonian emporium.

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Half Of Advertising …

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Jun 272011
 

The industrialist and philanthropist, William Lever, later Lord Leverhulme, famously said, “I know half my advertising isn’t working, I just don’t know which half.” In an attempt to be slightly better informed than the great man, I have been reviewing the impact of my efforts for a couple of different ventures. Although this is hardly a serious academic study, the conclusions are interesting, if not entirely surprising.

My review has demonstrated that direct contact, or as a minimum, referral through a third party, is the predominant route to success. I’m sure that most of you will be familiar with the view that we do business with people we like. And, of course, a prerequisite of liking someone is getting to know them. So my findings just seem to confirm what we already know, but perhaps sometimes forget. It has also shown that cementing a business relationship is often done through more than one channel. Virtual contact through social media, email and by phone builds on physical contact such as at networking events and Jelly co-working days (or vice-versa). In fact, anything we do that helps people to get to know us is a good thing.  The more channels we engage with, the more likely we are to be successful.

Let’s look at it from a slightly different direction with this extract from Todd, blogger and tweeter for Underwood Wines in Warwick:

“I recently completed a questionnaire … One question stood out, one question made me say out loud in an empty room…”oh yea…”

Would you (on a scale of 1-10) say you were more likely or less likely to do business or buy a product from a company or person you have engaged with on social media? 

Without hesitation I ticked 10 and then realised what had happened. Social media had become so powerful that I would put any company I had engaged with above those I had not. … social media lets you meet the human behind the brand, get to know the personality before you walk in the door.”

Unlike in Lord Leverhulme’s era, the advent of the Internet and social media lets us do a great deal of advertising for free, apart from commitment of our time. But unless we make the effort to make personal contact with our prospective clients, then it’ll be the half that doesn’t work.

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How To Become Famous

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Jun 192011
 

Last weekend was the Vingt Quatre Heures du Mans, or if you prefer it with sub-titles, the Le Mans 24 Hour race. It is the most famous sports car race of them all. More fans travel from Britain for the Le Mans weekend than go to the FA Cup Final. And yet most folks will not of heard of it, let alone known that it was held last weekend. Media coverage was virtually non-existent unless you had access to Eurosport.

This week it is Cardiff Singer Of The World, the most important contest in the world for rising opera singers. Very good coverage on BBC4 … if you happen to know about it. But I’m willing to bet that 95% plus of the population has never even heard of it (the competition that is, not BBC 4!). [Update: Last night's final was shown on BBC 2 and was won by the rather gorgeous Valentina Nafornita.]

Despite this lack of general coverage, both of these events are hugely successful because, to use an expression that is a favourite of mine, they are well known to the informed. Isn’t that all that any organisation wants, to be well known to people who are likely to be their customers? So why do so many people want hundreds, even thousands of Twitter followers, Facebook friends or LinkedIn connections? Surely the question is not how to become famous but how to be well known to the informed, the people who may become our customers?

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