Ditch The Boot!

2 more days to go, then I can ditch the plastic boot! The weather is starting to get warmer, little chicks are being persuaded to leave the nest, more of that later. But don’t cast a clout till May is out, you might know that this refers to May blossom, not the month.

I am going to break my own rule here and mention UKIP. I had a long discussion with someone, whose opinion I value. I started by saying I was thinking of putting in a protest vote by voting UKIP, to make the other parties sit up and worry that they can’t take us for granted. His reply was forthright and persuasive. If you vote for these awful people and they do well in these elections, they will bolster the extreme right wing standing in Europe and carry greater credibility towards the real election to come. I feel suitably admonished, and will not be voting UKIP now.

Since we are poking around the forbidden territory, please stay with us Scotland 

and yes ask for and get your own proper Parliament, with full tax raising powers. This way we all win, you get self rule but remain part of GB. We can reduce the numbers of free loaders in our Parliament.

Wouldn’t it be great if you couldn’t stand for a seat if you haven’t worked in a proper job for 5 years, and Universities drop silly subjects like politics and all those meaningless "ologies".  Law should be even harder academically to get onto, as we have too many ambulance chasers. We need more engineers and project managers, so make these free.

I am enjoying this rant, can we go back to educating children instead of showing them how to beat the system? I remember we had a pretty mediocre history teacher that had come from teaching at a local grammar school. We were in the 5th form, coming up for our O levels in the summer, he showed us what they were doing at the state grammar school, they would get the past O level papers going back 5 years and work out the likely questions or essays that will come up next time, then concentrate on 5 essays knowing 3 of these will come up. He was right, but we all failed as he had given us the wrong dates. We re-sat them in the autumn, using notes from the good history teacher we had in the 3rd and 4th Form. Most of us then got good pass marks.  If this was typical of state schools in the 60s what are they up to now?

Back to business, and yes marketing is going to get it in the neck again. It was in the late 90s that Marketing as an industry was finally being exposed as the emperor’s new clothes it always was. So some bright spark came up with this astounding phrase, Relationship Marketing. No s**t Sherlock! People in sales know that people buy from people, so no one is going to buy from someone they can’t stand. So now they (Marketing Wallahs) jumped on this as the new way ahead. Nothing in the word of direct selling had changed from the time that Ug asked Og to have a chat over a skull of fermented apple juice while Ug shows Og his new product, a flat, round stone with a hole through the middle.


We all have to work, so why don’t we try to enjoy it, that is my raison d'être. Happy hunting! Or if you are a little chick, soft landing.

Sell in May and Go Away

Well looking at the weather, it does sound a good idea. I think the saying was from a bygone era, referring to city brokers taking the summer off to do the season (Cowdray Park, Ascot, Wimbledon, Royal Henley, Cowes Week and Glorious Goodwood) before the yobs from the East End (1980s) took over the City. Now it’s just a giant betting office, buying and selling jobs by the nanosecond.

You’ve guessed it, I am going through a serious bout of cabin fever, but I have been advised by my number one daughter  to keep clear of unions and teachers, hurrumph. I did promise to stay away from politics and soccer, so I will.

But as to the meaning of life, well, that’s another matter; we can all have a go at that. God botherers stop reading NOW.

I was telling you about Donna Tartt’s “The GoldFinch”, and what an enlightening read that was. Well I am half way through “The Universe verses Alex Woods,” by Gavin Extence. Not in the same beautifully written league but more like Adrian Mole finds insight through the eyes of a Vietnam War Veteran, living in Somerset. Nothing too strange there, but we get an introduction to the writings of Kurt Vonnegut. In fact if you Google Kurt Vonnegut, you can read many of his famous sayings, this one appeals to me, 

A bit deep perhaps, most of his work IS enlightening and funny, as you may well know. But I think I will have a go at reading one or two of his novels again, as we had to read lots different books at school, which were probably wasted on spotty, hormonal, teenagers. Like most things were. I do remember one of our more trendy teachers playing  us “Silent Night” by Simon and Garfunkel, which was a little haunting, as a couple of our class mates were due to return to the USA to enlist for Vietnam (that dates me), but I was alive in 1967, what a year for music! The next week he played us something about “All the good times we have wasted, having good times” (Animals) in evening prayers. He was too caring and left to have a nervous breakdown.

Back to work, we stopped half way through my rant against formal marketing originations / departments by recommending direct forms of marketing, as they can be measured. I was only just warming up when I realised I had gone into my third page so needed to stop.

We do make a dedicated range of products and therefore what I am about to describe may be interesting to those that do the same. And that is we started using “pay per click” on Google. Here are the figures (approximate). We started our campaign in 2011 and committed to spend £250 a month, and in our first year we landed £50,000 of orders, at no other sales cost. In 2012 we upped our monthly spend to £500 a month and returned £ 112,000. Last year we went mad and committed to £1000 a month and you have guessed it, we landed £220,000 of sales. Don’t reach for your calculators….that is 17 times our investment. We did try £1250 for a couple of months but we seemed to have peaked at just over £200,000 turnover from £12,000 spent. Happy days, it works!

Ah well, you must be making a wonder product that no one else has jumped on, I hear you muttering! Well, try bespoke ring binders. Not that exciting, but we do it well and get more than 50% repeat custom on these. Membrane switch panels are closer to 90% repeat custom. The point I am hoping to make is that this form of marketing, alongside more direct action does work, and most importantly is both measurable and controllable when it comes to expenditure.

Here endeth my 7th lesson. Nearly... we play a drinking game to watch the Eurovision Song Contest, it really is great fun, you draw lots for a quantity of countries and every time one gets 12 points the owner of that country has to down a pint or a large glass of vino, it really was over when the bearded lady sang, such fun!

What A Reply!

What a reply, please have a read of this one from last week’s instalment, it really made me chuckle:

“You can play some interesting tricks with Pareto's rule.”

Assuming you only did the 20% most productive tasks next week. Your productivity would be 400%  but  your production would only be  80% of its starting value. By applying the same rule repeatedly you could achieve similar status to the proverbial professor who ' learned more and more about less and less until finally he knew everything about bugger all!' . 

While this is a great reply please don’t be distracted from the law of 80/20. These examples may cheer you up or not...... 

80% of people die from 20% of the most common causes. 

80% of your headaches come from 20% of your worst customers. I think we are nearer to 95/5. 

Let’s leave that idea alone for a moment as I would like to take swipe at Marketing. My ankle is getting better but I am beginning to get stir crazy. So let me tell you a story.... 

 Going back to my early days I worked for a large paper company. They were a big company with thousands of staff and millions of Turnover. They had 120 reps, 40 Sales Managers and 15 Branch managers, not to mention all the other staff working in the 20 paper mills. As well as this, they had marketing people that were employed to “back sell” each of the different paper mills products. This often proved less than helpful as the idea was to make a profit. Two points here, if you couldn’t get a job selling at the front line, because you were too scared to go and see customers, you could always get one of these “soft” jobs. This meant resulted in engendering a feeling of resentment amongst true sales force towards those pathetic idiots in Marketing who were being paid without having to hit targets. The second problem was these reps weren’t able to tell us which paper from which mill returned the best profit margin. So as Salesmen we had to ignore their message as it was of no use to us at all. In other words marketing was a drain on the company. 

I am glad to say nothing I have read or experienced has been able to change my complete contempt for anything labelled marketing. Oh I am enjoying this, getting all my venom flowing for these feckless people in a fraudulent industry.

To cap it all, we had a module on the part time degree course I went on, mentioned earlier, called Marketing. 

 Can you image the blood thirsty thoughts I had brewing at the very start of this? Well I was not disappointed; our lecturer had taken an extended holiday on the end of the summer break, they do have such a tough time having to make do with just 8 weeks summer holidays, and in doing so had forgotten to change the course assignment details from the year before. This meant that the first 4 weeks of a 10 week module was spent trying to work with literature that didn’t match the course notes, with a temporary lecturer that had never covered this type of course.
The responsible Lecturer eventually turned up and came in to face the music, he was genuinely bewildered and then deflated by some of the tough comments put forward by some of his annoyed adult students. He left and never returned. The only shame is these useless creatures will never get sacked by their colleges, as the college administrators have their hands tied by trade unions (another institution that has come to my notice over the years and will not get off lightly). Why would any school or college take on a member of the NUT, surely there is a clue in the name? 

Having got that off my chest, the principle of finding out what companies/people want, and what are our potential customers prepared to pay for these products is vitally important to all of us. We have looked at (and taken on board) the premise that innovation is the one way we know that will get us ahead, on the proviso we know that this innovation is relevant and  that our customers or potential customers will want it. This comes under market research.
We don’t work in huge conglomerates with massive marketing budgets. Let them waste their money; we need to be a lot more careful with our precious hard earned cash. So how can we make sure what we spend will work. Forget Branding, Market place presence and other useless catch phrases. Here are the three simple words we need to think about:- 

RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI)

Put simply, we are here to make money. And we only have our own hard earned cash to use, so don’t set aside a marketing budget; remember there are plenty of these feckless idiots and charlatans ready to squander your money. It won’t be easy. My old rowing coach would bellow through his mega phone “nothing great is ever easy” when we started to flag after an hour and a half of rowing at steady state (90/95% max heart rate). 

Only venture what you can measure. Direct marketing can be measured by spending a certain amount on direct mail shots with a return card. This will work for some enterprises,   but does need a lot of thought. Is your business the kind that would benefit from this approach? Do you make specific products, do you know who to target and what will they respond to? These are tried and tested, quite effective, a little dated but can be measured. 

What about using the World Wide Web?! I can just imagine Rob Brydon’s raised eye brows as this gob-smacking thought hits him, as if he is the first one to think it (Gavin & Stacey.2008)

Sorry this is going on a bit so in the tradition of a Charles Dickens' instalment I will continue next week. 

Nothing to add about the mad house elf, he is getting away with it, so far. The Tar Tars don’t like the Russians and don’t have a history of surrendering.

Back to work

Back to work with hop, skip and a crunch, the good news is that my plaster cast is off after only 10 days, but I do have to wear a large plastic boot for the next 4 weeks. Meant to keep it raised, just try to sit and type with one leg in the air! I will need a hip replacement instead. 

Sorry that sounds like a moan when in fact I am in a good place. With all the time on my back (steady), I managed to read the latest book by Donna Tartt, the Goldfinch. This has already won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Don’t know if fiction is your bag but every now and then a really extraordinary book comes along. This is only her third book since 1992 but worth the wait.

I loved the life a PI, it was such an improbable adventure but the Goldfinch is right up there with East of Eden. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. 

Back to business, you have heard of the Pareto principle (80/20). It was Vilfredo Pareto that discovered the correlation between the richest 20% of the world that owned 80% of the wealth. Vilfredo was a French economist 1848-1923. Reported to be a, socialist, bit before his time really. Never the less research carried out since then makes interesting reading:

• 80% of people live in 20% of the towns (we are herding beast I suppose). 
• 80% of crime is committed by 20% of the criminals (It’s the Mad House Elf again). 
• 80% of profits come from 20% sales (interesting, worth exploring more, later). 
• 80% of ALL your results come from just 20% of your work (Now that IS interesting). 

There are many more natural phenomena that come close to these figures too, but let us return to the work related ones, as we are meant to be working. This information is quite eye opening. We are working at a much greater pace than our parents ever did, not physically, but coping with many more processes. We do our own typing; send our own mail; work our own telephone switchboard; arrange our own business travel, mostly. We now have so many “helpful” gadgets to get keep us in touch. We are encouraged to use social media, Facebook, Twitter, twatter and so on. We are busy, but then are we too busy? Sit back and think, 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts. Each working day of a week is a 5th or 20%, mmm, so we could just spend Monday doing all our normal work. Then work at something different for each of the next 4 days, and then you may end up 5 times more productive/ richer! Or slow down, relax, who would know? 

Well I hope this has given you food for thought, it has made me think.

Glad that week has gone

Glad that week has gone.  I went into hospital last Wednesday (16^th), to have an operation on my Achilles heel.  Booked in at 7am but didn’t go down till 3pm. Long, nervous wait. By then all my veins had gone into hiding, the anaesthetist had to poke around in the back of both hands to establish a reasonable pipe line. What was worse, they have stopped giving out pre-meds, I was looking forward to that wonderful drift you got from the equivalent of 5 double gin’n’ its, in one slug. Really thirsty when I came round so drank about 6 jugs of water over the next few hours, then tried to piss, nothing doing...AHHH. Panic started to build as my bladder pressure increased until I called the night nurse (a bloke!). How things have changed for the worse. I remember when the night nurse had a dark blue uniform, starched hat and cuffs, and was always alluring. This guy was from Turkistan or somewhere ex USSR, was very pleasant but not sure he understood my sense of urgency. Anyway, half an hour later (which seemed like 5 hours) he arrived with a junior doctor and a medicine trolley. This 15 year old (boy) doctor suggested putting a tube down my willie, which did sound a bit frightening but a burst bladder was feeling more imminent!

That was not very comfortable, I can tell you, but what a relief, I filled two bags within an hour! Sorry I know that was a bit grim, but it’s over and done with, over and done with...

I am sitting up at home on the sofa sharing my experiences with you, there will be some better stuff coming.

Did I tell you I had completed a year of a Foundation Degree in Business and Enterprise (part time) at the local poly (University of South Wales, but just the old poly renamed)? Started year two but ran out of patience with the trite garbage they tried to call marketing. Well the next module, which we started, was on innovation management. This had all the markings of another dollop of offal, but their opening premise is worth repeating; you may be the best at making the highest quality product/service, your competitor could catch up; you may be the most competitive but there are always some companies that will buy business; you may be the most reliable, but your competitors could improve too. So what can we do? The answer; with innovation can you stay ahead. Quite simple to say but is it possible?

Have a look at the link below; Steve Blank has summed it up well, talking to his graduating MBA students from Barcelona’s Business School. It is worth reading right through and keeping, MDs take note. That reads quite bossy but I am sure you know I am just being enthusiastic.

http://www.inc.com/steve-blank/commencement-speech-esade-business-school.html

I hope you have all had a good Easter break, let’s hit the ground running; some of us may be hopping...

Bad Moon Rising

Bad Moon Rising, start gathering wood, the gas supply may run out! The Mad House Elf is having fun, “Planet Earth is blue and there is nothing I can do”.

What a funny week that was, and this one looks just as tense.  Meanwhile the show must go on, the sun is out, the traffic is light and Nick lost his second debate. Should we stay or should we go-ho?

I now know how the Scots must have felt when they were threatened by “our” politicians. They couldn’t have the pound and they wouldn’t be allowed to have the Euro either. Not the best approach when you are trying to be warm and friendly. To say we will lose all our trade with Europe is surely not reason enough to support fat cats in Brussels and the bent agricultural scheme. We have enough fat cats of our own in the City. But we would be stupid to ignore that possibility, and that is a valid thought. Be ready for change, so when it happens you won’t be wrong footed.

The visit of the Irish President Michael D Higgins was really great, we do need to strengthen our relations with Ireland, they give the best parties ever!

Until next time!

There Is Something In The Air..

There is something in the air, no, not the pollution being blown over from the continent. It’s almost like the lull before the storm.

We are quietly getting on with things while the world continues to turn. Strange days are here again. What is the ”Mad House Elf“ brewing up now?  We can’t do anything about it anyway, not unless he invades a country that wasn’t in the Soviet Block, even then who has the nerve to stand up to him?

Changing tack completely, I went to a dinner last night at Swansea University, it was the first meeting of the LEAD Wales alumni, which both Dave Dean and I had completed a couple of years ago. The main speaker was Paul Thorburn. He didn’t look much older than when he kicked, the still world record distance, penalty to win the championship. 

He compared his business learning curve to that of the Welsh Rugby Union at the end of their golden years.  They took too long to replace their old favourites, the game turned professional, Australia poached one of Wales’ best coaches and gave him a completely free hand to make changes.

OK, to those non rugby fans this could get dull, but his message was clear to us in business, look ahead, don’t take your customers for granted and expect change. Pretty simple really but refreshing to be reminded of these positive thoughts and comparisons from another walk of life.

I thought it was similar to the way I drive, look a long way ahead, expect the prat in front to behave erratically, keep an eye on the mirror for the fuzz and enjoy the music (Led Zeppelin/Cream for me).

Keep your head down, something is going to break!  Bad Moon Rising...