One of the biggest problems with running a company is having the chance to think like a Director. If you are busy with everyday work so that you never have the chance to focus on how to grow and develop your business. You will be effectively shooting yourself in the foot. Leading your team to victory does require a clear strategy and understanding of the markets. Less work and more time thinking. It is not what you do it is how you do it. The work will always be there.
Category Archives: Relationship
Dogs of Oar – Charity & Company Promotion
Having just participated in a charity event over the weekend. I can say there is no better way to raise your company profile and do some good for community.
I was part of 4 man team that participated in a raft race to raise money for RNLI Most of the teams where made up by different companies on the Isle of Man. Here is a list of some of the companies that entered:
Steam packet – Did not show as they had a gearbox problem.
Central Software – Who sponsored and organised the event.
There were in total 21entries. We came in 6 after a good hard paddle. A good T-shirt design, loads of team spirit, and a good sporting performance and you are away. Some of other notable entrants were the Paragon Ninjas for costume and team idea. Thanks to every one for a great day.
Competitiveness of Sport used in Business
We all like winners, We like people that excel at something.
Sports people are a good demonstration of this. Last night I was watching the ladies Wimbledon Tennis. The game I was watching intrigued me due to the amount skill, dedication, pursuit, and always fighting for that last point. Here were two woman quite clearly prepared to do anything to get that ball over the net. People can say that women are less competitive than males but last night at Wimbledon nobody would have believed it.
I do believe that we are competitive. Even are first journey in the womb to fertilise the egg is a big race. (apparently one in a million chance). Like the chick that can not break out of its shell the picture is similar in human survival.
As customers we will choice what we consider to be the best product for our needs. It is competitiveness that drives successful economies forward.
Competitiveness has the following positive traits for business:
A Dynamic Culture
A Positive Atmosphere
Not afraid to make mistakes
Employees keen to develop there skills
There are some down sides to competitiveness when it becomes individually orientated with teams starting to disintegrate as they try to out do each other. I would personally view this as not being competitive but more focusing on the mistakes one makes and general negativity.
We can learn a lot from sport, if we are able to produce outstanding work more times than not we will succeed in growing our business and customer base.
Who Is Your Audience?
I am sure there are some people out there who interested in widgets and can spend twenty years talking about them. That is great if I need help to understand widgets I will go and visit a blogger or a professional who can help with that. The widget blogger has a defined audience he knows who it is and the widget lovers know who he is. One could say a perfect Marriage.
Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it. I have a wide lens and am interested in wide variety of subjects. Which is fine. For each subject I run a blog helping my users in just that area. The problem is business development is quite a big subject area, possible too big. So should I just focus on a few niches like sales, or telephone sales?
Then comes the second question how to market to that market. If I have chosen my area than maybe face to face marketing is better than using twitter or plurker. But Selling to the converted is easier than selling to the newbie.
Food for thought indeed?
An Interesting Email from Thomas Cook (Brand Keywords)
Bidding on keywords to increase your market is an interesting concept. For example I like Virgin Cola, I decide that I am going to start my own Coke Cola company called Leo Cola. Of course for my product to be successful I am going to have attract some of the Cola drinkers in other markets. For example Coke Cola, Virgin Cola. How do I do this? I buy advertising on key search words like Coke Cola, Pepsi. This would seem fair to me. Now Thomas Cook think that if you are selling advertising on your web site for them that if you bid on key words you are effectively making an easy sell. I would agree with this view point if Thomas Cook were paying me a flat fee for their banner being on my site say (£600) . Instead they are paying on a click and earn basis it would seem that the affiliate is the duper. Below is an excerpt from the email.
“As I’m sure you are aware, as of Monday 5th May, Google are making some changes and removing their Trademark restrictions on brand keywords. The Thomas Cook Group (TCG) would like to clarify our position on our Affiliates brand bidding policy. We want to make our policy as clear as possible to ensure everyone is aware of what can or can’t be done.
If you run any paid search activity, please take the time to read this to prevent any repercussions in the future;
– Thomas Cook does not allow any affiliate to bid on our brand terms. This includes brand terms, variations or misspellings.
– We will not be operating any closed groups to allow brand bidding.
– We do not allow direct linking or the use of our display URL or any variations of this.
– We do not allow affiliates to bid on competitors terms when promoting the TCG – we will not be bidding on our competitors brand terms and expect our affiliates to follow the same rules. Some examples of these include “Thomson”, “First Choice”, “Expedia”, “Cosmos”.
I can not stress enough that any affiliate caught doing any of the above will face being removed from the affiliate programme and having commissions reversed from any sale made from violations. With the aid of Commission Junction, we closely monitor our brand terms as well as using our own bespoke tools.”
All in all a bit harsh.
The Startup Review
The Startup Review Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials I just came across this at Mashabel, the boys their have been busy sending me emails. I signed up about three or four months ago and have been visiting the site recently. they are obviously working hard on creating a community. I am still not sure what it is exactly. For example a couple of the people I have been in touch with seemed interested in dating. Anyway what I did notice is that they are promoting a reviewing services a bit like Techcrunch. It looks promising here are some of the details below. A 100 word description should be do-able.
* Must be less than 1 year old
* Must never have received coverage on Mashable.com before
* Must have something to showcase to our readers (active site/product)
To be considered, please submit the following to our editorial staff at: startup [at] mashable [dot] com:
* Company Name
* Company Logo
* Company Website
* Company Location
* 20 word description
* CEO’s 100 word description
Very Clever Programming, The best Marketing in the World
SOUND ON, just in by email!
HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands . HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany . In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital.
Take a look at HEMA’s product page . You can’t order anything and it’s in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.
This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer. I want one….
http://producten.hema.nl/