Category Archives: Quality

ideas, Marketing

Smart Marketing – Arigh Nam Beist

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While leading a a truly balanced life now, I make sure that I have time for reading a broad selection of material. The IOD magazine has come up trumps again in the March issue of this year. Yes, I am aware that it is 5 months later, but like I say balance is the key word in life. That is what I try to do now, and probably should have done earlier.

There is an article about Scotland Glenmorangie distilleries that accidently mixed the wrong sort of whisky. Faced with a dilemma they come up with a clever campaign; they used a direct mail marketing  to ask for an official pardon and sold the whisky as a collectors item. The campaign generated a 23 percent response. 8 percent above what you would normally expect.

The best bit is still to come; their direct mail marketing grew. When they launched a special whisky called Arigh Nam Beist (shelter of the beast) for Halloween in 2007 their response rate was 69 percent. Virtually unheard of. A little clever marketing can go a long way. Do you know any such stories? I am sure that Richard Branson could tell a few, how about you?

ideas, Marketing, Relationship

Running For Gold on Style and Grace

With the Olympics almost over I was catching up on some of the events last night. The running events always amaze me. Some of these long distance runners, in fact all of them, run with such grace. They run long distance events the same time I could do 400 meters when I was at school and I was one of the best runners in the North West aged 13. These athletes run with such grace that it almost looks like no effort at all. There is a lesson for us all there. I am sure that America and many other countries have much better resources and trainers. But it is the Africans that dominate this sport. While I am sure they train very hard I think they have something more.

Do you run your business on Style and Grace? Would you like to?

ideas, Personal

Sex and Money – Balanced and Focused?

I am sure that I have written about this before but after having conducted one or two searches I cannot find it…Anyway perhaps in state of exhaustion last year I imagined that I had done it. Which brings me around to what this blog post is about, I could have called it “Work and Money” but how interesting would have that have been. Work is not something that is going to grab our attention. Sex and money our primeval forces in the market. Often people that seek money understand the power of sex. Which we all must be aware of. Can cause great off balance and out of focus realities. I want to focus on the other side in this blog post.

Are you Balanced and Focused?

Often new ideas can grip us so that we will become engrossed in the carrying them out. Which is fine as that’s what new ideas is all about. Focusing on your goal is a key ingredient in bringing anything to life. There are also a number of other ingredients.

If one works all the hours that god sends us one will eventually dry up on ideas, and work becomes a core. Which also translates in to the same for anybody having to work with you. To over work is never good. We all want to get ahead and achieve the goals we set. By ignoring everything else, what will be the price we must pay when we achieve it. Will we be able to enjoy it? Fundamentally it is about having you cake and eating it. Very easy to say but much harder to implement.

Planning is also a key ingredient. You may have 2 free hours in the evening but filling those up after having worked all day may not really help yourself at all. There are very few things in life that we have to do. By this I mean if we do not do them would the world stop. The events and things that we want to do, we will always do. The trick is to do them in the most enjoyable way we can.

Hence one good conversation, blog post, client can be hundred times more effective than the reverse of this equation. Being balanced and focused will achieve that. Does that make sense?

Consultancy, fun, ideas, Marketing

Top Page Views for July/Augusts 2008

Top pages Views for July/Augustus 2008:

It has been while since I have done this, due to a problem with my stats system, I must remember also do this on Work Connexions site. Any where here they are as chosen by you.

At number five:

How to sell a product simply but effective advice.

5. http://blog.wcx.me/2008/08/7-selling-skills-using-the-word-payment/

At number four:

All about the domain name game. My story about small domain names, ones that are easy to write like wcx.com or delight.biz

4. http://blog.wcx.me/2008/08/domain-names-what-are-they-worth/

At number three:

Simple but effective advice for page rank.

3. http://blog.wcx.me/2008/08/top-trick-to-increase-page-rank/

At number two:

How are you keeping your data safe. Explore the world of options

2. http://blog.wcx.me/2008/07/how-is-everybodies-backup-procedure-an-easy-backup-plan/

Number one is:

What sort of return do you expect from your advertising, the million dollar question

http://blog.wcx.me/2008/08/expected-roi-return-on-every-marketing-dollar-spent/

business, development, ideas, Relationship

Think like a Director Walk like a Director

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.

ideas, Management, sales

How to Get Lower Priced Petrol?

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting 123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying 2.00 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the ‘don’t buy petrol on a certain   day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t 
continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever
thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us  to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take  aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place
not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we  consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the  price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not
purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here’s the idea:

For the rest of this year DON’T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.
If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It’s really simple to do!!

Now, don’t wimp out at this point… keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it  to  at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)… and those 300 send it to at  least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) … and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached  over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and
pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it… ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all.(and  not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us  sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt,
all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the  next 8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference . If this makes
sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE   RANGE 

It’s easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your  petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e.  boycott BP and Esso
 

Quality

How to say No to Sales – (why it will improve your business)

A lot of company time is spent on generating sales and doing the work.

I would like to pause for one moment and consider the following. I deal with all sorts of companies from one man bands to thousands of employees. I work predominately in sales. One of the most noticeable parts of my work is how some companies will evaluate the questions you are asking and give a response. There are companies that tend to think that they are above this and try to ignore all sales approaches.

If someone was to ask me what do I think of company x? Well on one hand you have the company where I have not made the sale but where it was very pleasant to deal with. My recommendation for that company would be positive. On the hand you have the company that did not return my calls, when I was able to speak with somebody they were misinformed or arrogant. This would also be what I would tell somebody asking me about that company. Indirectly the company that has been able to say no and explain its self is 10 times more likely to indirectly generate sales. Food for thought….. A business is much more than just its sales it is the whole organization.