After the General Election in May 2010, a new – and very confusing – political era dawned, with the British public announcing that it was not particularly convinced by any of the parties.

As we know, this election made history in being the first to feature a series of televised debates between the main candidates.  Along with the rest of the country, I tuned into the first debate with great curiosity and watched with a significantly increased level of admiration for the “young upstart” Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as he completely overshadowed the two main protagonists, David Cameron and Gordon Brown.

I fully identified with the surge in support the Lib Dems received after that first debate.  Clegg’s engaging performance highlighted the lack of any specific policy statements from Cameron, who seemed to hide behind a vague, washed-out version of the “change” message, so powerfully delivered by Barack Obama during his election campaign.  This, together with Brown’s lack of media-friendliness and endless capacity for self-destruction, made me begin to question my traditional political leanings – especially since my favourite colour is yellow!

It all ended quite strangely for Clegg; due to the vagaries of our voting system, the LDs gained more votes and a bigger share of the vote than before, yet finished with fewer seats!  And even more strangely, despite having fewer seats, they are now in a much more powerful position than in the previous parliament.

I admit that my interest in the second and third debates was curtailed by much more urgent matters – the live football matches on another channel!  The small pangs of guilt I felt about abandoning my involvement in the democratic process quickly evaporated each time I flicked back to the debates to hear the protagonists saying roughly the same things they had said in the previous weeks, albeit in slightly different ways and in answer to completely different questions!

The overall winner from the debates was probably Nick Clegg, but the true validity of the debates is still in question.   Some commentators called this an X-Factor style election, but that’s a lazy – and inaccurate – description.  In the X-Factor, the candidates demonstrate their skills upfront and the public and judges make decisions based on the how good we think those skills are.   The only skills demonstrated in the debates were the candidate’s acting abilities…

I prefer to think of this as the Big Interview election because, whilst watching the performances, the thing that struck me most is that it was really a glorified job interview – 3 candidates being asked a range of questions in order to prove their suitability for the job role of Prime Minister.

As someone who has conducted hundreds of interviews in the past, I found this aspect of the election process worrying, because the most important truth I’ve learned about interviews is that the person who performs best in the interview is by no means guaranteed to be the best person for the job.

Having also been on the other side of the desk and failed to get jobs I knew I was ideally suited to, I’m also aware of just how subjective and unreliable the interview process can be.  Psychologists say that an interviewer makes up his/her mind about a candidate within between 5 and 20 seconds – and then spends the rest of the interview subconsciously trying to justify that first impression.

The recruiting and interviewing process is fraught with dangers, both because of the natural prejudices of the interviewer and the potentially Oscar-winning acting abilities of candidates.  Apparently 50% of cvs contain “inaccuracies” – basically “lies” – so the problems actually start even before the candidate walks in.   

So how do you ensure you recruit the best candidate for the job?  It’s important to prepare very carefully and there are a whole range of potential strategies you can use, so the process can be quite complex, but here are a few simple tips that will help to achieve better results.

1. First impressions – be aware of your initial impressions and remember that they will probably be based on something completely irrational and inconsequential.

2. Be consistent – prepare a range of standard questions and use them for all candidates. Make sure most questions are directly relevant to the skillsets required for the job.

3. Share the load – try to include at least one other person in the interview process, preferably someone who is fully aware of the requirements of the job.

4. Be cynical – remember that the candidate is trying to give the best possible impression, so try to look below the surface, especially when analysing cvs.    

5. Be nice – there’s nothing to be gained from trying to intimidate candidates.

6. Test – try to include tests within the process that help to assess some of the skills required in the job.

7. Take up references – always!

8. Keep details of any of the failed candidates who impressed you – it may make further recruitment much cheaper and you may need them sooner than you think.

And if all else fails, a properly monitored probationary period will quickly weed out poor performers – maybe we should have a similar period for Prime Ministers…

(Original version of this article first published in The Vine magazine, June 2010)

The 2012-13 football season in nearly over, but, at the time of writing, I’m still enjoying a few twists and turns before the dust fully settles. And I still recall the ending of the 2011-12 season – one of the most exciting English Premier League title races for many year!

Not being a fan of any of the main protagonists, I can normally relax and just enjoy the drama – except when we are involved in the play-offs like we have been for the last 2 seasons.  For my sins, I’m a Sheffield United supporter – yes, all expressions of sympathy are gratefully accepted, but I remain firm in the principle that you should support your home-town team.  I’ve lost count of the number of glory-hunting Brummie’s I’ve met over the years who, with 2 (3 if you include West Bromwich Albion) good quality teams to choose from, have declared their allegiance to one of  the traditional ‘big-boys’, Manchester United, Liverpool or Arsenal.

As with the vast majority of football fans, being a Blade (a Sheffield United supporter) is to travel in hope rather than expectation, to accept that you will spend your life watching rubbish football and to enjoy brief periods of success in between the endless years of crushing disappointment.   I was at Wembley a few years ago, watching my team in the annual multi-million pound, winner-takes-all, end of season battle to join the Premier League big boys, which is known as the Championship Play-off Final.  Naturally, we were rubbish and – of-course – we lost.  

However, one great thing about being a Sheffield United Supporter is the knowledge that it is one of the best-run clubs in the English football league, with good revenues and low levels of debt.  This is particularly important in an industry which is awash with money, but has so many badly-run and failing organisations, that it remains a whisker away from a major crisis.  In the last few seasons we have seen clubs in very single division get into serious financial trouble and go into administration.  A couple of clubs have even gone completely out of business.

Whilst in the short-term the failure of a rival business might be a good thing, over the longer term this could be disastrous for the football industry.  This is because professional sport is a slightly unique industry in that each organisation exists only because all the others exist.  A football club can only remain in business and become a thriving, successful organisation if it has a good number of healthy rival clubs to compete against.  Good competition is essential for football – and football clubs – to survive. We have already seen the fallout in the Scottish Premier League arising from the financial problems at Glasgow Rangers.

In most other industries, being able to operate as a monopoly – the sole supplier – would be a dream come true for an organisation.  Imagine being the only plumbing supplier in a large city; “Need a new washer in that tap, my dear? No problem –we’ll be able to sort it in a couple of years and it will cost you £1,250…!” The potential for exploitation of customers as a result of the lack of competition is the reason why the independent public body, the Competition Commission, exists. Its remit is to ensure that companies don’t become so large and dominant in their markets that they begin to exert too much influence and start operating to the detriment of their customers.

In truth, most businesses are afraid of competition and shy away from it as much as possible.  But actually, competition is very often a good thing, both for a business and for an industry as a whole.  Sometimes, a group of similar businesses competing against each other in a particular area or region leads to that area developing a reputation as the best place to go to find a top supplier in that industry, which brings benefits for all the businesses involved.   Hence the reputation of Saville Row for bespoke tailoring and Harley Street for private medical specialists.

Competition is also great for an individual business for several other reasons, for example:

1. Studying competitors helps you to work out where/who your potential customers are and how to reach them. Competition validates your ideas – if people are buying similar services to yours, it proves there is a market for your offering.

2. Studying your competitors’ offerings helps you to determine which products and services are most successful in the marketplace – and the missing offerings that you may be able to exploit as part of you USP (unique selling point).  Competition forces you to think about what you need to do to differentiate yourself from other suppliers.

3.  Analysing the strengths of more established and successful competitors will provide an indication of the improvements necessary for your company to grow successfully. Copy what your competitors do well and improve on the things they do badly.

Without competition, a business will become stagnant and lose focus. In business therefore, competition is a necessary evil, so treat it positively.  Study it, learn from it and use it to make your own organisation better – and one day you may even achieve Premier League status.    

(original version of this article first published in The Vine magazine, May 2010)

Internet usage is changing! In 2013, Internet traffic from mobile devices will be greater than from pcs and customers are increasingly performing Internet searches for local suppliers whilst they are on the move. Despite this, few businesses have a proper mobile strategy and most websites are still not mobile-optimised.

The wonderful guys down at the Signing Tree Conference Centre in Birmingham, have  asked me to deliver a short seminar at their next Business Networking Breakfast event.

In this seminar, I will briefly outline the key things every business needs to do to engage more effectively with existing clients and attract new clients by implementing a successful mobile marketing strategy.

Date:                     Friday, 26^th April 2013

Time:                    7:30am – 9:00am

Where:                 Signing Tree Conference Centre, (based at Deaf Cultural Centre) Ladywood Road, Birmingham, B16 8SZ

If you are new to the world of mobile marketing and want to know how it can help you and your business to achieve your targets, then come along and find out with us!

This event is free but cost for breakfast, which includes tea/coffee and a breakfast bap is £5. (Payment required in cash on the day)

Programme:

7:30am – 8:00am              Coffee and networking

8:00am – 8:30am              Guest Speaker Michael Barrows – Matrix Marketing & Management

8:30am – 9:30am              Breakfast & networking

To book your place on this event, please contact Sam on telephone  0121 450 5121  or email bookings@signingtree.org.uk

If you would like to take a tour of our inspirational conference centre whilst you are here, please talk to Sam from the Conference Centre  Sales Team.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Signing Tree!

Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother dearly and I am endlessly grateful to her for everything that she has done for me. I can even look back and say that, yes, even the (extremely painful) beatings were “instructive” and in, most cases, well deserved. Also, I have no objection to the idea of a special day to focus specifically on mums, but I wonder how many of us use this as an excuse to forget about showing any real consideration to our mothers for the rest of the year.

The whole philosophy of gratitude – being thankful – is an interesting one to wrestle with. I remember teaching my young daughter to say “Thank you” and – when she got to stage 2 of the process, every time she was given something it was followed by the question, “What do you say?” The automatic reply became “Ta!” – said in a very loud and cute voice.

Stage 3 came when she learned to say it without being prompted and (happily) she is now at stage 4 where she actually understands why she is saying it and is truly thankful – especially for having such an incredibly brilliant dad!!

Of course, having the politeness to show gratitude with a simple “Thank you” at the relevant time, is just a minimum requirement for any person to – in my mum’s words – “have manners”. But sadly, it’s increasingly clear that we now live in a world where phrases like “Please” and “Thank you” almost seem like part of a foreign language! The character of the surly assistant in a Caribbean takeaway who greets you with “What yuh want?” is now the stuff of legend and has been a favourite topic of Black comedians for many years, but this type of customer ‘no-service’ is now depressingly common in all types of situations. And the customers are just as bad!

I sometimes wince internally when standing in a queue in a shop or store watching the interaction between customer and assistant. Does the following sound familiar?

Customer: “Gimme (product)!”
Assistant finds product and puts it on the counter.
Assistant: “That’s (price of product).“
Customer places money on the counter, picks up product.
Assistant picks up money, cashes the register, places change on the counter.
Customer picks up money and leaves…

How depressing! The simple truth is that politeness and good humour are the cornerstone of good customer service – and they are also infectious. The above exchange would be so much more fulfilling for all concerned if the Assistant tried to ‘spread a little happiness’ by being polite and friendly to the Customer. And it’s amazing how a smile lifts your own mood and those of the people you come in contact with.

But it goes much deeper than that; your customers are your lifeblood, so you should keep reminding yourself to be grateful that they use you instead of one of your competitors. And if you really are grateful, thank them profusely – and if they are regular customers, keep thanking them! This doesn’t mean sending them a cheap “Thanks for your custom” Christmas card every year, it means reminding them on a regular basis that you are grateful for their custom and giving them something of real value once in a while as a reward/incentive for staying with you.

Remembering to be grateful – and showing it – is both a valuable life lesson and a priceless business strategy.

Thanks for reading…

(A version of this article was originally published in the Vine magazine, April, 2010)

Even the best companies can get complacement and assume that regular customers are loyal customers. The reality is that customers are basically lazy; they may be staying with you simply because its part of their regular routine and its too much hassle to change and move elsewhere. This might seem great for a business because it means that they can focus on attracting new customers, without having to divert too many resources to retaining the existing ones.

This is fine – until a competitor provides them with a compelling reason to switch!

The lesson is clear – keep working hard to delight your existing customers, not only to keep them coming back, but to guard against them being lured away by competitors. And the additional benefit is that a delighted, loyal customer will not only keep coming back, but will become an advocate of your business, by recommending your products and services to friends and aquaintances. What better than a customer who also becomes an unpaid salesperson for your business?!

Create loyal customers, not lazy ones.

A few years ago – depending on your gender – it would probably have been thoughts such as “world’s greatest golfer”, “world’s biggest sporting superstar”, “young, handsome, super-talented, super-rich…lucky dog”, or even “my perfect husband!” However, a minor car crash, a small army of identikit blondes and a few million headlines later and your thoughts – depending on your gender and moral viewpoint – are probably now more like, “world’s biggest cheat”, or “world’s worst husband”, although I’m sure some are thinking “lucky dog!” or maybe even, “still wanna marry him!”

Of course, the irony is that the overwhelmingly positive thoughts we had of Tiger were based on his incredible sporting performances and were present when he was (allegedly) engaged in some extremely negative personal behaviour. Conversely, the negative thoughts we now have of him were developed at a time when he had completely withdrawn from all sporting activity and had (hopefully) got his act together in his personal life.

The point of all this is simple – reputation is all. In the world of politics, reputation and public perception can catapult an individual into the highest realms of power and influence (go Barack!). In the 2010 UK election, it was interesting to compare the public perception of the two main protagonists; despite having an infinitely better political cv. and many, many years more experience, Gordon Brown always seemed to be uncomfortable and error-prone under public scrutiny. Conversely, David Cameron appeared calm, focused, engaging and very much more of a ‘people-person’. But then we shouldn’t be surprised – Cameron’s previous career was in PR (Public Relations). Given this, it would actually be more surprising if he wasn’t so media friendly.

Reputation and public perception is particularly important in business, where it can make or break your organisation. The credit crunch not only put a lot of businesses out of existence, but also ruined the reputations of many other organisations and even whole business sectors – analyse your gut reaction to the word “banker”!

There is no better example of this than the story of Lehman Brothers – not only did the US bank become the largest ever corporate bankruptcy ($691 billion) in September 2008, but the fallout from the scandal revealed an organisation that had been run in an extremely chaotic manner, ruining its reputation as one of the most respected and venerable banking institutions in the world, that had been carefully built up over nearly 160 years. It’s what has happened to Lehman Brothers that has -possibly more than any other occurrence – helped to completely change our perceptions of the global banking industry.

But what does reputation and perception have to do with small, local businesses? The answer is everything! As a small business, it is unlikely that you will have a marketing budget and contracts with expensive PR organisations to control how you are perceived by a wider audience. It is therefore essential to have a good reputation amongst your clients. Word-of-mouth referral will be one of the main ways for you to generate new business and it’s actually the cheapest and most powerful way of marketing your company.

How do you develop a good business reputation? Easy really – just put your customers first. Don’t see them as a way to make a quick buck, but as individuals and people who you need to keep happy in order to be successful. If you try to make every interaction with your customers a positive one, you will go a long way towards generating a good reputation. Two things in particular are essential:

1. Quality: focus on achieving high standards in all things. Not just in the delivery of your service, or product, but, for example in your presentation and communications. Make sure your retail premises are spotless, make sure your van and your workwear are clean when you arrive at a customer’s house, make sure letters and invoices are typed accurately and without spelling mistakes, etc.

2. Honesty: if you live by the motto, “never promise what you can’t deliver – always deliver what you promise,” you will rarely get into any problems and you will go a long way toward developing a reputation for honesty and reliability that is marketing gold dust.

It’s not rocket science – give your customers a little respect and they will reciprocate. And when they respect you, they will buy.

(original version of this article first published in The Vine magazine, February 2010)

I’ve just finished reading an article which stated that the 3 most important words in business are “customers, customers, customers”.  It’s a ‘back-to-basics’ philosophy – it doesn’t matter whether you are selling a Bugatti Veyron (2 seats, 4 wheels, 11mpg – base price @ £1.3 million), a packet of chewing gum, or a taxi service – you still need to find someone to buy it.

And when you have gone to all the trouble of finding your customers, it obviously makes sense to work as hard as possible to keep them. But what happens when you get the archetypal “difficult customer” – the complete pain-in-the-rump who, despite your best efforts, refuses to be satisfied with your service or product?

This is always a difficult judgement-call. It is a much-proven doctrine of customer service that a customer who experiences problems that are resolved satisfactorily by the company, will become even more loyal to the organisation than if they had never experienced any problems. Conversely, a dissatisfied customer will tell roughly 10 other people, thereby depriving you of other potential customers.

The 1980s saw the beginning of a sea-change in attitudes to customer service, with the realisation that it was actually easier and more profitable to keep existing customers happy (and coming back) than to keep chasing new ones.  There was a massive boom in the customer service industry, driven by a “customer is king” philosophy, encapsulated in the popular mantra “The customer is ALWAYS right”.  This sounds great – and it works 99% of the time, but (as I know from personal experience) when dealing with people, there are always occasions when you encounter someone who you just cannot satisfy.

We’ve all experienced them – or witnessed them in action; the rude, the obnoxious, the demanding, the completely unreasonable person who can create a major drama out of what might start off as a small crisis.  Thankfully, 21^st century customer service has moved on from the idealism of the 1980s with the recognition that the customer is NOT always right and sometimes a “firm but fair” policy is required.

So how do you deal with difficult customers?

Handling difficult customers is a little like practising Aikido, the Japanese martial art, which requires you to adopt a calm neutral, non-aggressive position and simply use your opponent’s momentum and aggression against them. The natural tendency with a difficult, obnoxious customer is often to argue with them, but this is the biggest mistake you can make.  In fact it’s amazing how quickly you can diffuse a situation by simply agreeing with them!  Deal with problem customers by asking a couple of simple questions:

Question 1: “Did we mess up?”  If the answer is “Yes”, apologise, apologise, apologise, take steps to ensure that the customer is not negatively affected and offer some compensation.  If the answer is “No”, go to Question 2.

Question 2: “Did the customer mess up?”  If the answer is “Yes”, politely explain where/how/why the error was made, then, where possible, take steps to ensure that the customer is not negatively affected.   Doing this will prove that yours is a generous, caring organisation – as well as acknowledging the inevitable fact that despite the customer messing up, they will still claim it’s your fault!

The problems really occur when the answer to both questions is “Yes”. In this instance, it’s pointless arguing the case – even if it’s 99% the customer’s fault and 1% your fault, in the customer’s eyes, it’s always your fault, so  just politely explain where both parties went wrong and then adopt the resolution for Question 1.

But what happens when, despite everything you have tried and all the generous compensation offered, the customer is still unhappy.  This is the time when reality must kick in.  The truth is some customers are not worth having; recognise this as quickly as possible and save yourself  further headaches by getting rid of them. Look after your good customers and get rid of the bad ones. Move on – life is too short…

(Article first printed in the Vine magazine, December, 2009)

The short, but lively session provided an introduction to some of the fundamentals of mobile marketing, including the use of

Mobile Websites
QR Codes
Mobile Apps

A copy of the slides from the presentation is available at the link below;

Mobile Marketing seminar slides

The conference was held at Dunstall Racecourse in Wolverhampton and was organised by BME Service Through Partnership, a project funded by the Big Lottery and designed to provide development opportunities, support and resources for voluntary and community groups from the black and minority ethnic sector.

As part of a very interesting and enjoyable event, I was asked to deliver a workshop entitled “Selling What You Know”, exploring some of the issues around how voluntary and community organisations transition from a grant/funding-dependency culture to a more commercial, income-generating culture.

Much is made of the need for Third Sector organisations to try to achieve ‘sustainability.’ This a nice civilised word for what we are really talking about, which is ‘survival.’ With funding streams drying up and increasingly being dominated by the larger organisations, small vlountary organisations are facing an increased imperative to start working smarter and developing a more entrepreneurial culture.

The time restrictions prevented a really deep exploration of the subject, however we managed to get into a few lively discussions and I hope all those who attended managed to gain a few niggets of valuable advice on what is becoming an extremely important subject.

You can access details of the presentation and some addition notes at these links below. If you have any comments on the subject, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Michael
Selling What You Know Presentation, October 18, 2012

Selling What You Know – 10 Essential Questions

SMEs often face a number of barriers which prevent them from competing successfully for lucrative public sector contracts; this project was implemented to address this problem and help some Leicester-based SMEs to start bidding for and winning some of these contracts.

However, with the programme now nearly at an end, there are only a few final spaces available on the last seminars. If you wish to attend these seminars and take advantage of the free support available, please get in touch with Michael Barrows at Mustard Plus (contact details below) immediately to book a place.

SEMINAR 1: Introduction to Selling To the Public Sector, 6.30pm, Wednesday, 2nd May, 2012

Programme: 6.30pm – 7.00pm Registration, drinks, networking, starters

7.00pm – 7.45pm Speaker: Lee Cooper-Blair – Introduction to Selling to the Public Sector

7.45pm – 8.30pm Question and answer session

8.30pm – Dinner in restaurant as a group with further questions and answers

10.00pm – Finish

SEMINAR 2: Tender Readiness, 6.30pm, Tuesday 15th May, 2012

Programme:

6.30pm – 7.00pm Registration, networking, starters

7.00pm – 9.00pm Speaker: Lee Cooper-Blair – Tender Readiness (including understanding pre-qualification questionnaires, delivering the bid, selling yourself successfully and evaluation). This will be an interactive session helping businesses to develop skills in this field.

9.00pm – Networking & Dinner (in the main restaurant). The group will have further opportunities to ask questions and receive advice.

10.00pm – Finish

VENUE:

Chutney Ivy Indian Restaurant

41 Halford Street

Leicester

LE1 1TR

As well as street parking there is a multi-storey NCP car park across the road next to the Curve Theatre. If you park in there, the restaurant is able to give you a discount card which reduces the cost of parking.

* This programme is only available to SMEs and Social Enterprises with a business address within the Leicester City Council area.

TO BOOK A PLACE, CONTACT: Michael Barrows, Tel: 07974 210797 Email: michael@matrix-mam.com

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