March 9, 2010 by Jon Stow
I went to an interesting meeting last night. Two out of the three speakers were economists. It is often said that there are as many opinions of economic issues as there are economists. There were two opinions of the economy from the two speakers, but really it was all about a difference in attitude.
The first speaker, a lady, did not want to be attributed so we will only say that she in connected to a well-known Old Lady who lives in Threadneedle Street. Her view of the current economic climate in the South East is that things haven’t been so bad, the economy is on the up and eventually everything will be all right even though the UK economy has contracted by 6.1%
All fine and dandy. She says she speaks to lots of businesses north of the Thames and that is her general impression. Funnily enough I also speak to a lot of businesses in my local area, which is specifically South Essex, so much smaller. I get a somewhat less optimistic view of the situation as it is.
I could hardly wait to be disappointed by the second economist, Mark Pragnell of the Thames Gateway South Essex Partnership (TGSEP) . However I was pleasantly surprised both by his honesty and his attitude. Yes, the economy had contracted by 6.1%. He thought that South Essex had been very badly hit by losses of jobs both in London and locally, possibly worse than in the South East as a whole. He might have had a vested in talking up his view as the Old Lady’s representative had, but he didn’t. What he did say that there was a huge opportunity for growth in the area, that we had a skilled workforce ready to go, and we had attractive lower housing costs and we have industrial units and warehouses which can be rented very cheaply (poor landlords) but potentially profitable for many.
I hope I have not misquoted too much. I was not able to make notes, but my general impression after hearing the first speaker was that I was now listening to someone saying “yes, things have really been bad, but we have the chance to really make hay and bounce back quickly.” Really it is all about attitude and realism and not towing the line of officialdom notwithstanding that TGSEP is very much an institution of local government in the area. Well done, Mark!
If we wait for our businesses to improve they may eventually, but it is likely they won’t. If we are positive, proactive, make plans and exploit the opportunities that are out there our future is in our hands and we know we are not hostages to fortune. Seize the day! Carpe diem.
© Jon Stow 2010
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Tags: business, economy, Essex, Local government, London, opinion, recession, Thames Gateway
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March 5, 2010 by Jon Stow
We have all had ambitions. We grow up with them, and in order to move our lives and businesses forward we need to keep them.
Of course I don’t mean that we need to keep the same ambitions. As we grow older we tend to recognise our particular skills and deficiencies and adjust our ideas to take these into account.
I was fairly conventional when I was a child in wanting to be either an engine driver or an astronaut. Indeed I fully expected to be going to the moon well into my teens, and might have got there as a tourist years ago if the US space program had not lost its way then as it has once again. Richard Branson might help me out yet. Still, some are more focussed than I was. I remember that my best friend when I was nine or ten wanted to be chartered accountant. I don’t think he ever qualified as one, though I believe he is a successful financial journalist. Money must have interested him in one way or another all these years.
We need one or more ambitions throughout our working lives simply as motivation. Otherwise we will simply make the old mistake of doing the same thing; I will avoid the cliché. If we do not try to change, we will not get better and our businesses will not get better.
Of course it is not sensible to be unrealistic. I will never be an astronaut, more’s the pity, and I will never travel the galaxy in a star ship, unless of course I am abducted by aliens, and that would be a poor ambition. I do need a marketing plan and I do need to implement it and ask my network on a professional basis how I can grow my business further and go to the next level.
Ambition is no bad thing even when we get old. Maybe I will join the one-hundred-year-old parachute jumpers one day, but for now, let me have a successful growing business to pay for my eventual retirement and of course the parachute school in a few decades time.
© Jon Stow 2010
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Tags: ambition, Marketing plan, motivation, NASA, Richard Branson, small business
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February 28, 2010 by Jon Stow
Sometimes we need to be brave in business. A week or so ago I wrote about how we sometimes need to show courage in our business and take some hard decisions.
We all have fears of the unknown, of measures we have not taken before. Sometimes we need to spend a little money as an investment to take our businesses forward. It is hard in this environment to spend money on the unknown, so the answer must be to spend it with experts in their field about whom we have heard good things. Then we will have more certainty that advice and services we buy in will be effective and increase our revenue stream and perhaps reduce our costs. The need is to increase our margins.
I woke up the other morning determined to take action, and indeed I have by asking for an outside opinion on what I am doing; taking my own advice. I am taking my own medicine as promised and ignoring the voices at the back with their shrill warnings.
A more illustrious commentator than I is recommending we all take the plunge and I was pleased to see that I am in good company.
Spring is coming in the Northern Hemisphere. It is time for a clean out to make our businesses spick and span. If you live south of the equator you can probably find another reason to launch yourself into action.
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Tags: business, courage, marketing, planning, risk
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February 18, 2010 by Jon Stow
Last night my wife happened to switch the TV over to an edition of “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”, featuring a restaurant in New Jersey. I didn’t take too much notice at first, thinking it was just another cooking programme. Whilst I am interested in food and cooking, we have an awful lot of shows involving food and chefs. However not many minutes passed before the TV had my full attention.
The restaurant was run like many other tired family businesses where one dominant personality makes all the decisions, and typically is resistant to change. In a sense there is one with the power of a decision maker who simply doesn’t make decisions. It was the old story of “if you do what you’ve always done…”
The restaurant was in the sort of place where they could expect many drop-in patrons. It was not a gourmet restaurant, yet it had a very extensive menu. The whole place needed a cosmetic makeover too. It was simply not delivering what the customers would want, and with its tawdry decoration looked distinctly unattractive. Therefore it wasn’t making any money.
To cut a long story short, Mr. Ramsay gave the restaurant owners the medicine he has had to take for his own restaurants which he has managed to keep open (some have closed). Apart from having the place painted, he simplified the menu drastically, reducing the number of dishes available and bringing back more basic dishes such as the sidelined husband’s meatloaf (his wife is the non-decision-maker in question).
If we try to do too much in a small business we fail many of our customers and clients. In the restaurant they were cooking a large number of dishes badly, because there were too many to watch all the time and properly cook to order. By having fewer dishes, they could prepare them more quickly and watch them better, they reduced waste and above all they put the dishes in front of the customers more quickly. Not only was the food fresher and better, but they had improved customer service at a stroke.
So often, small businesses try to be all things to all men and women and fall short. It is much better to deliver what we are good at quickly. Customers and clients will appreciate that, and if we have a good network then we can reach out and find most products and services we cannot offer but our network can. Our clientele will thank us and respect us for that too, and they may even refer and recommend us.
This is a world of instant gratification. People do not like to wait when they lead such busy lives. If we are small we deliver what we are best at doing. If we were Amazon or Walmart we could deliver everything from a plasma TV to a microwaveable hot water bottle, without the friendly personal touch, but as we can offer a personalised service to order we should concentrate on that.
Whilst Gordon Ramsay’s show is a sort of reality TV, he should be congratulated on his insight and from having learned from his own mistakes. He sets an example for others in his acumen if not in politeness. Of course sometimes we do need to get our point over forcefully.
Well done, Gordon! You teach a good business lesson.
© Jon Stow 2010
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Tags: customer, Customer service, family business, Gordon Ramsay, Kitchen Nightmares, personal service, service, small business, waste
Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, Customer service, Referral networking, productivity | Leave a Comment »
February 15, 2010 by Jon Stow
If you are as lucky as I am, you will enjoy your work and running your own business. We have at least some control of our destiny even given the trials and tribulations of the economic downturn. However, I was reminded the other day by a non-business story I heard that because we are happy with something we do or want to do, that does not mean that we have the right approach.
A couple I know have a perceived issue with the husband’s elderly parents who live in a rural village a couple of hundred miles from our friends. The son and daughter-in-law both work full-time in the Big City and live during the working week in their apartment in town. They have a house in the country which they use at weekends. They do not often manage to make time to visit the needy pensioners; maybe only three or four times a year.
Because the senior citizens have slight mobility problems and poor health, our busy pair suggested that they sell up and move to somewhere near their own country home so that they could be “on call” in case they were needed. Of course they would only be able to visit for an hour or so at weekends because work commitments in the City would keep them away from Monday to Friday.
The whole problem with this plan is that it is not a solution. What the old couple need is to have proper support provided at home through the social services or “meals on wheels” and at least someone dropping in every day to see they were all right. They need to feel they still have their independence. They do not need to be uprooted from the village they have lived in for so many years and taken away from their friends and neighbours. The plan is just to make the slightly younger generation feel better in that they have done something, but it would be the wrong thing and inadequate in terms of support even if the seniors agreed to the move.
There is a risk in business that we take what seems the easy way out in a similar vein. We avoid some marketing which makes us uncomfortable, some allow their fears of networking to prevent them from getting out, and many of us keep picking up and servicing the same sort of unprofitable clients and customers because we are used to doing it and we do not have to get out of our comfort zone. We may even be tempted by these “Get Rich Quick” schemes with which we are assailed via email and the post.
Well, sometimes what may make us feel better in the short-term is simply not good for us. By gritting our teeth now and maybe doing something which goes against the grain (as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else) we can be happier in the longer term. If we make the changes we have feared to make our business better, we will be happier down the line.
When I was a small boy (this dates me) the doctor sometimes prescribed some horrible pink medicine which came in a bottle with a cork. It tasted nasty but it made me better. Have you got that pink stuff in a bottle on your business shelf? Find a spoon and take the medicine. You won’t regret it.
© Jon Stow 2010
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Tags: Add new tag, client, customer, Get-rich-quick scheme, management, marketing, networking, planning, practical, responsibility
Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, management, marketing | 1 Comment »
February 4, 2010 by Jon Stow
In these challenging times with regard to the state of the economy there are a lot more people without full-time employment who find themselves looking for freelance work and who are seeking to offer one form or another of business consultancy. In my world I meet quite a lot of such people, many of whom are new to the fold of the independent worker, having run a business or been in a settled job for many years.
One of the expressions I do not want to hear when a freelancer introduces himself or herself is “I am a generalist”. Why? Because it is important to take into account what the singular or multiple audience hears, and what they hear is “I am not really good at any one thing”. The corollary of “Jack or Jill of all trades” is “Master of none”.
If someone has been the owner of a business or a senior director or partner or whatever, that person tends to think they know all about business because they think they have seen and done everything. That may be true in terms of having a grasp of a business, but it really will not impress a potential buyer of services, who wants to hear what the freelance consultant can do to satisfy their immediate business need.
Everyone is good at something and can offer a special knowledge. If you have been an owner of a business or an employee, that business specialised in something, whether it was engineering, manufacturing, food processing, importing toys, plastic moulding or accountancy. There must be an area the freelancer is most comfortable in. That is going to be the way to get in to sign a decent contract to help. Once in, you can offer your other skills on the back of your perceived competence in what you have achieved so far. However it is important to get in, so do not ever call yourself a generalist, and concentrate on what makes you happiest and is most financially rewarding.
© Jon Stow 2010
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Tags: adviser, advisor, business, buy, contract, Employment, Freelancer, Manufacturing
Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, Referral networking, Social media, management, marketing | Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2010 by Jon Stow
I am in a reflective mood. I am coming to the end of an engagement helping a client; an engagement which should not be ending. This is not just because obviously an income stream will stop; I have other clients. It is that there is so much more I could do for them which they just cannot see, being such an introspective inward-looking business.
I started with this client when their firm was experiencing extreme pain due to loss of (mainly) staff but also internal disputes. My few months there have alleviated the pain and now they feel much better. However, they do not seem to realise that so far we have just dealt with the symptom and we need to cure the illness so that we do not have another bout of sickness in six or nine months time. Treatment would not be difficult if they allowed me to help. I could cut my time with them by 50 to 75%. It would not be a costly experience for the client and my work would pay for itself many times over.
I have the advantage of being an outsider able to look at the whole business rather than being an inside navel-gazer, not able to look very far, and certainly not able to look even at what competitors are doing. I can see a lot more; I have the perspective of distance and height to see the whole picture, and I wish I could persuade them as to what they need to do. I do not need to do it for them; they need a corporate exercise regime, which is why I would only need to see them occasionally in the role of a “personal trainer”; just a visit to keep them on track.
All this has made me think that I too need an outside perspective on my own business. Maybe I cannot see my wood for the trees. In the next month or so I will be having a check up from a outsider on all my marketing and probably on the whole way I approach my business.
What will you be doing that is different to help your business be better, and do you agree that asking a suitable outsider to look at your business may be what you need?
© Jon Stow 2010
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Tags: business, contract, external, Fitness, help, independent, marketing, outside
Posted in Business planning, management, marketing, productivity | 1 Comment »
January 16, 2010 by Jon Stow
Having been frustrated with the lack of interest in new business exhibited by local event venues and hotels, I have to be fair and mention that one of them telephoned back after a week to say that they could meet my proposal for the amount per head for each of my breakfast group, but they would need to charge an extra amount (actually quite a lot) for our use of a room at their establishment. Quite why they thought this would be satisfactory when clearly I was looking for a particular budget, which they disregarded in adding the room cost, I just don’t know. It is not as though their room would normally be in use between seven and nine in the morning, and since my business group is not in the habit of trashing every room in which we have a meeting, I doubt whether there would be a significant cost even for cleaning beyond a brief run round with the vacuum cleaner.
Presumably they wanted the business; why come back with this when basically I had given them a take-it-or-leave-it proposal with a known outcome and no real downside when they would have had staff in anyway to prepare breakfast for hotel residents? There is a distinct lack of business nous frankly. Obviously I declined their offer.
I was feeling a bit disappointed, but driving back from a meeting on Thursday I heard an ad on the local radio station for a restaurant I had not considered; I had not been aware they were open except in the evenings; apparently they are under new management. The commercial said they served breakfast, lunch and dinner, and hosted events. Naturally when I got back to the office I gave them a call. The duty manager seemed very business-like, she thought they could accommodate the group and was happy on my price proposal, subject to the approval of the owner, which she got. As they do not normally open for breakfast until nine, they are going to get their chef in early or the owner might be in the kitchen, but we are giving it a trial on both sides.
It is refreshing to get a great attitude from someone prepared to give a try to something new in the way of business. Maybe they will decide breakfast events are not for them, but they have an open mind. That is how we in business should approach 2010 and in particular business in a downturn: with an open mind. Otherwise we will assume doors are closed which many just be open a little and only need a push from us. At least, that’s what I think. How about you?
© Jon Stow 2010
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Tags: advertising, business, marketing, networking, open door, open mind, opportunity, Radio, recession
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
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