‘This Is Your Captain Speaking’

According to the Wall Street Journal, Captain Denny Flanagan of United Airlines makes a real difference. He completely ‘breaks the rules’ by creating his own! He’s earning a tremendous reputation with frequent flyers and his fame is spreading rapidly through word of mouth.

“I just treat everyone as if it’s the first

The Simpsons in 3D

Simpsons Of Leeds is a wonderful example of 3D – Demonstrably and Dramatically Different. This small supermarket is targetted specifically at professional City Centre apartment dwellers in Leeds.

Dramatically Different through it’s offering of high quality goods, beers, wines and organic fruit and vegetables. You can also get a fresh baked pizza to take home (‘fresh’ as in, cooked in front of you in the instore oven), a vending machine allows you to hire dvd’s by the hour, and there’s up market oven ready meals too.

Demonstrably Different comes from the unsupermarket like friendly, warm decor and style, the music that’s played, the quirky signage – lots of it handwritten, the chalk board with answers to customers’ questions and comments, the friendly staff , and the newsletter that ouses personality and character. It manages to merge ‘tradition’ with contemporary,and does this very well.

Simpsons has clearly defined its target customers and caters for them well. It dramatically and demonstrably differentiates itself from the ‘same as’ supermarkets that are battling it out in high streets up and down the country. If I lived near by, I couldn’t see myself shopping anywhere else.

An MBA On A Page!

This website is great. It contains details and links to just about every management theory going all in one place.

Check out details on specific issues, topics, authors or titles.

A good reference not just for academics but for anyone interested in improving their own management knowledge and learning…

‘The Ties That Bind’

Customer focussed organisations are not only easy to buy from and do business with, they are also easy to walk away from. Ever had hassle and frustration when trying to ‘opt out’ or switch suppliers? It tends to leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

My latest article for leading business website Management Issues talks about ‘The Ties That Bind’: ‘Positive Ties’ are those that make you want to do business with the company; ‘Negative Ties’ are those that keep you bound in against your will. Of course, it’s the former we should be building. Unfortunately, too many businesses focus on the latter.

Say It How It Is….

How do you differentiate yourself when your shop sells exactly the same products as all your competitors? Had a couple of days in St. Emilion, France

Customer Views Count.. and Raise Count Too

A new research report highlights the benefits of customer reviews on websites. Over 50% of online retailers questioned said that their conversion rates had increased as a result of including customer generated content on their websites.

More evidence, I think, of the shift of power from suppliers to users. Their opinions clearly influence our purchasing decisions, and will surely do so more and more. What are your customers saying about you and your products and services? How can you use this to your advantage?

Women Certainly Do Mean Business!

Wow, what a great turn out for last night’s Women Mean Business Event in Sheffield! As Jill promised, here are the slides with all the ‘inspirational quotes’. Feel free to download them and use them on those more ‘difficult’ days!

Here also, are the contact details of those Women IN Business who helped out on the night:

Louise at Taylor Oliver

An Innocent Smile

The Perfect Pitch!

I’ve been asked to facilitate a ‘Speed Pitching’ event by Business Link South Yorkshire in September which should be really exciting and interesting. I’ll be helping people create a ‘pitch’ for their business. It’s a useful exercise for anyone to do, as it forces you to really think about how your business is ‘dramatically different’ from your competitors, and importantly, encourages you to think how you ‘demonstrate’ it. Here are some questions you can use to develop your own ‘pitch’:

What is it you actually ‘do’?

Who are your ideal or ‘best’ customers?

What problem(s) do you solve?

How are you ‘dramatically different’?

What does that all mean for me as a customer?

If you can’t get along to the event on September 18th in Sheffield, why not get your team together for an hour and work through those questions…. and come up with some answers!

Maximise Your Profits In Sheffield

Andy has been asked to deliver a ‘Maximise Your Profitability’ Masterclass by Sheffield Chamber Of Commerce on Tuesday October 9th. This half day event will provide ideas, tools and templates to help you revolutionise your bottom line. It won’t be a lesson in finance – in fact there’s very little accounting in it!