‘Maximising Your Profits’ Podcast

Here’s a new podcast for your delight and delictation! It’s different from previous editions and has one core topic: that’s ‘maximising the profitibility of your business’.

Podcast #3contains:

The focus of this podcast is on helping you improve profitability and includes: identifying the common key barriers to maximising profitability and how to overcome them; how to ‘keep in control’; how to find out where your profits really come from; discount ’discounting’; how to get your people involved; ideas for maximising opportunities; developing your own ‘route to profitability’ ; proven and practical steps to maximise the profitability of your business.

Bizzarily, I’m giving it away for free!

Here it is: 
 

Click here to download Podcast

You can download it to your ipod by clicking on the itunes icon above

Related links for this podcast:

Some slides on ‘maximising profitability’ are here, along with details of my book ‘Revolutionise The Profitability Of Your Business’ which you can buy here

Get Ready For Some ‘(F)luxury!

‘Urbany’, ‘(f)luxury’, ‘mass mingling’ and ‘embedded generosity’ are just some of the consumer trends predicted for 2010. Of course they’ve not been predicted by me (who as you know had never heard of Peppa Pig!), but by the fabulous guys at Trendwatching. As ever, they’ve produced a fascinating insight into the world of consumers in 2010 - as they see it. It’s called ’10 Crucial Consumer Trends For 2010′. You can download the report here.

I’m particularly interested in their view that we’ll be ‘networking’ offline and back in the real world much much more – of course, social media will be used to maximise its effectiveness – they’ve called it ‘mass mingling’. They also predict an upsurge in ‘Tracking and Alerting’ – that’s all about consumers obtaining regularly updated information on what they are buying or looking to buy – a thrust  of even more power to the customer.

If you don’t already subscribe to Trendwatchings’ monthly briefings, I really think you should. They’re free and you can do that here.

What are your predictions for marketing, customers and competitiveness in 2010?

Which Tribes Work For You? Get ‘Trotting’

I was introduced to a new ‘brand’ yesterday. I’m sure for many of you, it’s not news, but Peppa Pig is awesome!!!! She attracted thousands into Sheffield yesterday to switch the Christmas lights on. Seth Godin talks about the power of Tribes, well the Peppa Pig tribe is strong and powerful, even if the vast majority of them are female and under 6!!!

The number of pink coats and bobble hats sat on top of Dads’ shoulders was amazing. OK, they may not have the specific spending power themselves, but I can’t help thinking that they have huge influence, and judging by the thousands of families wandering around the City Centre, it’s quite clear that they are not scared to use it!

Lots of other businesses seemed to be benefitting too, and that was a key learning point for me – which ‘brands’ or ‘tribes’ can you benefit from through association, or even ‘partnership’? I don’t mean just ‘hanging on’ to someone else’s ‘glory’, but a proactive win – win association.

So, a little question:

• Who are the ‘tribes’ that you should be targetting?

More importantly,

• What do they want
• How can you give it to them?

So, start sniffing around and get ‘trotting’ to find them!

Losses Due To Poor Service – We’re Not Alone!

I highlighted a report recently about the amount of lost sales due to poor customer service in the UK being £15.3 Billion. Well the good news is that ‘we’re not the only ones’! The losses in 16 major industrialised nations amounts to $338.5 Billion!!!!

Here are the details of the report produced by genesyslab - An interesting point is that of those who ‘defected’, 63% went to competitors and 37% abandoned the purchase totally.

Financial services, cable & satellite TV and telecommunications businesses were at most economic risk due to poor customer service.

$338.5 Billion!!! What’s you share? What are you doing to reduce it?

Be a ‘Somali Pirate’!

Went to a great presentation by Rene Carayol yesterday in Manchester organised by Barclays Bank - His 12 top tips for ‘preparing for recovery’ were all good ‘common sense’ stuff, but as ever, he put a nice ‘slant’ on it all. He explained that it’s about collaboration, engaging with customers and your people.

My favourite was learn from the ‘Somali Pirates’ – he wasn’t of course condoning these groups who ‘kidnap’ ocean liners. His argument is that they are quick, flexible, agile and totally ‘empowered’ and can completely outfox the slow moving, hierachical, centralised decision making ships who rely on ‘instruction’s’ from head office, which often take days to come through.

He explained that each sortie costs £30,000 and that four out five missions come back empty handed. However, when they do happen to catch a ship, the prize is between £2 million and £5 million!

Are you a slow moving liner or a fast, flexible Somali Pirate?

“The iPod Will Die!”

He may be one of the country’s highest profile entrepreneurs and has clearly been successful in what he does, but even Sir Alan gets it wrong. Well, I know he gets it wrong a lot – listen to him rant about small businesses as Government ‘Tsar’ – have a look here in the Sunday Times, or just watch The Apprentice if you can bear it! 

However his prediction in early 2005 that by the end of the year the ipod would be ‘dead, finished, gone, kaput’ does seem a little hasty!

I suspect he thought that there’d be lots of cheap competitors come in and blow it away. That happens in lots of technology markets, but fair play to Apple, they’ve created a ‘dramatically different’ product that continues to lead the way. They’ve continued to develop it, introduce other products to advance and kept well ahead of the game.

Not sure Amstrad ever did that!

And Now For Something ‘Wheely Different’!

I’m speaking at a wheely interesting event in Sheffield next week. It takes place on the Sheffield Wheel (yes, we do have a ‘Sheffield Wheel’!) on Friday 20th November. The event is for local entrepreneurs wanting to get off the ‘merry go round’ of running a business for a short while and are looking for ideas to improve and differentiate their business. 

There’s a chance to get some amazing views of our fine city and all its highlights (yes, you can see Bramall Lane from it), and to mix in ‘new circles’ network with like minded entrepreneurs. 

For more details, have a look here.

WiFi Wins It!

I’ve just left Newcastle Upon Tyne heading home on the train and consciously took the National Express train over the Cross Country train even though it left 14 minutes later. The reason? WiFi Wins it for National Express. Think this might be the first real time for me that ’things internet’ have seriously influenced a ‘buying’ decision like that.

Not really sure what that says about me or the world we’re now in!

Putting On The Ritz!

Ritz-Carlton Hotels have a worldwide reputation for amazing customer service. I also quote the fact that any member of staff is allowed to spend up to $2000 to solve a guest’s problem without having to get ‘permission’ from a manager. I was wrong!

Staff are allowed to spend up to $2000 without having to get permission to create an outstanding experience! And they are encoraged to do that! Now THAT is impressive!

Here’s a nice interview with Ritz-Carlton President Simon F Cooper on how they run the business and get their people to create such outstanding experiences.

There’s some nice practical stuff there that we all could use in form or another. It’s about encouraging and ‘empowering’ staff to go the extra mile for customers.

What’s the reward for those in your business who go the ‘extra mile’ for customers? In far too many organisations, the ‘reward’ is more work!

Honeymoon Delight!

I’m always looking for stories that illustrate and reinforce the things that I talk about. This is a great one! Even better, it involves someone I’ve worked with up in Newcastle on the Entrepreneurs’ Forum Business Breakthrough Programme I ran last year.

When Julie Berry of Dartford had to cancel her honeymoon trip to Norway after husband had to take a big pay cut because of cuts at his work, she was upset, but realised it had to be done. She called Activities Abroad and, holding back the tears, explained her situation. She couldn’t believe it when she got a call later from Activities Abroad offering to pay for the holiday!!!

MD, Alistair McLean said: “Julie rang us up and they were having a bit of a tough time of it and she sounded so distraught that I thought, ok, I’ll do something nice and cover it for them. Everybody is having a hard time at the moment and not enough people help each other out. They were absolutely delighted – it gave me a very warm feeling inside!”

We talked about ‘customer delight’ on the Breakthrough Programme, and I know that Alistair has worked hard to develop the concepts in his business. The story got local PR coverage, which is always nice, but I think this example of ‘customer delight’ is more than just a PR stunt. It says a lot about Alistair, his business and his business philisophy.

I wish I could claim I taught him all he knows!

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