Are You Making It ‘Hot’?

I’m starting off the New Year with a  book recommendation, and it’s not really a ‘business book’. ‘Some like It Hot: Me, Marylin and the Movie’  by Tony Curtis is his insight into the making of the fantastic 1950′s movie.

Why the recommendation? It’s a great story of how Billy Wilder found and developed the idea, got key people involved, completely ‘broke the pattern’ and came up with something that at the time really was ‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different’! Men dressing up as women was not the norm in cinemas back then!

It’s a great story, and anyone who has set up or led a business, project or team will recognise some of the key challenges Billy Wilder faced: Developing a ‘concept’, getting funding, ‘selling the idea’, recruiting… and managing the right people (if you thought your ‘moody’ top sales person was tricky, wait until you’ve read about Marylin Monroe!), overcoming budget constraints, ‘politics’, seeing things through to the end – he hadn’t finalised the script with only days to go before the ‘final days’ of filming!

The key message for me was about ‘breaking the pattern’ – doing things that others couldn’t or wouldn’t do….. and vitally, getting a wide range of very different individuals ’on board’ to help ‘break it’ with him. The result? a very funny, memorable and very successful film. ‘Some Like It Hot’ was voted ‘Best American Comedy Film Of All Time’ by the American Film Institute. It’s certainly one of my favourites, and one that still works today.

You might not employ Marylin Monroe in your team, you might not have an office based on the beaches of San Diego, you might not even have your key staff as ‘cross dressers’, but your challenge is still, arguably to create an experience that ‘wows’ your customers and is definitely ’hot’!

Have A ‘Delightful’ Christmas!

Well, that’s the desk tidied (not!), the office neatly organised (not!), and all the outstanding things ‘sorted’ (not!).

Still, as you’ll see, I did manage to get the Christmas tree up and decorated!

It’s now time to sort out those  few last – minute presents!

Back to work in January, but because of the wonders of modern technology, no doubt, I’ll get the ‘odd’ blog post up here in between all those mince pies!

Just a quick note to say hope you have a ‘delightful‘ and wonderful Christmas and a brilliant New Year!

It’s been a great year – thanks for all your support in 2009!

Here’s to a fantastic and successful 2010 for all of us!

Free ebook – (Re)Thinking in 3D…..

I’ve written a new book! It’s all about Thinking in 3D – That means creating a business that’s 

‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different‘! 

Basically, it’s a short set of ’rants’, raves and ideas aimed at engaging, stimulating and challenging you. 

If you enjoy the blog, I’d like to think that you’ll enjoy this too. The main reason being that there will be a few bits and bobs you’ve read before here on the site – see it as ‘going back to the gym’ – you still need to work those muscles!

I’ve called it:

(re)thinking in ‘3D‘….. and the best bit is it’s FREE!

 

If you like it please send it on to others….. and let me know what you think about it too please!

You can

download it here!

Hope You Have a ’Delightful’ Christmas!

A Dramatically Different Gift Voucher 2

It probably seemed ‘really edgy’ when the divorce lawyers Lloyd Platt and Co came up with the idea of their ‘divorce vouchers’ for Christmas. It’s in the news today on the Lawyer Website.

I ‘praised’ B&Q for their ‘personalised’ voucher recently, because I think they got it right – I don’t think these guys have. Both examples do ‘Demonstrate a Dramatic Difference’ - one does it positively, the other does not.

Apparently, they’ve quoted a client saying they’ve played a ‘blinder’ (oh, very ‘street cred’!). The only ‘blinder’ I see is their inability to see that a such a cheap gimmick undermines their reputation, professionalism, and possibly that of others in the profession too. I’m all for ‘professionals’ showing their ‘personal side’, in fact, I think it’s a significant influencer on how people choose their ‘advisors’, but not sure this says anything ‘positive’ about them.

Interestingly, I went on their website, and a couple of things I noticed:

Their most recent ‘Stop Press’ news was from July and the one before that, was June 2007, so maybe they’re in desperate need of some ‘publicity’!

Secondly, the website has a section for ‘The Team’. It’s headed up by a nice picture of ‘proprietor’ Vanessa and explains that they ‘represent many celebrities in the world of television, radio and entertainment as well as Judges and MPs.’   It adds that ‘The firm also represents men and women from all walks of life’ which is reassuring to know to us ‘mere mortals’!

Then comes ‘The Team’ with 5 members in it. And then, and I suggest this might say something about the business, comes a bunch of people under the heading, ‘Rest Of The Team’!

Q: “So, what do you do?”

A: “Oh, I’m a key player in ’the rest of the team”

I might have got them wrong, but you can only go on what you see. Anyone who ‘encourages’ people to use their ’divorce vouchers’ probably doesn’t need people like me to point out these sort of things to anyone.

And, that Your Honour is the case for the prosecution!

Marketing in 2010 – What Does It Mean For You?

What does 2010 hold for you when it comes to sales and marketing? Any ideas? Of course, with such rapid change, it’s a difficult one to predict, but there is some great stuff here from some of the leading ‘social media’ gurus around the world, curtesy of Joe Pulizzi’s Blog.

OK, there is an argument that some of these guys are so far ahead of the game, and are, no doubt, so ‘enthusiastic’ about this stuff, that they may be ‘running’ before many of us are even ‘walking’ (crawling?)!

That may well be the case and that means that for a lot of us, if these guys are ‘leading the way’ and we don’t get ‘running quickly’, we might well get left behind.

For what it’s worth, my conclusions from reading it all are:

• It’s getting more crowded out there
• It’s not just the method, its the message – what is it you’re trying to say?
• It’s about creating something worth talking about
• Its’ about ‘engagement’!

I’m sure you’ll draw your own conclusions that reflect your own situation.

The key question is clearly ‘What are you going to do about it?’

A Sporting Spectacular!

I was privileged to be at the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Awards in Sheffield last night. Along with 11,000 others we were all cheering Sheffield’s own Jessica Ennis on, and was pleased to see her come third – well done Ryan Giggs! Although a surprise to some, I think he deserved it – a great role model to others.

Key point to this post is my observations of seeing the whole thing working so well under real scrutiny and the pressure of putting something like this on. It was magical to watch, and the combination of  ’celebrity’, creativity, technical excellence, mutual support, and clearly, real hard work combined to produce a truly ’spectacular’ experience.

The keys to this? From, what I could see, it seemed clear that:

• Everyone understood their role, whether that was Gary Lineker and Sue Barker to the guys moving ‘stuff around’
• Co-ordination was really proactive and the ‘holistic’ view drove the whole thing (it was obviously for TV)
• A brilliant combination of ‘imagination’ and systems and processes worked well
• Ongoing communication – they didn’t stop talking to each other all night!
• The ‘outstanding’ teamwork involved was obvious
• ‘Emotion’ is an integral element of any great experience, and they maximised this
• There was an ‘end in mind’ – again obviously, a live TV show watched by millions

The result? A fantastic, professional operation that made a real impression and created a ‘memorable’ customer experience for me, and, I’m sure many, many others.

Does your business run like that?

Recruiting ‘Customer Delight’ ers

Came across this today. It’s a design business in Lynwood, Washington looking for a graphic designer. Part of the application process involves submitting, as well as your cv and examples of work, an example of when you’ve ‘delighted’ a customer, how you did it and what the reaction was from that customer.

It’s simple stuff, but I think it does a number of significant things in the recruitment process:

1) It gets beyond just the ‘technical’ stuff about design and ‘doing the job’

2) It shows the prospective employee what’s important around here – you’re ‘culture’

and

3) It reinforces that to existing clients and existing employees.

What do you look for in your prospective employees? Crucially, how do you let them know that’s what you’re looking for?

What Will They Think Of Next?

 Here’s a great new game for all the (younger members) of the family!! Talk about ‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different’!

Not sure it’s real, but hope it is! (I found it courtesy of quinkyart)

Whether it’s real or not, it certainly got me thinking about other ‘similar’ games for Christmas:

‘Poodo’ (“It was Professor Plum in the conservatory”),  ‘Crappy Families’,  Sub’poo’teo (flick to …..) and of course, The Nintendo ‘Wee’!

I know, I know, it’s not in the best of taste, but my point is that one idea sparks another, and then another…. and hey, maybe even another.

What do you do in your business to ‘spark’ ideas?

And as it’s getting near Christmas, let’s have a laugh – If you’ve got any other ‘ideas’ for games along similar lines, do let me know – please keep it ‘relatively’ clean!

A Dramatically Different Gift Voucher

 We were in the diy store B&Q yesterday (don’t ask!) and Jill spotted this – a gift voucher ‘personalised’ for dads. It’s a very simple way of ‘enhancing’ a core offer. There was also ‘you’re moving’ and ‘new home’, plus a few others.

My point? ‘Differentiating’ a relatively mundane thing appealing to specific customers is a great way to stand out.  What can you do to be more ‘creative’ about what you offer? It’s not about ‘hype’ or ‘rehashing’ stuff, but thinking about your customers and what appeals to them, and then ‘differentiating’ it to suit.

A simple idea and a nice example of 3D – Demonstrating a Dramatic Difference (albeit, on a very simple ‘product’).

Needless to say, Jill bought one, but, shhh – don’t tell her dad, it’s for Christmas!

MBA – Master of Blagging Andy’s Stuff?

Did you know that the Bulgarian for ‘Customer Delight’ is  ”доволните” ? Or that in Italian, ‘delight’ is ‘deliziati’?  How do I know? Well, my Slideshare presentation ‘How To Create Devoted Customers’ has been translated and used by others. I actually produced it a couple of years ago and it’s been up there and downloaded thousands of times. Here it is if you missed it:

 

What’s really interesting to me though is the different ways it’s been ‘used’ seems to highlight the opportunities and threats that the ‘world wide web’ provides for us:

I was more than happy to say yes to a chinese student who emailed me and asked for permission to translate it into Chinese, and here’s the mexican version by Juan Carlos Fernandez!

The Italian version, nicely done to the tune of ‘Keep The Customer Satisfied’ by Simon & Garfunkel credits me and is available on YouTube. OK, it’s not been viewed by thousands, but in principle, it introduces me to some ‘potential’ Italian customers who I would not normally reach, so I’m grateful.

The Bulgarian version, which is available on Slideshare, however has been ’nicked’ by someone called Ivaylo Kunev who has passed himself off as the designer and doesn’t mention me at all! OK, so it’s one individual, and it’s not really a big deal as he doesn’t seem to ‘promote’ himself on it. I guess we all use other people’s stuff in one form or another, but to totally copy the style, text type and colours is an interesting approach.

A third version is even more interesting. Again, it’s on Slideshare and it’s been done in Albania by Nathan Ronen MBA (no less!) who is part of the Albanian Centre For Management Services, which is clearly a commercial enterprise. He actually claims it’s a practical guide designed by him!! Again, he’s used my style, type and colourings, and there’s no mention of me - do hope that this wasn’t part of his MBA dissertation and I’ve now ‘exposed’ him!! 

I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe MBA stands for ‘Master of Blagging Andy’s stuff (and not telling him!)’.

They say ‘immitation is the best form of flattery’ and I’m sure that the Albanian market wasn’t perhaps on the top of my priority list. It’s not a major issue for me, but it’s brought home to me that there are ‘MBA’ers all over the world hurting people genuinely working hard to make a living – any thoughts on how to deal with them?