Culture can be a great source of competitive advantage. That’s because ‘culture’ is ’the way we do things around here’. The challenge for any business is to ensure that the ‘way we do things’ is a) the stuff that customers want, and b) the stuff that they tell others about! Here’s a recent article I wrote for the great management website [...]

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Next time you get a bit of criticism, then just remember this great quote from Malcolm X: “If you have no critics, you’ll likely have no success” Bookmarks:

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We’re all incredibly busy and there’s loads going out there! Here’s an opportunity to take just a couple of minutes out to ‘think’ at the beginning of each week. Every Monday morning I’m going to upload a short ‘audio’ (maximum 3 minutes) that gives you help in developing your ‘3D’ approach to finding, attracting and keeping [...]

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Admitting you’ve got things wrong and doing something about it is a mark of a truly customer focussed business. Apple’s ‘problem’ with it’s 4G phone has been an interesting one. I do feel that the ‘initial’ response to the ‘complaints’ and issues raised didn’t seem to be addressed in a way that I would expect of [...]

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Having said that using Twitter is as easy as learning your ABC in my last blog post, here’s a guide for those of you who are looking to build on this and start writing full sentences and paragraphs rather than stringing a few letters together!  It’s from the guys at SiteVisibility who’ve got lots of good stuff on their [...]

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Lots of people let me know that they enjoyed my post on Creating Great Customer Experiences Being As Easy As ABC, so it got me thinking! I am amazed how many people are reluctant to ‘get involved’ on Twitter. It can be a cheap (free?), cost effective way of raising your profile, reinforcing your brand, differentiating [...]

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We can lots from drinking beer apparently!  A new study from Nottingham University Business School has highlighted the success of micro-breweries raising awareness of customers, and the production of lots and lots of  ’product offers’ targetting ‘niche markets’ that the bigger breweries can’t reach. They believe the industry’s rebirth in the wake of the Campaign for [...]

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In days gone by, in the olden days, all those years ago (2008?) there was ‘online marketing’ and there was ‘off line’ marketing, and the the two stayed very much apart. They’ve moved closer together in recent years (and continue to do so) and the latest Old Spice advertisement campaign in the US is a [...]

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The new series of Dragons’ Den started last night to lots of high profile promotion from the BBC, but I won’t be watching it! As something that originally set out to ‘promote’ entrepreneurship and enterprise, I can’t help thinking that it’s become a great way of ‘ridiculing’ and ‘exploiting’ people, particularly people who maybe dare to try and [...]

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This is a great idea! The Influencer Project is an ambitious inititiative to help individuals increase their influence in social media. They brought together 60 ‘experts’ who were only allowed to present for 1 minute maximum on the topic of ‘influence’ and then put it all together in a webcast which can be accessed and [...]

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