Posts

Go for it!

Food'll taste better, your skin will stay young and unwrinkly for much, much longer and you can count on being around to enjoy your family when they're grown up.

I never really knew my grandad - just a few vivid memories of a very short, very gentle, caring man who was as enthralled as we were (aged around 5) by toy monkeys climbing up sticks, garish caps and pier amusements. He smoked up to 60 cigarettes a day, was ill for weeks every winter with bronchitis and unsurprisingly died of lung cancer. The tobacco firms knew at the time that smoking killed people but they weren't letting on; they made quite a lot of money from grandad.

... and keep your ears flapping for good advice (especially when it's not what you want to hear).

As an example - I'd spent ages constructing my first business promotion leaflet and was so proud of it. Just before I got it printed, I showed it to a journalist / PR contact - who tore it apart and kindly explained why it was so bad. The next draft was based on market research!

Congrats, congrats and more congrats

You need to consider the type of customer you're hoping to attract before you opt for a celebrity endorsement scheme, I feel. Will they be impressed? And will they be more likely to remember the celebrity than your product or service?

In my own market, I feel fairly sure prospective clients wouldn't give two hoots about a celebrity endorsement.

They want advice they can trust to guide their future choices on education and careers. I have to show on the web site and when they ring me that I understand their situations and have the professional knowledge and code of ethics to help them.

I don't think they'd be impressed by (eg) Janet Street-Porter saying "sign up with Linda, she'll see you right". And I couldn't afford Janet's help either!!!

Wonder what impact it'll have on our social skills if we all work at home and only deal with people we like?

I'd be marginally less annoyed by cold calls if the person ringing me started off "I'm X from co Y; please give me a couple of minutes to find out whether product Z would be of interest to you"...

What I passionately hate are both the silent calls (just checking there's someone around to answer the phone - your time and temper are of no importance to us); and the calls where the caller waffles on anonymously for ages.

I never buy as a result of a cold call either.

It'll never work, I said. Tried that last year - and the year before and the year before that, I said. Our company structure is a bit odd and your web site doesn't let us "cut and paste" the right headings.

Go on, just try it! said the nice lady from Companies House, still patient but sounding a little exasperated.

So I did ... and hey, it works!

No more paper posting and our accounts getting lost because of floods and postal strikes. No more queuing up in the Post Office. No more fear about getting fined for problems I really didn't cause! Rah, rah, rah!

Isn't technology wonderful! And, yes, I did 'phone back to thank her and apologise.

Barney, in my business people remember when you give them good advice against your immediate self-interest ... and you don't just get that client, you get his sister, his brother, cousins and friends!

Isn't it a question of the standard of proof? In a civil court, the standard of proof required is less demanding than the criminal court's.

I decided I'd stick with payment by cheque until this became IMPOSSIBLE! Thank goodness the banks are hauling back a bit from their earlier intention to get rid of cheque payments.

You take a hit from not going down the credit card payment route. Personally it's one I can live with.