Going green is great –so long as the money adds up…

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Nick

When did being green suddenly start being cool?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but for most of my life, green sympathisers were beardy sandals-and-socks types who rode tandem bikes through hedges and sang ‘Kum Bay Yah’ a lot.

And then something changed. Anya Hindmarch brought out her ‘I am not a plastic bag’ carrier bag – ideal for stacking up multiple children’s lunches, as you stack up said children in your 4×4. The green lobby got poster-boys like Zac Goldsmith. Crumbs – I even bought a bike!*

Now, I have no doubt that Al Gore, “The Inconvenient Truth” (or “The Day After Tomorrow” for the more Hollywood-minded) played their part. Green concerns have slowly been chipping away at the political agenda, and finally enough people have sat up and listened.

But that’s just a footnote in the engineering of the green movement.

The big cause is money.

I have always said: if you want to see what people really think, follow their wallets and purses.

And the fact is, going green has, in the past five years, finally meant saving money. VW’s BlueMotion cars and the Toyota Prius hybrids both mean that people can save on their motoring fuel and tax bills. Even the ridiculous-looking G-Wiz electric car has sold a few units, because looking ridiculous is OK in the middle of a recession and in Central London where you can only drive at 5mph anyway.

Similarly, this is why both private and government schemes to cross-fund insulation and lagging in Britain’s houses are successful – if you can tell me that I will save permanently on my gas bill in 8 years’ time, it suddenly starts making sense. Helping the environment is a side-benefit. Helping my pocket is a no-brainer.

Maybe I’m a ruthless cynic, or even a burning hypocrite. But it’s an important business lesson that altruism is rare. We all claim to be altruistic, but in the vast majority of cases our professed nobility fades pretty fast. We all profess that we’d be the Good Samaritan who got involved to help someone in trouble on the other side of the road; but most of us would walk quietly by. Give us a proposition that helps our wallets, though, and we’re suddenly interested. In the terminology of economists, we are generally economic rationalists.

If you think I am a cynic, though, let me explain that there’s a good side to rational economic behaviour, too. Being able to predict to some degree how people are likely to act is what gives us economic certainty; and it’s what makes businesses successful. It’s what allows business owners to take risks and innovate – because they have enough evidence that an idea is a good one.

Here, for example, is a massively innovative business which owes its existence to our cultural change to greener attitudes.

Curb is a creative marketing agency. Hardly the first place you’d look for green-centric thinking; but they call themselves “The natural media company”. The genius of Curb is to realise that in a world where we’re saturated with traditional media, brands can reach new audiences by marketing in innovative green ways – and thus leverage enormous goodwill too. The result is a staggering portfolio of innovative marketing ideas. Here are just three: sand sculpted marketing (snow also a speciality); cleaned paving stones; and the remarkable “disco-fungi” – a safe and biodegradeable glowing fungus. There are a raft more good ideas on their website.

Curb - Sand sculpture marketing Cleaned paving slab Disco fungi

My points are simple: we’re not as random or altruistic as we think we are; money is an excellent indicator of attitude; money hugely influences culture, and culture influences innovation.

*And yes – I ride it, too!

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Battle of the brands

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Nick

There’s a war going on out there. And it’s happening right in front of your eyes.

Strangely, the main protagonists of this epic battle are, amongst others, an opera singer and a family of russian meerkats.

I’m talking, of course, about the insane level of competition between price comparison websites. Ask yourself this: when did you last see an ad-break on the TV without an ad for a price comparison website included in the three minutes? I have been trying unsuccessfully to find out exactly what the ad-spend of the main players in this market is; but I will gladly hazard a random guess and say that price comparison websites are currently the difference between life and the Emergency Room for ITV right now.

What’s interesting for us as small business owners is what we can learn from this game – because it’s a masterclass in branding.

The first player in this market was by Moneysupermarket.com. It’s no surprise that they introduced themselves in the most powerful way possible: their message was “We can save you cold, hard money”. Not only is that a very powerful message, it was also the right one: many people didn’t know what a price comparison website was, so it was pretty crucial to keep the message simple. Since their message was about cold hard cash, they were fronted by a cold, hard, canny, cash-conserving businessman: Peter Jones from Dragon’s Den. Look at the colours and surfaces in this ad- even they are cold and hard.

Next to arrive was Confused.com; and they had to find a way to differentiate themselves from Moneysupermarket. That’s a tall order: financial services are notoriously hard to differentiate from one another. Could you really separate two pension providers in a 30″ TV ad? That’s why Scottish Widows spend so much time putting a glamorous lady in a black hood on a rocky outcrop – even though she has nothing whatsoever to contribute to your in-depth knowledge of pension products.

Well, Confused.com did manage to differentiate themselves. If Moneysupermarket was all about saving money, Confused was going to be all about being friendly and helpful. The service is almost identical, indeed indistinguishable to the untrained eye; but the brands are miles and miles apart. Instead of cold, hard Peter Jones, Confused customers (even the name says ‘it’s OK not to understand financial services – we’ll help you out’) get to see… each other; in cuddly family situations. It’s all about being safe and friendly.

The problem for the companies that followed was that there was no genuine new ground to stake out. Moneysupermarket owned the “saving you money” pitch. And Confused owned the “Friendly and helpful” pitch. What else can you do? Nothing. There’s nothing else interesting about price comparison websites. The newcomers couldn’t claim to be a better service (they all have about the same number of comparisons). What to do?

Well, both ComparetheMarket.com and GoCompare.com initially just tried to set out their stalls in a very straight way. Do you remember these early efforts?

But then both companies realised that they were merely acting like pale imitations of the existing market leaders. Something had to change. And that’s when all hell broke loose. With no other way to differentiate themselves, both brands realised that they had to compete through massive marketing spend, and make the marketing itself a differentiator.

First out of the blocks was ComparetheMarket; whose ads were sufficiently successful that meerkat soft toys are now on sale (thanks for the lesson there, Churchill) and “Simples” is now recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary. The ad I’ve chosen here is particularly smart because we’re even getting surreptitiously taught the jingle. I have no idea what CGI graphics cost these days, but their current ad is as epic as Lawrence of Arabia, compared to most other TV fodder. Clearly there’s no shortage of cash in the marketing budget.

Anyhow, Mr Orlov (very few characters in ads end up popular enough to have names) soon had some competition. In the pure marketing war, GoCompare needed to pull something special out of the hat – and they did. A recognisable character (and yes, he really is an opera singer), a good dollop of humour, and above all a jingle so insidious that you’ll want to bang your head against a wall. Utterly memorable – and even appreciated by older viewers, who will instantly recognise the song as a parody of the wartime classic “Over There”.

I tell you this. When Marketing magazine voted the Gocompare ad the most irritating ad of 2009, the ad’s creator (Chris Wilkins, also the man behind Sheila’s Wheels) should have cracked open the champagne. His work was done.

And there our tour almost ends. The lesson for smaller businesses without deep pockets is simple: stake out clear territory. Differentiate yourself from other players. Because if you don’t, you’ll end up competing on marketing spend alone. And that’s very, very expensive indeed.

I say that’s where our tour almost ends. There’s one more twist in the tale. Surely Moneysupermarket is happily still at the top of the tree? They were first in, and they surely own the corner of our minds which wants to “save money”? No, sir. Nothing in marketing stands still for long. The threat of the newcomers has been so strong that Moneysupermarket has ditched Peter Jones, and is now being forced to compete with the others by being memorable. Hence the new slew of ads featuring the highly memorable and popular cockney Iranian (I thought I was the only one) Omid Djalili:

Yup, even when you’re Number One, the competition is always snapping at your heels.

Rest assured, this is a fight to the death – this level of marketing spend is not sustainable forever (and probably serves to remind us how much money in financial services goes on sales rather than actual product). But I digress – the lesson is there for everyone: find your pitch. Protect it. Own it. And do anything you can to avoid a war based on marketing alone; because it’s bloody, drawn-out and wasteful.

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The interview: make time to listen

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Nick

This week, we’ve been interviewing for a fairly senior marketing role on a particular project. With the current economic climate, there’s been no shortage of high-calibre applicants.

It’s not the first time I’ve conducted interviews; but it is the first time I’ve been able to sit back and watch. A colleague of mine was running the interviews and I was the “second opinion”. That gave me the chance to sit back and do what everyone should do more of in business: listening.

For starters, I heartily recommend getting a second person in to help you conduct interviews. In the past, I have always found myself concentrating as much on explaining the role and asking questions as listening properly. This time round, by only having to listen and think, my opinions have been far clearer.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think we all betray our strengths and weaknesses pretty easily. I also  think that’s rather a good thing. I don’t want to employ the wrong person, not just because that’s bad for my business, but also because it’s bad for the applicant themselves. And there are always times in life when we don’t quite know what we want and apply for just about anything; and it’s actually better to be told by someone else that this isn’t the right job for you.

Having time to listen also means you pick up more of the subtle nuances that lie underneath what is, on the face of it, a straight answer.

One of the candidates, for example, I suddenly realised, was reeling off examples of the companies she had worked for, and why those companies were great. Excellent. Yet, nowhere – not once – did she explain why her contribution to those companies had been great.

We have also had a chap (actually, several examples like this), who clearly had an exceptional grasp of marketing strategy. But I got the feeling he had worked in the past with large marketing teams, and was happier “going by the book” than rolling his sleeves up and getting stuck into the real work required in smaller or startup companies. I still make the coffee now and then (badly, but I do it*), because in anything but the largest companies, everyone should muck in.

Then there was the lady who got the name of the product wrong, even though we’d just done a demo. Maybe that’s “interview nerves”, but I think it’s lack of either interest or focus or discipline or whatever… if you can’t be bothered to soak up a brand name, you probably shouldn’t be in marketing.

Just in case you’re reading this and thinking of applying for a job, here’s what impressed me about the candidates we’re taking forward:

  • They were interested in us and our company; and wanted to understand what we do before they told us how wonderful they were.
  • They applied their past experience clearly and concisely to our requirements and the issues we faced; rather than treating those experiences as virtues in themselves.
  • They were flexible. I don’t demand a bargain on time, money, commitment or anything else. Flexibility of approach is an asset long before it’s applied to any specific line of the employment contract.
  • They took time to think before answering. People who are desperate to make a good impression… don’t. People who aren’t afraid to think and examine always come out better.
  • They answered the question they were asked. If there’s one thing I notice time and again, it’s the fact that so many interviewees divert their answer to tough questions onto more comfortable ground. It’s a sidestep that I always spot, and always find disappointing.
  • They were honest. Nobody is likely to have the perfect blend of skills; and everyone has holes in their knowledge. I have far more respect for someone who says “I’ve never done that” than trying to bluff their way through.

It’s a weird thing, the interview process. I don’t want sympathy, but both sides would do well to remember that the interviewer is as human, fallible and prone to personal prejudices as anyone else. The laws of first impressions mean we make mistakes, we fail to listen or think - and we sometimes allow ourselves to be swayed by jargon-filled CVs or a short skirt (don’t kid yourselves, gents). It’s only by listening that we get past the first impressions, and to the facts which will better influence our gut instinct. Ignore first impressions, and ignore the rulebook too (because there are plenty of way-out candidates who deserve consideration). Then go with the gut feel: the personwho was honest, interested, energised by your company, and confident of making a difference. Deal done.

*Management Genius, No. 94: Always make terrible coffee. Sooner or later, people will stop asking you to make it.

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Snow joke, and other bad puns…

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Nick

I was going to try really hard not to write about the snow, but what the heck. I wrote about it in February last year when we were surprised (again); and since I had two days of cabin fever last week and we’re due another dousing, I reckon it’s time to think about it again.

But what I’m not going to do is just moan about our creaking transport system grinding to a halt, or the effect of the weather on business. No- I’m going to tell you about a big fat family row instead; and one in which I have taken a contrary view to what you might expect. It’s veering slightly off my usual territory of business, but it does affect us all as taxpayers, and I think it’s interesting. So here goes.

On 23rd December, my sister fell over on the ice and broke her arm (she’s doing very well, by the way- recovering nicely; despite fracturing both her radius and ulna – ouch!).

The interesting bit of this is the two opposing camps of opinion:

My Dad: who immediately rang a “No win no fee” solicitor, to see if it was worth lodging a claim against the council for negligence by not gritting the pavement.

Me: who thinks it’s bloody ludicrous for councils to be responsible for everything that happens to every citizen.

The solicitors gave my Dad short shrift: my sister would have to prove that she fell over in a sufficiently long time after it had started snowing that the council ought by then to have got round to gritting the pavements. I’m very pleased.

My point is: we already have an excellent social system in place for coping with this: it’s called the NHS. When it’s icy, a number of people will, inevitably, fall over and break bones. This is exactly what the NHS is for; it’s exactly what redistributive tax systems are for, and I’m over the moon that my sister got prompt healthcare and is nicely patched up. Irrespective of her income or social standing, she was entitled to enough healthcare to see her back on her feet as a fundamental right of being a British citizen. That’s the sort of thing which makes me a happy taxpayer.

What doesn’t make me a happy taxpayer is the idea that the council should take responsibility for everything that could possibly befall a human being in any council’s catchment area. It isn’t their job to fix everything. It isn’t their job to wrap every citizen in cotton wool, and every council would be bankrupt in minutes if it was. There are thousands more worthy failings in public life that deserve legal attention ahead of the general mishaps that befall all of us every now and then.

The same, unfortunately, is true of the big hoo-hah about gritting the roads. Councils do have to take a view on how much grit to stockpile (I believe most went into this winter with 13 days of grit stacked up). Gritters, salt and the people to drive them don’t come free of charge, and there’s a trade-off to be made. Perhaps they got it wrong this time, perhaps the future will see harsher winters than the past, and perhaps we can learn from the experience; but again we cannot hold “the system” responsible. We just have to have get on with whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

The minute I expect the council to be the solution of last resort, I might as well close up my business and leave it all to somebody else. It’s no surprise to me that well over 80% of my staff managed to make it into work; everyone who didn’t still managed to work from home (thank you, the internet), and we got lots done. Ultimately, the only person responsible for my business is me. Yes, my council tax and business rates are steep; but they’d be a heck of a lot steeper if our public servants had to pick up the pieces of every activity in human experience that didn’t quite work out how we wanted it to.

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So who’s going to save us?

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Nick

There’s a big difference between the political classes and the great British public.

Politicians are still trying to put a gloss on our heinous economic situation- refusing to admit that we need drastic cuts from somewhere. That’s what happens when there’s an election round the corner.

The Great British Public, however, aren’t so stupid. In 2009, for the first time in decades, we began to save more than we spent. With each household indebted to the tune of 75% more than  its disposable income, Britain collectively tightened its belt. We know a crisis when we see one, and we’re not too shabby at getting on with putting things right.

But if consumers aren’t buying so much stuff, doesn’t that just drive the economy downwards? And now that temporary measures (VAT, stamp duty, car scrappage scheme) are tailing off, won’t the full majesty of the recession be revealed in all its grim glory?

Quite possibly- unless business rises to the challenge as effectively as consumers have done. For what they’re worth, here are my thoughts:

  • By “The economy”, we usually mean “The British economy”. There’s a fairly sizeable region called “The Rest of The World” which deserves some consideration. We are still a disgracefully large net importer of goods. As the pound floats gently downwards, now is the time to think about selling our stuff, at a profit, to the rest of the world.
  • Which means we could do with rediscovering our manufacturing heritage. If 2009 was the year we all decided we hated bankers, and realised that our financial wellbeing was slightly (and it is only slight) skewed towards financial services, then let’s look at the alternatives. Perhaps we could build and sell more stuff? When the government mumbles on about things like green technologies and renewables, they may not sound convincing, but they have got it absolutely right: innovation is what we need. And we have all the infrastructure for innovation: a well-developed university network for academic R&D; no shortage of venture financing and a pair of fairly fluid stockmarkets. What’s not to love?
  • My point is that innovation isn’t just a meaningless word for “looking forward”; it is starkly opposed to what I am going to call “milking”- and which has been characteristic of the past decade. Many companies have succeeded in pushing up their value and stock prices, quarter after quarter,  just by milking their existing services. And they’ve done it by cutting costs (by using better technology, working people harder, or just providing less impressive service). Well, when everything’s cut to the bone, you can’t cut any more. You have to innovate your way to profits.

And that’s interesting- because it levels the playing field. Everyone can innovate. You can innovate in your living room, on bits of paper. Everyone has the right to say, “Why do we always do things like this; why don’t we try something different?” Now, admittedly, eight out of BusinessWeek’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2009 are technology-oriented. But look at No. 19: it’s McDonald’s. You know, the fast food burger company… except that now it’s a serious competitor to Starbucks Coffee, with outlets redesigned to welcome consumers in search of premium coffee priced for the recession generation.

Smaller companies are at it too: Innocent Drinks (one of my favourite success stories, although they’ve had a bumpier ride of late) are still pumping out clever new products; and here’s one of my favourite new startups: SendSocial. It’s a genius idea for the way we live today. Let me ask you a question: this Christmas, how often did you say to yourself, “I’d love to send them a card, but I don’t have their address”. We know people on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and all sorts of other places, but physical addresses are rapidly becoming an anachronism. SendSocial provides a mechanism to deliver physical goods to people, even though you may only know their Twitter ID. It handles permissions, logistics and privacy for all parties – so real things can change hands despite our social lives moving to the digital domain. Smart!

I think SendSocial counts as innovative- all we need now is many thousands more entrepreneurs and business have-a-go-heroes to put some wellie back into the economy. It’s neither the government’s nor the consumer’s job to get the show on the road; it’s up to us and our inexhaustible reservoir of ideas – ranging from the brilliant to the downright ridiculous – to keep UK plc on track.

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Farewell, then, the noughties… what’s 2010 got in store?

Posted on December 24, 2009 by Nick

Well, this is probably my last post of not just the year, but a whole decade. And that gives us quite a lot to look back on; here’s a list from off the top of my head. They’re largely negative, but that’s only because it’s bad things which make the news…

  • the biggest debt pile in history
  • a Labour administration that oddly turned out to be neither pro-union nor pro-business
  • the real rise of India and especially China; with Brazil hot on their heels
  • a truly globalised economy; but with associated penalties to pay in food miles and climate change
  • the internet explosion – even your mum shops online
  • layers of ownership by multinationals – much UK infrastructure is foreign-owned; or supported by sovereign wealth funds
  • we still don’t seem to manufacture very much
  • Mr Brown sold your gold and regrets it

So, where do we stand today? I have a few predictions to make; so let’s see how many come true…

  • The recession may have ‘officially’ ended; but its effects will last a very long time. Productivity is already looking up; but unemployment will continue to rise into the third quarter of 2010, and stay high for much longer than expected.
  • Taxes will rise permanently; whoever is in power. However, I predict a Conservative win at the general election (which I think will be in March or April); and David Cameron will keep the 50% tax rate and other punitive rates created by Gordon Brown.
  • Expect the idea of a Tobin Tax on financial market transactions to gain support. Expect the bankers’ bonus hoo-hah to die down.
  • Business will finally be appreciated as the engine room of the economy – and small business the quickest win of all. Expect to see fairly innovative approaches to getting people into work and business; remember, paying people to stay on the dole is the worst result of all for our limping economy.
  • A cheaper pound also supports our export markets. This is a once-in-an-economic-cycle chance to reinvest in manufacturing and exporting from our industrial heartlands. I would like to see our manufacturing base increase.
  • Dumb businesses will fail. I have spent a long time working in the internet sector, and I have lost count of the number of fly-by-night propositions which have come and gone. Some have stayed and succeeded through luck alone. The great Warren Buffett said “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked”; and the tide is now definitiely out. There are too many life-coaches, too many Facebook Apps and all the rest of it. In Mr Buffett’s brutal ocean, it’s time for the skinny-dippers to go!
  • …but there’s hope for even the skinny-dippers. As I said early last year, we have the most mobile workforce ever; with access to more employment information than ever; with better access to training, further education and reskilling than ever. It’s never a great time to change careers, but it’s certainly never been more of an option.
  • Britain will continue to rediscover saving. The obsessively consumer society is gone (thank goodness). I hope we’ll remember that life doesn’t just revolve around having a new plasma screen. We’re already saving more than we ever did in the past 20 years, and I think that’s going to continue.

So there it is – find this post again at the end of next year, and see whether I was talking sense – or letting the tide go out along with my Speedos. [NB: That was irony. I promise, I have never, ever, worn Speedos...] May I wish you the very finest compliments of the season; a few days off with friends and family, and every success in 2010.

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Hospitality – How not to treat your customers

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Nick

What, I wonder, is the corporate party season going to be like this year?

A friend of mine, who works for one of the big merchant banks, tells me that he’s not allowed to have a Christmas party. In fact, his company is so paranoid about bankers being seen as profligate that he’s been told that he must not attend any event with more than two of his colleagues. Otherwise, that will be deemed as a Christmas party, and he’ll be disciplined. Ouch.

Oh well – that’s what you get for being a banker these days. I’m sure he can cry into his bonus.

In general, there does seem to be a little more austerity to Christmas than I’ve seen over the past decade or so. There’s definitely a trend towards smaller, less flashy gatherings. No exotic locations or legendary bands drafted in ‘for one night only’.

And that presumably means there’s less money being spent in the hospitality business; which also ought to mean that every customer gained is a cause for celebration. Well, not at Marco Pierre White’s L’Escargot restaurant. Which is where we had planned a Christmas meal for 15 this week. Aside from being astonishingly rude to a member of my staff, this strange establishment decided that it required a 100% deposit to secure the booking. As they say in the best tabloid stories, “we made our excuses and left”.

I can only assume that the recession is being hard on Mr White. Margins must be so low that he can’t afford anyone not to turn up for their table. Or perhaps the service is so arrogant that people regularly turn up and then don’t pay.

The restaurant business is certainly ultra-competitive at the moment. so let me perhaps use this experience to find some helpful business advice (through gritted teeth):

  1. Talk to everyone who walks through the door as though they’re the only customer in the world. This is true for every service business and should be tattooed on every shop assistant or waiting staff’s hand.
  2. A deposit is a proportion of a total bill to be paid in advance which secures a service. A 100% deposit isn’t a deposit. It’s an upfront payment. In some businesses, an upfront payment is the way things are (after all, you don’t pay to see a film or enjoy a theme park on the way out). In other businesses, it’s not. In the restaurant business, it’s not.
  3. Never forget the laws of supply and demand. Three years ago, Christmas parties were hard to organise. London literally had no acceptable venues left. Some companies moved their Christmas parties to January! Demand had outstripped supply. Today, however, there’s plenty of supply; especially in my area of town. There are at least 60 suitable establishments within 50m of my office. The laws of supply and demand therefore tip the balance in my favour. If you operate a monopoly in your business, you can afford to get complacent (until an agile young upstart comes along and teaches you a lesson). If you’ve got competition, though, you must never forget that the customer has a choice; and they hold all the ace cards.
  4. Reputation counts – and it’s easier to lose than to win. I have no idea whether Mr White ever cooks in this restaurant. But it’s his name on the awning outside. It’s his reputation which hangs in the balance here, and he can consider it dented. I have had one unhappy client this year; and it cuts me to the quick to know that there’s someone out there who hasn’t had the best service possible from my company. Whereas, I very much doubt, judging from the attitude of the staff we spoke to, that anyone at Mr White’s gaff is going to worry on our behalf. And if they don’t; then he should – because it’s his name that’s being sullied.

There. I feel a lot better now. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

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Reasons to be cheerful

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Nick

It’s been a heck of a week for me. I took my first sick day of the year with a godawful dose of the black death, cholera, flu ManFlu; just when we were gearing up for a major day of filming with clients on Friday. Never mind -  all went well.

Besides, it’s that time of year when I get to properly take some time off; and stop rambling on about business and entrepreneurship; and get a bit fatter than I already am.

But not just yet – there are some tenuously Christmassy things about business I want to bring up first.

Firstly, I reckon you’ll be reading this on Monday December 7th – which is being dubbed “CyberMonday”. Apparently it’s the online shopper’s biggest day of the year; so if you’re running an online business I wish you the very best of luck. And if you’re a consumer, rightly keeping out of the cold and rain to do some of that Christmas shopping online, please be sure to buy from reputable names and not the many masquerading shysters out there who make online shopping an occasionally perilous experience.

Secondly, a plea from me to Messrs Brown and Darling. Can we please, please have an extension to the 15% VAT rate until the end of next year? I know you need the money, but we could really do with the help. Let me explain.

  1. Companies like mine have quite high margins. The difference between 15% and 17.5% tax for me is very little in real terms. But the sheer pain-in-the-butt of changing my accountancy and quote documentation is beyond belief. The cost of the last changeover was estimated to be in the tens of millions – all burdens that we as small businesses have to bear. 
  2. Companies on lower margins really need the assistance. That’s why the rate was changed in the first place. Please don’t change it back just as we’re getting back on our feet.
  3. And January 1st is a bloody stupid time to do it! It’s a bank holiday! Are we all supposed to spend the first day of 2010 knee-deep in spreadsheets? Grrrrr!
  4. This will also completely distort the January Sales for retailers. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might think that this was a ploy by the government to get good Christmas sales – as customers rush out to buy goods before the price at the till goes up again…

Apparently, according to a recent survey, 73% of people want the 15% rate extended. You can add my name to the list.

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A picture paints a thousand words…

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Nick

Did you know that the war in Iraq has so far cost fifteen times more than Africa’s entire debt to the West?

Or six times more than it would cost to feed and educate every child on the planet for five years?

These are the statistics posited by David McCandless’ “Billion-Dollar-O-Gram”, which I found thanks to this BBC article.

What’s interesting is that the visuals of the Billion-Dollar-O-Gram are much more arresting than the words – even when the words are as astonishing as the facts I opened with here.

You can blame Michael Buerk and Bob Geldof, Greg Dyke and Rupert Murdoch, Piers Morgan and Tim Berners-Lee  for all this. Since the mid-1980s, we have become so connected to the facts (and atrocities) of the world around us, so overloaded with information, so self-aware and media-savvy, that it’s not only very hard to shock, but also very hard just to communicate effectively.

Believe me, I know: as a corporate journalist it’s my ever-harder job to make companies sound interesting. In fact, just being heard in the crowd is something of an achievement these days. Think about this as an example: when was the last time you heard a company use words like “innovative” or ”iconic” and thought… “Actually, they really are!”?

It’s a rarity. Maybe what your business does really is innovative, different, ground-breaking and iconic. It’s bloody hard to shout about it, though. I mean, if we’re desensitised to the starving children and mindless violence dribbling through our TV screens every day, how can something as minor as “my cool business idea” gain any interest or traction?

That’s why I like what McCandless’ is doing (although I suspect he’d not be impressed with my hijacking it for business purposes!): pictures have as much to offer businesses as words. It’s why I think PowerPoint is misused. If you use PowerPoint to display the words you’re going to say anyway; you’re completely missing the power of the tool. If, however, you use it to present visual endorsements of your words, then you’ll be doubling your ability to communicate. Nothing highlights differentials better than galloping graphs or layers of contrasting colours.

So next time you have a raft of boring figures to impart to a mind-numbed audience, or complex themes to get across to a sceptical audience, think visually. And that’s not just about charts:

  • Use colours to identify pathways through complex themes: it helps your audience follow your threads
  • Iconography can help too (don’t ask why, but I have a friend who puts farm animals in his slide shows. It’s usually around the tenth slide that someone will finally ask what the animals are for…)
  • Graphical representations are instincively understood: a visual scale will often be understood faster than a percentage. Similarly graphics of different sizes express relationships in an instinctive way (think pictures of sumo wrestler next to a toddler as an example).

I will never be a graphic artist (I never graduated beyond crayons…) but I have no doubt that in a world where you have to shout to be heard; you need to use every technique in the communicator’s toolkit – and visual techniques are massively underrated.

PowerPoint is of course, part of the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, and you can get a free 60-day trial of Office  here.

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Think different for a successful business

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Nick

This week, one of my more amusing reads has been “Complete and utter Zebu” by Simon Rose and Steve Caplin (to find out what Zebu is, you’ll have to buy the book). It’s a catalogue of the sometimes scary lies told by businesses, politicians and publicity gurus to part us from our money, our morals, or our votes. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read.

It seems odd for me to pull a business lesson out of a book which spends much of its time holding a sceptical eye up to some of big business’ more dubious tactics; but towards the end of the book I found a delightful chapter devoted to quotes from some of history’s most influential businesspeople and inventors- getting things wrong. And because they’re quotes, I can repeat some of them here for you.

“The Phonograph has no commercial value” - Thomas Edison

“This ‘Telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us”- Western Union Memo

“That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced”- Scientific American, 1909

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”- Harry Warner, head of Warner Brothers, 1927

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”- Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, 1946

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”- Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, 1977

So – you can rightly giggle to yourself at these pontificating pronouncements from the great and the good. Edison, of course, is forgivable for many of these comments – he successfully patented a raft of inventions; and watched several more reach a mass audience with somebody else long after he had discarded them.

Several more of these comments, though (particularly Warner and 20th Century Fox) are paradigm examples of big companies sticking their heads in the sand when a new, threatening technology comes along; hoping the danger will go away.

The quote from Scientific American about cars is also by no means alone – in the 1800s, the British Society, then the world’s foremost platform for scientific discourse, almost closed its doors, claiming that “everything there to be discovered has been discovered”.

What makes these comments so interesting is that we’re all experts when we’re armed with hindsight. In the fray of business, these big players are at an inherent disadvantage. They move slowly and ponderously. It’s small, agile companies which create game-changing new business models. Some smarter large businesses see this, and create innovation labs to check out new ideas. They fund offshoots without the burden of the big corporate architecture, to accelerate new ideas to fruition.

Fashion brands even employ young style consultants who are so close to emerging trends that they can spot next year’s playground uber-trend while it’s still incubating in just one urban club.

But if you’re looking for the Next Big Thing, you can do no better than to ask yourself, all the time, “Why does it have to be this way?” By thinking differently, by challenging received wisdom, by questioning the assumed and obvious; that’s where so many innovative new ideas and their subsequent businesses can be allowed to emerge. And that thinking needs no money: just an open mind.

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