We held our annual journalist lunch yesterday, where we entertain the great and good of the journalists that write about us during the year gone by. We hired a lovely venue in London called “
The Cuckoo Club“.
Maintaining excellent journalist relations is key in big businesses and 2008 has been our best ever year for coverage. It’s very important that you measure the effectiveness of your activity beyond “we got in the paper” to things like “did we get our key message delivered” and “how many times did our website url appear as a call to action”. We buy an excellent report called the “Apollo report” which details every element of our activity right down to which journalists favour competitors over you.
But it all starts with creating great personal relationships and building your own credibility with the people who do the work. This really supports the work of your PR agency and – providing you join up the dots up and keep good communication going with them – it’s a very effective way of growing your company profile.
If you get a minute, these were the three acts we hired to enterain the journalists, they were all absolutely brilliant: -
Today, has been quite a day. I travelled down to London with some other members of the North West Chambers of Commerce for meetings with some ministers.
The rollcall can be seen below of who we met. The highlight of the day was an unscheduled trip to 11 Downing Street (the Chancellors pad) for tea. So, there we are enjoying a cup of tea and who should walk in but the Chancellors wife who then generously gave us an impromptu tour of numbers 11 and 10 Downing Street.
What a lovely lady she was, very humorous, charming and great fun. Can you imagine how bizarre it must feel to be walking round the Prime Ministers pad and seeing what’s really behind the door? Fascinating.
Anyway, our meetings included audiences with: -
Lord Paul Myners (Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury). Subbed in for Alistair Darling who had to prepare for an emergency debate.
Nice guy, new to the post, charismatic, been in business a long time, listened well).
Baroness Shriti Vadera (Minister for Economic Competitiveness and Small Business).
Spent most of her time fiddling with her blackberry and came across as distracted. Obviously got a lot on her plate.
Beverley Hughes MP (Minister of State for the North West).
Listened attentively and had a good interaction with the group.
George Osborne MP (Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer).
Listened attentively and again had a good interaction with the group.
I put across the points I make in my pre-budget response, particularly around the 2.5% VAT decrease not really having the impact the government plan and the squeeze on trade credit by the credit insurers. There was also a lot of discussion around empty property taxes by the property developers.
Here’s a closing thought for you. If the pound shops pass on the 2.5% VAT cut, will they have to re-brand as 97.5p shops?
This is my response to the PBR on behalf of the IT industry. This will be circulated to the IT industry press over the coming week.
Tomorrow I will be meeting Alistair Darling and George Osborne, so it will be interesting for them to hear these views….
“The VAT cut is a sticking plaster that will eventually peel off to reveal an unhealed economic wound. What business really needed from this pre-budget report was some structural surgery.
The market is driven by price-points and I fail to see how a £99.99 price point moving to £97.49 will stimulate sales in our sector. All the VAT cut will do is give everyone involved in the channel a short-term headache as they struggle to implement it across their IT and accounts systems.
We can’t assume that the VAT cut will be passed on because margins are under pressure from other factors such as the devaluation of sterling, which is ramping up import cost prices. So I wouldn’t be surprised if distributors and resellers opt for a simpler approach and maintain price points during the temporary VAT cut and pocket the 2.5% to give them a little bit extra headroom.
The bigger issue facing the sector is the withdrawal of credit insurance, which the Chancellor failed to address. This could be just as damaging to long term trade in the IT sector as the lack of credit being offered to businesses by the banks. As credit insurers increasingly pull cover, it has spread nervousness in the market and is putting the brakes on transactions, ultimately leading to stagnation in the industry. The CBI hit the nail on the head in its ten-point pre-Budget submission when it called for the Government to counter the withdrawal of trade credit insurance and act as insurer of the last resort.”
One of the few silver linings in the budget was the Government’s commitment to bring forward £3bn of capital spending to renew primary and secondary schools, among other investments. This could help to stimulate IT capital expenditure from the public sector.”
David Cameron flew into Manchester last night to address around 500 Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce members and their guests. He did a good job in the twenty minutes or so he spoke for and was competent enough on the Q&A.
He used the adjectives “shocking, depressing and unconvincing” to describe the Pre-Budget Report delivered by the Chancellor today. I thought this a clever use of words to create maximum impact.
It strikes me has a lot more charisma than Brown, or indeed, Conservative leaders before him. His presentation style reminds me of Tony Blair at times, using hand gestures to emphasise key points.
He stuck to the golden rule of presenting, which is to stand still to create authority. He used humour when appropriate and made a positive impact on the audience. A masterclass in presentation skills if you ask me. Fantastic job by Angie Robinson, the Chief Executive of GMCC to get him to Manchester on such an important day.
Speaking at the CBI today, Gordon Brown told the CBI that the Government would support investment in low-carbon projects to help ensure that Britain made the most of opportunities in “the environmental revolution”. He said that worldwide, the green economy could be worth as much as $3 trillion a year by 2050, employing more than 25 million people. “I want Britain to benefit from these new jobs, with at least 1 million jobs in the green economy by 2030,” he said.
Wow, £3 trillion is 3 million, millions. An almight sum of money. If that isn’t a decent incentive to innovation, then I don’t know what is.
How many times do you get asked this question and always respond in the same way? “I’m really well thanks, how are you”. Even when you’re at deaths door, politeness dicatates that we always answer in this way.
So, imagine a member of your team who may be struggling with a big interpersonal problem which is affecting their work. You come in expecting that they will pour their heart out to you on any issue, but instead they go straight into response/auto-response.
Frame your questions differently, “How are things at home?”, “How are things out of work?”, “Are you OK?”, “Health aside, how are you?”
“How are you” as a question in western societies, always suggests we are enquiring about physical health when in fact it is the emotional health of your workforce which you should be most worried about. The best leaders enquire and listen to develop a deep understanding of the people with whom they work.
So next time you’re with one of your team, why don’t you frame your question differently, don’t be in a hurry, listen, and see what you uncover….
Have you ever had a conversation or meeting with someone, where you came away thinking one thing and saying another?
You know what I mean, you didn’t really speak your mind or go the whole hog with what you wanted to say, probably because you don’t like confrontation. Saying one thing and thinking another is not a good place to be in. Why?
Because it’s not good for you (it leads to tension) and it’s not good for the third party as they go away thinking something different. When you do this, you’re almost dropping into the “Frienemy” category (see earlier blog “Jason and the Jargonauts).
The best way to get your point across when you need to speak your mind, particularly if it’s confrontational is to use the “I feel” technique. Rather than pointing an accusation, instead turn the situation around by saying how the situation makes you feel.
An example. “Sometimes our working relationship makes me feel that things could be better between us”. Does that say “I don’t get on with you”. No. It opens the debate, it allows a conversation and you get whatever is bothering you off your chest.
I was taught this technique by a business psychologist many years ago, it’s stood me in good stead.
Is your organisation dysfunctional? Is everyone doing what they should be to make the business perform? Do you have strategic objectives or is it all in your head?
I’m staggered by the numbers of businesses that I meet, where the leader knows where they want to go, but no-one else does. Clarity provides purpose, it allows people to work to your objectives, it makes people feel connected to the goals of the organisation.
Here’s a two-minute guide to setting up clarity in your organisation.
Get your objectives clear? Is it increased sales? Is it reduced costs? Is it increased profits? Decide and create some clear KPI’s (not too many or you spend too much time measuring, what you need is cockpit measures). i.e.,
KP1 – Top 10 customer revenues to be increased by XX.
KP2 – Cost reduction target of XX% in area Y.
Get your critical success factors established? i.e., To increase sales, we need to find XX many new customers or shift XX many more units per year. You can figure out your barriers/enablers by doing things like SWOT analysis.
Birth the projects to deliver the Critical success factors, assign them to someone. Measure them. Put timelines against them.
So, the formula should be. To deliver the objectives, we must deliver the critical success factors, to deliver the critical success factors, we have to complete projects X, Y and Z.
Make sense?
Once you’ve generated this (and I can do all of this on one sheet of paper for a £100M business), communicate it. Tell people. Eating the elephant of “we need to grow sales” is far easier when it’s broken down into, KPI’s, CSF’s and projects.
Voila. Clarity.
Have you been positive today? Have you listened to someones ideas? Have you done someone a favour without wanting one returned? Have you smiled regularly? Have you been approachable? Have you let life wash over you?
Feels good when you do it, doesn’t it?
So, what stops you doing it every day?
Because being positive isn’t something you can constantly maintain, right?
Wrong. You are in charge of your behaviour and your emotions. You can choose your pathway for the day. You can give, not take. You can be upbeat, not down. You can be encouraging, not critical. You can influence others.
Recognising how you feel and how you deal with it takes a lot of personal reflection. Want a good book to read about it? Try Will Schutz, The Human Element. Out of print now, but one of the best.
Two new words that didn’t make the official English dictionary this week.
“Jargonaut”. Excessive use of Jargon
“Frienemy”. Someone that claims to be your friend but is secretly stabbing you in the back.
Jargon is definitely increasing in business. Sometimes it can be effective as a shortcut. Other time it is falsely used to make someone feel more superior which absolutly negates teamworking and moving the business on. Jargon should only be used amongst people that fully understand what it means, otherwise don’t use it!
As for a Frienemy, who needs one of those? Human relationships seem to be breaking down around us. People preferring to text bad news, friends simply being counted as the number of people who have nudged you on “Facebook” or “Myspace”. Real friendship is unconditional, deep, lasting, honest and open. So, I’m glad “Frienemy” didn’t make it into the dictionary.
Next challenge. What’s the texting shortcut for the above two words? The kids no doubt have already worked it out…..
