Or not. Either way, really.

I was speaking to a group of franchisors the other day.

(For those of you who don’t know the term, a franchisor (person or group/company) sits at the head of a franchise. They are the people everyone else buys their franchise from. They own the brand, have developed the systems and processes, and take a monthly fee from each of their locations.)

So anyway. I was speaking to them. I was there to give them a bit of input and advice about local marketing. It’s a subject that is particularly relevant to most franchises out there. I can’t tell you how many franchisees (the people who buy the franchise) get upset about marketing. Seriously it’s a high percentage.

The thing that drives most of them mad is this – they keep getting given generic marketing strategies that have nothing to do with their area, their competition or their customers. It’s all generic. What kind of support is that?

My company has a bit of a speciality in this area. We developed a comprehensive franchise marketing system to do just that. It’s all about getting results at a local level.

It’s also about learning. Why don’t companies take the time to learn about their customers? Why don’t they take the time to really understand the competition?

This is particularly true when it comes to the franchise industry. Most franchises will boast about their ‘world-class’ marketing support and, to be honest, 98% of them are talking bollocks. Their idea of marketing support is to print up a bunch of generic leaflets and tell the locations to distribute them.

Where? To whom? Why? All good questions.

The thing is, most franchisors miss out on one of their greatest local marketing assets – their franchisees. For the most part, a franchisee buys a franchise within the area they live. They know the history. They know the people. They know who is there and why people prefer one thing to another.

So why don’t they get asked?

When I posed this question to the group of franchisors, how many do you think actually asked their franchisees about this?

Not one. Seriously.

That’s an awful lot of local knowledge they missed out on. It’s silly, and it winds up costing you money.

It’s not just about franchising either. We’re currently bringing two new software products to the market for two separate clients. In both cases we have been doing an awful lot of groundwork to identify and connect to the potential customers. You have to do this, or you’ll end up with a very shiny system with nobody to use (or pay for) it.

Talking to people is important. Listening is even more so. If you really want to practice sensible marketing, take the time to engage with your customers (or potential ones). Take the time to really understand who they are. Look at the real competition, not just the obvious ones.

In short – you need to do the ground work and understand that every area, every city, every group of people, are all different.

Or you can call my company, and we’ll do it for you ;-)

-j

The hospitality industry thrives on customer service. Some get it right, others get it disastrously wrong. Here are two places in Edinburgh that I love, and I love them (in part) because of the attention they pay to their customers.

(and yes, the food is awesome too)

Mark Greenaway
Last night I took my girlfriend out to visit Mark Greenaway‘s restaurant on Picardy Place. I go there all the time on business, but last night was the first time I got to experience the restaurant in a relaxed social occasion.

(as Nicola, the Maitre’D, said to my girlfriend “whenever he’s here he’s always talking, never eating”)

Now if you haven’t been there at lunch. Go. Stop reading this and call them (0131 557 0952) to book a table. Do it now. This is the steal of the city. £16.50 for two of the nicest courses you’re going to find. You can’t beat it. It’s insanely good value. I mean almost criminal. I bring a regular business group here every month and everyone who comes is amazed at the food and the value. It’s quite simply the best place in Edinburgh to have a business lunch (we get a private room for our lunch meetings – makes it even better).

Back to last night. My girlfriend has some food intolerances. You know – Gluten, nuts, some dairy – that sort of thing. I talked to Nicola and Mark beforehand and they assured me they could handle everything. And boy did they. From start to finish they did a lot of little things that made our evening pretty special. To start with, the ‘amuse bouche’ that everyone else (including me) got had some cream in it so, without any fuss or mention, they brought out a special one just for her. It looked awesome. I was slightly jealous.

Bread is another thing. It’s one thing not to give her any bread (most places) but they went a really nice step further and brought her some rye bread (which she can eat). That was awesome. I could eat my bread without stealing guilty glances at her.

Now the food. Ohhhh the food. Just unbelievable. I had scallops as my starter and she had langoustines. Both were amazing. Now I go diving for scallops, so I’m an old hand at cooking scallops and I always judge a place pretty harshly on the quality of their scallops. These were stunning. Fresh and perfectly cooked. The taste combinations were amazing. Yum.

Without any fuss, they modified the dishes to suit my girlfriend’s intolerances. Nothing was a problem, and they were more than flexible. That meant a lot to both of us.

The mains were the same way. I had a stunning beef dish which may have been topped by her duck, which was sublime. I loved the beef, but that duck was good enough to make you cry.

(On a side note, they had put aside some of the purple mash and made it without cream so she could have that if she wanted. Nice touch.)

Dessert was a tough one. She can’t have cream or gluten, so most of the desserts were out. They put together a lovely summery eton mess (minus the cream)  for her and gave me one of the nicest chocolate fondants I have ever had. Seriously. I almost had to get a room so I could be alone. I’m not kidding. Have it. Bring a hanky.

At the end of the meal, Mark came out to say hi. We’re going back in a couple of weeks with some friends, so he offered to put together a special dessert for my girlfriend so she could enjoy some chocolate too.

Sum it up? The food was sublime, but the business moral is even better. There were a lot of little things they did to make our evening special. A lot of little things that meant my girlfriend could have an amazing meal without worrying. That doesn’t happen at a lot of places. And it’s a great advert for what makes good customer service. Attention. You have have to pay attention. It doesn’t have to be big things, in fact, the little things matter even more. Mark Greenaway delivered in a huge way. On every level.

(and guess what? I’m back there for lunch today. I’m spoiled…)

Illegal Jacks
Slightly different from Mark Greenaway. Just a bit.

I love Jack’s place. I’m an official #jackaholic. I just don’t have the t-shirt yet.

But anyway, let’s get to the point. Illegal Jack‘s has a pretty big  following in Edinburgh. They do a lot on social media and they get a whole lot of repeat customers. There is a reason for this. And only part of it is the food.

The food is awesome. I personally can’t tell you how many times I have had a craving for an Illegal Jacks’ burrito that went almost to the physically disabling point. I mean, what the hell do they put in their burritos? Is this another Coke thing? Should I be worried? If you haven’t tried Illegal Jacks yet, let me give you some advice. Beef/Pork burrito is the only thing you will ever need (their chicken wings and nachos are great too). Get a burrito. Load it up with pinto beans, beef, cheese, sour cream and salsa. And good luck. They are a susbstantial meal, but I have never failed to eat it all. I can’t stop myself.

The food is only half of it. Jacks really love their customers. And it shows in everything they do. Again it’s the little things. I reserved a table for my birthday and they always print out a nice reservation notice with your twitter handle on it. This time, it mentioned me as the “Birthday Boy”. It made me laugh. If you have anything you need that’s special or you want to do something a bit different for someone, they are up for it. They are there all the time for their customers. They want to engage. They want to hear from us.

And that’s what makes it special. Yes the food is awesome, but you feel like you’re a part of Illegal Jacks. You feel like it’s your place. It’s like Cheers, with no Norm. Well, maybe not exactly like Cheers, but you get my point. They pay attention to their customers. They pay attention to the little details. They make their customers feel special.

There it is. Two fantastic places to eat in Edinburgh. Two places with amazing (albeit very different) food. Two places that really care about their customers and understand that customer service is about one main thing: paying attention to the little details.

(and now, after all of that, it’s 08:42 in the morning and I’m absolutely starving)

-j

In some ways I’m going to have to tip the old hat in @craig_mckenna‘s direction. His latest blog about the responsibilities that consultants have to their clients played out in my mind as I have been working with a new client.

How many businesses suffer because they don’t actually go out and get the help they so badly need?

Rough guess? I can’t even make a stab, but from my experience it’s a lot of them and it can be the death blow.

I don’t actually mean consultants either. This can be legal, accountancy, IP….you name it.

Let me give you a scenario I have seen recently:

The company is launching a new type of offering that they will be taking out across the UK and, if all goes well, to the rest of the world. They are spending considerable time (and money) in developing their new product. They have spent hours working on it. They have spent thousands developing it. They are speaking to my company about launching it.

This is not an insignificant investment.

What is the one thing missing?

Protection. They haven’t budgeted, or really even addressed, the specific intellectual property areas of concern.

And it’s keeping me up at night. IP is a big area for our work. Most of what we do in the technology field is about launching new technology products. I can tell you right now that these projects will fail if the IP isn’t protected adequately.

So why do these companies not look for advice sooner? It’s not that they are all just massively ignorant and don’t understand that these are issues that need to be addressed – most of them know this very well.

As always, it normally comes down to cost. “We can’t afford it” and “We’ll deal with it later” are the stock answers I get told when I dig a little deeper.

Really? I think that’s a bit of bollocks. It normally costs nothing to put a plan in place. Why are you waiting?

I do a lot of work Harper MacLeod across the UK. I was having a drink with one of their partners the other day and I asked him about when I should look to bring him in on my projects. My worry, as I put it, was in bringing him in too early, when the money may not be there to do all the work.

His answer may surprise people. He would rather be brought in early and help the company understand the best direction for them (in a legal and protection sense) so that the company has a full understanding of where the dangers and opportunities are. His rationale is no different from my rationale – if we do a good job and build a good relationship now, we will stick with these clients for life. That’s good business from everyone’s perspective.

I’ll put it another way. Rather sad to admit this, but back when I first started my company I wasn’t necessarily the best at dealing with HMRC. If I got a bit behind with them, I tended to ignore the letters for months. What a stupid way of dealing with a problem. Bury your head and hope it goes away. What I found, to my surprise, was that they were very willing to help me out if I came to them early and explained the situation.

OK, that’s a bit of a different situation, but the principle is the same. If you’re in business and you need help, why are you waiting to ask for it? Most companies are willing to talk without you handing over a cheque, and if you detail what the problems are, you’ll be surprised at how many companies will point you in the right direction. The worst thing you can do is put it off.

(and if anyone needs a good lawyer, give me a call ;-))

- j

Anyway, there was a bit of a sales pitch on his side of the table, but he was a nice guy and, at the very least, he was honest about it. I appreciate that. I liked him.

Of course what always happens in these meetings is that the two of us play a bit of ‘show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ footsy. Here’s what we do. Oh yeah? Here’s what we do! Repeat.

As I was talking to him a bit about what Designate does, I started to talk a lot more about what makes us different from most marketing companies. The short 3-second answer?

Sometimes it’s our job to tell you that you look fat in that dress.

I’ll elaborate.

Most marketing companies are really just glorified creative companies. That’s not a slight by the way. I admire them. I really do! I also use quite a lot of them on different projects. But let’s not confuse what they do with what real marketing is about. Real marketing is placement. Real marketing is the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ and then the ‘how’ and the ‘where’. The pretty skin on top is the last part of the equation. It’s a critical part, of course, but if it’s not grounded with a proper understanding of the fundamentals, it’s also a useless part. Most creative companies will act on what they are given. They don’t question…they execute on what they are asked.

Not us.

I gave him an example:

We’re working with an exciting software company right now. They have developed some very cool technology and they came to use to figure out a strategy for them. How could they turn their business from one that uses their technology to service clients into one that sells their technology and makes a lot of passive income. It’s a big question. It’s a huge change in business model but, if they could manage it, they could see the benefits. And they have been trying to figure out how to do it for years with no luck.

Well we took a look at the technology and, based on where they were, said forget it. You can’t play in that field, and going forward like that is suicide. You won’t make it. There isn’t enough of a market to make it worthwhile. Ouch eh?

Was that the end of it? Of course not. Our job isn’t to do what you tell us to do – it’s to come up with a strategy to accomplish what you want to do. If you knew how to do it, you wouldn’t need us.

Now we could have accepted the project on spec. They briefed us to do something, we execute the brief. Job done. Chance of success? hmmm..I’ll say about 5%?

Instead, we did what we always do. We worked out where the best opportunities existed and we made a case for a strategy to go after them. We got our hands dirty. And guess what? We have been helping them leverage their technology into specific niche markets. And it’s working. And they are happy.

That’s one of the things I love about what we do at Designate – it’s not our job to be reactive. It’s not our job to do as we’re told (of course we value our client’s opinions and experience and of course we put them first…don’t be stupid). It’s our job to question. It’s our job to poke holes. It’s our job to think of the better way. It’s our job to give the unvarnished truth.

And our clients appreciate it. They benefit from it. They profit with it.

So yes, my dear, you look fat in that dress. But the good news? I found a company willing to pay for it….you’re going to make a fortune as a plus-sized model….

- jordan

P.s. Please don’t send me email about using weight as an issue. It could have been anything. I’ve just used this analogy. Grow up.

Quick back story. I was actually walking to the train station this morning and I pressed the play button on my iPhone. It randomly selected some Kenny Rogers. Me being a fan, I let it play and, as I heard those lines, business ideas started to creep into my head.

As I wandered through the streets of Edinburgh at 0630 listening to Kenny…those four lines sort of jumped out at me:

You got to know when to hold them
Now when to fold them
Know when to walk away
Know when to run

It jumped out at me because it reminded me of a conversation I had with a company just the other day.

They have the cards (to continue the, possibly tortured, metaphor) and they are in the game, but they really don’t know when to hold or when to fold. And regardless of whether they walk or run, they don’t even know what direction they should be heading.

The starting point to our conversation wasn’t positive. We didn’t start well.

They believed they should be looking at one thing. I firmly believed they needed a much deeper conversation. It wasn’t really a conversation they wanted to have. It really wasn’t. But my company had been referred by someone they trust, so they stuck it out, and we are all very glad they did.

Back to my point. It’s a bit of a throw-away line to say “don’t confuse tactics with strategy”. A lot of people use it. It’s annoyingly popular, but it is also very true, and in this case, it got to the route of the problem.

There a a lot of tactics you can use to market a company (or a person, a product….whatever). Lots of tactics. Like so many other parts of a business, the problem lies in the preparation.

To put it another way: you can be the fastest runner in the world, but if you’re pointed the wrong way I’ll still beat you to the line. A good athlete will combine the extraordinary physical nature of their sport with a real understanding of strategy. Strategy to compete. Strategy over competitors. Strategy to maximise performance. There are very rarely situations where pure power, speed or talent succeed without being lead by a strategy to succeed.

And yet, when it comes to marketing, so many companies launch into it without really understanding what it is, where it can be applied and where they need to concentrate. They talk about ends, not means. That’s all well and good, but you can’t get to the end without a thorough understanding of the means.

Marketing means a lot of things to a lot of people. I can ask ten different people and I’ll get ten different answers. There is one thing that is universally true. If you don’t know where you are and you don’t know where you’re going, you’re wandering in the dark being guided only by hope.

To me, that’s not a smart business bet. Far better to invest the time and money to develop a proper strategy. (in the long run, it’s also a lot cheaper when you make less mistakes)

- j

How social media works. Hmmm… or doesn’t work. Or works sometimes. Or never.

Kind of depends on who you speak to. Kind of depends on who you are.

Before I met them all, I did actually take a bit of time to think about what I would  say (hey, I’m a professional, right?). I also thought a bit about the people I have heard speaking about social media and what they had to say. It wasn’t a happy time. It confirmed, for me at least, one of the core problems we’re facing right now:

Social media ha sa lot of people convinced they are Tesco. Or at least that they are playing in the same marketing field.

(here’s a hint. You’re not)

I like social media. A lot. I can see how it can develop further and I like the communication model. We’re just going to have to get through the childlike period we’re in now. It’s the same thing that happens anytime we have a new technology or set of tools at our disposal. The first thing that happens is a lot of people appoint themselves as experts (pardon me, ‘gurus’) and go off to make money convincing the unaware or uninitiated that this is the ONLY THING YOU NEED! Email marketing was the thing right? It’s the best way to communicate with your customers, right? It’s easy to prospect new customers, right?

Except when it isn’t. Which is a lot of the time.

Back to my Tesco analogy….

A lot of people who talk about social media tend to use the big boy analogies. This is how Dominos screwed up. This is how M&S are doing it. This is how you engage your customers with your brand.

Who gives a shit? You’re not a national brand. You’re not recognisable. You’re not even in the same stadium.

What matters to your bottom line is way way (WAY) different.

See? This isn’t a rant about social media at all! It’s a bit of a rant about marketing in general.

At the SME level, marketing is a very direct activity. It has to connect directly with your bottom line. It has to connect directly with your networks and your surroundings. It can’t be abstract. It’s got to be a concrete building block.

And social media can be a tool you use. It can be a tool you use to communicate, to interact, to promote, to inspire loyalty, develop a wider network. All of these things.

But at the heart of your social media strategy has to be a solid marketing strategy for your business.

Otherwise you’re just pissing in the wind.

- j

Or alternatively, if you’re anything like me, sigh…

This won’t be particularly shocking to most of you. For those of us who work in the field (well, marketing in general) it’s even less so.

I think we’ve finally reached the point where spam is starting to outweigh the good in some of our favourite social media tools.

I don’t know who first decided that all sales is a numbers game, but if I could I’d go back in time and punch them right in the mouth. I’m sure they meant well. I’m sure they meant to say something along the lines of “you can’t get if you don’t ask” in order to convince people that it takes effort to get sales.

I’m very sure (I say in a “oh please” tone of voice) that they didn’t mean that you should just spam everyone you can see with any old shite.

Why this topic?

In the past four days I’ve had four emails (sorry inMails) through LinkedIn and five twitter DMs that were directly trying to sell me something that is absolutely no use to me.

No attempt at seeing if the opportunity was relevant to me. No attempt to engage me and tempt me to it. Just very easy and very direct spam.

Buy this.

Sign up here.

And what is worse is that these are coming from people I know. People who I have met. People who, for all intent, are part of my ‘trusted’ network.

And what do they do with that trust? They send me spam. They use their network of social media contacts and send out spam.

Guess what the result has been – I delete their message and I evaluate my relationship with these people.

30 seconds of quick spam = serious doubts of a future business relationship.

Is that really the best they can do with these wonderful new tools?

I can sometimes sound quite negative about social media tools. I’m actually a big fan. I love them. More importantly I see how powerful they can be for interaction and relationship building – with your customers, your employees, your public.

And what happens? You devalue it all with a 30 second piece of spam.

If you’re in someone’s network, you have a responsibility to respect that relationship. Regardless of the toolset (be it social or not) you have a responsibility to you network to respect them and build your relationships.

Enough already.

It’s a very quick way to losing a network. It’s a very easy way of losing my business.

(and I’m not the only one)

- j

No, today it’s a perfect summary of one of my pet peeves – doing speculative work. Giving away the milk.

It’s particularly bad in my industry (not so much for me, but for the creative agencies) who have had a lifetime of putting together wonderful pitches, with wonderful visuals they have spent days to develop, only to have the clients turn them away (whilst nicking some of their ideas). It’s a sad, but all to common, fact of our industry.

And I hate it.

I also refuse to do it.

(I have to admit I’m in a much stronger position to do that, since our work involves heavy research and strategy, and that’s not something you pull together in a couple of days. But I refuse to do it on principle anyway.)

I got to thinking about this because I met a fascinating woman yesterday who is in the early stages of her new business. Obviously talented. Obviously successful.

But as we talked, she told me a bit about one of her recent experiences with a potential client. She had done some up-front work for them on faith, only to have them walk away once they got what they wanted. She’d given away some of the milk, and they felt they didn’t have to buy the cow anymore.

The result? No new client for her, and probably a bungled job done by the ‘client’.

A lose-lose situation. Fantastic. This brings me to why I hate speculative work – false pipelines and false expectations.

I’m always slightly surprised how many companies continue to waste their time talking to people who plainly aren’t serious about hiring them. Why do you bother? It wastes your time and, some times even worse, it lulls you into thinking your pipeline is a lot bigger than it actually is!

It’s easy to fool yourself, especially if you’re running your own business. Back when I started, I put everyone down in my pipeline if they seemed remotely interested in hiring my company. How many times did I do that until I learned? Probably a couple of years.

What you find when you do that is that you have a bunch of ‘open’ opportunities that never seem to close. The warning signs? They want another meeting. They want a bit more time. They call back a couple of months later to ‘revisit’ the idea. 95% of the time that’s them trying to get some more free advice. 100% waste of time.

I’m no sales trainer. I’m not an expert on negotiations. On the other hand, it seems to me that one of your core jobs, if you’re selling to someone, is to convince them of your value. You have to get them to believe in you and what you can do.

Giving away a huge amount of work for free will probably get you a lot of interested looks, but my question will always be this: how serious an opportunity are they?

I have some basic rules that I have developed over the past five years in business:

Rule 1 – Two Meetings
I’ll more or less take a meeting with anyone (within reason). You never know how you can help each other and I like to keep an open mind. If it turns into a sales opportunity I give it two meetings to get to the proposal stage. Within reason. If it’s for £100K of work it may take you more, but you get the idea. If we’re not there after two meetings, I put them on the ‘chancer’ pile and focus elsewhere.

Rule 2 – Nothing is Free
When I had a car, I never asked my mechanic to fix it for free to see if he did a good job. We agreed a price and I paid him. The same applies to almost every industry and, chances are, it applies to yours. How much do you de-value what you do by giving away bits for free? How much do you prolong a sales process with people who will never buy from you?

Rule 3 – No Money. No Work.
This probably doesn’t apply to every industry, so this rule can be optional for most people. When I start work with a new client, we always take 50% of the project (depending on size) upfront. Trust works two ways. You need to trust that I can deliver the goods, but I need to trust that you’ll pay me. until we establish that relationship, we’re in unchartered territories and you need to come up with the goods before I start my company moving.

I think they are good basic rules. Simple, clear and effective.

So every time you’re thinking of doing a huge load of work for free, perhaps you should imagine your gran looking down disapprovingly at you as you stagger in at 3AM?

(or just remember the rules)

- jordan

You can probably guess, but the underlying message/topic today is about customer service and communication.

I like Apple. A lot. I have a 100% Apple office, and I’m what I like to describe as an Apple Slut ™. I have my iPhone4, my MacBookPro and my iMac. Oh yeah, I also have two iPods.

I can’t help but admire (and get significantly annoyed) by Apple’s approach to customer service and communication. Take the iPhone4 launch. Brilliant! Anytime you go into a store, they never have any stock. Do they know when new stock is coming in? Nope! Why would Apple help you out by telling you when you are going to get new phones in? It’s up to you, the customer, to keep checking in and hoping.

And guess what. It works. Again and again. I couldn’t stop checking the stock updates.

Not many companies can get away with this.

I’ll give you a flip story. My flatmate is a painter/decorator. He’s excellent. More importantly, he really wants to do the best job for his customers. He doesn’t want to ever let them down.

A couple of months ago, and old friend of mine asked for a recommendation for some tradesmen to re-do their flat. I had no hesitation in recommending my flatmate. He’s done everything. He’s organised everyone. He’s managed everyone.

I was speaking to him last night and he was telling me about how annoyed he was at one of his guys. Turns out he didn’t show up at the job. No word of warning. No preparation. The result? The client (my mate) was really (and rightly) annoyed.

Customer service isn’t always about getting everything right. A lot of times it’s down to managing expectations and communication. It’s a simple phone call. It’s a follow-up. It’s an apology.

Most people can handle when things go wrong. Most people can accept that this is something that will always happen. Where they get annoyed is when things go wrong and their is no attempt to handle the situation.

Unless you’re Apple, I wouldn’t try the ‘treat ‘em mean and keep ‘em keen’ approach. It’s probably not going to work. Instead, make sure you’re always communicating openly with your customers. It’s the easiest way to retain them and get them to become good referral partners.

And that’s easy business.

j

* in the interest of full disclosure, I do have to say my service from the Apple Store and Applecare has been amazing. So they do make some sort of an effort.

Onwards and upwards.

I’ve been asked to speak about Social Media at a couple of business events later this year. What’s funny about that is this: I’ve been asked because I normally present the complete opposite view from all the so-called social media gurus out there. And I can see why. I listened to a guy speak a couple of weeks ago, and he was basically insistent that social media is the area ll businesses need to focus on. A not-so-subtle byline to his message was – if your business isn’t concentrating on social media….you will suffer tremendously.

Sometimes that’s true. Social media can be a very effective tool. Or should I say, there are a lot of very effective social media tools out there. These tools are like any other tools. They work extremely well for some jobs…not so well for other jobs.

(the metaphors write themselves, really. Hammers & nails come to mind immediately)

Coming back to my point: Not all tools work for all jobs. There is no golden ticket and Willy Wonka doesn’t actually exist.

Marketing casts a wide net. It needs to. And underpinning everything that you do has to be a solid understanding of what you’re trying to achieve, where you’re trying to get to, and what the best tools for the job are.

It’s a bit of this and a bit of that.

It’s a combination of things.

If someone tries to tell you that this is the one thing you have to concentrate on, and it will be the thing that makes your business, it’s probably too good to be true.

At this moment in time, this is particularly applicable to social media. At one of these talks, the current ‘guru’ was talking about how businesses need to take advantage of Facebook. (to which I say: potentially true, but not always) He talked and he talked and guess what? His business has a Facebook page with about 24 fans. Mostly friends of his. Now I ask you, does that seem like a good resource to spend time on? Do I need to answer that? (hint: no)

When I develop a marketing strategy for a company, I look at all areas and all opportunities. Nothing is prejudiced against and everything is valid until it’s been argued against. Direct mail? Sure! It’s hugely effective for some businesses. Telemarketing? Absolutely! We’ve had brilliant results. Social Media? Definitely! you just have to pick the right tools for the job.

Pick the right tools for the job. My old shop teacher would be so proud.

- j