No More ‘To Do’ Lists #9

No more ‘To Do‘ List item 9 is

DON’T PLAY IT TOO SAFE

The riskiest thing is to be safe… Very good is bad… because no-one notices it.


RELEVANT LINKS
Bright Marketing - book
Purple Cow - by Seth Godin

Be Impressed by a Sixteen Year Old

You need google about Thandiwe... a student from Jack Cecup School in Lusaka.

Zambian girl - Thandiwe Chama Awarded Children’s Peace Prize in the Hague …:

"In 1999, when she was only eight-years-old, her school was closed because there were no teachers. Thandiwe refused to accept this and led 60 other children in walking to find another school. As a result, all the children were taken into the Jack Cecup School.

Strengthened by this achievement, Thandiwe has been fighting ever since for the right to education for all children.

Thandiwe continues to impress, for example by speaking in church about children and AIDS - an issue not always discussed easily in churches. With a friend, she wrote and illustrated a booklet called “The Chicken with AIDS”, telling young children about the perils of AIDS.

She also co-authored a song called “For My Sake” about the need for children to be supported and protected - a song which has already been played in South Africa, Tanzania, as well as the United Kingdom."

The more you discover about her the more impressed you become with her and the team at Jack Cecup School.

RELEVANT LINKS
Zambian girl - Thandiwe Chama Awarded Children’s Peace Prize
Thandiwe's blog
Thandiwe with Bob Geldof - winning her award

Thandiwe on the KidzKameraz blog with me!
My African Photos - a selection

No More ‘To Do’ Lists #8

No more ‘To Do‘ Lists item 8 is

DON’T CARRY A BLACKBERRY 24/7

The world will not grind to a halt if you are not there to take every call. In fact customers might treat you with a bit more deference if you ration your available time with a bit more respect for what is really important.


RELEVANT LINKS
Your Mobile Addiction! - blog entry
Blackberry Stats - blog entry

Lusaka, Zambia

Returning to Zambia has been a delight.

I did a 'More Profit' session to an audience that was predominantly members of ACCA (accountants) and members of the Management Express Forum. Again the issue of putting prices up was very controversial - lots of debate and discussion. How can this concept be applied in Lusaka? What would happen?

On the following day we did a full 'Kick-Start Your Business' full-day session. All the material was received with great warmth and enthusaism and again the pricing debate kicked in.
"How can Nando's charge three time more for the same beer and the same chicken as a local restaurant yet be full all night?"

And the answer is in the 'Kick-Start' and 'Bright Marketing' 'ologies':

- "Nature is brutally honest..."
- "Marketing is not a battle of the product but for the mind of the customer..."
- "Why should people buy from you when they can buy from the competition?"
- "Its all about branding..."
- "If there's a choice between being different or being better then different wins every time..."

At the end of the day, the MD of a fast food outlet as well as a local businesswoman came up to me and explained that they had both nervously put up prices in their businesses... there had been no noticable change in trade - if anything some of the difficult customers had left and some nicer ones had replaced them.


RELEVANT LINKS

Kick-Start Your Business - book

More Profit - seminar

The Leopard...

Just come back from the most amazing safari experience - three days in Northern Botswana (Okuti Lodge, Okakavango/Moremi Game Reserve) - while there I was shown this wonderful Zulu proverb. It sums up the whole Bright Marketing 'ology'.

'Ingw idla ngamabala'
The leopard eats by means of its spots
If one wants to succeed, one must develop characteristics that distinguish one from others

So maybe the book should have a leopard on its front cover!



PS All the webpages claim "Camp Okuti is enclosed by fencing and thus wonderful for the first time visitor to Africa who might need that ‘safety’ factor'" - I can assure that this is not the case!!! We were woken up by a hippo under our stilted bedroom/tent and we had a leopard come through the site on our first night! Not for the faint-hearted!



RELEVANT LINKS
Bright Marketing - the book
Okuti Lodge - webpage

(Photo taken in N Botswana)

Gaborone, Botswana

It has been great to be back at the Gaborone Sun meeting our old friends Clare and Zaa and taking in Botswana life.

Started with a day visit to a country school with whom we have partnered a local Bath school; we have raised funds via an African evening. Refilwe from British Council joined us to liaise and she will manage the spending of the funds locally.

Next an evening event. Some 70 delegates attended ‘Customer Is King’ as a 90-minute presentation, hosted by Stephen the Director of the British Council here. A real cross-section of fascinating businesses attended. Some real challenges locally regarding customer service!

And then a full-day ‘Magic Million’ seminar. For the audience, some of the concepts were challenging to say the least. The idea of deliberately putting prices up (to scare away the pond life and subsequently work with customers who are not buying on price but are buying for quality etc) was felt to be very controversial. Again issues around ‘how do you get you people to do what you want them to do?’

And on to Maun to the Okavanga Delta. Botswana has a premium priced/exclusive/limited access approach to wildlife tourism. Prices are deliberately kept high to reduce customer flow and in order to maintain quality of the experiences. They are proud of this fact in Botswana. So, why do they have such difficulty in translating this concept to their own businesses?

RELEVANT LINKS
Customer Is King – the book
Magic Million – the research and the workshop

PS photo taken yesterday at the delta - see the Bright Marketing book cover to understand the relevance!

No More ‘To Do’ Lists #7

No more ‘To Do‘ Lists item 7 is

DON’T BUILD THE BUSINESS AROUND YOURSELF

In the early days its great to see those emails and texts for you – you are important and wanted. However this excitement soon turns into an addiction. Your definition of success starts to depend on how much you are needed. Wrong! (unless you want to be the bottleneck in your business).

Try to design the entire business model with the sole intention of getting it to operate without you. (Or do you enjoy working 24/7?)

‘Start with the end in mind’ is what Steven Covey says. If you intend to get out of your business at some point then you need to design the whole thing with that endpoint in mind. Otherwise you end up as the tiredest person in the graveyard!


RELEVANT LINKS
Steven Covey
Steven Covey’s Seven Habits book