Events Calendar
Posts Tagged ‘Yorkshire’
Suit or no suit?
First, and admission of sorts: I’m the kind of person who’d put on a suit to go out to the bin. I’d wear a collar and tie to mow the lawn. Iron my socks. Polish my slippers.
Okay, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I AM more of a collar and tie man than tee shirt and jeans, as anyone who knows me will tell you.
Even when I know I’m going to be behind my desk all day and am not going to see – or be seen by – another living soul, I turn up showered, shaved and in a clean shirt and jacket because I believe that if you “look the business”, you will “feel” the business and “do” the business … better.
I also believe that you are always on duty and on show as an ambassador, advocate and advertisement for your business and, to me, that means being suited and booted just about all the time. Because you just never know who you might run into who could be useful in business. And being unwashed, unshaved and in your scruffs may not create the positive impression you hope for.
But I’m beginning to wonder if I’m out of touch, out of date, out of fashion or just plain wrong. Are the dress code conventions breaking down?
I assume that the business people I meet, talk to and am consulted by expect to see a marketing man in a suit. Wearing a suit, to my mind, shows respect and professionalism. However, there are other marketing, PR and creative types who wouldn’t be seen dead in a suit. They think wearing a suit creates an impression of being old fashioned and dowdy whereas they want to show that they’re young, trendy and “modern”. They say, quite rightly, that not wearing a suit doesn’t make them any less professional or capable. Richard Branson, for example, is a renowned cardigan man and he seems to be doing all right for himself.
We all have preconceptions about what professional people should look like: IT people are bespectacled nerds, geography teachers wear jackets with elbow patches, accountants wear pinstripe suits, etc.
Smart or casual are equally valid in business these days, it seems, and are not necessarily a reflection of an individual’s abilities. We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
But what’s YOUR opinion? Would you expect your marketing advisor (for example) to turn up in a suit? Are first impressions important?
Keep, on truckin’!
R— supplies freelance and sub-contract lorry drivers to businesses with fleets of trucks. They’ve asked The NAKED Marketing Company to come up with ways of overcoming marketplace resistance and boosting sales. We’re looking at putting into place a 4-pronged strategy.
Read the case study and pinch some ideas here…
Your prospects are four times more likely to watch a video than read words
Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL are Search Engines that give priority listings to websites with video content.
One recent industry survey said that 68% of people who watch online videos will pass on links for these videos to their contacts
Videos are a powerful means for clients and prospects to know you and like you before they meet you
Don’t get left behind.
Keep, on truckin’!
R— supplies freelance and sub-contract lorry drivers to businesses with fleets of trucks, like you see up and down the motorways every day. The Yorkshire-based company is planning a new service that’ll be a radical departure from the traditional method of matching drivers to employers, and the directors recognise that there may be some initial resistance among drivers that will affect take-up and viability of the new product.
So they’ve asked The NAKED Marketing Company to come up with ways of overcoming marketplace resistance and boosting sales. We’re looking at putting into place a 4-pronged strategy:
- Increase the number of touch points between the company and its users
- Position R—- as more than just a driver hire agency – but as a “face” and a “voice” that people relate to, respond to and make positive associations with. I want users to feel that they have a special relationship with their work provider. I want them to feel a sense of pride and superiority over the driver next to them who doesn’t use R—-.
- A publicity campaign in the magazines most widely read by truck drivers and employers of truck drivers in order to educate the market place about the new product and so reduce uncertainty and “fear of the unknown”.
- Develop a sales process that:
- Captures, qualifies, capitalises upon and converts sales enquiries among employers
- Monitors, manages and measures enquiries against marketing activities
- Evaluates the value of and relationships with customers and people we want as customers
- Be capable of being applied by any member of staff.
Are plastic buckets trying to tell us something?
In the aisles of my local supermarket there has recently appeared a colourful collection of plastic buckets borrowed from the Homewares section and deployed throughout the store to catch the large number of drips from the ceiling that have resulted from a prolonged period of heavy rain.
The display of buckets looks like a cross between some contemporary art installation and an obstacle course for toddlers.
On the day that the buckets appeared, I visited a client at his office and found him mauling his desk into the middle of the room, because he’d arrived that morning to find that an overnight ceiling leak had splashed onto and spoiled all his paperwork from the day before, and now he’d have to do it all over again.
That’s the trouble with leaks, he said – you don’t know you’ve got one until it’s too late… until it’s already making life difficult or is ruining stuff. And taking out insurance doesn’t help. No matter how watertight (excuse the pun) the precautions we might put in place, it can’t prevent leaks happening.
We were discussing this – the client and I – as we created a small island of furniture in the middle of his office. It led us to talk about how a business could be “leaking” sales without anyone actually realising it, until something bad happens. To be honest, the turn in the conversation was probably because our meeting was to discuss ways to improve his team’s sales performance.
So here’s my question: what measures have you put in place to prevent your business from leaking sales, that you’d be willing to share? What advice, tips and suggestions would you pass on to others? What have you learned that works and, equally important, that doesn’t?
