Sales You Gotta Love It

I remember an old joke about the 1992 fire at Windsor Castle.


Apparently, the damage could have been minimised, but for the fact that the Queen made her way along the line of fire-fighters, asking each one in turn “And what do you do?”
That joke is going to kill on my comedy tour.

Hang on though, I’m going somewhere with this. If I were to take a leaf out of Ma'am’s book and do the royal tour of my offices, asking people that same question, I don’t think a single person would answer “I work in sales.”
But here’s the funny thing.

Everyone at Jack Morton does, and the thing is, they’re really good at it.
I firmly believe that nothing happens anywhere in the world without sales.

The artist displaying her canvas (or dirty bed sheets); the man who checks himself twice in the mirror before that blind date; the politician who stands in front of 200 million people on Election Day. They’re all looking to persuade people to buy or accept something. Look it up in a dictionary – that’s what sales means.

Everything that we make, create, share or find needs to be sold. So the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can embrace it.
Sales isn’t a dirty word.

And it’s not a career option for people incapable of doing anything else. We’re all in it. We all do it. And we should take pride in being good at it.

See the world through the prism of sales, and take advantage of the countless opportunities around you.

You Are Only As Good As Your Next Job

We all know people who've been bitten by this recession, and it's always sad when it happens.



But without wanting to sound like Mr Motivator, every challenge presents a new opportunity.



My friend Tina Puente is a great example of this. She was recently made redundant, but pretty much walked into a new job with another business. Her view, and it's one I share, is that you need to keep the right energy and attitude.Instead of sitting and despairing, she brushed herself down and focused on the things she loves.



And top of that list was helping people.



So she took all the things she'd learned in her last role - the people she'd met, the skills she'd developed and perspectives she'd formed. Not only did this help her line up a bigger and better job, it also reminded her of the resources at her disposal for helping other people find work.

So she spends her spare time rehearsing interviews, connecting people through her network of contacts, and generally demonstrating the power of collaboration.



I guess the moral of this modern-day PollyAnna story is 'Don't let the bump in the road be enough to stop you'.



We're all on a journey, but it's one made easier when you take your friends with you.

Same Difference.....no not them

This Tuesday I was privileged enough to speak at the Marketing Week Brand Summit, thanks to Michelle and Sherrie of Centaur.
My brief was to speak about brand building in the recession, surprise surprise. But as I worked on my presentation, I started to realise that my story wasn't really about the recession at all. It was about behaviours.
In the end, I talked about my behaviour, the audience's behaviour, consumer behaviour and brand behaviour.
Do I win points each time I say 'behaviour'?

It was a shame really that many of the people who spoke weren't able to stick around and see some of the other presentations. They missed inspiring stuff from amongst others Kristof Fahey of Yahoo, Simon Ainslie of Nokia, Ian Armstrong from Honda, and Stephen Cheliotis, Chair of the Super Brands Council.

But as well as missing some great presentations and compelling speakers, they also didn't get to see just how closely aligned we all were.

That's the thing - behaviour really is everyone's key focus right now. They might not all have made the explicit connection, since they were viewing the world through their own distinctive prisms. But it was clear that for everyone in the brand sphere, it's behaviour that counts. More specifically, tribal behaviour.

It's at this point that I'd like to mention Seth Godin, although I don't know why - he never mentions me. His new book is all about tribes. In it, he unpicks the notion of communal connectivity and the need for leadership and a sense of belonging.

Interestingly, that's what the Brand Summit was. A tribal gathering of like-minded people looking for leadership.
And I'm happy to say I think our tribe is in safe hands.

the first one and why?

Depth Perception

A short note on why.
Most people’s eyes aren’t perfectly matched. One’s usually stronger than the other. In my case, one’s OK and the other’s almost completely useless.
Apart from the fact that I spend half my life squinting at the people around me (for all those people who think I’ve ignored them you have the reason) this poor eyesight of mine causes another problem. I have zero depth perception.
Most people can make snap judgements about the things they see. I have to think around the subject, screw my eyes up and look again, and try to figure out how near or far away it is.
And that’s really what this blog is about. Taking a different view of the subjects we encounter day-to-day through my eyes. Looking at trends and patterns to see if they’re as close as they seem, or further than we thought.