Help Save our parking Wardens!

Not a headline you would see very often. Parking ticket producing people often bring out the worst in people.

As reported in the New Zealand Herald yesterday – a Scottish traffic warden by the name of James Dewar was told he was surplus to requirements, but was reinstated after a campaign to save him by local residents and motorists. He was apparently very popular with the locals, because as well as handing out tickets, he voluntarily took on other, perhaps more rewarding work – such as helping children get home safely after school, and assisting tourists.

Which goes to show – you can be providing an essential, yet loathed product or service – and still find a way to gain loyal clients!

For an Honest Opinion – ask your teenager

Want to know if an idea passes the cool test – or sucks? Ask your teenagers. Chances are – if you can explain it before you loose their attention span – AND get a reply – its a good-un. If they switch the iPod back on – well – you already knew the answer.

Not got a teenager – borrow one. Most parents will gladly lend you one of theirs if you’ll just feed them for an hour – or better yet – play taxi driver and take them wherever they want to get.

Go have a ‘Eureka’ moment at Borders

Ive said it – and meant it – before. I’ll probably forget it again.

You loose brainpower trying to think in front of a computer screen – at your desk.

I went and sat with pad and pencil in my local borders. Browsed some books, but really just soaked the sudden change of routine atmosphere and started writing.

Came away with some ideas that made me thousands – literally.

Oh – I bought a couple hundred dollars of books and 30 bucks worth of coffee – so borders benefited too in case you were wondering.

Why being a chartered accountant sucks

Accountants charge by the hour for their services.

IF they do their job properly – they should get more efficient – and charge me less.

Dumb. I’d happily give a % of my companies revenue to one who truely added value.

Most accountants dont take risks like that

How Geeks kill a good business

I should know – I am one (well a reformed one perhaps).

Reading Alan Cooper’s excellent book “The inmates are running the asylum”. Pure music to my ears. Alan writes with clarity about a subject I have been passionate about for years: Good design beats technical features.

If your income is even remotely connected to technology you should rush out an buy this book before anything else (well – get dressed first!).

Oldthink Example: JobBoard

A local restaurant is advertising for more wait staff. They have a blackboard on the street that reads:

“We need experienced Wait Staff. Join our team”

Now this might have worked in the unemployed eighties – but not in the full-employment current times.

You are left asking yourself “Why should I join their team? Is it good enough for me to chuck being a Brain surgeon to haul wine bottles? Are the benefits so good I’d trade my mother for them?”

We all use Old-think at various points in our daily existence – its always easy to point out the follies of others, but think about what you did already today – and where have you fallen into the trap of old-think with predictable results.

When Cheap is Truly Good

I would agree with the sentiment behind ‘you get what you pay for’. But once in a while an exception to the rule rolls along:

i was called in to advise the owners of a start up company recently. Their IT project was going awry and they wanted my opinion on what to do about it – normal enough sort of request I get too frequently. The answer however was not the normal ‘You tried to cut corners…..get what you pay for’ one.

In this case the client had done the inital requirements steps well, and accepted a fairly expensive quote. The quote was not the most expensive, but an order of magnitude larger than the cheapest one.

Turns out they bought into a slick sales pitch with little technical competency under the hood, cost and time overruns and the rest. Yes there are obvious lessons to learn here.

Now they are looking at their options including adopting an alternative vendor. The vendor that most fits the bill – was the cheapest in the first round. A well established international vendor with a solid track record – who sells themselves too cheap in this market. The result – they gather suspicion rather than orders. Again – nothing new here – heard all about price-positioning before.

This story is interesting becuase it shows how wisdom on both the vendor or the customers part could actually help mitigate the follies of the other – that ignorance on both sides is needed before such a tragedy can occur.

So next time you find yourself wishing the customer or the vendor had more – whatever – look at yourself and think about what you must also be lacking in order to manifest the situation that troubles you so.

Value of a Service

Its been said many times before – People understand the cost of a product more easily than the cost of a service. Any consultant will tell you Its easier to sell something you can touch, feel and hold – than it is an intangable service.

This is NOT always true – and buy studying the exceptions new insight can be gained.

Service Insight One: Getting the product to your door is a service – and one that is tangeable enough that people have no problem paying for it.

Now before you flood me with gripes about the cost of parcel delivery consider this: People will pay more for a CD purchased in a store – than one purchased online. The only difference is distribution cost. People will pay more for a book than an ebook. Small town stores can charge more for a product and point to higher transport costs.  Big Box Retailers frequently charge a ‘delivery fee’ that gets no objection – even after a vigorous haggling over the cost of the goods.

Service Insight Two: Fashion (Hair, cosmetic, skin treatments, Nails etc)  Looking good has never been cheaper. Even a modest income can support a wardrobe of clothes and accessories of a quality unobtainable by Royalty a few hundred years ago. Fashionably ‘cool’ labels cost. Sought after hair-stylists cost. Cosmetics and cosmetic surgery cost – but they are all services. What makes it easy for anyone to spot the difference between top fashion and not fashion? And why is it not so easy to spot the difference in quality of service say between the geeky kid next door and an IT professional to the point most of us would risk the kid in preference to the professional – all the while thinking about the cost difference – which is probably about that of a fashionable haircut?

So its not all services that are hard to perceive as valuable – how about yours? How do you inherently build in the perception of value?

TV’s Most Valuable Part

It has to be the commercials.

Think about it – hundreds of them from all over the world are emailed to you and your friends daily. We laugh at them and pass some on. We don’t do this with TV shows or the News (unless its a funny clip)

Cinema: Money Not Wanted

A new mega cinema complex is opening in two weeks near me. I wanted to book a family night out.

This property does not exist on the chain’s website. There appears no way to book. I sent them an email:

Hi – cant wait until your new cinema’s open in Albany. I see the date has been set – when can we book?

Ive joined your club but cant find any film or offer that allows me to book to come to the new theatre when it opens

and they replied:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately we do not have a date set for pre bookings for our new Albany site just yet.

Please feel free to visit our website for regular updates.

The company spends millions building and marketing a new complex – and they cant take my money two weeks from opening.

Sigh – I think I will go download a movie and watch it at home – its easier.