Creative Agency Secrets

It’s early enough for the silly season to start. 
My predictions for 2007

1 - The Thames will flood - seriously.  About time the flood relief channel at Maidenhead will get used in anger.  Dorney Lake will be a desirable location to train on.

2 - Tideway Scullers will dominate sculling nationally.  They’ve been building up for a while particularly in mens lightweight but did you see the Scullers Head Results I think they won more pennants than anyone else - 13 by my count.

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I’m speaking at the ARA Coaching Conference in January 2007.

I would give you a link but the ARA in it’s wisdom, has made that page only for registered users.  I can tell you my login - but I’ve never succeeded in making it work (thanks for the help, Shirley Nimmo - but I am too stupid to get the frigging login to actually accept my user name because i logged in once and then never got back in again).

Fantastic Content (probably) but along with key user-access-only websites like The Economist and New York Times if you don’t register, you can’t see.  It doesn’t get Googled and you don’t go up the rankings; nobody reads your stuff and the circle perpetuates. 

But enough about them, let’s talk about ME!

I will be talking about how Tideway Scullers School set up a young junior section and how other clubs can learn from our experiences.  Slides available after the event from the Rowperfect website.

I will do this from time to time.

What I’m reading in Business:
Naked Conversations - Robert Scoble / Shel Israel.  If you are a PR Company - read chapter 7.  Apart from a great slating of Edelman (we all enjoy a cheap joke) it should make you scared.  Better than the Ogilvy game ‘destroyyourbusiess.com’ which Rory Sutherland and I played in the ’90s with Peppers and Rogers.  [it even mentions a client of a PR firm client of mine…. and slates them too!]

How not to Come Second - David Kean.  The book given away at JFDI at their New Business Workshops and New Business Academy days.  [if you don’t know what the initials stand for… ask!].  Pitching and every excuse ever made about why you didn’t win the business.  Plus how to overcome the hurdles and WIN.  I bought this on Amazon and mailed it to a client.  He had it sitting on his desk when I visited.  Not even opened it out of curiosity.  Would you wonder why I’d sent it to you?

Whatever you think, think the opposite - Paul Arden.  Bollocks.  Nice pictures, catchphrases and good typography.  Don’t buy it - but do leaf through it when you’re next in the bookshop coffee store. It’ll take you 5 minutes to read and get the idea.  There is only one idea, by the way.  Not what you’d call deep!

Key Account Manager’s Pocketbook - Roger E. Jones.  Great little read of good tips.  Used this in coaching session with a client recently.  Busy lady, working Mum, perfect book - short and to the point.

What I’m reading in Sport:
Consistent Winning - Ronald Sandler and Dennis Lobstein.  How to write training programmes that enable peak performances.  I got this from Harry Mahon.  Great.

What’s beside my bed:
My life as an Edge - Richard Lawrence.  Fun, quirky view of the world by a little-known rower.

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini.  Great novel (can’t bear for it to end) and it echos my time in Peshawar in 1986 with Nicholas della Casa

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson.  Has sunk to the bottom of the pile next to the gardening books.  So don’t think I’ll ever finish it.  It isn’t my copy anyway, I picked it up in the committee room at Tideway Scullers!   [OK, Mr. Chairman - I confess, it was me.  But it had sat there for over a year gathering dust along with Tracey’s tantric sex guide that everyone else had borrowed.]

Cracking India - Bapsi Sidhwa.  Recommendation from Nabeel Sarwar who has bought the film rights of another of her titles.  Just started this.  Good opening of child memories of Lahore.

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Tidiness and cleanliness are no longer next to Godliness.

BUT the rise and rise of the consultant-for-every-occasion has led me to the latest one.
Goodness this made me laugh.  Do you lose your keys / phone / wallet / handbag on a regular basis?

Since the demise of the keyring that played a tune when you clapped; this is the next best thing.The Loc8tor It just has to be from US….. who has time to tag everything in their home?  I find it hard enough to redo my filing (just for the record, that’s what I did on Friday afternoon - very therapeutic putting little slips of paper into plastic tags for my filing cabinet) let alone find time to do this. 

Can’t you just have a sensible place where you always leave your keys?  e.g. a key ring hook?

Anyway, would someone buy one for my Mother for Christmas?
Second thoughts - don’t do that.  She would lose all respect for St Anthony on whom she’s relied all her life to find things she mislaid!

BTL (below the line) is where I feel at home.  I prefer to think (delude myself) that there is a fixed list of customers for my service and that I can know who they are, individually and addressably.  When I was in the Real Estate business, I loved selling shops.  There are a limited number of people who can afford to rent a shop premises.  Compare that with offices - loads of punters.

And the rub?

You never meet and deal with the same one twice.  Just like catching a black cab in London - no chance of repeat business through good service!  It’s a lousy business model IMHO.

So, below the line, direct marketing, direct selling, B2B - this is MY SPACE.  I love it.

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