Creative Agency Secrets

I met Andy Howells at the Open coffee morning last week.  We talked about the Sirolli Institute and their Enterprise Facilitation method which is very similar to the ‘bottom up’ development method that I experienced while working with AKRSP in Pakistan in 1986.

Andy told me about Kiva.  They have a fine business model - asking rich people like us to contribute a small sum that hey will aggregate and lend to third world individuals who need loans to improve their businesses and lives.

Read this page about the default rate (repayments over98%) and the number of days it takes to get a loan funded (1.01 days average).

Following my post about the Angels Den investment club and my reservations about the business name and model.  It seems that my fears were partly valid.

I was called by Struan Johnston who has paid £99 and a is considering a further £400 to get his plan reviewed.  He posted a comment on the original blog post (see link above) and gave me a call.

Struan is concerned that this is a scam because there are no phone numbers to contact the organisation.  We spoke for a while and I have offered this blog as a forum for people concerned about the organisation to let us know about their experiences.

As luck would have it (ha ha) I met Bill Morrow at the Telegraph Business Club’s one day seminar a week earlier.  His contact details were in the literature and I reproduce them below - and they are on the original blog post so anyone needing follow-up go call / email him and Lois Cook his co-founder.

here is the text of the email I sent to Bill and Lois about my concerns and contact from Struan (he was cc and so should read it himself shortly).

Dear Lois and
Bill

I was at the Daily
Telegraph event two weeks ago where Bill was speaking / networking.  Following
that, and a posting that I made on my blog earlier (21^st August)
about the Angels Den service, I got a question written on my blog about you and
I have been unable to answer it.

Follow the link to see my
post and the question from Struan

Johnston

I think this shows up some
possible communication “holes” in your messaging and it suggests that there may
be some negative observations circulating around the blogosphere.  In Bill’s
profile from the Daily Telegraph Business Club handout it says “We are making a
lot of noise in The Press, come and see why.” 

Clearly you need to enable
more direct communication in a two-way manner with prospective angels and
businesses – somehow Mr Johnston fell through the gap.  He thought he got an
automated reply complimenting him on his business proposition and saying you’d
be back to him.  But he’s heard nothing.  For a
while.

If you want to ‘set the
record straight’ I would be happy to publish your reply on the
blog.

Best
wishes, Rebecca Caroe

Many agencies have used Rebus the integrated timesheet, accounts and cost management system.  The makers have re-written the software and called it "Paprika".  Launched November 06, it is a bit smarter than the previous system, has pretty graphics but is fundamentally intuitive and looks quite easy to use.

Key, of course, to a successful installation is
1/  Specify the system properly
2/ Have clear processes (and use them)
3 / Manage the change actively

I saw a demo online and have taken it into two clients for consideration.

Worth a look.

Would like to know what others think.

Nick Carr spotting opportunities again….Google should buy Intuit

And here is my comment posted there.

Interesting comment from Willshire above.  Intuit in the UK is a pretty poor service company (I’d always assumed it was a technology company that didn’t understand service but it appears the opposite).

I use Quickbooks for two companies I work with and the online support and training is really poor.  Maybe that’s just here in UK but none of the links work, there is no opportunity to buy offline training from resellers or the like.  And to crown it all they did a "customer survey" last week and the link to the questionnaire website didn’t work.

The day later they sent another email saying somethi8ng like ‘we don’t know why the link didn’t work on Friday’…. I am sure they did.  But it didn’t come across well to a customer who at the time had been prepared to spend her time filling in the questionnaire.  Opportunity blown away by poor testing IMHO.

Rebecca Caroe

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