nickshanagher

Poetry grabs life by the throat, David Adams says near the start of Well Versed , his collection of interconnected essays on the things that modern businesspeople should pay attention to in order to be successful. He borrows the phrase from Robert Frost in part explanation for his journey from accountant to stockbroker to chief executive to business coach. Unlike most business books that sell a single idea or success story, the strength of Adams’ book is its refusal to tell you what to do. “Alice in Through the Looking Glass …reaches a crossroads and doesn’t know which way to go. Looking up she sees the Cheshire Cat grinning. ‘Please sir which way should I go?’ ‘Where do you want to get to?’ asks the cat. ‘I don’t really mind,’ says Alice. ‘Well then it doesn’t really matter which way you go.’ How many businesses and particularly business meetings are conducted with the same ethos?” Adams challenges. Without clear and unequivocal goals businesses will never achieve either what ...

As a big fan of Gung Ho!, it has taken me a year to get around to reading Raving Fans ! by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. How many books have these guys written, I thought. Surely this is just stretching the franchise. But I was wrong. There are three rules to great customer service and the book provides a diverting story to help get the messages across. At £3.72 on Amazon and taking a couple of hours to read, is it worthwhile? Yes, if you are thinking about how your customer service could be improved. For local retailers, one of the strengths is that the authors give examples from the retail world. A department store where the staff pin carnations to your jacket and the boss sits in a desk in the middle of the sales floor, a supermarket with valet parking where people drive 40 miles to get groceries, and a service station where the attendants clean your windows and still sell petrol at less than the self-service across the way. The examples give you pl...

Visualising what success looks like is a key way to keep yourself focussed on what you want to achieve. It is the first point that Richard Hammond makes in his book Smart Retail and for the owner manager it is a vital one. Mr Hammond writes about Bob Caton, who taught him the techniques of visioning. Mr Caton told him about the house he built for himself in Thailand. "He bought the patch of land as soon as he could afford to and then every night, at home in England, imagined himself sitting on the vehranda at a house that didn't exist. He would describe to himself how it would feel, the taste of the cold beer in his mouth, the warmth of the breeze on his arms... "The next morning, he would repeat the process and no matter what lay in the day ahead he would get two things achieved - he would feel better about things that he was not all that keen on having to do and he got his house built." The success of your business depends on your ability to motivate your tea...