Wise advice my mother gave me – too many ignore it

She ran a fine restaurant, set up an award-winning charity – even wrote great copy

Seventy years ago my parents took over a vermin-ridden, filthy derelict pub outside Manchester.

They turned it into a goldmine – for three reasons.

My father was very funny, so many people used to come for his company. My mother was beautiful, so many others wanted to enjoy hers.

Some did – but that’s another subject.

They opened a very successful restaurant above the pub which was in the Good Food Guide right from the first year – 1952 – till they left 25 years later.

Later, my mother started a charity for animals. I told her to write letters to her supporters.

The first pulled in £5,000 from a list of 1,000. You could probably multiply that by at least three today.

I sent that letter – written when she was 70 – to David Ogilvy.

He replied, “Hire your mother.”

She gave me a lot of good advice, including one piece I have never forgotten.

“Always say you’re sorry. It costs nothing, and it often makes someone happy.”

Going back to David Ogilvy, he introduced me to a big account. After a while he rang me up and asked, “Have you made any mistakes?”

I replied, “Yes.”

“Have you owned up?”

“Yes”

“Good. Always confess before they find out.”

I am amazed by some of the stuff I see – especially on the internet. It’s all boast, boast, boast – “my latest webinar was brilliant, blah, blah, blah.”

A little humility goes a long way.

Another excellent advertising man, Charles E Brower of BBDO, had a saying I love.

“Honesty is not only the best policy. It is rare enough nowadays to make you pleasantly conspicuous.”

So is humility.