I’ve told this story before, but I was reminded because of a favour an old client asked of me. The most important commodity in your business once you’re more than a one man band is people. You can’t do it …
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A free marketing lesson – just a short walk away
I’ll explain why I wrote that heading in a moment, but it’s about why some businesses thrive and others flop. First, let me ask: do you ever find yourself being infuriated by something stupid? I do, all the time. It’s …
Read MoreStartling glimpses of the ludicrous and incompetent
During the time of the South Sea Bubble, Britain’s first great financial collapse, people would fall for anything. My favourite example which I recall from my school-days was a scheme to import jackasses from South America. This was not necessary …
Read MoreToday’s news: one remarkably stupid statement and one indefensible waste of public money
Pretty much everything that can be said has been said about what happened in Norway and poor Amy Whitehouse. Apart from the fact, in the latter case, that drugs should be legalised. In Portugal hard drug use (alarmingly high when …
Read More“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” – Karl Marx
Karl Marx was a much misunderstood man whose teachings have probably been responsible for more deaths than anyone in history, but that remark of his occurred to me when I spotted the front page of The Daily Star half an …
Read MoreWhat did you do in the Great War, Daddy?
That question is one of the best examples of the shameless – even shameful – use of emotion I can recall. It shamed many thousands to their deaths between 1914 and 1918 in one of the most pointless, bloody wars …
Read MoreBeware the curse of -ing
Yesterday I walked past (as I often do ) the splendid offices of Ofsted here in Bristol and scowled (as I always do) at the line outside which reads with boastful falsehood: “Raising standards, improving lives.” Ofsted is a quango, …
Read MoreHow to go broke – a beginners’ guide
Did you smile at the title? After all, nearly all new businesses go broke anyhow. Who needs a guide? There are two reasons. First, if you’re going to fail, why waste time? Why spend more sleepless nights that you need? …
Read MoreHow to get paid more. Lessons from a fishmonger
Today we went up the road to order some fish. We went to a place called Rockfish. It’s so tiny more than three customers make a crowd. Also you have to be patient. When we came in the man there …
Read More“Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue”
Nobody was better placed to define hypocrisy than Oscar Wilde. At the very time he was imprisoned, the prime minister, Lord Rosebery, was widely believed to be homosexual I wonder what Oscar would have thought of the great phone-bugging hoo-ha. …
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