Dead 'good'...

Barnsley has 3 Greggs. Now, don't get me wrong, Greggs is an incredible business, however, it's a shame that the business which thrives the most at times of recession is a purveyor of greasy pastries.

With this high horse, judgmental perspective, imagine my delight when I saw a healthy food established having opened right next door to one of the town's stalwart pasty dispensers.

However, if I'm anal about a healthy lifestyle, I'm twice as anal about the use of language.

This new shop is called 'Gud 2 Eat'.

I can remember how risque Toys 'R' Us once seemed with it's abbreviation, especially when they placed the 'R' backwards. I remember the odd Chippy having a sign which confirmed that they sold Fish 'n' Chips but even these independent heroes still had the common courtesy to correctly use apostrophes to indicate the omitted letters.

Since the explosion of the mobile phone and 'txt spk' business have suddenly taken to using this trend in their names. 'Phones 4 U', 'Fish 4 Jobs' and so on. An acquaintance of mine runs a letting agency called '2 Let 2 U' and an estate agency called '4 Sales 2 U' (sorry Chris). All this could well be acceptable with the straight forward replacement of a number or single letter for a word in a 'clever' kind of way but changing 'good' to 'gud'????

It terrifies me (it probably shouldn't but it does) to think that we think so little of our language that we would just change the spelling of a word for the sake of saving a letter. I can't possible think of the benefit either. Did they think that healthy food and a reasonable standard of English would be just too much for the simple folk of Barnsley?

And what next? 'New Luk', 'Alfuds', 'Wikz', a sign outside a shop representing a grunt?

And where did I observe all this from? Subway. Make of that what you will...

How much are people willing to pay to be an idiot? I don't know but it's definitely less than £1.

I shop at one of two of the major supermarkets. Either Tesco (as it's the closest, open 24 hours and you can get some decent deals) or Morrison's (as its the best for fresh stuff and overall great quality). However, this article is about one difference in policy between Tesco and Morrison's that fascinates me. And here it is:

At Morrison's you have to utilise a pound coin (or one of those pound coin equivalents that you can usually buy for charity) to access your trolley and at Tesco I can access a trolley without a deposit.

At first glance, this seems like something a bit anal and repressive from Morrison's. If someone wanted to steal a trolley, it's probably still a bargain for a pound as well as the inconvenience of having to make sure you have the relevant change on you when you get to the supermarket (something I'm terrible at) it also seems to be an unnecessary burden on their customers. Something which if you're having a bad day can wind you up. Why can't you just access trolleys freely like at Tesco? Well, this winds me up because I'm in the majority of folk who ALWAYS TAKE THEIR TROLLEY BACK.

When I do go to Tesco now I am constantly amazed by how many lazy, ignorant dipshits just leave their trolleys strewn across the car park in spite of the fact that they would have to walk a mere fifteen feet to place it in the nearest trolley collection zone (or whatever they're called). People are not willing to be this lazy if it risks loosing them a whole pound! A pound they could spend presumably on two and a half cigarettes, a third of a pint of Stella or put towards the paint work they need doing because of someone's roaming trolley in a supermarket car park....

I never see a loose trolley at Morrison's, all trolleys are constantly and perfectly aligned in the right sizes and yet I must slalom my way through dozens on each visit to Tesco. If £1 is a sufficient deterrent to stop people acting in an anti-social manner perhaps this is something judges across the land could pick up on. Rather than issuing ABSO's, community service or short prison sentences, just simply threaten the delinquents with a £1 fine....

If I ran a supermarket I would definitely adopt the £1 trolley deposit..... and I would have Gillian McKeith checking people's trolleys on their way out....

Pale Blue Dot

This blog is about perspective.

This photo of what looks like a blurred spectrum is in fact a very famous image known as 'pale blue dot'. You may have seen it mentioned recently on Brian Cox's 'Wonders of The Universe'.

I use this image to help gain a bit of perspective. This is a picture of the Earth taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 and it shows the Earth from 3.7 billion miles away. That's right, 3.7 billion miles away! Bear in mind that the sun is 93 million miles away.

When you pause to remember the shear blip of existence that we actually occupy it can really make you concentrate on those things that are important in life and not get stressed by inconsequential things such as a client taking their time to pay a bill or a member of staff arriving 3 minutes late to work. When you realise how incredibly trivial these things are it will alleviate stress and make you far far more productive.

PS. What is also good fun is to show this image to a Christian and ask them what they think of it. If you're into that kind of thing that is....

I'm on strike!

I caused quite a stir on Linked-In today by complaining about teachers who go on strike. People who I've never even met commented on my post.

I observed that teachers have a 'cushy' job to which I was promptly corrected by several pillars of the community. Of course teachers have a cushy job. I'm not saying anything about how much they should/shouldn't be paid, that's not for me to have an opinion on but if teaching isn't a cushy job I don't know what is. Lots of people from my University course (I did English) went into teaching precisely because it was a cushy option!

13 weeks holidays, no weekend work. Apart from around exam time you always have the option of finishing work at 3:30. How cushy can it get? I'd love to see a teacher try and claim that they didn't have a cushy job to a Nurse, Fireman or Police Officer! We need teachers, they are very important of course but its not exactly hard labour or the most pressured of jobs is it??? Teachers don't have to make life/death decisions on a daily basis do they (unless perhaps they teach at Willowgarth!).

Unions should be there to be a voice of a workforce to ensure fair working conditions. It should not create a line of sheep who walk away from educating children for financial gain.

Right, I'm going on a week long strike now because my boss is just too good looking!

How to shut someone up!

Point a camera at them!!!

I like to consider myself a reasonable articulate and confident speaker but even for someone who could make such a bold claim I flounder and lose the ability to string a coherent sentence together the moment a camera is placed in front me.

I experienced this last year when we were doing the test videos for The VT Network (if you haven't seen The VT Network visit www.thevtnetwork.com and you can see first hand my inability to talk to camera, even on take 46). And in my defence we have people who struggle a lot more than me when we do The VT Network VTs!

Anyway, I've raised the point again because I'm going to be doing some short sales training videos especially for YouTube and I'm currently just figuring out how to use this new camcorder I've bought. There's no one where but I still start every sentence to the damn thing with hmmwwwaammmbbbb... errrrrr....

Gives me a whole new respect for Ant & Dec.....

Derren Brown

This week I got one of the best phone calls I've had in ages. It was from a good friend and business contact of mine who asked me three brilliant questions. 1. Do you like curry? (er - yeah!) 2. Do you know who Derren Brown is? (are you kidding? I'm a little bit obsessed with the guy) and 3. what are you doing tonight? (get in!). Luckily the first two questions did indeed link to the third and it wasn't just a ploy to get me to go dogging.... Tickets to see Derren Brown live and a curry - all paid for! Not bad for a Tuesday!

Anyway - I could talk about Derren Brown until the cows came home and given that I don't know where the cows live, that would take some time. What I actually want to write about here are three brilliant business (or indeed life) principals that we can learn from Derren Brown.

1. Honesty. Derren stands up at the beginning of every show and declares to his audience that he is not a Psychic, possesses no magic powers and generally is a human. He describes his show as "magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship". His point is that for years people have claimed that these stunts were in some way supernatural and that by admitting that they are not, it makes the audience no less impressed but significantly less patronised. Honesty in business works much the same way. It handles your customer expectations more effectively, gives them a greater understanding of how you work and builds a better foundation for a long term relationship.

2. Basic & simple wins every time. Derren tricks look extraordinary but when you know the explanation you are bound to be disappointed by how amazingly simple they are. When I tried to explain one of the trick's mechanics my friend just couldn't accept the explanation because its just too pathetically straight forward. This is Derren's greatest ability. To make the very very ordinary appear anything but. By keeping it simple it ensures that it works every time and it can be perfected. Business processes should be just as profoundly simple. How often have you called a business and found them to take the longest route possible to sort something basic?

3. Good communication is key. Derren can plant ideas in people's mind purely through his use of language and paralanguage. You can too! Excellent communication skills are vital in business. Listen carefully, be thorough in your descriptions and remember - if someone doesn't clearly understand what you mean, the fault lies with you. Better consider how you get your point across and exactly what your customer needs to know.

If you're not familiar with Derren Brown's work then 1 - I don't know why you read this far - and 2. Go to You Tube now!

Stock Levels

Sometimes the mind boggles. It really does...

The other day, a Tuesday to be precise, we phoned a sandwich shop close to the office. The Tuesday thing is relevant because Tuesday is the day that pork sandwiches are on their 'specials'.

It was 11:50am. They were out of pork! This is not the first time that this has happened. One Tuesday it happened when we phoned at 12:30, so we phoned the next time at 12:15 and the next time at 12:05 and 12:00, hence trying to order lunch at 11:50...

Now don't get me wrong, we have achieved pork sandwiches for lunch on the occasional Tuesday so we're not just accidentally ringing a hair dressers but what amazes me is that a sandwich shop, which makes its money from selling food, runs out of said food before the time of day when people tend to buy food!

Its only happened to me in Subway once. They ran out of bread. Enough said.

If you run out of pork one Tuesday, by lunchtime, and have more customers asking for pork, surely, next Tuesday you make sure you have more pork! And you keep buying in more pork on a Tuesday until you no longer run out of pork!

When it comes to stock levels companies should always abide by the 'one left' rule. If you've got one left you're certain that you couldn't possibly have sold any more.

And if you want a pork sandwich on a Tuesday when you're in our neck of the woods just make sure you order it on Monday!

Why the Oscars annoy me!

It's that time of year again when six decent films compete to gain the biggest list of vanity medals they possibly can. Well done Colin Firth et al. You did your job, which is not very challenging but is definitely massively overpaid, on a scale that would make Premiership footballers green with envy and you can now spend months on end being rewarded for it in spite of the fact that it has no positive effect on the world at all.

If every time a surgeon performed an operation he was to await an award ceremony to see if he would be awarded 'Best Life Saving Attempt' of the Year not a lot would get done in spite if this being a far more worthy ceremony. Surgery takes far more skill than any acting role possibly could.

They act as if they have achieved deity like status by accepting a statue for doing what is frankly not a proper job. Without actors we would have to read more and play more board games. Without builders I would live outside....

Bunch of self important tw..........

Rant over!

Bigger office!

Sales Operation UK Limited is about to take the next step in its growth by moving to a new office!

We don't have to move far mind we're only moving over the corridor and staying with the ever helpful and flexible Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre.

I started out in mid 2008 on a desk in a shared office at BBIC before taking the entire 423 sq ft office for our team in late 2009. Little over twelve months later and we're moving to a fantastic 1175 sq ft suite to encompass our ever growing team of sales specialists!

This will enable us to support even more innovative companies by providing qualified sales appointments and conducting professional calling projects to help our clients grow!!

We're excited about the move and where it will help us get to next!

Complaint email

I recently had the pleasure of having my house turned upside down in order to fulfil my partner's life long dream of having a new kitchen. Apparently a kitchen with a cooker, fridge/freezer, sink etc was surprisingly insufficient for preparing meals and we needed a completely different kitchen with a cooker, fridge/freezer, sink etc....

Anyway, during this process I have experience levels of inadequacy from purportedly professional people to an extent that I have never come across before. At time of writing I am 5 weeks into a 2 week wait for a fridge/freezer. Below is just one example of the type of conversations I have been having to have during 2011. Enjoy.....

From: Tony Pearson [mailto:t_pearson@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 24 January 2011 21:03
To: XXXXX@utsumi.uk.net; XXXXXX@astracast.co.uk
Subject: order number: 10229685 (10/01/11)

Dear Sir/Madam

I write to both Taps UK (retailer) & Astracast (manufacturer) regarding an Astracast Korona (1.5) sink recently ordered and received.

The sink was delivered last Monday 17th January to our home address: 246....

The sink remained in its box until our kitchen fitter opened the box to install on Friday of last week.

When we returned from work, among other things our kitchen fitter advised us that there was a slight leak from the small centre sink and not to use until he had checked all the piping on Monday when he came back. What he hadn't noticed as it is not immediately visible is that there is a crack along one side of the centre sink. You can just about see what looks like a small scratch but when you feel this it is actually a much more significant crack, which is of course causing the leak and is therefore unusable.

When the kitchen fitter came back on Monday morning I pointed this out to him. After discussing the installation process I am satisfied that this damage could not have been caused by the installation.

I initially called Taps UK and was told, 'as it has been fitted you would need to speak to the manufacturer'. I contacted Astracast and was told that as it was fitted they could not accept responsibility but I did have 12 months come back on the retailer.

Following both conversations the best suggestion I got was that I could pay £125 direct to Astracast for a replacement sink. A positive gesture but I am afraid that I simply cannot accept that a ROK sink which comes with a 20 year manufacturers guarantee should cost me an extra £125 when it arrives damaged.

I did not wish to hear 'you should have checked it before it was installed'. First of all, why on Earth would I expect what is supposedly such a robust product to be damaged in such a manner. Not only this but a professional kitchen fitter didn't even spot the damage initially and so this damage was basically undetecable until installed. Its a bit like spotting a mechanical issue with a car before having driven it!!

Could someone from either company please contact me on 07970 463837 today in order to advise how I go about receiving a replacement sink. I am very happy for someone to inspect said sink before a replacement is agreed as suggested in the manufacturer's Guarantee Registration & Customer Care Card.

May I add that I also asked Taps UK after placing my order online if I could (1) pick the sink up as I happened to be driving between Yorkshire & South Wales and therefore passing Bromsgrove on the M5/M42 junction, to which they said no because they can't have customers on site. I only wanted to go where the collections are made not come shopping, and (2) have the sink delivered to the workplace where they could have handed the sink to my/my partner's hand but this was also apparently impossible and they would rather deliver it to an empty house ten miles away! As it happens, our kitchen fitter was there to take collection, another thing which gave us less chance to give the sink what should have been an unnecessary examination.

I eagerly await a helpful response. Please be aware that I do have meetings today and so may not immediately be able to take a call but please leave a voicemail and I will get straight back to you as soon as I become available.

Tony Pearson.

PS. we are very pleased with our tap.

From: XXXXXX@tapsuk.net
To: t_pearson@hotmail.co.uk
Subject: RE: order number: 10229685 (10/01/11)
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:00:34 +0000

Hello

Thank you for your email

I have spoken to Astracast this morning and they discussed this situation.

Unfortunately as the item has been fitted, TapsUK are unable help any further with this as any item fitted falls under the manufactures guarantee

The Astracast representative i spoke to informed me they would contact you to let you know what they can offer

Many thanks

Regards

Daniel Ely

Communications Manager

From: Tony Pearson [mailto:t_pearson@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 28 January 2011 12:47
To: XXXXXX@tapsuk.net; XXXXXX@astracast.co.uk
Subject: RE: order number: 10229685 (10/01/11)

Hi Daniel

Thank you for your email and thanks to Taps UK for once again washing their hands of a customer who needs assistance.

I have not replied sooner as I have been awaiting a call from Astracast, which I'm not stunned to say, I have not yet received.

I am aware that I have a 20 year manufacturers guarantee on a product that didn't quite make it to 20 minutes so I will obviously be having a conversation with Astracast as soon as their obviously very busy work schedule permits time for someone to do something as outlandish as contact a customer. However, as the retailer, you need to be aware that my preference would now to be refunded for the sink as we would rather purchase a sink elsewhere. A refund would come from Taps UK as it was Taps UK whom I paid for the sink. If I sold you a pair of Nike trainers and you got home, put them on your feet and found that there was a hole in them, I would presume you would bring them back to me rather than pursue Nike to complain about the standard of their Indonesian child labourer's stitching. (This is a metaphorical shoe shop by the way).

You are very welcome to come and collect the sink once we have a crack free new one. I would return it to you myself but you don't allow customers on site.

Could you please make arrangements for a refund/collection or replacement sink with Astracast and get back in touch. I am happy to receive information via email as it is easier to collate the number of times I get told, 'I'm sorry dear customer, we have your money and no longer give a shit'.

Much obliged

Tony - 07970 463837

Hello

Thank you for your email

I have now confirmed with Astracast that they are now sending out a new sink for you

Best Regards,

Amy

Customer Service

www.tapsuk.com

SOUL welcomes Nathan Taylor

Thanks to a fantastic customer base who are growing their business through Sales Operations UK Limited's sales support services we are expanding our team.

Nathan Taylor joined SOUL as a client account manager on 1st February, bringing him a wealth of sales experience particularly in the provision of vehicle tracking systems. Nathan also has call centre experience and has the energy and work ethic that will enhance our team and bring brilliant results for the clients he works with.

We wish him well in his new role. Now, sales skills established, let's see how good he is at brewing up....

Blogging

I intend to write in this blog a bit more but I've decided that I'm also going to blog about stuff that is of interest to me & not just stuff about the company.

This is because (1) I don't think any reads my blog anyway, therefore its just an elongated method of talking to myself so I might as well find it interesting and (2) were anyone sad enough to be reading my blog, they might also find it interesting.

When I say 'interesting to me', I apologise in advance if my threshold of excitement is significantly lower than yours, the average human being with a fulfilling life!

I also promise no more blogs about blogging, because that is sad....

Beer

I get to work with some brilliant companies in this job but very few products as enticing as beer!

Luckily this week I began some work with local micro-brewer, Acorn Brewery (http://www.acorn-brewery.co.uk).

What is a straight forward product (beer) and a straight forward customer base (pubs) is still a very volatile market (pubs closing across the UK) and when some of your competition have marketing budgets running into the millions (think of your favourite mass produced tipple) things can be quiet difficult.

Acorn Brewery do have fantastic quality ales and some large pubs chains who sell several of their products. Here's hoping we can get Acorn's sales to the next level and stay relatively sober along the way....

BNI

After years of voicing a rather negative opinion about the networking group BNI, I have now been indoctrinated and joined the new group formed at Darrington!

I had attended a couple of BNI groups in the past as a guest and decided that I didn't want to join something so regimented and cultish, however, something kept coming to my attention. Some people I know in business, intelligent and interesting business people at that, all said that they did really well out of BNI.....

When I yielded to Martin Havenhand's (http://www.ccmsgroup.co.uk) to attend a new group being formed at Darrington I thought I knew what to expect. What I didn't expect was that the group were actually a good laugh and I realised that this was what BNI had always been missing for me. Business with a smile on its face!

As I've finally dusted off my signing pen and joined the group has now hit its 20 member launch requirement and we start in earnest next week.

I'm looking forward to my BNI adventure and to hopefully meet some fantastic new clients. If you want to come along for a visit at some point, give me a bell.... if 6:30 on a Friday morning is your thing of course...

Hello 2011

Well, I haven't blogged since January last year so I shall make a better effect to talk to myself throughout this year. Who knows, it could turn out to be rather therapeutic...

I hoped that 2010 would be the Year of Awesome as we grew the outsourcing side of SOUL and it didn't fair too badly at all. As well as my long serving and loyal puppy Richard, we were joined by James Exley, a man with 417 years of sales experience and Jon Landon a boy with 4 minutes of sales experience but someone who we are moulding into a more coherent and relatively useful adult....

2011 promises to be an even greater year than 2010 in the life of SOUL. We've suffered through our growing pains and now we're hearing helping some fantastic businesses improve and increase their sales (see our 'clients' page for links to some of the brilliant companies we've worked with).

So, I'll just take this opportunity to wish you all the best for 2011 and hope that your business does flourish in spite of the fact that we now have to hand deliver 96.4% of all revenue directly to George Osborne in cash!

Happy Selling!