Smiling Vacuum Cleans Up

When you’re involved in a small business like Your Life Your Style, you find yourself doing all sorts of tasks you previously left to others. I’ve had to become a bookkeeper, a sign maker, a decorator and, every so often, a cleaner. 

Vacuuming isn't the most exciting job but what makes it a bit more enjoyable for me is our vacuum cleaner. He's called Henry, he's bright red and he has a lovely smiling face. When he follows me around, it's like having a friendly faithful pet. He certainly cheers me up in the morning but that wouldn't be more than clever marketing by Numatic if he wasn't also the best vacuum cleaner we've ever had.

Pudsey Bear And The Unlimited Appeal of Steiff

Until we started selling Steiff teddy bears, I have to admit they had completely passed under my radar. Now I love these beautifully made toys and their appealing faces and I see references to them everywhere. The other day I read that E H Shepherd’s original drawing of Winnie the Pooh was based on the bear that belonged to A A Milne’s son- and was made by Steiff.

                                  

Amazingly, although he’s been around for 24 years, Steiff have never produced a Pudsey Bear. Until now. This year a Steiff Pudsey made of yellow mohair will be available in a Limited Edition of 2009 pieces, complete with buttoned ear tag. He costs £150 but could be worth a great deal more in a few years time. £30 from each sale goes to the BBC's Children In Need appeal for disadvantaged children.

We’re expecting him in just by the end of November but he can be ordered inadvance from the Your Life Your Style website.

Delivering The Goods

Like Amazon and others, we've switched frrom the Post Office to private couriers to ship our online and phone orders. We're very impressed so far with the service we're receiving from Fastway. It's a fairly new network of independent franchisees who each have their own area in which they collect and deliver. At present they cover about 70% of the country and they offer an excellent price and service.
It looked like the postal strikes would be a blow to our business but we find we're saving on delivery costs as well as having a service that picks up from our door. It's a shame that a dispute about the unprofitable door-to-door delivery service which clearly is in need of reform but not necessarily in the ways proposed by the management should damage the profitable part of the Post Office business.

If Don't Ask, You Don't Sell

I never cease to be amazed by my wife Julia and my sister-in-law Wendy's ability to sell to customers in the Your Life Your Style shop. They never force themselves or a product but, by an apparently simple process of making contact ('hello'), offering to help, listening carefully to the customer's needs and being able to match products to those requirements, they sell far more than any pushy or passive salesperson.

Carbon Footprint Made By Slipper

At our shop Your Life Your Style, we're very excited by the arrival of new products from Moore And Moore of Devon.
We're selling their slippers and hot water bottles (including some that come with soft toys for children), all handmade in incredibly soft faux fur. You can turn the central heating down and still feel warm as toast. What a luxurious way to reduce your carbon footprint.
And if you want to do even more to save on your heating, we have Dora Designs' gorgeous animal draught excluders.

The Last Post

I've always thought it was a marvellous thing that you can post a letter and the Royal Mail will deliver it to someone's letter box anywhere in the country probably the next day for a flat rate.
But since I've been involved in a business that relies on sending parcels I have quite a different impression of the mail service. Many of the packages we send are under 2Kg and therefore qualify to be sent as a £4.41 Standard Parcel. Anything heavier, it's cheaper to send by courier. Firms like DHL, UPS and the Fastway all offer not only a better price but also collect from the door and track the parcels with a barcode.
Now strikes have meant that we can't rely on the Royal Mail at all. Online customers of Your Life Your Style expect a reliable speedy service. So it was perfect timing when Fastway arrived at our door with a service that is cheaper than Royal Mail even for smaller packages- and they come into the shop to collect, thus avoiding a long wait in a Post Offic queue. Of course, the Royal Mail will also collect- provided you spend over £15,000 a year with them or are willing to pay £500 per annum!
It seems symptomatic of state owned businesses- or indeed any companies that have grown complacent on lack of competition- that the Royal Mail's management and workers live in a past where enterprise and efficiency are way down the list of priorities compared with, say, resisting change.
The Royal Mail should look at the example of Fastway where franchisees are 100% committed to giving a good service because they have a stake in the business.

NHS- Good Product, Not So Good Service

As someone who has had two fairly serious illnesses in the last few years, I feel I'm in a good position to comment on the current debate about the NHS.
When I developed Rheumatoid Arthritis three years ago, the joints in my fingers and wrists swelled to twice their normal size and I was considerably debilitated. Initially I was treated privately but went on to the NHS when it became clear I would need ongoing treatment, for which private insurance wouldn't pay. The NHS has been pretty good: I receive thousands of pounds worth of drugs that ensure I am virtually sympton free, and regular outpatient visits and treatments which are always excellent.
There are shortcomings though- the regularity with which appointments are postponed, and the fact that the cost of the main drug I receive has been questioned even though it leaves RA sufferers like myself virtually symptomless .
Five years ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated privately by brachytherapy which, without going into details, has far less side effects than other treatments but which wasn't available at that time on the NHS. The private room aftercare was wonderful.
A relative in his late seventies was recently given two hugely expensive life saving operations from an top class specialist on the NHS. There is no way health insurance would have been an option for a man of his age. However his aftercare left a lot to be desired with caring staff overworked and some others completely indifferent to his needs.
When you run a business, especially in retailing like Your Life Your Style, you know that you must not only provide a good value product but that you must also give superb service. The NHS usually gets the first right but falls down far too often at the second. It's the classic failing of an organisation that lacks competition and doesn't put people first, though I don't doubt that artificial competition in the form of outsourcing and targets has also had a damaging effect.
I used to receive health insurance through my employer. I was tempted to give it up when I went into business for myself but all my experience tells me to carry on paying the extortionate health insurance premiums, at least for the time being. On the other hand, the NHS means that anyone who is ill can be treated irrespective of age or income and I wouldn't hesitate to defend it against the uninformed criticisms of American conservatives.

There's More To Life Than Work

Back from France and what a contrast in attitudes to work. An Englishman who lives there told us how he despairs of getting the locals to do any work. But to me that's the attraction. They do the minimum to get by and prefer to eat and relax. Why not when you live in such a hot and food-rich environment?
Of course, the offhand approach of some male waiters can be frustrating but generally they offer friendly albeit slow service in shops and cafes. Chill out, I say to us Anglo Saxons and our work ethic, at least when on holiday.
Still, it's nice to be back and working hard, because that has its rewards too.

A Door Opens On The High Street

The high street is under threat but there's also an opportunity. Shops that sell mass produced products, shops that have grown too big to care, they may go. But new shops can take their place. It's a rare chance for entrepreneurial independents to break into the high street- businesses more in touch with customers' tastes and needs.
Our local council working with the local paper has launched a website shopinhampshire.co.uk to encourage us to support the local high street. Our shop Your Life Your Styleis there and, given the chance, we'll be on more local high streets as well.

Quality Wins

Your Life Your Style is to be Winchester's stockist of Steiff teddy bears. It may be you haven't heard of Steiff but to anyone who collects these delightful furry toys, they are the number one. Why? Partly because they've been making bears for 100 years but mainly because the quality is superb.
Like many German firms, Steiff bring together good design, precision manufacturing and obseesive quality control. They tried making some of their bears in China but found so many items were below their standard that they went back to making them exclusively in Germany.
Our own manufacturers can learn from this. For years, British goods became a by-word for shoddy, thanks to complacency and lack of worker involvement. Then the far east took over mass production.
When Britain did something well, it was a world beater- Rolls Royce or malt whisky for example. Thankfully a new generation of British manufacturers are in that tradition and recognise that you can't beat the Chinese on price but you can succeed by offering good design, skilled manufacture and quality control.
We visited the Grayshott factory this week which houses Dartington Pottery. As well as the special edition pieces we stock, they provide crockery for many restaurants. The work of these thirty or so people, who operate as a co-operative, is breathtaking in its skill and care. If a customer wants cheap ceramics, China beckons but if they want quality and value, Grayshott is there for them, and offers an example to British manufacturers in the 21st century.

Dora Designs On Facebook- Fun Comes First

Our shop Your Life Your Style already has a Facebook page. We've now started an I Love Dora Designs group. We want people who love Dora Designs to find out more about Doras, post photos and news, and to talk to each other. This is not set up to sell Doras but many successful businesses on the internet have learnt that by providing a useful service first, sales follow. If we do sell a few Doras, we'll be happy but, if not, it's still fun to run a Dora Designs Fan Club.

The Price Of Free

I'm far from the first to say this but I'll add my voice to the growing opposition to 'free' information sites on the internet. For a start, none are really free. The internet has reduced the cost of communication but the free information on Google Search is paid for by advertising, the free YouTube service is paid for by Google, the free news is provided by paid for newspapers, the free BBC sites are paid for by licence fees, and so on.
The best things in life are free. And, along with sunsets and making love, I think work done by volunteers is admirable. It's wonderful that so many people are happy to give of their time to provide information online to help or inspire others, just as people through the ages have helped others out of sheer altruism.
What I think is dangerous is the dissemination of material for free that it cost someone something to produce. If those producers- news organisations, music companies, publishers- are put out of business, then there will nothing left to put online for free.

We Need Some Old Fashioned Banking

Today Your Life Your Style changes banks. We've given up on HSBC after feeling distinctly uncared for. What surprises me is that HSBC have never asked why we're leaving. You would think every business would want to improve its customer service yet, despite describing themselves as 'the world's local bank', HSBC appear to be just another global bank who are more bothered with big investments than small customers.

A Gift From Harrogate

Back from the Harrogate Home & Gift Trade Fair with some great new products, which we'll be introducing to the Your Life Your Style website and shop in the next few weeks. The only downside was lack of sleep.
We stayed one night at the Harrogate Travelodge,looking out over a pub. Drunken conversations wafted up until well after midnight, followed at about 2 a.m. by loud revellers singing at the top of their voices, then at 5 a.m. the emptying of the bottle skip into a collection lorry. The luxurious Queens Hotel in Leeds the previous night was about the same price (special Saturday offer) and was a wonderful experience, topped by a flawless meal in The Restaurant Bar And Grill in Leeds City Square.

Your Frontline Is Your Business

Seth Godin makes a good point in his blog about the importance of managers keeping in touch with the front line. When I took over responsibility for the operational side of a theatre, I spent time doing or shadowing all the various jobs. It was an eye-opener and the experience helped me be aware how much of a gap there is between management theory and frontline practice when you have real people dealing with each other, who may be tired, confused or lacking information. As the CEO of Sony once said, 'The company is only as good as its latest recruit.'
Neither can executives rely on middle managers for a true picture of what's going on. They often don't want to admit that their staff are in difficulty in case it reflects on them. I've seen from close by the disastrous consquences to staff morale and company results, when senior managers are out of direct touch with their employees.
I like the small businesses I'm involved in now because I'm in constant touch with all colleagues and I experience at first hand what's going on with customers and suppliers. I find the Your Life Your Style online shop more difficult from this point of view, because while there is endless analysis available of site visitors and customers, I rarely get to actually speak to them. I like these sites where you can click to 'speak' to a real person.

Book Covers And Shop Windows

Seth Godin’s blog is nearly always worth a read. Today he talks about using a book’s cover to attract attention and encourage the customer to pick it up and look at it. He lists a number of ways in which this can be done, all of which could apply to a shop window:

Iconic (because iconic items tend to signal ‘important’)
Noticeable across the room (you see that lots of other people own it, thus making it likely that you’ll want to know why)
Sophisticated (because this helps reinforce that the ideas inside are worthy of your time)
Original (why bother reading a book you already know)
Clever
Funny
Generic (reminding you of a genre or another book you liked, not generic as in boring)

Protectionism Is Bad For Britain

Britain is a trading nation and any attempt at protectionism would backfire on us. If we stop imports, other countries will block our exports. As citizens, we would pay more and earn less. Look what happened in the sixties and seventies when trades unions sought to protect British jobs by preventing industries from modernising. We lost our competitive advantage.
Let’s continue to import mass manufactured goods cheaply and export specialised products and services for high prices. At Your Life Your Style, we stock many British made goods because they are beautifully designed and skilfully made, far better than their equivalent from overseas. Most of the other items that are made abroad more cheaply than thye could be in this country are still designed in the UK.
Free trade means we survive on our ability to be creative and competitive, something we as a nation are very good at.

Mary Queen Of Empty Shops

Mary Portas looked at empty high streets on last night's TV. Fortunately Winchester where our shop is located is so far unaffected by the recession, although some premises in The Brooks are proving hard to fill.
Her answer to the high street woes after an hour of waffle? Work with neighbouring retailers, give the customers what they want and do it with a bit of razamataz. Good advice but did it need an hour to come to that conclusion?

My Loss Was My Copywriting Gain

I'd just written an email for Your Life Your Style customers. I went to the loo and when I got back, someone had inadvertently logged into the website administration and my email was lost. I wrote it once more and clicked to send a test email. The website software froze and again I lost it.

Strangely I was not dishearetned or frustrated by this. Because you should re-write and re-write and re-write again. And ideally you should not refer to what you already wrote.

When you've gone through the process of writing copy a few times, the ideas are firmly lodged in your brain, so you don't have to think about what you're saying. You become one with the copy, grasshopper.

What comes out of your head when you re-write on a blank screen is sharper, leaner and more natural.

The Price Is Right

I love, actually I need to start the working day with a coffee. To be precise, a latte from Costa. And every day I can’t believe I’m paying £2 for a takeaway coffee. How did the coffee houses persuade us to pay such an outrageous price which appears to bear no relation to cost?

To be fair, when we price products for our gift shop Your Life Your Style, it’s not as simple as taking the cost and applying a standard percentage mark up. There are a number of factors we take into account. As I always tell businesses who consult me, you first must consider the market and set a price appropriate to it.

As retailers, we have little say over the product’s position in the market, so we move straight on to how many we expect to sell and how much customers are willing to pay. At Your Life Your Style, we rarely expect to sell products on a mass scale because we offer special gifts and accessories.

However, if we can sell a reasonable number, we can afford a lower margin and make the profit we need through scale. Going back to my old theatre marketing days, I think of the example of Christmas pantomime where the type of audience and the numbers who attend allow for lower prices than for, say, a musical.

On the other hand, if the market is more niche, it is necessary to charge more. Opera comes to mind as a case where, at least when I was trying to sell it, no matter how cheap you made the tickets, there were only so many people interested in buying. At Your Life Your Style, we may go for a higher than average profit margin if we know a product is unique and may take some time to shift.

Of course, how people themselves value the product will have a big influence. And this is where it gets more complicated. Marketing, word-of-mouth and the intrinsic qualities of the product will potentially affect a consumer’s attitude to a product. They may have an emotional attachment to it or make a rational decision about its quality or simply want to show off that they have the taste or money to purchase it. Whatever the reason, if a customer believes the product to be exceptional or life enhancing, they will pay a premium for it.

This is why we don’t automatically charge the lowest price we can afford based on cost. A cheap price means to many people an inferior product because that is what they’ve learned from experience. No doubt Chanel could charge less but their customers want to buy an expensive perfume. In fact, perfume manufacturers and other fashion brands like Levi have fought hard to stop their products being discounted and thereby ‘cheapened’.

Back to coffee (and I am beginning to feel like another latte), Starbucks managed to persuade us that we were getting something special. Special beans, specially roasted, freshly ground, customised to your taste and in a social club atmosphere. Hence the special price. Then everybody started imitating it but the strange thing is, the more popular premium coffee became, the more the price should have come down. Yet it didn’t.

Initially Costa and the rest wanted to show they were the same quality as Starbucks, so they matched the prices. Even so, in all the years since, no-one has broken ranks and reduced prices. I read that at a blind tasting people preferred McDonalds coffee to Starbucks but it will take some persuading people that you don’t always get what you pay for.

Knowing the price people will pay forces Your Life Your Style reluctantly to turn down some excellent products where the cost is too high, taking into account all our overheads. For example, we have found that some (not all) products hand crafted in Britain are so expensive to produce that the retail price looks hugely expensive when compared with either something handcrafted in the third world or something mass produced. Every product must earn the time and space it takes up.

There is always an element of trial and error in pricing. We know there is a tipping point at which a product sells, so it’s easier to start with a higher price first and, if the product doesn’t sell, lower it. This then gives us the opportunity to employ the other great pricing tool- the bargain. Some more cynical businesses deliberately charge a high price to establish that something has a value, not expecting the product to sell, then cut the price. This way, people don’t see it as ‘cheap’ but rather a ‘bargain’.

We prefer to price fairly from the start, because we know that customers have no respect for cynical businesses. Their spend with a gift-cum-lifestyle shop like ours is entirely discretionary so we need their respect. To me, getting the price right is a constantly challenging element of running a business. There is no easy formula but if you get it wrong, all your other good work goes out the window.

Can You Have Partial Democracy?

It's our democratic right to choose whichever party we think has the best policy on the economy or public services or even immigration, but how can any person who believes in democracy vote to be governed by a party that will only accept white members?

Blue Islands Airline Soars Above Flybe

Back from our first visit to Guernsey and very impressed by the Blue Islands airline service.

They are a small channel islands business and, as opposed to their competition Flybe, very customer friendly. You can amend or cancel your booking up to one hour before- at no charge; there's no charge for your hold luggage; there's no charge for use of their lounge at Guernsey airport.

I'll definitely return to Guernsey, a great place for a long weekend break- and I know who I'll be travelling with.

Barcelona's Victory Is Good Business

We English are expected to support English clubs in Europe but I don't much like the English Premiership set-up so I prefer to support a team I do admire like Barcelona.

Compare and Contrast. Man Utd, like all English clubs, embraced the free market and in their case ended up owned by an American company who saddled them with £700 million in debt. Barcelona are owned by their 113,000 members who elect their Board and President. They even turned down a £20 million sponsorship of their shirts in favour of promoting UNICEF. Football clubs started as teams with fans- Barcelona have stayed that way and still manage to be more financially successful than Man Utd.

There is a lesson. Don't underestimate co-operatives as a way to run a business- John Lewis, The Co-Op Bank and the Phone Co-Op all do very well, as do many of the trusts that run arts organisations. The danger of the more common business model is that shareholders come before customers and employees. The result is bigger and more remote (geographically and emotioanlly) companies.

Giving power to the people who are the company- the employees or the customers- ensures that the business doesn't forget why it was created in the first place.

Brand or Category?

My first manager job was for a John Menzies bookshop. My first act as manager was to change the categories of paperbacks from by publisher (designed to help the staff and suppliers) to by subject (to help the customers). It's not always so easy though. Many customers shop by brand and want to see all Nike products, say, grouped together rather than spread between various categories.
Marks & Spencer are an interesting example of a shop that seems unsure of which they want to do. In my local, you can shop for Autograph or PerUna clothing by brand but find other stock grouped by type. Except that lingerie comes under not Autograph or PerUna but lingerie. It's the same in the food section. Unlike Tesco or Sainsbury who mix their Taste The Difference in with the standard and Value products in the appropriate category, Marks put similar meals under categories in some cases and under 'brands' like 'Pub Grub' (or whatever it's called) in others. Confused? You will be if you shop at Marks.
It's easier with an online shop because you can do both- as we do at Your Life Your Style, where for example you can click on Glass by Jo Downs and Handmade In UK.
A bricks and mortar store must observe its customers' behaviour and ask them their preferred way of shopping.

No News Is Bad News

My local paper is the best in the country. The Hampshire Chronicle is over 200 years old but still offers news in depth, considered opinion on relevant issues as well as shining light into dark corners of local politics. TV and radio news is shallow and spineless by comparison.

Sadly the internet is threatening the survival of local newspapers in two ways: firstly by diverting advertising from them, secondly by taking news from them and providing it for free. I know it's not necessarily the end of the world if newspapers die out, you can't fight progress, etc etc... except there is no sign that advertising on the internet alone will ever be able to pay for the resources needed to produce local news of the same quality as The Chronicle and other newspapers which have paying readers. As things stand, if local newspapers disappear, so will the online news.

The internet has been around for a tenth of the time of the Hampshire Chronicle and there are still no clear business models for many of its activities. Yet it is wreaking havoc across a range of industries from the music business to retail shops to the newspaper industry .

The web is useful for updated information and for archives but, if we value our local community and democracy, we must keep buying our local paper until we're sure the internet can really sustain something as good.

Friendly Service Is Not Friendship

Because we are all ‘people’ these days, we too easily forget that they are customers and we are there to serve them. I think a lot of confusion has arisen from the way customer relationships are much more informal than in the past. Just because customers don't expect the kind of subservience and obsequiousness that characterised the old days, we in the service industries mustn't forget that we are still here to serve.

We should be friendly to customers but that doesn't make them our friends. We should be interested in the customer but the customer doesn't have to be interested in us. We have to listen to them, they don't have to listen to us.

Because these days the social skills we use in the service industry mimic those we use in our personal relationships, it is more difficult to remember that we are actually meant to be working.

Customer Says It With Flowers

I'm always impressed by the customer service given by my wife Julia and sister-in-law Wendy in our Winchester shop Your Life Your Style.
They seem to know instinctively when to stand back and when to intervene. They listen, they suggest appropriate products, they enthuse, they never push. Customers love them. They tell them about their lives. They come back.
But yesterday was a first. A customer returned with a posy of flowers for each of them because they'd given her such good service.

Why Good Retailers Make The Best Lovers

The manuals and the agony aunts pretty much all agree that the best lovers are the generous lovers who put their partner first. They listen, they learn and they try to to please them.

It strikes me that it's highly likely therefore that the best retailers make the best lovers. After all, like a good lover, a good retailer puts the customer first, listens to what they want, doesn't push their own agenda, improves their service and products in the light of what they learn about customers' needs, in fact does everything they can to make the customer feel like a king or queen.

Carried over to the bedroom, this mindset cannot fail to please a lover and win his or her heart. Like a loyal customer, the partner is likely to stay faithful and even forgive the occasional lapse into selfishness or peremptory lovemaking.

Of course, we can go too far with comparisons. A good retailer will send a customer to another shop if they're unable to satisfy them. Not many lovemaking manuals would recommend that.

Funny Marketing

I was interested to read in the ClickZ newsletter that the late US comedian Red Skelton used to collect the addresses of members of his audience, then write to them next time he was due in town. A simple but very cost effective tool for selling tickets and building a fan base that most acts fail to exploit to this day.

Stop Press! Small Papers Are Victims Of Big Business

Although I'm heavily involved in running a store these days, I still do quite a bit of PR work. The current crisis in local press is proving a real challenge.
A cornerstone for success in local PR is having good contacts but I'm constantly finding that local papers have closed or excellent journalists have been fired.
The headlines say the problem is a decline in property, cars and jobs advertising, exacerbated by the rise in online advertising. Yet some local papers remain profitable.

The difference is almost always the ownership. The ones in trouble tend to be owned by large conglomerates who bought the papers as commodities, financed the purchases with loans, milked the profits, built up debts that cannot be repaid in these difficult times and don't care if they are depriving a local community of a source of news, debate and jobs.
It is a tragedy for local people. The same thing has happened where big corporations have swallowed up and then closed down local shops, farmers and factories in a process of cost saving.
My hope is that the current recession will sweep away a lot of these huge holding companies who only look at the salaries of their chief exceutives and shareholder profits.
Like my wife and me, all our suppliers have gone back to basics and are building enterprising small companies that are sound and profitable because they are run by people who love the business they are in and care about employees and customers.
We're supporting them with a range of Handmade in Britain special gifts at our online store. We'll be looking for more next week at the Britosh Crafts Trade Fair.

Jade Goody and a PR Landmark

The story of Jade Goody's death was terribly sad. It was also a landmark in the march of PR.

Since ancient times, people have made up stories about the lives of famous people- Roman generals, catholic saints, Renaissance artists- in order to increase their standing and influence. For example, King Alfred the Great allegedly burnt some cakes whilst dreaming of uniting England. Only it wasn’t called PR in hose days. We have gobbled them up because we have an insatiable appetite to know the ‘real’ people behind the achievement.

In the last century, as documented in the book The Fame Formula, Hollywood flacks and others turned making up fame-enhancing stories about people into a fine art. In the second half of the 20th century, the best publicists stopped being employees and became a power in their own right, using their contacts and knowledge of the media to bring fame to whoever paid them. The media thrives on our interest in the real lives of our heroes. PR exploits this, although it now also has to control the media monster it has unleashed.

Still, at this point, people’s fame was based on some product (be it, acting, music or sporting prowess) the sale of which would be helped by the media coverage gained from PR. Occasionally someone would gain fame by being involved in something high profile- they might marry a footballer or appear in a reality TV show- but these were exceptional and their fame didn't last without some inherent talent to back it up.

Not any more. The trouble is, real stars don't want to reveal their ordinary lives, except via the contrived reality of a photoshoot for Hell. This is because either it devalues their mystique or they simply don’t want the intrusion. Some don’t want celebrity at all (check out the number of actors that haven’t supplied a photo to the Internet Movie Data Base.)

Jade Goody fed the public appetite. She perpetuated her fame because she was willing to allow the media into every corner of an ordinary life, including her deathbed. By definition, she was famous for being famous, in that she was famous for nothing else than simply being Jade Goody, an ordinary person that the rest of us could either identify with or mock.

However she was clever enough not to waste the opportunity- she made money for her children and raised awareness of cervical cancer. I admire her for that. Nevertheless, for me, the real story is that PR is now so powerful it can keep someone with no discernible talent on the front pages longer than any celebrity in recent memory.

Small Is Beautiful In A Recession

High street shops in the UK are struggling. Shoppers, worrying about the pound in their pockets, seem to be turning their backs on the throwaway products mass produced in China. By contrast, sales at our independent 'lifestyle' shop in Winchester and on our website yourlifeyourstyle.co.uk are actually increasing.

In a recession, value is what people look for, and that doesn't automatically mean 'cheap'. We concentrate on stocking products that are beautifully designed and made to last. We have found that our customers recognise Britain as a world leader in the quality of its design and craft. They see handmade British products as something of lasting value, something that will make a special gift. We have responded by launching a Made In The UK collection on the website.

It's a joy to see and touch hand crafted wooden flowers by Martin Jones of High Wycombe, fused glass bowls and coasters by Jo Downs of Cornwall, Yorkshire based Rosie Soul’s jewellery, Naturaleigh of Dorset’s organic soaps, fabric door stops and notice boards by Pins And Ribbons from the North East and top London designer Margo Selby’s scarves and clutch bags.

They're all people with an artistic eye and the skill to create lasting beauty with their hands. Just looking at one of their creations is a delight. But when you touch it and feel the care and attention put into it, it's like a personal contact with the maker.

What is also crucially important is that they are part of a new breed of crafts men and women who are serious business people. They want to satisfy a growing market and understand that retail success requires consistency and competitive pricing.

It may not be a bad thing for Britain's high streets to be cleared of some of the dross that people bought when they were encouraged to consume for its own sake. The recession is a real opportunity for retailers and producers who can offer something of quality and value.

A Thing Of Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. These beautiful wooden flowers by Martin Jones of High Wycombe capture the transient forms of spring flowers and turn them into lasting works of art. Julia and I were so pleased when we found these near the end of a rather disappointing trip to the Birmingham Spring Gift Fair. One of many special gifts from our shop Your Life Your Style.

How To Become Famous

The current media coverage of Jade Goody is a masterpiece in the art of PR. You wouldn't expect the imminent demise of a person, who participated in a reality TV show and was likeable and inadvertently amusing but has little discernible talent, to attract such attention, however sad her story. However she and her PR team have handled her media career brilliantly from the moment she came to national attention and, in effect, have made her famous for being famous, continually renewing the interest.

Mark Borkowski is a PR agent, who specialises in arts and entertainment, has worked out a formula for achieving this kind of celebrity. His book The Fame Formula (Sidgwick & Jackson), explains how modern PR became such a powerful tool by telling the fascinating story of the development of Hollywood publicists or ‘flacks’. It starts with the outrageous stunts of the silent movie era, moves through the sanitising control by studio fixers in the mid-centuryand ends with today’s powerful agents who fence with the devils of the media on behalf of would-be celebrities.

There are some great examples of stunts which were carried out from town to town in the early 20th century by publicists who followed in the large footsteps of P T Barnum. To publicise The Return Of Tarzan, Harry Reichenbach sneaked a tame lion into a hotel room, resulting in a major news story. Its human companion told the newspapers he wanted to be like the Apeman.

Invention on that scale is less common nowadays because it’s more easily exposed as a stunt by mass communication but there is still plenty of scope for stories that use gimmicks to gain attention. I’ve had Cannon and Ball planting a tree to launch Babes In The Wood and soaked the local TV weatherman when Singin’ In The Rain was in town.

The greatest publicity stunt of all time is probably the three year search for someone to play Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind. The saga is retold in detail from the point-of-view of the studio’s publicist Russell Birdwell. We recreate a small scale version every time we get coverage from auditioning children to play The Babes In The Wood.

Although the publicity said it was a chance arrival of Vivien Leigh on the set that led to her getting the part, it seems the decision had already been made. The point is, the story may be fictitious but it tells a truth that people want to believe about the person or event. When I was involved in publicising Snow White, a story about Sneezy being the only dwarf not to get a cold caught the public imagination. It even became the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question.

The Secret Of Lasting Fame

There are a number of heartfelt references in the book to the way even the best publicists are frequently dumped by their employers, something to which I can attest. The trouble is, people believe their own publicity and don’t like to acknowledge that their achievements are not entirely due to their own talent. An example quoted is the disastrous period Tom Cruise went through after he ditched Pat Kingsley. In the rough seas of today’s media, the ship of fame requires a steady hand on the tiller.

The importance of celebrity to today’s media means that ‘superflacks’ like Kingsley are more powerful than journalists. She controls all aspects of her clients’ interfaces with the outside world, even down to telling them to leave a small gap when they cross their legs so the top leg doesn’t look fat.

Whilst acknowledging that nowadays some people like Jade Goody are simply famous for being famous, nevertheless Borkowski insists, “Fame still, on the whole, relies on someone being possessed of an extraordinary talent.” Andy Warhol, whose portraits of famous people are currently on display at the Hayward Gallery, would agree. Despite suggesting everyone could be famous for 15 minutes, he also (less famously) said, “You should always have a product that’s not just you.” In other words, lasting fame should be the result of producing something of worth.

Borkowski rambles and repeats himself a bit and I found the story he tells somewhat disjointed. I suspect it needed more editing. Nevertheless it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in PR. The formula for fame that the book promises is revealed at the very end. And it really is a mathematical formula. Studying a number of celebrities, Borkowski concluded that any boost to fame lasts 15 months (not Warhol's minutes) after which it needs to be renewed or the celebrity will slip into obscurity. I'm afraid I got lost at F(T)=

A version of this piece appeared in the December edition of Encore magazine

Marketing Sends Environment Down Toilet

The news that 98% of Americans use toilet paper made from new wood rather than the recycled kind is a perfect example of the power of marketing to cause damage, in this case to the environment.

Again and again we have seen corporations use vast advertising budgets to persuade people to buy products they know or should know are damaging - cigarettes, gas guzzling cars, sugar-rich children’s cereals and so on.

How can one of the toilet paper manufacturers to say consumers have the choice, when they spend huge money on marketing brands of soft multi-ply tissue produced from what are called 'virgin fibers'? Consumers can only really make a choice if they are properly informed. What a difference it could make if U.S. toilet paper manufacturers put equal marketing resources into persuading people to help the environment by using recycled paper.

Like consumers, we marketers have a choice. Whether we run our own company or work in a large corporation, we can use their powers of persuasion responsibly or irresponsibly.

Creating Art Out Of Craft Is A Special Gift

To produce great art, an artist needs to understand thoroughly the medium in which they work in order to be able to use it to communicate. The medium could be words, oil paint or a piano- or the mind in the case of conceptual art. It’s not usually cloth or glass.

Craft works are often not seen as great art because they have a practical purpose; but when you come across someone who is so skilled in their craft that they can use it to create emotional responses, I have no doubt it is Art.
We have works from two such artistic craftspeople on sale in our Winchester shop Your Life Your Style and online at yourlifeyourstyle.co.uk.

Jo Downs works in fused glass. Her supreme craftsmanship results in astonishingly rich colours but beyond that, the artistic use of shapes, textures and colour combinations is emotionally engaging, be it a heart within a heart or an abstract impression of a Cornish beach through various seasons.

Likewise Margo Selby produces colourful geometric abstract designs which are converted to three dimensional fabric. This in turn is spun by English mills to provide the fabric for stunning bags, scarves and cushions. Like all great art, the form and the content are one. The results work on an esoteric level way beyond simply being a beautiful accessory.

Like any work of art, they are a joy to possess or to give to someone you care about. Click on this link to get an idea of what these special gifts are like.

Profit Is A By-Product of Customer Satisfaction

More words of wisdom from Simon Caulkin. His response to the recession is 'Quit thinking about cost - give people what they want.' He points out they aren't interested in your costs. They just want your product or service with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of convenience.
Forget productivity, work on quality.
Economies of flow and effort far outweigh dinosaur-like economies of scale.
Learning and improvementonly happen when people control their working lives and are proud of what they do.
Build co-operation. Internal competition is usually a wrecker.
Read the full article.

The Stock Of The New

We’re all excited by something new. Would the New Testament have caught on if it had been called “The Old Testament Part 2- this time it’s peaceful”?

In our shop, we are constantly looking for new lines and new ranges from existing suppliers to keep our regular customers interested. It's fascinating how even the best sellers start to flag after a while, as the Star becomes the Cash Cow and then declines into Dog status on the classic Boston Matrix marketing tool.

So we'll be off to various trade fairs over the next few months in search the next Stars.

The Curse Of Booking Fees

In times of recession, customers look for value. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find people balking at paying a booking or processing fee for something they reasonably expected to be part of the price. (You don't pay Sainsbury's an extra fee for putting your can of cat food through the till.)

Even if we pay the fee, our opinion (and therefore our loyalty) of the company goes down.

I’m aware from my own experience that contracts between theatres and producers are often based on a percentage of box office. Naturally theatres and agencies are reluctant to let promoters have a percentage of the 'fee'. Even so, they must find a way to introduce a clause that allows them to deduct a processing fee from the money owed. Companies like airlines and theme parks who own the entire process have no excuse at all.

Is Newspaper Advertising Worth The Paper It's Printed On?

The question in today’s digital world is, how much do you need print?

Is advertising in newspapers anything more than an expensive habit? With readerships are dropping faster than Russell Brand's trousers, the return on investment is increasingly poor. Concentrate instead on competitions, giveaways and PR, which are low cost and have more impact.

Then there are fliers and season brochures. No doubt some customers pick one up and buy a ticket but many are consigned unread to the recycling bin. The one kind of print worth sticking with is the targeted postal mailing. Research suggests that a brochure or letter in people’s hands at home stimulates both phone and online sales.

Print also means posters. These are another questionable use of a limited budget because only a handful of theatre posters obey the two golden rules for this form of advertising- use emotive visuals accompanied by seven words or less. The exception that proves the rule is the current campaign for David Pugh’s production of Calendar Girls- a row of apparently naked women with their naughty bits covered and the tag line ‘All will be revealed on…’

Marketing In A Recession

How are we going to cope with the economic downturn, apart from shopping at Aldi? Whatever you do, don’t cut your marketing budget. My experience of previous recessions is that people stop buying big ticket items like new cars or foreign holidays but continue to cheer themselves up with small luxuries like entertainment. Reducing your marketing will damage sales.

If your boss or funder says you must cut the budget, then you have no choice. In any case, it’s never a bad idea to review your marketing plan to see which tools are working. (If you’re spending money without measuring the results, you must work for a local council or a bank.)

Are Capitalist Managers Secret Soviets?

I always read Simon Caulkin's management column in The Observer. He has stimulating things to say on, for example, the importance of decentralisation and customer focus.
Yesterday he wrote about the attachment by free market managers to Soviet-style central planning. This means they are unable to learn from the outside world. In the course of the article, he recalled a quote GE's former CEO, Jack Welch, which I ratrher liked: With their faces toward the CEO and their arses towards the customer, what would they learn from?