Tag Archives: business

Why you shouldn’t care at all about the Eurozone crisis

Posted on January 13, 2012 | 2 Comments

If you’re an individual or a small business, you don’t need to worry about the Eurozone crisis. You don’t need to think about the ongoing recession. It should be the last thing on your mind.

Why? Is this not the worst recession since the Great Depression? Could this not be The End of the Eurozone?

Yeah, maybe. But ask yourself this:

Can you do anything to change it?

You can’t set fiscal and monetary policy. You can’t force Greece or Portugal (or the US) to cut spending. You can’t force companies to invest more.

So stop worrying about it. It’s out of your control.

What should you worry about? I’m glad you asked.

People: get your finances in order. Stop overspending. Look at earning more money through a second job or freelancing if you need to. Start eating healthily and exercising regularly. Take time every day to be grateful for the good things in your life. Think how you can do your job better: make a list of ideas and pick the best two, and start doing that.

Businesses: stay focused on your customer. Always think what they would want you to do. Even in this economy there are opportunities – Groupon is the fastest-growing company in history by revenues, and was formed in November 2008. There is money to be made, and people will fall over themselves to give you their money, if you can give them what they want or need.

In other words, focus on things you can control. Forget about things you can’t.

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How to handle constructive criticism like a 5 year old child

Posted on March 1, 2009 | 2 Comments

I’m not an expert on web design, or coding, or hosting, and I’m not an expert on social media, marketing, business or management. However, even I can see that this probably isn’t the way to go about talking to someone who discovered a minor flaw in your website.

A staff member for Ryanair decided it would be a good idea, when someone gave them a bit of feedback, to call them “an idiot and a liar”, before going on to belittle the fact that the blogger was using WordPress (like over 200,000 other people have done today) and suggesting that he wasn’t very good at his job.

And, the icing on the bad publicity cake: the official statement from Ryanair.

“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.

“Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.”

A simple email to the guy who wrote it saying “thanks for pointing out the error, we’ve reported it to our IT team and they’re working on it” would have taken what, 30 seconds? Sounds like a much better idea than shouting at people that disagree with you and then deciding that whatever customers you have left should probably have to pay for using the toilet. Not the best way to create customer loyalty, is it?

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An idea for landlords

Posted on February 16, 2009 | 6 Comments

Student house-hunting season is underway here in Leeds, and although I found it relatively easy this year, last year was a bitch. There are so many different property agents, private landlords and people handing out advice that it’s hard to know where to start. Last year it took us almost 2 months to find a half-decent house at a reasonable price, and even then we weren’t completely happy with it.

So here’s an idea for you, property companies: transparency. I know it’s a buzzword, but bear with me.

Do you know what would be awesome? If your company’s website had great, in-depth video tours of all your properties, from the front garden, all the way through all the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen and so on. No more lenghty house viewing sessions that take up all of my saturday afternoon. I browse your site, find which properties I really like the look of, and then come in, you show me round, it’s the same as the video, and bingo. I’m happy. I rent it on the spot. We get the deal done in less than half the time.

It would also be fantastic if you asked all your tenants to fill out reviews, or rate on a 5-star scale, so you know what they thought of your property. It would be great to have a blog where you discussed your business – why you bought property X, why you’re charging more for property Y than you did last year. It would be fantastic if you let me know exactly what you’re doing, and why, so I can make the right choice.

Because all this means that I’d know a lot about you and your business without ever having to meet you. And if I decided I wanted to take a closer look at your houses, I could. I wouldn’t have to waste your time, forcing you to drag me round every property you own that matches my criteria. I can decide all of that beforehand, and you can focus on showing me the properties that I choose. It puts me in control, and allows you to be more productive. Win win, I’d say.

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