Except they’re not.

They all take something that’s ‘obvious’ and turn it on its head. They’re about coming at something from a different angle, and solving a problem creatively.

It’s three whole years since I highlighted a funny, compassionate and [...]]]> Getting creative, sending out signals and finding the perfect name

Three unrelated themes this time.

Except they’re not.

They all take something that’s ‘obvious’ and turn it on its head. They’re about coming at something from a different angle, and solving a problem creatively.

1. Brick in the wall

It’s three whole years since I highlighted a funny, compassionate and intelligent presentation by Sir Ken Robinson at TED entitled Do schools kill creativity?

It appealed to my inner rebel – and my outer one too.

And I wasn’t alone. His landmark talk was downloaded over 4 million times, striking a chord with a global audience.

And now he’s back.

His 2010 talk – Bring on the learning revolution! – will make you stop and think about how best to find your niche. His central idea, that ‘education dislocates people from their natural talents’, is a powerful and persuasive one.

He also talks about the ‘tyranny of common sense’, something we hear every day in the business world (‘we’ve always done it that way!’). And why education shouldn’t be linear (because life isn’t).

It’s all there – from Eric Clapton to fast food, from dreaming about being a fireman to why nobody under 25 wears a wristwatch (do you?).

Enjoy.

[If you're reading in email, click here to see the talk on TED.com]

2. Tomayto, tomahto

What’s your company’s tone of voice?

And before you say business-like or professional, think about who you like to do business with. Businesses or people? Faceless and anonymous, or personal and friendly?

Would you like to do business with your company?

I thought about tone of voice again this week when I re-read a blog post from the Wise Old Man of Marketing, Seth Godin.

What sort of accent do you have? starts with the obvious (accent) and extends the idea.

Writing, he says, has an accent. And actions have grammar.

He’s right. Everything we say, everything we do, every interaction we have with people sends out a subtle message.

Don’t know the difference between principle and principal? (Find out.) Think you are sounds more professional than you’re? (Think again.) Don’t have an address on your website? (Include one.) Don’t make it obvious what your prospect should do next? (Change that.) Like to include ‘takes up to 28 days’ to make sure you’re covered on delivery lead times? (Nothing takes a month.)

Everything sends out a signal, whether we like it or not.

So what signals are you sending out?

3. It’s all in a name

Can’t think of a name for your business? Tell me about it.

Actually, don’t. Instead, jump on over to Wordoid.com. And you’ll have a new business name in next to no time.

The idea is simple – you suggest a word to use as the basis (e.g. tech, shop, idea, high, first, micro) and it’ll create a new word for you.

You can choose to put your word at the beginning, middle or end of the new word. And you can choose to make it sound natural, almost natural or (bizarre, but actually kind of funky) hardly natural.

It even checks whether the .com and .net domains are available for the new word. And best of all, it’s free.

Could naming your business get any easier?

Thought not. So what are you waiting for?

Find out more:

• Do schools kill creativity? Sir Ken Robinson’s original 2006 talk.

Yes, that’s right. Three whole weeks.

But there’s nothing more tedious than a rant about bad customer service, is there? So I’ll spare you the ins and outs of the sorry saga.

Instead, I’ll turn it [...]]]> Living in the slow lane on the information superhighway

My broadband was restored last week, after being down for three weeks.

Yes, that’s right. Three whole weeks.

But there’s nothing more tedious than a rant about bad customer service, is there? So I’ll spare you the ins and outs of the sorry saga.

Instead, I’ll turn it on its head, and tell you what it taught me about service – and about myself.

Service (without a smile)

Good service – whatever it is you do, whatever you sell – really isn’t all that difficult.

But it’s not one big thing – instead, it’s all the little things. And getting those right means having a plan, setting goals and making sure you meet them.

So if I were sharing a skinny latte with the Big Boss of my ISP, what would I tell him (or her)?

• Train your staff. Is there anything more trust-busting than being told by a second support person that the first person you spoke to was ‘new, and may have got it wrong’? Learning on the job is part of the job; learning at the customer’s expense is dangerous and damaging. So train them first, then release them into the wild.
• Tell the truth (even when you’d really rather not). The truth is your secret weapon – even when it’s bad. Hiding an embarrassing truth is worse than telling it with openness and honesty. An open-kimono approach works every time (metaphorically, you understand).
• Get your story straight (and stick to it). Do BT engineers work on Saturday and Sunday? Search me. I was told yes, then no, then maybe. Can support people talk to BT? Yes, then no. Would I get SMS updates? Yes, maybe. But not always. Not really. A simple story has a unique and winning quality – its simplicity.
• Organise your company around the customer. Yes, OK, they work shifts, and they’re sometimes off sick. And what if they get run over by a bus? Or they leave? All these things could happen, but it doesn’t mean teams can’t be organised into cells of 2-3 people who are instantly familiar with specific problems. It  means that customers don’t have to endlessly explain their problems to a new person.
• Use technology. Especially if you’re a technology company. If I can see that my friend Sally is calling on my landline, why can’t they? Better still, why can’t my incoming number fire up their database and bring up my record? And why is the database so slow (I’m just waiting for the record to come up, sir)?
• Don’t pass the buck (even internally). No, it’s not support, it’s accounts. It’s our faults department. It’s BT Wholesale. It’s BT Openreach. It’s the exchange people. It’s the call centre, you see. Your company is a blob, Mr ISP – one big blob that I see as a brand. So make sure that Blob Inc. does its stuff seamlessly.
• Be pleasant, open and helpful – even when the shells are coming in and you want to hunker down in the bunker. Smile even though you’re on the phone. And here’s a thought: listen. Pick up on the signals and ‘mirror’ the language and tone of the speaker (yes, it’s an NLP thing – and it works).
• Communicate. OK, you’re doing stuff, and the problem’s in hand. But does the customer know? If not, why not? Send a quick email, update the support ticket, let them know about that stuff. Manage their expectations, and they’ll never be disappointed.
• Don’t forget the value of existing customers. New customers are expensive and difficult to find. So why alienate existing customers needlessly? Treat them well and they’ll stay forever.
• Don’t wait until people shout – because when they’re shouting, they tend not to listen. And other people hear. Shouting is what I did in the end, when I posted a damning message in my ISP’s discussion forum (it worked).

Warts and all

So what did I learn about myself? Well quite a lot, actually. Living in the slow lane of the information superhighway wasn’t all bad.

My three weeks of subsonic internet access taught me:

• You can’t do two things at once – though super-fast broadband makes you think you can. Multi-tasking is multi-stressing, and being forced to do one thing at a time made me calmer, more focused and more organised.
• Having a backup plan, like a nuclear deterrent, gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. You know it’s there if you need it. In my case, my nuke was my Nokia, which give me reliable, if slow-ish, access to the internet, used as a modem for my PC.
• Don’t get angry at bad service. If you do, you lose twice over. And no, I’m not going to say get even instead. Just accept it for what it is, and if you’ve got a problem, focus on the resolution, not the obstacles along the way.
• Think laterally. When I was dealing with the support team, I was working in a walled garden. Worse, a soundproofed (think Truman Show) walled garden where nobody could hear my screams. When I changed tactics and shouted from the rooftops in a public forum, help materialised as if by magic, and the problem was quickly resolved. Think laterally and you beat the system.
• Take a break – from the online world, that is. Offline really isn’t that bad. You learn to slow down, read more carefully, not flit from one thing to another. You concentrate better, feel more centred and don’t feel as frazzled at the end of the day. Since my broadband came back, my browsing habits have changed. I spend less time online, and get more out of my day.

So bad service wasn’t all bad. Even forcing myself to see the positive in a very negative situation (which goes against the grain in a serial moaner, I can tell you) changed how I see things.

I even discovered that with a Starbucks card, you get free wifi. So now I’ve got another reason to go for a grande skinny decaf extra-hot wet latte.

As if I needed one.

Find out more:

• Butterfly mind. Are Twitter and Facebook affecting how we think? at the Daily Telegraph.
• Wifi with wings. Get yourself a Starbucks card and you can surf while you sip.

I just sent a PDF by email to a client. It’s password-protected – not by me, but by the person who sent it to me – and I told her so.

It’s password-protected, I wrote. Here’s [...]]]> In an age of too much information, be careful what you ask for (you might just not get it).

I just sent a PDF by email to a client. It’s password-protected – not by me, but by the person who sent it to me – and I told her so.

It’s password-protected, I wrote. Here’s the password, I wrote. It’s case-sensitive, I wrote.

A couple of minutes later, back came the reply.

It looks like it’s password-protected, she wrote. Could you let me have the password?

Sound familiar?

I’ll bet it does. In our always-on, 24×7, welcome-to-the-machine world, it’s easy to feel swamped by the deluge of data.

So we find ways around it.

I’m no exception. I’m just as guilty as anybody of skimming, scanning and hopping from one headline to the next.

But how else can you cope with the onslaught of information?

More importantly, how can you help your prospects and customers cope? Because it’s not just about helping them deal with information overload.

It’s about helping you make the sale, get the call, find a lead or receive an enquiry.

Here’s looking at you

OK, time to get our priorities right. You first.

And for a very good reason – because if you can’t see the wood for the trees, the message you get out to your target audience will be muddled, confusing and frustrating.

So how do you focus on what’s important?

Easy – cut down the distractions.

• Do one thing at a time. What happens to you when you’re overloaded? Personally, my pulse increases, I feel like I’ve had too much caffeine, and I get a strange tingling feeling in my arms and legs. If I start dumping the ballast (Skype, reading the news online, checking social networking sites) and do just one thing, I can feel my mojo returning and my karma heave a sigh of relief. You will too.
• Go offline. This is a really scary one, I know. And if you’re anything like me, you can’t trust yourself to really, really go offline. Luckily, help is at hand. Freedom is a devilishly clever little program that disables your internet connection for up to eight hours at a time. The only way you can close the program is by rebooting – which is enough of a disincentive to all except the most recalcitrant.
• Speed read. No, no, I’m not suggesting you plough through a Buzan book or fork out a fortune on a course. Just adopt one simple technique. It’s something I learned a few years back when I wrote copy for a speed-reading guru. Everything else I’ve forgotten, but this one simple tip has stuck: read the first sentence of every paragraph. Nothing else, just the first sentence. You’ll pick up the gist without reading the bits in between. It’s simple but smile-crackingly effective.

And that’s it? I hear you say.

Well yes, it is.

Because if I listed my 50 Top Tips for increasing productivity and getting more done, you’d work out a 51st one – skip them.

So there.

Now what about your customers and prospects?

Slowly, slowly, catchy…

You’re overwhelmed. They’re overwhelmed. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get through to them.

You simply have to think ahead – and more importantly, think like them.

• Make it easy. I skim, you skim, he skims, she skims. Face it – we all skim, so make it easy for people to do it. Break up your copy with bold, bullets, headings and colours. Vary the font size, but don’t go too wild (here’s a tip: use three point sizes maximum, and multiples of two e.g. 10pt, 12pt, 14pt).
• One (idea) at a time. Divide your ideas up into paragraphs. Cut down the paragraphs, so they don’t look so daunting. Make sure each paragraph passes the ‘read only the first line’ test (yes, it’s a game two can play).
• Summarise before, summarise after. Don’t launch into the detail straightaway. First, give a summary – but not an executive summary, or at least, don’t call it that (nothing sends a shiver up the spine quite like those two fatal words). So it’s an overview. Then, follow with the detail, and at the end, wrap up with the main points. So your prospects have three opportunities to pick up your message.
• Don’t give too many choices. I’ve just been looking at broadband offerings. I’m having trouble with my current ISP (more about that sorry saga in another post) and I’m thinking of switching, after seven years of loyalty. But is the competition making it easy? No chance. Especially BT – there’s Anytime This, Total That, the Everything Package, the Almost-But-Not-Quite-Everything Package. Evenings and Weekends, free this, unlimited that. So which one did I go for? None of them, of course. I decided simply to cut and run.
• Make it obvious. How often have you read through copy and thought, yes, yes, all very well, but what do I do next? If your time is short, so is theirs – so don’t waste it. Get to the point fast, and show them what to do next. Allow for impatient readers, and impulse buyers. Have a clear, simple, easy call to action.
• Communicate often enough, but not too often. It’s a delicate balancing act, and it’s important to get it right. Let them know you’re out there, but don’t be a corporate stalker.

Meanwhile, back at the copy ranch, I got an embarrassed email from my client.

I must stop skim-reading, she wrote.

No, I thought, you mustn’t.

You’ve just got to start doing it properly.

Find out more:

• Nothing left to lose. Freedom’s more than just another word – it’s a way of life. And it’s available for Mac & Windows here. As used by Dave Eggers (and Rachel).

Do you Lovefilm? I do. That’s why I joined.

No more trolling around the DVD rental shop to scan the [...]]]> Crossing the line, the trouble with spades, and seeking out the truth

It’s Copycam time again – because sometimes, pictures really are worth a thousand words (unless you’re asking for a copy quote, in which case, let’s talk).

Do you Lovefilm? I do. That’s why I joined.

No more trolling around the DVD rental shop to scan the bare shelves in desperation late on a Saturday afternoon when the gannets have been.

No, Lovefilm is much more civilised. Find titles online, drop them into your rental list, and they’re shipped in the post.

I couldn’t be happier.

Well I could, actually. If only they hadn’t asked me to rope in my chums.

Now I know that asking people to recommend a friend is a great way to find new business. People like people like them (still with me?) so friends of clients are the perfect prospects.

Here’s what they sent me:

But that’s not all. At the end of the letter were two shiny credit card-sized Lovefilm gift cards:

They even said A gift from Kevin Walsh. Isn’t that nice?

No, I didn’t think so either.

To be honest, I felt a bit used. But more importantly, the company dropped a couple of notches in my estimation.

Even worse, I’d now be less likely to recommend it to friends.

Horticultural implement (aka spade)

I’ve talked about euphemisms before. At best, they can sound precious and stilted. At worst, they can completely obscure the meaning.

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking past the new Primark store in Cambridge and spotted this:

Retail operatives?

Oh right, that would be salespeople to you and me.

Remember the first rule of copywriting: write as you speak.

But this jargon is everywhere. Down the road at M&S (and camera-less, unfortunately) I bumped into a Frenchman puzzling over this notice on the toilet door:

Female operative in male facilities

Whatever could it mean, he wondered? When I translated for him he laughed, and said he was glad to see the langue de bois was alive and well in England too.

Langue de bois? Literally, ‘wooden language’. Jargon, double-speak, gobbledygook.

Touché.

Feed me

Whether you love Tesco or hate them (I do both, frequently at the same time) you have to hand it to them: they’re pretty damn good at marketing.

From green points for recycled carrier bags to schools vouchers, they get all the little things right. They may be spreading across the country faster than a Gulf oil slick, but they sure know how to keep customers happy.

I spotted this recently in my local store:

How about that? Five different ways to give feedback, including a free text and free hotline.

Pretty good.

Mind you, they don’t get everything right.

A few weeks back, they relaunched their online shopping site, and now the graphics are slow, the basket scrolls up (it used to remain static on the right-hand side while the items scrolled on the left) and I’ve been seeing my old friend the hour-glass for the first time in 10 years.

So in this instance, they’ve got it wrong. But I’ll forgive them. I might even send them a free text with some feedback.

Because when it comes to feedback, one thing is certain.

Every little helps.

Although my faith in them has been a little restored after the uncannily accurate exit polls in this month’s UK election, I’m basically sceptical.

Not because I don’t trust the pollsters. But because I don’t trust the pollees. [...]]]> It’s not plain or simple. And that’s what makes it interesting.

Do you believe opinion polls? I don’t.

Although my faith in them has been a little restored after the uncannily accurate exit polls in this month’s UK election, I’m basically sceptical.

Not because I don’t trust the pollsters. But because I don’t trust the pollees. And I don’t trust them because I was once one of them.

“Is that Kevin Walsh?” trilled the woman as soon as I picked up the phone.

I confirmed it was. And would I mind, she wondered, taking part in an opinion poll on politics?

“Not at all,” I… almost said.

And she was off.

I’d never before heard anybody talk so fast, ask so many questions in such a short space of time, or sound so robotic. And I never have since.

Did I vote in the last election? If so, for which party? Was I intending to vote for them in the next election? Was I wavering? Which of the following statements best describes me? (List of statements.) On a scale of 1 to 5, how would I rate…

On and on it went.

I answered as best I could, but sometimes, rather than think about it, I just plumped for an answer to move on. Some opinions I didn’t feel comfortable sharing with a complete stranger. Some questions, I’d never thought about. And in the end, I said anything to get her off the phone.

“Thankyouforyourassistance!” she gushed.

And with that, she was gone.

I’d started with the best of intentions. But in the end, addled and slightly irritated, I simply said anything to bring the call to a swift end.

And assuming everybody else she called was as surprised as I was and answered in the same way, the results of her survey couldn’t have been very accurate.

So much for science.

Who’s fooling whom?

Often, people really and honestly think they’re telling the truth.

But they’re not. It’s not that they’re dim or devious or deluded. They simply don’t realise that their perception is wrong.

A few weeks ago, The Economist had a special report on television. And one of the articles talked about how people really watch television – as opposed to how they think they do.

Now I’m not typical (yes, I know you knew that). I hardly ever watch live TV. I tape everything, bar the news and the weather, and watch it at my leisure. So I can stop for tea breaks and pee breaks, and skip those pesky ad breaks.

And lots of people think they do that. But in reality, they don’t. They say they do, but the truth is somewhat different.

In one case, a respondent said he watched recorded television 90% of the time. But actually, he watched live TV 67% of the time.

When the researcher dug deeper, it emerged that the man had described how he watched TV when he was alone.

But most of the time, he watched it with other people.

And nothing but…

So when you’re looking for the truth among your customers, prospects colleagues or friends, stop and think first. And remember some simple… truths:

• Cross-check. No self-respecting journalist writes a story without verifying information from a single source. Confirm your initial findings, and be sure you’re happy they’re accurate.
• Take things with a pinch of salt. Nobody admits they’re going to vote BNP, or that they adore adverts. Nobody buys Barry Manilow’s music or porn magazines. But they do. They do, and they might not want to tell you.
• Don’t ignore the obvious. Often, things are precisely what they seem. There’s no hidden agenda or deep dark secret. The obvious is obvious for a reason.
• Don’t jump to conclusions. Unrelated events often misleadingly appear as cause and effect. Your price increase might not have deterred people from buying. And conversely, your new ad campaign might not have caused that sales spike.
• Don’t prompt (too much). A very wise woman once said to me “You get the answers to the questions you ask”. So frame those questions carefully, and don’t lead the witness. Approach your research with an open mind, and remember that you might not like the answers you get. But at least then you’ll know.
• Remember, they’re human too. People prevaricate, dither and change their minds – just like you do. So allow for that.
• There is no one truth. There are lots. Nobody likes to hear that there’s not one copper-bottomed, sure-fire, cover-all ‘right’ answer (ask me, I know). There is no absolute truth, when it comes to sales and marketing. So go for the 80% right answer, because you’ll never reach 100%.
• They are not a blob. Remember when Margaret Thatcher said there was no such thing as society? She drew a hail of fire from all quarters for such heresy. But really, she meant that society is made up of individuals. Just like your customer base and prospect list.

And that’s the plain and simple truth.

Honest.

Find out more:

• Blob the Builder: Matthew Parris in The Spectator on why there is no such thing as WOTP (will of the people).
• Changing the channel:The Economist’s special report on television.
• Heavy mettle: The Iron Lady on society (it doesn’t exist).