Don’t miss repeat business
Posted: April 8, 2014 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: Commendable Leave a commentA simple step to keep customers coming back
I found out in the weekend that my car’s warrant of fitness (WOF) had expired. I never remember to check, and it was my husband who pointed it out.
The amusing thing is, is that he works for the company that does my WOF checks. While he remembered my car needed to be brought in again, the company had failed to remind me. Bad move. Read the rest of this entry »
The demise of kindness
Posted: February 24, 2014 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: Commendable Leave a commentIs doing good bad?
Two young Canadian men recently started a social media challenge, daring their friends to acts of kindness. All well and good. But the comment of one of them brought me up short.
Russell Citron, who has a non-profit organisation called Kindness Counts is reported as saying this:
“I think that society views kindness as a very passive concept. There’s some attitude toward being kind now that it’s not the cool thing to do. It’s not fun. But in order to really make an impact and get people talking at their dinner tables, you have to be creative and unconventional in the way you address kindness.”
Well, I don’t disagree with the concept of the second part of his statement – creativity certainly helps when promoting discussion and action around social issues. However, when did kindness become uncool? And if it is off-trend, then why?
What do you think?
The reasoning for the seasoning
Posted: November 6, 2013 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: Excellent Leave a commentWhy salt is good for the heart
I went to a funeral in the weekend, a very sad one. My cousin’s daughter, in her mid 30s and mum to three young boys, had lost her long battle with cancer. The service, held outdoors in the strong Spring sunshine and within earshot of the lapping tide, was part farewell and part celebration. The celebration of a life lived with salt. Read the rest of this entry »
What a shame…(pass it on)
Posted: October 19, 2013 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: True 1 CommentWhat pointing the finger says about us
The news has been full this week of the sexual misadventures of a high-profile politician in my city. There are calls for him to step down from the post to which he has just recently been re-elected. Others say his moral failings have no bearing on his official duties, and that he should stay. I’m not entering that debate here. I just want to turn the TV camera around to face us, the media audience. Read the rest of this entry »
5 steps to conquering ‘reading overload’
Posted: September 19, 2013 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: Commendable Leave a commentFighting technology with technology
If you are like me you keep a ‘reading’ folder in your email inbox (in my case I use MS Outlook email software application). It’s in that folder I store all those wonderful e-newsletters I subscribe to, each with tantalising teasers and hyperlinks to various blogs and websites with full details on the topic(s) in question. Using a reading folder means the emails are safely stored away till I get time to read them all.
Great, but it can quickly become overwhelming. The reading time never eventuates and thus the number of unread emails grows alarmingly. It’s all very well scheduling reading time once a week (which I recommend incidentally), but what happens when you only manage to read part of an email? By the next week you forget where you were up to and waste time picking up the threads again. Take these simple steps, and you will be sorted: Read the rest of this entry »
How to grab your starfish
Posted: August 27, 2013 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: Excellent Leave a commentLet go so you can receive
I’ll admit this is someone else’s wisdom. It’s not even new, but it is so good I want to share it with you. Perhaps you will find it as challenging and thought-provoking as I did.
Rob Bell of Nooma fame in his ‘Shells’ DVD talks about a simple seaside outing with his children that proved insightful. His kids were busy collecting shells. Bell says it was actually more like ‘shell shrapnel’ – broken bits and pieces of no special aesthetic worth. However collecting them was keeping the boys occupied. Read the rest of this entry »
Protect your name
Posted: August 10, 2013 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: Noble Leave a commentThe simplest way to maintain brand reputation
I remember, growing up, my parents’ insistence on maintaining the family’s ‘good name’. It wasn’t until I started doing some family research recently that I realised why their instruction might have been so ingrained.
Without airing all the dirty laundry, it seems one ancestor spent time in what was then called a ‘lunatic asylum’, and his second son (not my forebear, I hasten to add) not only took a leading role in having his father committed, but was later accused of cruelty and adultery by his wife, and was eventually declared bankrupt. It’s fair to say he didn’t do a lot to protect the family name! Read the rest of this entry »
I didn’t make a mistake – I made a decision
Posted: February 16, 2013 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: True Leave a commentWhy calling a spade a spade is becoming a lost art
What do these people have in common?
An Australian bus driver who used a hidden camera to film up the skirts of hundreds of schoolgirls.
A NZ local body executive who called up a radio station pretending to be a disgruntled ratepayer so she could harangue the mayor on-air.
An American woman who left her six-year-old son alone at home – a son who was later found wandering the streets, distressed.
The common thread is that when their actions were uncovered, all three used the limp excuse called “I made a mistake”.
Excuse me? No, you didn’t make a mistake. You made a decision – a decision to violate the privacy of the vulnerable, to use deceit, to abandon responsibilities. Whatever drove you to push ahead despite the potential consequences, the dubious morality and even the illegality, at some point you determined your wants superseded the rights and needs of others.
We all make mistakes – we add up things wrong, or forget to do something we promised, or in some other way slip up unintentionally. We also, if we are brutally honest, do things that we downright know are either not right or, at the very least, are unwise. There is a difference. One is accidental, the other is deliberate. One is a mistake; the other is an act of will.
It’s time we all took responsibility for our actions. The “I made a mistake” disclaimer is becoming decidedly over-worn.
Share it, don’t SHOUT it
Posted: November 20, 2012 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: True Leave a commentWhy histrionics will hurt you
I recently attended a conference with a wide range of speakers and topics. It was interesting comparing the speaking styles of several of them. Two in particular seem to have taken their approach directly from the worst kind of TV evangelists. They periodically raised their voice in increments, as if trying to speak over the audience’s groundswell of applause and shouts of acclamation. The only thing was that the crowd was largely silent. Read the rest of this entry »
The thirst for firstdom
Posted: November 3, 2012 Filed under: Persuade | Tags: Commendable Leave a commentWhy the pre-launch pas de deux is a dance you need to learn
Recently I was part of the ‘launch team’ for a new book. This was a novel experience for me (pun intended, although the book was not a work of fiction*).
I enjoyed being part of the select group – of admittedly several hundred – who got to read the entire manuscript, give feedback to the author, write endorsements for online booksellers, and share access to some freebie ‘tools’ the author wrote to complement his book. And this was all before the book was officially launched. Unknowingly I was being swept up into a new category of shoppers. Read the rest of this entry »
Exhort Communication 