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The Malcolm Auld Blog

Monthly Archives: March 2013

Kids Fattening Centre and other nom de plumes…

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Branding, Marketing

≈ 3 Comments

It’s that time of year again. The annual religious ritual of “The Overindulgence of the Chocolate”.

Opened chocolate Easter Eggs

And on the interweb this image does the rounds:

how-easter-eggs-are-made

While many of you have been fooled by my profile photo and believe I’m about 25 years young, I am in fact a tad older – and have two children, aged 9 and 10. Like all parents of young kids, we’ve had to devise ways to educate them about the evils of fast-food and junk-food. Not an easy task.

But we figured, if we convince them in their earliest years they would be good for life – well until they were teenagers and wreak their revenge.

One thing we’ve done is to physically demonstrate how much sugar is in a can of soft drink, particularly a popular cola. And also how much sugar is in fruit juice. The visual demonstration of a quarter of the bottle storing sugar, is quite compelling.

Whenever the chicken and burger ads appeared on TV we blame obesity on those brands. This was helped by “Pie Man”. He’s a council worker who the kids passed on their bikes, as they rode to school along the beach each morning. He is enormously overweight and each day eats 2 or 3 pies and a cola for breakfast, oblivious to the hundreds of people exercising around him. He is a sort of visual reinforcement of our teachings. Thank you Pie Man.

So when we are driving, instead of nagging us to pull into a drive-through (or drive-thru in marketing-speak) our kids screw up their noses, display their fingers in a cross sign and hold them up in defiance towards the fast-food store as we cruise past.

A while back, the TV was on and one of our kids said “yuk, that’s the Kids Fattening Centre” when an ad for KFC appeared. I questioned where they learned that and they rattled off a bunch of other nick-names used in the playground. Kids Fat Club, Kill Fat Chickens, McFatter and some others around pig fat in ice cream that I won’t repeat. Obviously they have learned something.

Suffice to say, we have succeeded in at least removing fast-foods from our kids radar of preferred fuel. All this writing about food has made me a bit peckish.

I might have a couple of hot-cross buns lathered in butter for breakfast, and just one chocolate egg won’t hurt – well not if they don’t catch me. And maybe we could have fish n chips for dinner, after all it is Good Friday.

Happy Easter:)

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Do you want service with that?

28 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Customer Service, Marketing

≈ 3 Comments

coffee

Like most of you, I love my caffeine. In fact, I had my first Italian-made stove-top espresso maker in 1980.

My staff used to regard me as a tad eccentric because I had a coffee plunger and coffee mug in meetings, when all around me drank brewed coffee from filter machines in styrofoam cups. Yuk.

One young art director arrived late to a client meeting and realised she had forgotten to bring her coffee. She looked at me (her boss) and exclaimed loudly “thank god for your plunger”. The ensuing laughter and the strange beetroot colour she turned, ensured she didn’t say much else in the meeting.

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll know I have new friends from America, nothing at all to do with the fact they are living next door to the home of “Australia’s Next Top Model”.

The family dropped in on the weekend and I made them a cup of java from my stove-top espresso maker. They commented on the wonderful coffee culture we have here in Australia, particularly compared to home.

They asked how we made our coffee and I dutifully demonstrated. Then we all went to lunch and the beach.

The new coffee-maker

The new coffee-maker

Afterwards I suggested to my bride that we get our friends a coffee-maker as a house-warming present. So the next day she went to the Mall to buy one. After an hour and four different stores – David Jones, Myer, King of Knives and another appliance store – she could not get the brand we wanted.

So what do you do when your retail store lets you down? Well these days you go online.

Within a couple of minutes we’d found the brand we wanted and it included ‘next day delivery’. This is always a claim that is difficult to trust, given the general attitude to service in our country.

But sure enough at 8.30 the next morning, in less than 18 hours from placing the order, Aussie Post knocked on our door and delivered the coffee-maker. The exact brand my bride wanted.

Now this is not a case of the interweb being better than bricks and mortar. It’s a case of the owners of the retail store not understanding customer service.

The new reality for retail stores is that they can provide a physical display of the brands they carry and sell them across the counter. But they can also provide a virtual display and arrange to get the product the customer wants, if it is not in-store.

Today’s retailer needs to put meaning back into the phrase “can I help you?” And that meaning includes going online to find what the customer wants, while they are in the retail store. Because if you cannot help the customer buy want they want to buy, when they want to buy it, you don’t just lose a sale, you lose a customer…for life!

And if you understand anything about the Lifetime Value of a Customer, you know you can lose an awful amount of money with each customer who leaves you.

Retail store owners need to provide the tools and the authority to their staff to use online services to find what their customers want, if it is not in-store. They can arrange delivery to the store or to the customer’s home or workplace. This saves the customer time and provides a valuable service over-and-above just selling the stock displayed on the shelves/racks.

Just went to make a cuppa but realised there are no grinds in the tin. Better go online. Where’s my browser?

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Infographic reveals online content is just digital skywriting…

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media

≈ 6 Comments

The following infographic was emailed directly to me by a friend. It did not pass GO, or come via a social site.

I understand it was originally created by Intel as part of a research project.

it's impossible to keep up...

it’s impossible to keep up…

You’ll need to click on the image to read the fine print.

What is the clear message it sends?

One message could be the discovery of a miracle pill that allows us to live to 350 years of age and never require sleep. That way we can spend 24/7/365 doing nothing but reading social media and other online content. Woohoo!

The real message it makes is the majority of “content” – that stuff used in “content marketing” – is never seen, or only seen by a small handful of people.

After all, if this is what’s going on in just one minute, it’s physically impossible to keep up with all your news feed, social posts and other “real-time” content streaming into your multiple screens. When would you work, sleep, go to the loo, eat or whatever?

It appears the interweb is full of people publishing content that rarely gets noticed, let alone read. Millions of individuals and companies, focused on publishing their own stuff and ignoring much of everyone else’s. Which makes it very difficult to reach lots of people at the same time, like mass media does.

It’s a lot like skywriting really.

skywriting

Skywriting is only seen if you happen to be looking up at the time the words are ‘published’ and the wind is not strong. If you aren’t watching you won’t even notice the content before it disappears on the breeze forever.

The same principle applies to social media posts. Unless you are on the page when the post appears in your news feed, you’ll never see it again. And given the volume of content being published – see infographic – there’s little chance you’ll see 1% of the content in your various news feeds, social sites, blogs and newsletters.

It’s just digi-wind, blowing in cyberspace never to be seen again.

As media channels, the digital ones are really struggling to deliver a positive ROI. Every day new advertising opportunities appear as new website pages, blogs, social sites, apps and more are created. They are all chasing the elusive (and limited) advertising dollar to fund them. These spots are becoming cheaper to buy because they are becoming less effective. People cannot view the exponential growth in the number of pieces of content – there are just not the hours in the day, nor the people available to view the content.

This is the dilemma for marketers. It’s sometimes cheaper to produce content for the interweb, but making the content perform gets harder every day, as the volume of content available to customers and prospects is growing exponentially. The one saving grace, is that every marketing activity conducted online is measurable, so you can test to see what works and what doesn’t.

What’s that you say? Over 60% of marketers never look at their online analytics or data, so they don’t know what works. Well how do they know if they are investing their shareholder’s money wisely? Don’t get me started.

Have to go now and read my Tweets, FB, LinkedIn, favourite blogs, RSS feeds, online news, email, today’s newspaper, watch YouTube, attend a webinar and listen to the radio. Not to mention post my comments, take photos of things to post, think about what to post, that’s right I have to go to the post office to collect my post and also post some mail.

I assume you’re reading this, somebody, anybody? Are you there? Please comment, please…

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An old lesson from a popular Virgin…

26 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Branding, Direct Marketing, Marketing

≈ Leave a comment

sir_richard_branson

We all know this face – it belongs to one of the world’s most successful marketers and exponents of publicity, Sir Richard Branson.

His Virgin brand is now a global challenger and leading brand in a wide variety of categories including airlines, credit cards, trains, health clubs, holidays and all sorts of others in between.

But the category that made him his first billion is no longer dominated by the Virgin brand.

Do you know what his first business was?

It was a mail-order record company. You know records. They’re vinyl discs that produce music when you play them on a turntable – ask your father, if you’re not sure.

virgin_records

But why did this business nearly go broke?

The answer is this: Royal Mail went on strike for about 6 weeks. So Virgin couldn’t deliver orders or receive payments.

What did the wily entrepreneur do as a result?

He opened a retail store. Oh and then he built it into a global brand.

virgin megastore

He sold it to Sony for his first $1 Billion.

Why did this brand go broke though?

Most people think it’s because of the interweb, or iTunes and other digital download services.

The real reason it went broke is simple:

The company limited its marketing to a single channel – retails stores. It didn’t keep an active database of all those millions of customers buying in-store every day. It didn’t have a mail order business, the original backbone of the brand.

If the Virgin Megastores had built databases of their customers and communicated with them regularly, selling them more music products, they could easily have sold them digital downloads from a Virgin service, when the new technology arrived. And it’s not like it was difficult to capture customer details at the checkout. Retailers capture customer data all the time while processing the sale.

And if they had a database, they would have not needed to close their stores, rather they could have created a whole new music retail experience, both online and in-store.

They are certainly not the only brand to fail because they limited their communication channels and ignored history. But sadly many are ignoring the simple lessons of the Virgin Megastore brand and following digital fashion.

An enormous number of companies are putting their businesses at risk by migrating them online and ignoring the channels that have always worked for them. If you restrict your marketing to one channel, particularly one digital channel, you are taking a very big risk – and could go the way of the Virgin Megastores – species extinction.

I think I’d rather stay in business than follow fashion, wouldn’t you?

Time to relax now – I’m going to put some vinyl on the turntable and kick back with a good book:)

gramaphone

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Do you laugh or cry at our industry?

22 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Direct Marketing, Marketing

≈ Leave a comment

As you know, the advertising industry is the most over-awarded self-indulgent industry in the world. We have award programmes for everything from letterbox leaflets, to television commercials, social media and even agencies win awards for being an agency. There is also massive duplication as award programmes are run by trade magazines, industry associations and major brands.

award

I’ve judged numerous awards programmes, been Chairman of Judges a few times and even designed the current ADMA awards structure by merging the original programme with the Australia Post awards, way back when.

But I was once again stunned this week, reading a judge’s comment for an award given to a direct marketing agency in a trade magazine’s annual awards. This is not a reflection on the agency by the way – they are quite good.

Here’s the quote: “in a new year when traditional direct marketing is struggling to find its place in the marketing mix, the finalists had examples of campaigns that were true to the discipline and were true to the client” (change hands)

I have no idea what the sentence means. Direct Marketing is a way of marketing (see earlier posts) and it is booming in the digital age, because the internet is a pure direct channel. There is no such thing as traditional direct marketing. By implication is there renaissance direct marketing, a post-modern direct marketing, a cubist direct marketing, even a digital direct marketing???

Direct marketing is any marketing activity where you communicate directly with your customers and prospects or they respond directly to you, in any media. There is always a measurable transaction either of data or dollars – and it doesn’t matter on what day of the week or in which century you do the work.

Direct marketing is also the hardest thing you can do in marketing, because you are trying to get the customer or prospect to do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. And this takes special skills.

These DM skills and the knowledge needed to create the marketing messages haven’t changed in over 150 years. They also have precious little to do with the media channel in which you advertise, apart from knowing the best way to buy the media and the most productive format in which to produce your creative execution.

I suspect the ‘judge’ is confusing direct marketing with one of the historically most popular channels, direct mail. This is a traditional communication channel – in fact it’s the oldest channel apart from face-to-face.

But when an awards judge hasn’t a clue about the marketing discipline they are judging, what hope does the industry have? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – we’ve had 30 years of DM education in this country, yet still we don’t know what we’re doing, if you take this judge’s comments as typical.

And what the hell does “true to the discipline” mean? The communication achieved its objectives? I though this sort of ad-speak died after the 1987 crash? But it appears to be raising its ugly head again. Because as I glanced across the page after reading the judge’s comments, I noticed this description of an agency as a “digital, creative and social media shop”. As against an analogue, uncreative, anti-social shop? WTF?

Why do we define agencies by the media channels they use? Should we call Clemenger a “cathode-ray tube advertising agency” because they create TV ads? Should Ogilvy be the “railway-stairs print agency” because they produce posters that appear at train stations? Should the art studios that produce online advertising be called “Binary code agencies”?

The intellectual laziness in the industry is frightening. People are not taking time to improve their knowledge, study history and really understand marketing. They think that because they work in the industry they know it all. It’s similar to thinking you can become a brain surgeon by hanging around the casualty ward!

So do we rage against the machine and try to weed out the weak? Or do we just accept the industry will always attract these type of people?

If we are to really create great work that delivers outstanding results, we need to weed out the weak. But I suspect there isn’t the intestinal fortitude to do so and the continued acceptance of mediocrity will be the norm.

I’m off to write copy for a sky-writing advertisement, but am concerned the airplane uses both analogue and binary technology to fly and release the message, so what creative execution should I use?? And should it be serif or san serif? I’d better ask the judge.

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Does The Boss really dye his hair??

21 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Marketing

≈ 2 Comments

They came from distant lands, by all means of transport, public and private. The arena was packed – 10,000, maybe more. All waiting nervously. Excited about witnessing one of the rare events of the modern world.

Some wore robes of events past. Others were joined by their children, even grandchildren. The young and the old, together in anticipation. The mood was buoyant. Necks craned towards the stage, their owners eager to be the first to sight the great man.

Instantly the dark engulfed us. The crowd erupted – screaming, shouting, hooting!

A thin white plume of smoke rose above the masses – was it the signal we were awaiting? Then a movement on the stage. He’d arrived. And as one, the crowd began the chant…

BBBRRRUUUUUCCEE! BBBRRRUUUUUCCEE! BBBRRRUUUUUCCEE!

Yes folks this was it – not the inauguration of Francis in a Frock. This was the start of an epic event – a Bruce Springsteen concert.

White smoke rises above the masses

White smoke rises above the masses

The Boss is famous for his energetic shows and enthusiasm for his audiences. And again he delivered. Within a half hour he was reaching out to touch the people. They poured forth, also touching him, shouting his name. I never thought the name ‘Bruce’ carried such religious connotations. Particularly after the infamous Monty Python sketches deriding Australian’s, because they all seemed to be named Bruce. I know quite a few Bruce’s – but I digress.

Then he jumped from the stage and walked among his throng. Women fainted, grown men begged a handshake and the masses hollered. He kept singing as he greeted his followers – encouraging them to join in one big mutual chorus.

A low walkway was hidden within the area down front, where people paid a gazillion dollars to stand all night with a pink wristband as ID. The Boss walked across it. Was he walking on the shoulders of the fans? All this was projected on large overhead screens, for those too far away for their binoculars to focus.

The Boss...projected overhead

The Boss…projected overhead

He knelt and kissed a silver-haired lady on the forehead. For a minute I was shocked. “Mum?” I screamed, then realised she wasn’t a fan. But the look of exhilaration on her face, made her appear at least 50 years younger. And the grin on her partner’s face gave away his thoughts immediately. The crowd loved it, more cheering and whistles.

Then The Boss leaned back towards the stage and crowd-surfed his way across his followers and fans. Held aloft by hundreds of digits groping and clawing with one hand while taking photos with their phones in the other. They wanted social media kudos – unlike their mere mortal friends and connections – they had really connected with The Boss.

But that’s when it hit me – a close up that I’d earlier blamed on a technical hitch in the lighting. The Boss’s sideburns, yes folks his sideburns, were a different colour to his well-cut crop on top. The sides were dark with a grey tinge. His crop was almost auburn. Auburn! Doesn’t The Boss have black hair? Maybe I’m wrong?

In mild panic I shouted above the din and asked my wife if I was hallucinating – she replied disappointed, “not again dear”. Then I rephrased and asked her opinion. “Yes” she confirmed. It appeared The Boss dyed his hair.

I was stunned – and completely missed the next couple of songs as I pondered this possibility. Could it be true that the definition of “rock authenticity” in the rock n roll dictionary, had succumbed to cosmetic influences? What has become of the world?

He is after all 63 years of age. And he obviously has problems reading the run sheet on the floor. He relied on the fans to tell him what songs to play. Many of these followers were apparently aware The Boss had an eyesight problem. So they held aloft cardboard signs with the names of his famous songs written in large letters.

Bruce, I feel I can call him that now, would pluck a sign from a willing hand. He’d then display it for the cameras to project on the overhead screens (he’s quite thoughtful that way) and then show the band, before placing the sign against the microphone stand. He didn’t have to worry about what to play. His fans created the run sheet for him – that’s true community for you – and not a Tweet or FB posting in sight.

But wait. What’s this? The Boss is hoisting a young child on stage – a boy of maybe 12 years. I have no idea if he couldn’t walk before he was chosen, but the child has now started singing and dancing on stage with The Boss. They joined hands and ran across the stage, finishing in a knee slide with hands aloft – just like real rock stars! (or EPL goal scorers).

The crowd was out of its seat at once. Tears were even shed at this generous gesture of greatness. The Boss was truly a wonder. What a show! What a band! What a mystery! Does The Boss really dye his hair?

We raced for the exit, beating the masses to a taxi.

Falling into the cab, we were completely wired from the experience. Our driver asked in his second language, English, “has da concert finished?”.

“Yes” we replied.

“Who wazza playin?” he inquired.

“Bruce Springsteen, The Boss” I exclaimed, looking forward to an enthusiastic discussion about said wonder.

“Never heard of him” said the driver. “Is he the one that paints his face and has that coloured hair?”

Deflated, I didn’t know how to answer, so I scrolled my camera roll for evidence….does The Boss really dye his hair?

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Two marketers walk into a bar…

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Marketing

≈ Leave a comment

I’m feeling lazy today, so here’s a few laughs at our expense:

laughing face

Apple Marketing

A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.

The old guy fingered his expensive wool vest and said, “Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. Marketing was the key to my success.”

“I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents.”

“The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $9.80.”

“Then my wife’s father died and left us two million dollars.”

The Top 10 Signs You Work In Marketing

10. You lecture the neighbourhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their look-to-buy ratio.

9. You get all excited when it’s Saturday so you can wear casual clothes to work.

8. You refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as “deliverables.”

7. You find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living.

6. You normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week.

5. You wear grey to work instead of navy blue to make a bold fashion statement.

4. You know the people at the airport and hotel better than your next door neighbours.

3. You ask your friends to “think out of the box” when making Friday night plans.

2. You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a matrix.

1. You think a “half-day” means leaving work at 5 o’clock.

Good for Business

A visiting customer is taken by the Marketing Manager on a tour of a factory that produces various latex products.

At the first stop, he’s shown the machine that manufactures baby-bottle nipples. The machine makes a loud hiss-pop! noise.

“The hiss is the rubber being injected into the mold,” explains the Marketer. “The popping sound is a needle poking a hole in the end of the nipple.”

Later, the tour reaches the part of the factory where condoms are manufactured.

The machine makes a noise: ‘Hiss. Hiss. Hiss. Hiss-pop!”

“Wait a minute!” says the customer. “I understand what the ‘hiss, hiss,’ is, but what’s that ‘pop!’ every so often?”

“Oh, it’s just the same as in the baby-bottle nipple machine,” says the guide. “It pokes a hole in every fourth condom.”

“Well, that can’t be good for the condoms!”

“Yeah, but it’s great for the baby-bottle nipple business!”

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If Google does it…why don’t you?

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Direct Marketing, Marketing, PPC, Social Media

≈ 4 Comments

Thank you to all those who provided advice for my friends living next door to “Australia’s Next Top Model” – I will keep you informed of the situation should anything interesting occur…

I’d like to ask you a couple of questions if I may – pretend you are attending one of my seminars and virtually raise your hands to answer.

Who wants more email in their inbox? My guess is very few would like more, yet most would like to know how to make their email messages work better for them – but that’s another day.

Do you have a secretary or personal assistant? If you’re typical of my audiences of marketing executives and business owners, the majority of you no longer have that luxury.

Can you type at least 120 words per minute like a secretary can? Probably not. Can you even type efficiently – or do you do the hunt-n-peck with a couple of digits?

You probably have a smart phone or even a tablet computer on which you manage your business emails? Ironically, these are referred to as ‘productivity tools‘.

What is the latest time of night you’ve checked your email? In bed? For many of you, the answer will be like that Eric Clapton song – ‘After Midnight’.

Do you do type your own correspondence and do your own email and digital document filing? I assume most do – after all, you have nobody to delegate these tasks to any more.

So consider the situation – you are now working longer hours for your company, working at home after-hours almost every day, using a communication channel that you’d rather use less of, inefficiently typing and filing your own correspondence and yet this is supposed to be ‘productive‘.

It appears to me that this is only productive for your employer.

I’m not having a shot by the way – I’m as guilty as all of us. I’m just painting a picture.

Another question – who opens their own business mail? In most organisations and businesses, apart from those who have a mail room or a receptionist who opens the mail, individual executives now open their own mail. There’s no longer a gatekeeper. Everyone has a letter opener – now that’s a productivity tool:)

Letter opener

This is why there has never been a better time than the digital age to use direct mail to communicate (or ‘engage‘ to use the appropriate buzzword) with your customers and prospects.

And if you use mail with in-built web-keys like this self-mailer produced by Kyp (www.kyp.com) you will get excellent results, all measurable in real-time via a web-based dashboard.

Kyp Pico

So what does this all have to do with Google?

Well here’s another question – what brand is now one of the world’s largest users of direct mail for customer acquisition?

Hint – see the headline of this post. The answer of course is, Google. They are prolific users of direct mail, linked to specific landing pages, with different offer and format tests. Here are a couple of examples.

Google Red 9300

Google Green 9301

Google knows that if you limit yourself to online media channels (many of which are unproven) you are putting your business at risk and missing enormous opportunities that exist using the proven media channels.

The purpose of your marketing is to acquire and retain customers profitably. In the digital age many marketers have had some sort of brain snap. They have dumped channels that have always, and still, work really well – and rushed blindly to digital channels. Yet many digital channels do not work as well, or have yet to prove themselves. It’s frightening. Why follow fashion at the expense of profit?

Direct mail continues to deliver excellent results. Even more-so now, as there is less clutter in the channel. If you have stopped using direct mail and migrated all your budget to online channels and reduced the budget you allow for acquiring and keeping a customer, you may be risking your business. And that’s not good for productivity – or profitability.

So I suggest you ask yourself the question: “If Google does it, why don’t you?”

Then start using the proven channels. You can then test the online channels to see if they are worth the investment. Well, that’s what Google does.

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Your help please, particularly if you’re a red blooded Aussie male…

14 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Marketing

≈ 9 Comments

Huddle up tight folks, I need your help. This is not a simple problem to solve.

My son started at a new school this year and so did a family from the USA. Their son and ours have become good friends. We’ve also become friends with this family and the father, let’s call him Joe, cannot stop saying what a wonderful country we live in.

I’m purposefully not saying their real names for reasons that will become apparent.

They have been posted here for a few years. Joe has a very high-powered job that has him travelling around Asia. They are renting an amazing home on the hillside of Balmoral Beach – a lovely suburb on the north side of Sydney Harbour. Here’s a typical view:

Balmoral

Last week, they received a notice that their street would be disrupted occasionally by a film crew over the next 3 months – with the usual apologies and contact numbers for discussion. They were a tad concerned. It’s hard enough learning to drive on the left side of the road, without also having camera crews in your face.

The notice referred to the address next to their home. So eventually they met and introduced themselves to their new neighbours with the film crew.

Guess whose their new neighbours were? And how damn inconvenient. Yes folks, our new friends are living next door the cast and crew of “Australia’s Next Top Model” hosted by former Miss Universe, Australia’s very own Jennifer Hawkins.

Jennifer_Hawkins_bikini-5

Well you can imagine the problem this has caused Joe and every father of his children’s class mates. The poor sod is having his life disrupted by sweet young things gallivanting in the pool next door – which by the way you can see from the entrance walkway. I only know this because when I was visiting their home last weekend to drop off their son after a visit to our home, I glanced over the fence and just happened to notice 6 models in bikinis doing their aqua-exercises. Gosh they exercised for at least 20 minutes. There were trees in the way, so it took a while to glance.

So this is the dilemma faced by my new best friend in this foreign country – he needs all the help he can get folks. Does he:

1. Run his own live stream video from his roof-cam on You Tube and make money from advertising revenue?
2. Get the model’s autographs and sell them on eBay?
3. Invite Jen and the girls over for a house warming BBQ and discussion on the rights of tenants in modern society?
4. Work from home for the next 3 months and forget about the Asian market?

I’ve offered to help him make the decision and have set up daily planning meetings at his home, so he doesn’t have to face our peak hour traffic. The fathers in the parents group at school have also unselfishly volunteered to assist – that’s good old fashioned Aussie mateship for you.

I’d welcome your suggestions too. The girls next door are very friendly and not shy at all. They eagerly asked our friends if they had any sons. The mother said “yes, one, but he’s only nine” – so the girls lost interest in the conversation and went back to the pool.

I’m not a fan of reality TV shows, but given my connection to this one, I may just watch it to support my new best friend. Where’s the remote!

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Where are the good HR managers?

14 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Branding, Customer Service

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I received an unusual request today. A colleague of mine just started a new job 10 days ago. He has packed up all his worldly possessions and moved countries to do so.

There had been protracted negotiations over some weeks to hire him. Though the organisation was in fact re-hiring him after an absence of a few years, to work on the client account on which he had worked previously. They wanted him back to help them out.

HR Manager

So this morning he sent me an email. Could I write him a reference – the HR department needed at least two references for his file? I said “isn’t it a bit late to start asking for references, shouldn’t they had checked them before hiring you?”

Apparently his HR department cannot officially hire someone, without having that person’s references on file – even if they’ve been hired. So he needed to stump up a couple of references. I suggested I send one that said “never hire this bloke – ask me why” just to see if it was read or only filed? They also wanted a copy of his original university degree, the one he completed 30 years ago and has no idea where he put it following graduation.

Maybe it was a butt-covering exercise to protect against potential litigation? Apart from being rude, it was also a waste of time for at least 3 people – my friend and his two referees. It’s probably part of the Job Description for the HR manager, so is not time wasting on their books.

But poor manners seem to be the norm in HR departments. I mentor and advise a few marketing executives. A couple are looking around for jobs.

They do all the right things. They sniff around LinkedIn profiles of the people doing the hiring – it’s the digital equivalent of marking your territory, like animals do when they want to warn others they are in the area.

Marking territory

They respond to job advertisements, using social media – if that’s the only place the job has been advertised – and directly by email.

But more often than not, the response they get is silence – zero, nothing, nada, not a sausage, not even a “thanks but no thanks”. The founders of some of the companies in which they are seeking work, would be appalled at the way potential employees are treated by HR managers.

Having hired hundreds of staff in my career, I always try to interview potential employees, even if I don’t have a job to offer them. You never know what’s around the corner – who’s going to resign, or go on maternity leave? Or maybe a client is looking to hire and you are able to help them through the people you’ve interviewed.

I remember a discussion I had with my old boss David Ogilvy. We agreed it was a worthwhile investment of your time, as it helps develop new relationships – some of these people end up as your clients, not your employees. It’s just good business sense to know who is in the market and it can save you money on job advertising and recruitment companies.

Corporate manners have been declining for some time now. Maybe it’s a by-product of our education system, where kids cannot be punished for their bad behaviour, so they assume that’s how you behave when they start in business? They have no idea how to behave.

Whatever the cause, many HR managers are not making a good first impression. And first impressions work both ways. Not only is the potential employer making judgments from first impressions, but employees also make judgments on whether they want to work with you. And if your HR people are bad mannered, they may be letting your company down more than you realise.

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