Why Do You Have a Website? One of the (many) perverse things about life is that there are more questions than answers. True story. So often we struggle in vain to resolve issues or find solutions to problems. For some reason, we’re convinced that there have to be answers. Why? Says who? In what Rule Book Of Life is this written down?We’d all get a lot more sleep, and ditch the Gucci luggage under our eyes if we learned to just...
The August 2017 presidential election in Kenya was different to any previously held in that country. There were still two candidates, and there was still tireless campaigning. But there was one thing that separated this election from any other held so far. And which will undoubtedly shape the way all future election campaigns are run. Social media. The 2017 Kenyan elections were where social media influence in this country truly came of age. Millions of dollars were spent convincing millions of voters...
To most people who don’t live in Kenya, this diverse, beautiful and fascinating country is best known for its incredible wildlife parks and tropical paradise coastline. The bookworms among us will also know it as one of the favoured haunts of Nobel Prize-winning author, Ernest Hemmingway.Kenya features prominently in several of Hemmingway’s short stories, as well as in his non-fiction book, Green Hills of Africa. The echoes of his passionate affiliation to the country can still be found today at...
It’s a question people have been asking since, well, the advent of questions, really. Early Man probably had no problem devising great strategic ideas for successfully capturing a mammoth, but found it more difficult to turn those ideas into actual food for a month and a fantastic woolly floor covering. Military generals throughout history have prided themselves on their carefully devised attack plans, only to have things go badly sideways on the actual battlefield. And corporate leaders can spend hours...
Admit it. We’d all like our PAs to be like Blake from Madam Secretary or Donna from Suits. (Okay, so strictly speaking, Donna is no longer a PA, but she was for the first six series, so work with me here, people!) These two epitomise everything that a fantastic Personal Assistant should be – efficient, hard working, totally indispensable and, as an added bonus, they know exactly how Elizabeth and Harvey like their coffee.Sadly, many of us don’t have PAs...
Or, to put it another way, if your website’s Services Page was one of your sales reps, would you promote it, or fire it? Is it doing its job, or does it spend far too much time chatting to Bonnie from Payroll? Is it bringing in valuable leads and closing sales, or does it prefer to stand around the water cooler looking for unsuspecting souls to lure in for a not-so-quick gossip sesh?Here’s the thing:We don’t tolerate underperformance from our...
Take a minute to think about all the people in your company. ALL of them. Even Scary Viv from Accounting, and Weird Brian from, actually, where is Weird Brian from, and what exactly does he do all day?The point is though, that your people are your company. Yes, even the scary and weird ones. They (well, most anyway) are the power behind your products and the secret behind your service. Each one (again, most!) in his or her own way,...
Imagine that it’s performance appraisal time. The awful time of year that strikes fear and trepidation into the hearts of all but the most annoyingly confident employees. The time when sadistic HR managers, who love to feast on fear and anxiety, start throwing around terms like “KPIs,” “quantifiable measurements” and “data points,” just to watch you squirm.As employers, we rely on these appraisals to tell us how our people are doing. Are they making a valuable and quantifiable contribution to...
Your journey of a thousand sales begins with a single click. But if you’re a brand-new start-up business, getting that first, precious click can be tricky. No one knows who you are, what you do or where to find you.You need to indulge in a little shameless self-promotion! Blow your own trumpet, strut your stuff and do whatever other clichés take your fancy.I know you’re thinking you don’t have the budget for any kind of marketing efforts, but, with all...
Disappointment is not really my colour. Nor is shame. And yet I have been forced to wear both more and more recently. Not through any direct fault of mine, I must hasten to add. Although perhaps, as a man, I am complicit in some way to the situation.Here’s the thing:When it comes to women, men are pretty clueless. And when it comes to women in business, we are even worse than that! Let me stun you for a few seconds...
