Hmm "Am I Self Righteous or a Hypocrite"? LOL I put that as an either or ... but on the weekend I was accused of being both ... Ouch that hurt, but like all things it got me thinking. I think we all are, from time to time, at least to a small extent, and I certainly leave myself open to being accused of both because I take a public position on things. The truth is this: I am certainly a long way from perfect and I have a lot to be embarrassed about and a little to be ashamed of. I have done lots of stupid things, made lots of mistakes and have hurt a number of people along the way. I regret these To View More >>

Your brand, either commercially is the some of all your parts. The way you look, the way you sound, what you do and how people perceive you. The fact that Brand is not just about a "logo" is hard for many people to understand, here I attempt to use the fire service as an example of how brands develop and live or die beyond just there name. It's hard to describe the Fire Service brand ... it's not constrained to one country, one organization or even one uniform. Each fire service feeds off the stories and identity of the next, but each retains its own approach to the emergency events they service. To View More >>

Well after less than a month with iPower I have moved web hosts due to their unreliability. I am sure this isn't the way they are permanently but over the last week my site was down on a number of occasions for hours, and I have lost my confidence. I am very sorry for the inconvenience caused ... grrr. One of the interesting observations is that they weren't prepared to go into detail of what the technical issue was, just each time that "it was a router and it's now fixed". I guess companies do this due to being scared of looking bad, but left with no convincing information I was forced to move To View More >>

In business there are no magic bullets, but this idea is so powerful it certainly feels like magic. I ran into an old friend yesterday, and it reminded me of a series of seminars I ran a few years ago that contained a section on how to increase profits. Especially when times are tough, it's great to be able to break things down into some simple rules that allow you to know where to focus, so I'll share this very simple but powerful idea with you now. Gross Profit is calculated on an "averaged basis" as: (Total number of clients x Average number of visits per year x Average sale x Average margin) To View More >>