(Podcast) The Source Business Breakfast 13th May

Posted on | May 20, 2011 | No Comments

The Source Business Breakfast went out on Source 96.1Fm in Falmouth and Penryn between 8am and 9am on Friday 13th May, 2011. This podcast has been edited to remove commercial music and leave original content only. It runs at 51mins 20secs.

Source Business Breakfast 13th May 2011 presented by Andy Coote

Features –
It’s My Business – Gylly Beach Cafe (Simon Daw)
Studio Guests

• Rachel Jones (Fit n Fun Kids, Falmouth) and
• Tony Hogg (BF Adventure, Halvasso)

To contact me about the show, please email source(dot)business(dot)breakfast(at)gmail.com

(Podcast) – The Source FM Business Breakfast 6th May

Posted on | May 15, 2011 | No Comments

The first Source Business Breakfast went out on Source 96.1Fm in Falmouth and Penryn between 8am and 9am on Friday 6th May, 2011. This podcast has been edited to remove commercial music and leave original content only. It runs at 49mins 11secs.

Source Business Breakfast 6th May 2011 presented by Andy Coote

Features –
It’s My Business – Lang Bennetts (Colin Truscott and Jonathan Mashen)
Bank Holidays in Falmouth (Ben at Oscars, Tasmin Loveless at NMMC and Richard Gates (Town Manager)
Falmouth – economy, performance and Summer 2011 (Richard Gates, Falmouth Town Manager and Richard Wilcox (BID (Business Improvement District) Manager)
Book Review – The Dip by Seth Godin

To contact me about the show, please email source(dot)business(dot)breakfast(at)gmail.com

Article on the Nature of Change – Rapport Magazine Spring 2011

Posted on | April 11, 2011 | No Comments

If the page doesn’t appear below, go to Rapport Spring Cover and find page 4.

Rapport Magazine – Winter 2010/11

Posted on | January 18, 2011 | No Comments

Rapport Magazine was published by ANLP last week and includes two articles of mine –

The Debate – Compete or Collaborate
Nick Kemp, Karen Moxom, Mike Beale and Sue Knight on the need for and perils of collaboration in NLP.

NLP Conference Review
The NLP Conference took place in November in London’s Docklands. There is audio from the Conference elsewhere on this blog.

You can read the whole magazine online here.

Stimulating Growth – top down or bottom up?

Posted on | January 14, 2011 | 1 Comment

You may have seen this article published on Fresh Business Thinking or the Academy for Chief Executives blog. I’ve added it here to be able to refer to it.

The Government is in the process of reducing the size of the public sector. In October central government learned of the cuts to be made in their budgets in the Public Spending Review. In December, local government in England found out how big the cuts to their budgets would be. The FT published a useful map showing the effect of the cuts across England. The Government also published their Localism Bill which will devolve some powers to local government and communities.

The private sector is expected to step up and provide the growth that is necessary to replace (and build on) the reduction in the public sector. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are replacing Regional Development Agencies (also part of the Localism agenda) and will have to decide where to place their limited cash for the best effect. Do they go ‘top down’, choose sectors or companies to support and grow – a policy known as ‘picking winners’ or do they approach the problem from the bottom up, by creating the conditions in which any small business can become a medium business and medium businesses can become large?

“When you’re looking for growth opportunities you don’t stick a pin in a map and drop down a research centre here or arbitrarily back an industry there” David Cameron Prime Minister

In a speech to the CBI conference in late October reported by the BBC, David Cameron seemed to favour the top down approach.

“Mr Cameron said targeted government support for “those industries where Britain enjoys competitive advantage” would be a key priority.” The BBC reported.

However, in a later passage they also note “The prime minister insisted support would not be limited to large sectors already in existence. “We’ve got to back the big businesses of tomorrow, not just the big businesses of today,” he declared. Such support would not take the form of subsidies, however.”

Cameron also appears to support a free market operating without constraints, “I believe in competition,” he said. “I believe when new entrants challenge big business, everyone wins. This hasn’t always been the view of the government.”

A top down approach is also referred to, not always favourably, as ‘picking winners’. Previous government approaches that attempted have not always been successful. There are many variables involved. Success depends to a great extent on the quality of research and decision making, on selecting the ‘right’ investment opportunities and on good forward vision in a World market that can change rapidly. In this approach, money is spread across fewer businesses and sectors, with more money available to those chosen. There is a higher potential return on investment but at a higher risk. As a single approach, it excludes those who are not perceived as ‘winners’ but who have a good business plan and might, with support, have high growth potential.

The bottom up approach could be called ‘growing winners’. It is a wider-ranging, less selective approach and usually involves stimulating the whole business sector by training, support, advice and mentoring. There is a much lower cost per business with a lower individual risk. Central provision can be supplemented by private sector services which have the effect of stimulating those businesses, too. There is the potential for moderate growth across many businesses, producing a broader front of growth in the economy.

For those of us who have been involved in arguments about the most effective approach to networking, this dichotomy has a familiar structure. It is the quantity vs quality argument where the selective approach = quality and the general approach = quantity.

Some businesses approach networking as a focussed exercise with set criteria and with only those who meet criteria worthy of further exploration. This produces a limited field of operation and effectively rules out random connections which may display unexpected potential.

Other businesses set out to meet as many other people as they can, to develop some understanding of who they are and what they do and develop further levels of relationship with those where there is a promise of further success for both parties. This approach does allow for random connections and presupposes that the answers are not all known at the outset.

As it has proved in networking, the solution to the business growth question may be a combination of both approaches. If growing businesses can be compared to gardening, and I think it can, it is likely that one would want to grow some prize specimens whilst having a good level of plant health and growth across the whole garden. To do this, the prudent gardener would

• ensure the conditions were right for all plants, providing feed and protection where needed,
• choose some prize specimens from existing plants in the garden and supplement by buying in and
• plant plenty of seeds and cuttings, selecting from them to grow on as the prize specimens in future years
• keep the rotation going, favouring home grown specimens with some bought in plants to fill the gaps

Developing business may not be so different. Some winners are obvious and some are not. Growing next year’s top businesses will probably come from existing successes, finding the successful businesses further out requires seeding and cultivation. So bottom up AND top down approaches are needed in to work together and to encourage private businesses to support other private businesses to supplement and develop government/LEP support.

This approach seems to support what David Cameron was saying to the CBI and, indeed, what Vince Cable and Eric Pickles are asking LEPs to do. It has been said that LEPs, being more local, will have their ear closer to the ground. It needs to be a listening ear, nuanced to recognise potential and act upon it. Time will tell if that will be the case.

Andy Coote is a writer and editor and runs Bizwords providing writing services for businesses and individuals. He has edited the Virtual CEO Newsletter for over 4 years. He has been following the changes being made to business support and development by the Coalition Government since the election earlier this year.

Digital Books – another false dawn? Or a real shift?

Posted on | January 13, 2011 | 1 Comment

I’ve always been an advocate of ‘real’ books in the face of the clamour for ebooks and the suggestion that the written word will go the same way as recorded music – that the Kindle (and other book readers) will be the iPod for its market. So how did I react when, on Christmas Day I unwrapped a totally unexpected Kindle?

For technical reasons that we needn’t explore (they were mine not Amazon’s), I couldn’t be part of the Christmas Day switch on. The Bookseller reports that on Christmas Day 2010, “more customers turned on Kindles, downloaded the Kindle app and bought more Kindle e-books than on any other day since the e-book reader went on sale in 2007.” The Kindle is now Amazon’s biggest selling item of all time.

When I did register the Kindle, I found it extremely easy to do. I already had an account (naturally) and the Kindle was soon able to download books. I began with the complete Sherlock Holmes for less than £1 and was soon reading ‘Study in Scarlet’. Once I found the right text size for me (quite big), it was easy to use the Kindle and I was soon familiar with the controls.

I’ve now read two Crime Novels on the machine and a self help book by Robin Sharma. The reading process is, if anything, better than a paper book as there are no distractions – just the page in view. The progress meter at the bottom of the page helps but I do miss knowing how far I’ve come and have to go by weighing the pages. The pricing of most of the books I’ve bought so far has been much lower than equivalent print books.

Does that mean that I won’t go and buy from Waterstones? Well, it may just be that I won’t have that option. Through a combination of poor weather, a reluctance to spend too much in the current austerity and, I guess, a movement from physical to digital, Waterstones were part of the poor results at HMV Group. The consequence of that, the Bookseller reports, is that “Waterstone’s confirmed yesterday (5th January) that it will close 20 stores over the next twelve months as part of cost-cutting measures across the wider HMV Group that will see 60 stores close in total.” There are no lists of the 20 stores yet, but, sitting as it does out on a limb, the Truro store must be in consideration for closure. It will be missed if it goes, but I won’t be surprised if that is the decision.

Am I making a simple data error here by choosing to see an increase in digital readers hitting the market as being part of the cause of poor sales at a retailer of physical books. Time will tell. There have been false dawns of the digital book age before. This could be another. It doesn’t feel that way though.

Should I put my Kindle down and return to reading ‘real’ books? I really don’t think I can.

Audio – NLP Conference ‘a success’ says organiser David Bowman

Posted on | November 15, 2010 | 2 Comments

In February this year, it was announced that Anglo American Books would be taking over the major task of organising the NLP Conference in London from Jo Hogg who had organised it for the previous 25 years and had built it into a prestigious event that attracted major speakers from around the world.

David Bowman, MD of Anglo American became a familiar figure during the three days of the Conference, making sure that the 2010 event was at least as good as previous years.

As the final sessions began on Sunday afternoon, I caught up with him to get his assessment of this year’s event and to talk about his biggest challenge for 2011.

I’m writing the conference up for Rapport Magazine and will share some more thoughts here in the next few days.

Meanwhile, back to the real world from the Conference bubble!

Audio – NLP Conference Saturday afternoon

Posted on | November 13, 2010 | 1 Comment

My good friend and Book Midwife, Mindy Gibbins-Klein explains how the Home Birthing Kit can help to write your book in just 90 days.

Michael Carroll, founder and lead trainer of the NLP Academy on connecting at conferences and how the NLP Conference is getting it right.

Lisa Wake of Awaken Consultancy talks about working with the Academic community and her support for ANLP’s initiative to get the NLP Community working together – Coalition NLP.

More tomorrow …

AUDIO – NLP Conference thoughts (Friday night and Saturday morning)

Posted on | November 13, 2010 | 1 Comment

More audio from the NLP Conference.

I spoke to Maria last night after an all day session from Shelle Rose Charvet on Customer Thinking and Customer Outrage.

Becky and Tim Maude were enjoying lunch outside the main exhibition space at the conference when I joined them.

Jeremy Lazarus is an NLP Trainer and author working in business and sports coaching. As a former accountant and semi professional goalkeeper, he has experience of both.

Audio – thoughts before NLP Conference

Posted on | November 13, 2010 | 3 Comments

Some reflections on choice and pre conference thoughts.

(Posted just day late after some technical issues upoloading audio)

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