In another life I would love to have the ‘futurologist’ gene. I get so excited when I see clips like the one below. I cannot imagine what my children’s lives will be like. I was at a sales convention some months ago and one of the delegates was excitedly sharing that he could purchase media so cheaply… "this downturn is fantastic he said – if you’ve got some dollars, media advertising has some real bargains to be negotiated." It got…
Monthly Archives: September 2009
Why is Business Growth such an addiction
We managed to achieve a pretty good growth number in the past 12 months. We are proud not just of the revenue and EBIT growth – but more importantly the sheer number of people who receive RedBalloon gifts grows exponentially. But why do we want to continue to grow, why do we have such an ‘addiction’ to growth. We are impatient! There is so much we want to achieve and we are clamoring to do so. We want millions of…
What RedBalloon did in the ‘downturn’
BRW is going to publish its Fast List soon… and we’ve just found out that RedBalloon has made the list for the sixth time. The team is pretty chuffed. Not a bad effort given that it is all organic growth. (ie we have not made any acquisitions). The bigger you get the harder it is to keep growing quickly. Together with the ‘down turn’ I had no idea how we would fair this year. I’m over the moon that we…
Looking for Gold… or even a Pony
Some one I had not seen for a while heard me present at a large business meeting recently. After the event he said ‘You are still so passionate about your business…’ And it’s true I am. But it came across very cynically. RedBalloon has just had a fantastic fathers day – 1000s of Dads got to have a good time, we have launched in Sydney and Melbourne city stores with Myer and our corporate business is winning major contracts almost…
Six Cities in Six Days
Not quite six days but this week I’ve been in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne then home to Sydney, last week Hobart and next week I go to Adelaide – Lot’s of people wanting to hear about employee engagement. It is a happy message that I share, people are left knowing that a few simple things will make a massive difference to them in their businesses. One CEO on my travels announced “Recognition is the cheapest way I know to deliver on…
Defining the terms of engagement-
I’m sometimes invited to sit with organisations to support them designing their ‘engagement’ programs. It’s interesting that each organisation seems to speak in a different language. For instance, I was talking to a client last week who was saying ‘incentives’ but what they really meant was ‘at risk compensation’. There are many mechanisms we use to deliver engagement (and that could be customer engagement or employee engagement). Now I’m not saying that my definitions are right… but it will help…
Too much stuff – Deal with it.
I’ve just had a brilliant idea – instead of reducing clutter (ie taking hours on spring cleaning), say no to ‘stuff’ before it becomes clutter. Clutter breeds more clutter This message support’s both the global warming movement and reducing the ‘stress’ we experience as a direct result of having too much clutter in our lives. According to the Australia Institute research “Stuff Happens” 88 percent of Australians have at least one room full of trash stashed and it is…
Imagine running a business based on fun - that's what I decided to try when I left a very serious corporate career in marketing to set up RedBalloon...
Am I being stalked?
I’m not sure what the definition of stalking is but someone is watching my every move and it is disconcerting. I have always been generous in sharing what I have learned – people have supported me and in return I support and mentor others. In fact I have just returned from a Global Experience Alliance event – where the eight participating countries openly share ideas and help each other grow their respective businesses. Many of these businesses are younger than…