I have found myself a few extra (unplanned) days in Exmouth WA – as all the planes are grounded. It is quite an interesting sensation to be given two extra days of holiday. I was already mentally making note of all the things that need to be done on my return, plans to be reviewed, evaluations to be done, budgets to be approved – it is after all only a few weeks to the end of the financial year. Instead…
One of the clear highlights from last week was taking some of the RedBallooners to the Business Chicks Breakfast in Sydney to hear Olivia Newton John speak. What a delight. We were all inspired by her commitment to wellbeing and positivity. Dexter was in his element when we had Channel 7s Today Tonight come and film with us on Friday – he of course was the star of the show. I’m sitting looking at this weeks calendar and sort of…
Why do some people think it is okay to be stingy in saying ‘thank you’. I have been in three situations recently that have given me an insight I had been oblivious too. When we happily operate in our own world we are often blind to other peoples view of the world. I thought people knew how important it is to be grateful for another person’s generosity and that to authentically thank them was the gift they give in return….
‘Sharing’ is the new business opportunity. People often ask me ‘what is the next big thing?’ Occasionally one get’s an insight into what the world ‘might be like’. Here are some things we know: There is an anti ‘stuff’ movement – not only can we not store everything we own (we live in smaller spaces in cities – and self storage is one of the fastest growing industries) but we are increasingly concerned about the cost to the planet of…
Today is momentous, for me personally and for the amazing RedBalloon team. Today, RedBalloon is celebrating the sale of a million RedBalloon experiences. It seems like yesterday that I launched RedBalloon (during the dot com crash, no-one can accuse me of not having an optimistic outlook) and waited (and waited) for two months and four days to sell our first experience. Thank you to our first customer, Damian Chown, who says he chose to purchase from RedBalloon because it was…
The NSW Opposition Leader – Barry O’Farrell visited RedBalloon this morning to make an announcement on his ‘Economic Growth Plan’. They were very deliberate in chosing a fast growth business with a strong employee engagement record as a venue for the announcement. It was an interesting experience having eight or so party people and three politicians visit, however it was the 20 media people with all their equipment which took over RedBalloon. Barry chatted with the team, I got to…
Things often happen in threes, and today I have had three curly questions; one from a consumer customer, one a corporate customer and one a supply customer. Is exemplary customer service about having ‘Happy Customers’ at all cost? Does a business need to do everything it possibly can to keep customers ‘happy’ – or is it a case of ‘you cannot please all the people all the time’? I’m tremendously proud of RedBalloon’s growth, and the sheer quantity of customers…
I spoke on a panel this week at the inaugural Australian iStrategy event. (there were about 400 in attendance) I’m very glad that I got input from Vashti who heads up our @redballoonteam effort because it is our marketing guru’s at RedBalloon who own the strategy. As we formulated our ideas of what I would share we quickly realized that there is only one word that means much at all – and that is authenticity. At the same time we…
The launch of this Trimesters theme was last Monday morning. It is all about growth. – We will celebrate when we achieve 54 by 24 –that is every RedBallooner will celebrate with an extra day of summer holidays with 250 points to have a fabulous experience on the day. Fun! I had three speaking engagements last week – which meant lots of travel, from the Yarra Valley to Lorne in Victoria. (Lorne was looking spectacular – I have not been…
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...
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An elephant’s life lesson.
I am just back from holiday where the kids and I went to Northern Thailand to volunteer at an elephant conservation camp. This is one of the few places in Thailand where elephants are safe and able to live an elephant’s life. Clearly we are a family of ‘experiences’ and I wanted us to experience the challenges and joys of participating in a volunteering program as well as getting an understanding of how an individual can make a difference to…