Wise words from a wise man

The Ad Contrarian writes a whole lot of truth when he proclaims these are the 10 commandments for advertising people:

I wonder how many of us can say we honestly do more than 5 of them regularly? You could do a lot worse than try to up your score this year.

1. Tell your clients the truth.


2. Speak in plain English.


3. Put your clients' interests ahead of your own.


4. Be guided by principles, not fads.


5. Be modest in your promises.


6. Make every client meeting as small and short as possible.


7. Never bring up an issue unless you have a recommended solution.


8. Never congratulate yourself or your agency.


9. Be more prepared than your client.


10. Always have a Plan B.

Great talk by Rory Sutherland at Ted on Advertisng

Some really nice insights and as usual delivered with the pre requisite aplomb you expect from Mr Sutherland

Well worth a watch.

Google Cost Savings

Interesting move from Google to demonstrate cost savings to businesses of using their online free services over traditional ms office and IT support staff. They have created a specific cost calculator to show the commercial argument. When you look at the numbers it is a very compelling case.



It is something we have toyed with as a small business but then what happens when Gmail goes down or confidential information in google docs accidentally gets sent to all your gmail contacts as has happened in the past?

I'm sure it will happen and quickly that this becomes the norm. The rise of the browser and the decline of the operating system is a well troden path and its interesting to see how a company like Google tackles this. I'm sure this is the first of many tactics.

Good Business Practice

I saw the following on Seth Godin's Blog today it just makes total sense.

Two ways to deal with "no"

from *Seth's* Blog by Seth Godin

You could contact the organization that turned you down and explain that they had made a terrible mistake, the wrong choice and a grave error. You could criticize the vendor they actually selected, bring You could even question the judgment of the prospect and try to teach them to make better decisions in the future. And, while you're at it, challenge the fairness of the decision-making committee itself, and explain how a more fair process would have favored you at the same time it would have helped the organization that turned you down.

Or

You could be more gracious than if you'd won the work. You could send a thank you note for the time invested, you could sing the praises of the vendor chosen in your stead and you could congratulate the buyer, "based on the criteria you set out, it's clear that you made exactly the right choice for your organization right now." That doesn't mean the criteria were right, it just means that you're not attacking the person for being an impulsive lunatic. You could even outline what you learned from the process and what you'll be changing in the future. And you can make it clear that you're in it for more than just a sale, and you'll be around if they ever need you.

Couple questions:

1. Which one will make you more likely to be invited back, or to be the backup if the first choice fails?

and

2. Which one will increase your word of mouth at the same time it improves your organization's feeling about itself?

It's a no-brainer, I think. So how come the first is so common?