Plan for 2014

So you’ve decided that 2014 is the year you are going to really get your business off the ground. Good. But that’s not a plan – it’s more an aspiration. Here are some really important steps you can take to push your business beyond the bumpy, up-and-down growth patterns that have been dogging most of our SME companies for the past five years.

1. Set your Goals

Sounds obvious but you’ve really got to get beyond wanting the […]

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• Categories: Marketing Planning
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Lynx Man Gets Lucky

When Unilever carried out research on what men really want when pursuing the opposite sex, they discovered that it wasn’t a Boy meets Girl happy ending that young men were searching for. Way too boring!

The male phantasy, as discovered after researching thousands of men in an anonymous survey, was to be irresistable to many women – simultaneously. They also discovered – based on observations of men on a night out – that they could segment […]

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• Categories: Marketing, Selling, Strategy
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Right now I’m preparing two sessions on innovation for delivery at the Irish Management Institute (IMI) and want to talk about where great ideas come from. Look in the obvious places! Customers are one of the greatest sources of ideas. But for real insights, we often need to look at our brands ‘in the wild’, as they are used in our customers’ everyday lives.

The head of Heinz, William Johnson, tells the story that he discovered –  in his […]

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• Categories: Customer Experience, Marketing, Selling, Strategy
• Comments Off on For the best advice, ask your customers…