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I love this blog post on Roger von Oech’s blog by Michael Michalo. Roger von Oech is the creator of the brilliant “Whack on the Side of the Head” card set – and I was stoked to see that you can now get them in an i-phone app called the Creative Whack Pack. In my opinion, his tools are brilliant ways to give your creative juices a charge on the days you are feeling flat.

But back to the blog post … in it Michael looks at the paradoxes of creativity. In his view:

To create, a person must

• Have knowledge but forget the knowledge;
• See unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder;
• Work hard but spend time doing nothing;
• Create many ideas yet most of them are useless;
• Look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different;
• Desire success but learn how to fail;
• Be persistent but not stubborn; and,
• Listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

I would add that a person needs insatiable curiosity but be totally focussed.

What would you add?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

It’s election year in Australia and the first of the political debates on Health Reform just aired. One of the TV stations (channel 9) uses “the worm” to track real time audience response to comments during the debate.  It is a fascinating insight into people’s minds.  Channel 9 had 90 allegedly undecided voters hold keypads while they watched the debate and give feedback on whether they approved or disapproved of what was being said.  Individual scores were aggregated and then shown as a continuous “worm” to the TV audience at home. Individual audience members cannot see the worm and where it is heading, so the results are not influenced by peer group pressure.

Now there has been a lot of debate in the past about the algorithm that drives the worm and whether or not people really were uncommitted voters. Putting that aside and assuming Channel 9 learned from their debacle a few years back, the worm still gives some insight into how a cross section of people think.

So what did the worm respond to today? The clearest responses were when Tony Abbott (Opposition Leader) took the chance to put the boot into Kevin Rudd (Prime Minister).

Repeated negative comments about “can’t trust the parliament to install Pink Batts” and school hall rorts gathered more and more extreme negative responses. Each time Mr Abbott made the same negative comments, his approval scores plunged further. People are turned off by negativity and repeated negativity only serves to embed the feeling of being turned off.

People were also turned off by attempts to get a laugh at the expense of the other person – not everyone has the same sense of humour.

The worm jumped when concrete, practical information was presented from either side. People want specific details – they don’t want fluff.

The worm also took a major jump into the stratosphere when the Prime Minister stated that people really didn’t care who was to blame – they just wanted the health problem fixed.

What can business learn from the running of the worm today?  Simple really:

1. Be positive. If you don’t have something good to say with someone – shut up.
2. Be specific. Give your customers details and facts, not platitudes.
3. Don’t blame. Commit to fixing any issues you have without finding someone to blame.

If you get a chance to watch the debate, I certainly recommend it – not necessarily for what the politicians said, but to observe what people responded to.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

One of my favourite debates over the years has been with people who with hand over their heart tell me how to improve my decision making – or to put it another way,  how to become more rational and logical and therefore make more effective decisions.

What neuro-psychologists and other researchers of the mind are finding is that no decision is purely rational – that there is always an aspect of irrationality or emotion that colours our decisions. That’s the reason why smart people make some really dumb choices. Yes, we can attempt to reduce the variables and reduce the impact of emotions on our decisions, but at our core there will always be a little piece of humanness that can derail our best intentions.

Dan Ariely is a behavioural economist, and his book Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions sheds light on a number of examples where our brain gets in the way of our making good logical decisions.It is a must read for any manager, business owner or just anyone interested in why they make the decisions they do.

Dan spoke at TED about some of his findings and his talk is both funny and enlightening. If you want to learn how to get people to choose an option in a subscription form, or why certain people are chosen for dates,  these are all topics that he covers in a brilliant way in his talk.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

If you have ever managed people, you know it is rarely “one big thing” that results in someone being sacked. Rather it is the accumulation of “little things” – the cross word here, the missed result there that build up over time. They build and build until finally the person gets enough negative strikes against them that the boss decides to sack them.

So too with business. It is rarely the big things that lose you customers, rather it is the little things, the petty annoyances that build up over time until one day your customer sacks you and moves on. The problem is that customers rarely complain about the little things.

One of my colleagues mentioned in his blog post four little fees of less than $5 each that had been levied when he had his car serviced. It was enough to annoy him and trigger him to change mechanics. The servicing was fine – it was the little things that prompted change.

I have had my own share of little experiences. I have a dentist who 4 months ago changed the girl who issues the orthodontic accounts. So far not one account we have received from her has been correct. Each month she gets the name wrong, forgets to include the name of the dentist or the treatment number. Each month the mistake is different.  The orthodontic work is fine, but the irritation of each month having to hassle to get accounts printed with correct details on them is enough that as soon as the braces come off my daughter we will be changing dentists. Like I say … little things.

I have heard of customers changing businesses because front displays are too wide so prams can’t get past them easily. Other people have left service businesses because calls were not returned within a reasonable time, or because customer toilets were not regularly checked throughout the day.  People hate dirty floors in shops. They complain to their friends when they can’t hear the girl in the drive-through … but they never complain to management.

But it is not just in the physical world. People get irritated by spelling and grammatical errors in documents and websites. Slow loading sites make them click away. If they can’t easily find what they are looking for on a site, they leave. Website studies by neuroscientists suggest this is because it generates stress and increases concentration demands on people. Whatever the reason – people leave.

Humans are funny things. They can deal with big things, but it is the little things that are the straws that break the camel’s back. It is the little things that change behaviour.

What are the small things in your business that are costing you customers? Take stock today and fix just one small thing.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance writer

For years I have been nagging the kids to “turn the lights off, you are wasting power”. “Don’t swing on the fridge door – you are letting the cold air out” “Turn the TV off”  nag nag nag. And my results – nothing short of spectacularly zero. The lights stay on, the TV plays to itself and the fridge constantly has to get re-chilled.

You see, it’s one of those human nature traits – you can tell someone that something is true, but unless they can see something happening with their own eyes they doubt.  So, I tried showing them the electricity bills. But that is a lag indicator – it is a performance measure that shows past results and so therefore has little effect on behaviour.

So yesterday I had the Climate Smart people install a real time energy monitor. It shows in real time how much electricity you are using, how much it costs and how much carbon you are putting into the atmosphere. The kids were enthralled. They wandered around the house turning stuff on and off – trying to find the appliances that used the most, through the least. They opened the fridge door to see what happened. We did the sums to work out how much each thing cost each year to run – and I then equated it to i-pods, i-tunes vouchers and other items of kids currency.

And then … they started wandering around turning things off.  Last night was the first time that the light-bulb went off – literally.

I will work on reinforcing the message, but it goes to show the power of real time performance measures to change behaviour. People see the results they are getting and move to change their behaviour.

People like to watch – how can you work with this understanding? What real time measures can you put into your workplace?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

As readers of this blog would know I have foil roof insulation (and love it). Just to be on the safe side over the past fortnight I tried to book in electricians to double check that everything was OK. The first 3 sparkies (including my regular tradie) wouldn’t touch the job.  Each had different reasons for not doing inspections which I respect, but they are doing themselves out of work.

One of the tradies recommended me to one of the “big” electrical companies – Fallon, so I tried to book them.  Well the call centre took the booking and on the nominated day I waited and waited … only to have a “no show”. I rang the call centre and rebooked and waited again on the newly nominated day. Another no show.  So I canceled my booking with Fallon and won’t be using them for our regular work in the future.

By now I was getting frustrated so put the word out on Twitter & Facebook. One of my colleagues recommended Pulse Electrical – so I gave them a call.

The lady who answered the phone was warm and truly lovely. And she asked the question … while we are out there checking your roof, is there anything else we could do for you? Do you need any new points, switches repaired or anything you are concerned about electrically?”  Her going through the list triggered all of the jobs I had been saving for our regular sparkie, so of course I said “sure”.

Pulse were great – they turned up on time, were polite and easy to work with and did the job well. And as a result they have an additional $450 of electrical work from me in the way of new external points for our Xmas lights and a host in interior fixes. Win win all around. I’ll happily be moving all our electrical work over to Pulse.

The point is they asked the question – and made additional sales. How many times do businesses not ask the question and lose money as a result?

Oh yes, there were no problems with my foil insulation by the Australian Insulation Specialists. The sparkies reckoned it was the neatest and best job they had seen and raved about how well it had been installed (and yes they have seen many jobs by cowboys out there).

So – what opportunities are you not making the most of?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

If you are in Australia you would have to be deaf and blind not to have heard the baying of the wolves about foil ceiling insulation. You would think that the Government had personally snuck into the ceilings of unsuspecting citizens and installed incendiary bombs the way the media has represented it. This is a great example of a great product being killed by something outside the manufacturers control.

But lets start with the facts. The government of the day decided that one way to be conserve energy would be to subsidize the installation of ceiling insulation in houses in Australia. Home owners without insulation could do their research, get some quotes and then have insulation installed, the cost of which would be either fully or partially offset by the government. The scheme would create jobs through the manufacture and installation of insulation, reduce the load on the electricity grid and save consumers money – all at a time of economic crisis. Whatever your politics and whether or not you agree with the approach, this was the basis for the scheme.

At no time were citizens told which insulation they must buy or who should install it – people did their own research and made their own choices. They could choose from fibreglass batts, pumped in products, wool or foil – the choice was entirely theirs.

I was one of those many citizens who thought “You beauty” and decided to take the government up on its offer.  So I hit the net. I checked out Choice – our consumer company to find out what insulation they recommended for our hot and humid Australian climate. Foil insulation came up trumps for Brisbane. I then hit the forums to hear other householders stories – looking for every possible flaw and mistake. Foil came out on top.It was clean (no dust allergens), helped repel moisture in case of a leaky roof (after our history with storms that was important), was stable, didn’t rot and worked extremely well.  As a product it ticked every box.

I then scouted around for companies, looking for reputable installation companies that had been in business for a number of years. I quizzed the shortlisted companies to find out more about what made their company the one to choose, and then chose the best of the companies to install my foil roof insulation.

The company came when they said they would and everything went like clockwork. The insulation went in, I paid the extra money over and above the rebate (foil costs more than other forms of insulation) and the temperature inside the building dropped dramatically. “Ripper” I thought – this was great.

And then the stories started to emerge of people being electrocuted through insulation being installed with metal staples, and the staples hitting live electric wires. People died and the media started baying for blood.

But … between 1989 and 1992 3,627 Aussies died in workplace accidents. That’s over 900 a year or 2.5 people PER DAY in Australia die at work. There are so many workplace deaths that you can find death rates per industry – deaths per 100,000 employees reported as a regular statistic. And yet, these thousands of deaths per year go largely unreported. No one wants to ban products or try and bring down political parties for the 93 deaths per 100,000 forestry workers or 86 per 100 000 fishery employees. These people are almost seen as “disposable”. Nothing can be done.  It is old news.

What happens when one of these people die at work? Well a Coronial inquest may be held. Investigations occur at the workplace. The company may be fined and the grieving wife (90% of all workplace deaths are men) is given some money to ease their suffering … in silence.

Look this is not a political tirade, but just a reflection on the facts. Yes, even one workplace death is one too many – a tragedy that needs to be learnt from. But let’s get some perspective here on the insulation issue.

Yes, there were cowboy installers that didn’t train their employees and as a result people died. The same can be said of many of the mining companies, fishing trawlers and other companies that have industrial deaths.

Yes, the scheme surrounding the installation could have been refined. Hindsight is always 100% accurate, and the public servants who designed the scheme did so with the best of intentions. They need to learn the lessons and refine the process for future schemes. But, remember, they are human and humans do make mistakes at times.

Is the Minister responsible. Under the Westminster scheme of politics – to be blunt yes. But then again so is the Minister for Mines for mining deaths, the Minister for Transport for truckie deaths and so on.

Foil ceiling insulation is essentially a good product, and yet now because of the media and political circus around it the product is tainted. There is nothing wrong with the product – just how it was used. And as a result it will be decades before the product can regain public confidence and in that time many foil roof insulation companies will go bust, with hundreds of employees put onto the street.

So what can business learn from the foil ceiling insulation debacle?

1. If you are in business, does your disaster recovery plan take into account what would happen if your product suddenly becomes a political and media football? What would you do if your flagship product was suddenly so on the nose that people would pay you to take it away? These are the sorts of questions that each business owner and manufacturer needs to consider.
2. Businesses need to realize that cutting corners on safety training is a dumb move. You are playing with people’s lives here. All staff need to be trained on basic safety requirements – and that includes casuals and temporary employees. No exceptions.
3. Get a PR company on speed dial. Have you noticed that the only media coverage has been negative – where are the other viewpoints shoring up the product? Obviously no PR companies have been used by the foil companies (unlike the fibreglass batt companies I would suggest).

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

PS: Oh and yes, my roof is being inspected by a sparky tomorrow. Even with all my planning and analysis, safety comes first. I am not expecting any issues – after all there have been no sparking possums or fried snakes in my roof.  But until the inspection, there will be no visits into the roof cavity to check.

How was Valentines Day for you? Holidays and major events can be great days for businesses to make additional money with creative marketing campaigns. One of the most creative Valentines campaigns I saw this year came from a school.

The Year 12 students at Ferny Grove State High raise money each year to go towards their end of year formal and a donation to their school. Like most schools looking at fundraising they had done the chocolate drives, cake drives, pie drives to death. So this year they decided on something very different. This year on the Friday before Valentines Day the Year 12 music students hired themselves out as singing telegrams, where for $3 they would sing a love song (or other song) on behalf of the person who paid them. I gather business was very brisk, with the music students being booked all over campus to sing love songs to lovestruck boys and girls. And being very visible, more and more students booked them as the day progressed so as not be left out of the “in group”.

For those who wanted a more private declaration of interest, the business students purchased bucketfuls of small stem red roses – not the fancy ones, but ones that would probably be classed as seconds. They sold each rose for $1 a rose.  Business boomed, couples bought them, friends bought them for each other, teachers bought them – it was a massive success. Waiting outside the school gate in the afternoon, all you could see were girls carrying their roses home.

Whoever was advising these students deserves a huge standing ovation. They took a captive market, created two promotional products that had great appeal, priced them at two levels to capture different markets, created desire for the products and as a result had a highly successful campaign.

School fundraising ideas don’t have to be stuffy. Some of my previous favourites included the mango drive where you could buy a tray of luscious mangoes,  the “Change for Chappies” campaign where parents are encouraged to send in 5c and other small coins towards the school chaplaincy program and Party Plan Online where you can host an online party that lasts for a fortnight and all the parents can attend and shop from the retailers they prefer with a % of sales going into school funds.

I’d love to hear  of other creative ideas for school fundraising.  What have you experienced?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Does your business back up every electronic file regularly (and by regularly I mean at a bare minimum weekly)?  And for those of you looking all smug – do you have off-site back-ups in case of a disaster in your property?

Last year I heard many war stories about files going missing in floods, fires, storms, burglary – as well as simple human error and virus attack. People who did back-up regularly and popped their back up drive into the safe, came back to find the safe after the fire had survived, but the back up drive had melted.

The lesson is to either back up to one of the on-line services or buy a couple of external drives and swap them around. You can pick up external systems for less than $150 – is your business worth more than $150?

Now another question – do you back up the most important piece of information in your business? Think twice before answering this one. If you produce an ezine or have some other form of web presence, and your “list” of email names is stored with another company such as AWeber, GetResponse or other third party provider, do you back up your full list weekly to your system?

Sure the third party provider does their own back-ups, but “things happen” from as simple as you forgetting to pay a bill and your account being closed to a major disaster for the third party company. You want a back up of your data on your system just in case. All internet marketers will tell you that “the money is in the list”. You can take away their whole business but as long as they have their list they will be able to keep trading. Their approach is worthwhile adopting.

While we are talking back ups – do you have your own back-up on your system of your website, blog, tweets and/or Facebook data? More core data that you need to add into your back-up cycle “In case”.

What about your cell phone data? Is that backed up regularly?

The trick with all of this is to:

(1) nominate responsibility for someone to back everything up regularly

(2) create a schedule to follow (for example – every Friday afternoon) and a list of things to back up

(3) follow up that it is being done

(4) check the quality of your back-ups periodically (there is no point having a back-up that doesn’t restore when you need it).

(5) duplicate – make sure you have more than one back-up at any given time.

I am sure there are some IT businesses who may want to chime in with their tips, or companies with war stories of not having had the back up when they needed it – love to hear them! Me … I’m off to run my weekly back-ups

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

There is an interesting debate going on about how to get people to comply with rules, policies and even just things that are good for their health.  Over Christmas I read the book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. It is a great book which looks at the psychology behind decision making – and why we decide the things that we do.

The basic approach in the book is if we know how people think, we can then change the conditions to make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves and society, in effect we nudge people to do what is right. The book covers off the issue of whether or not this is “big brother” or even whether this is ethical, (but in my thinking it is still a very uneasy relationship and one that merits further debate).

Some practical examples may help clarify some of the ideas.

• Organ donors are in short supply. If you want to increase the rate of organ donors, then make it mandatory that all organs will be donated unless people tick the box on their drivers license NOT to donate their organs instead of the approach at present of ticking if you do want to donate your organs.
• If you want to boost your savings, create a savings plan where you start by saving a very small amount and then automatically increase it by a small amount every few months (say 2%).
• If you want to reduce the number of cars whose batteries go flat by leaving the lights on, then have auto darkness sensing headlights that turn off when the engine is turned off ( I have this in my new car and love it).

These are not Micky Mouse ideas. They work on the concept of people being in unless they take specific action to get out, or out unless they take specific action to get in. And they get brilliant results!

Bigger examples being discussed are the review of the tax system in Australia & the US, where potentially everyone gets the same sized refund unless they fill in a form (which will do away with many hundreds of thousands of tax returns each year). In Australia we have mandatory voting, in the US it’s optional – guess who has the better voting turn out?

Of course, this type of thinking has been in use for years with the direct mail and internet marketing community. You receive a magazine each month and your account is debited until you stop the debit. You try a membership site for a low fee (or free) and at the end of the period your account is debited for $x each month until you stop. You are in unless you take action to get out.

In the past spammers (and many businesses) used this approach to get email addresses. Sign up for this competition and tick the box if you DON’T want your details to be shared with 4 million other businesses.  The ACCC has taken a dim view of this approach and now requires all people to be out unless they specifically opt in.

The thing is this approach works brilliantly for both good and less virtuous applications.  When you start to look around you, you will see an increase in number of “Nudge” approaches being adopted by government and business.

The question is – do you agree? How do you guard yourself against less than positive nudges? It would certainly pay to buy or borrow a copy of Nudge, read the Nudge blog and start to become conscious of the nudges in your life.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter