27/10/2011 by Ann.

Inpiration comes in all shapes and forms, but it is great to have someone to inspire you.

I remember when I was younger (and mad about horses) being inspired by various people. Ann Moore and her horse Psalm were my absolute idols and I was very lucky that she answered all my letters about her horses.

When it comes to transforming your life into a business that you love and which rewards you on many levels, who do you think of?

I have two people that I find absolutely fascinating: Paul McKenna and Anne McKevitt (strange they are both ‘Mc- something!). I find their stories absolutely inspiring as they have really transformed their lives.

Paul McKenna runs a very successful coaching and hypnotherapy business and has sold many CDs and books around themes such as ‘I Can Make You Rich’ and ‘I Can Make You Thin’. His work uses hypnotherapy as well as NLP techniques, and he has positioned them without any of the jargon. Instead has has relied on the results he gets by using them in his work with clients.

What I find fascinating about Paul is that I remember him from when I was in my twenties. Do you know what he was doing then? He was a radio DJ on a London station called Capital. He just disappeared one day and then, a few years later, was doing a stage act based on hypnosis, before transforming into one of the best known life coaches with many appearances on popular television programmes.

Let’s look at Anne McKevitt. Anne is a highly successful entrepreneur and philanthropist who has worked with top business people such as Donald Trump and Richard Branson and advised various governments. She also runs a millionaire’s club to take people to the next level. She resides in Australia and has mentored other top coaches such as Ali Brown.

Now I remember Anne as someone who grew up in a very poor part of Scotland and I first came across her when she was a presenter on a television programme called ‘Home Front’ which would do house makeovers.

Anne left the show to go to America and I heard nothing about her for years. In fact not until I was listening to a call with Ali Brown and heard Anne’s name mentioned. I went investigating what she had been up to on the internet and boy, was I impressed!

Despite their pretty humble beginnings, Anne and Paul have gone on to create amazing businesses around their passions and to earn millions from doing so. Now, I imagine some people cannot believe what they did and probably discouraged them from taking risks in giving up their earlier careers, yet they both were focussed and followed their path.

It is exactly the same for you and me: no matter where we are in our businesses it is important to know that we are doing what we want to do, and that we have to continue to do so and ignore the people who want to keep us in the place where they feel most comfortable.

Anne is my current big inspiration: she has let nothing stop her, not even a serious injury, and I keep thinking about her when I focus on what I want for my business. There is no one that I can think of that hasn’t had to face adversity and set backs in their business to get to where they are today (Richard Branson, David Neagle and Kendall Summerhawk are others that also inspire me).

Who is your inspiration for your business?

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12/10/2011 by Ann.

One of the main things you need in your business is focus and that applies to your customers. You have to know who you are speaking to and what they want or else you could be heading out into choppy waters. Take a look at the example below:

Max Factor produces make-up and Twinings make tea. These are two very different markets and two very different sets of customers. It would seem though, that Max Factor has a better understanding of its customers than Twinings!

The make-up market is fast moving: barely a week goes by without a new mascara or foundation coming out and Max Factor has probably produced more foundations than most other companies over the past five years.

Max Factor realises that they are selling the beauty ‘dream’ and that the technological innovations in skincare can be used to their advantage. Their customers want the latest developments in the laboratory in their hands as soon as they can, because they are all about looking and staying young and youthful; by default that means that time is not on their side. Their customers get excited by the newest foundation and cannot wait to try it. Their products are directly connected to the latest fashions and trends so they have to keep moving forward and updating their offering.

Twinings is a UK company that sells tea. Tea is a tradition and various blends have endured throughout the years. That’s not to say that new blends have been ignored: they can be introduced alongside the traditional teas, but it is the core teas that form the loyal customer base and, for most of these people, they want to consume a product that delivers time after time (or cup after cup) with no deviations.

Twinings unpublicised changes to one of their most popular teas, Earl Grey, has turned into a marketing disaster. Most customers are asking ‘Why change something that is much loved and needs nothing done to it?’ It is being likened to the ‘New Coke’ debacle. Sure, introduce variations (Lady Grey, Lavender Earl Grey, Decaffeinated Earl Grey) but don’t mess with your lead product. To make matters worse, it is only in the UK that the new blend was introduced, thus annoying its most loyal customers even more. Hundreds of comments on their website leave you in no doubt that the new blend has not gone down well with the palates of those who have drunk Earl Grey for years, and that customers are voting with their taste buds and switching brands. Twinings is a premium brand and people are not going to pay a premium price for a product that they now consider sub-standard.

Understanding the profile of your customers and what they value is key to your product development strategy and to maintaining your brand image. Max Factor seems to have understood this far better than Twinings and, like the other Earl Grey fans, I have binned the new blend and voted to take my money elsewhere. After twenty-five years, Twinings have managed to destroy my customer loyalty, and that of many others, in one disastrous decision.

It doesn’t matter if it is a product or a service you are supplying: the same principles apply and you need to be sure you fully understand what motivates your customers in order to maintain a profitable and rewarding business.

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08/10/2011 by Ann.

I was listening to a David Neagle and Ali Brown CD on my way home yesterday in which they talked about sacrifice and how it is about letting go of something of a lower nature in order to let in something of a higher nature.

It came back into my mind this morning as I watched the England rugby team go crashing out of the World Cup in the quarter finals against France.

I was speaking with my brother about the England players and their motivation; mainly on how much they really wanted to win. They have not had the best of press for their sexist remarks to hotel staff or going out clubbing and behaving in a manner more suited to a stag party than a bunch of professional athletes. I was asking my brother if he thought that our highly successful rowers and cyclists would be out boozing and partying in the middle of a tournament and he said ‘No’ after listening to an interview with Sir Chris Hoy. Now his attitude is that when he is having a tough training session, instead of knocking off a minute early he will ask himself how he would feel if he lost a race by 1/1000th of a second because he left one minute early? I am sure Mark Cavendish has a similar attitude.

So I have to ask why, if the rugby team (and also let’s include our highly paid footballers here too) are really serious about their world cup, would they not do EVERYTHING they can to win and that includes giving up alcohol, which is known to affect performance.

Maybe they just didn’t really want it enough? Perhaps being so highly paid means you lose some of your will to win because you still have a nice lifestyle and get paid for turning up?

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