Just One Touch
September 29th 2021 by
Mrs H & I enjoyed a few days away to celebrate the completion of our most successful Write That Book Masterclass (more on that later). We spent our weekend in Cartmel, in the south Lake District and started with lunch at L’Enclume. This isn’t a foodie blog – it’s a people blog. Although L’Enclume totally deserve their […][...]
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Missed It
April 9th 2021 by
It’s one of those weekly things I habitually do. I write it on Tuesday or Wednesday, to make sure it arrives every Thursday. This newsletter. Yesterday, it didn’t arrive. And for a very good reason. I hadn’t written it. I could have blamed writer’s block (which doesn’t really exist). Or technology – claiming it was sent, you just didn’t […][...]
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Death by 1000 cuts
October 21st 2020 by
Lingchi (Chinese for lingering death) was a horrendous torture method used for hundreds of years before being banned in the early twentieth century (I know, that recent). It’s horrendous and I’ll leave the detail to your imagination. We often think something ‘suddenly’ happens, but could the truth be that we killed it with 1,000 cuts? The family business transitioning to the next generation. The new owners are happy to take some […][...]
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A Question
July 22nd 2020 by
I read a post by Andy Bounds on LinkedIn about how to ‘Engage Via Email Subject Headings’. Then looked back at the emails I’ve recently sent. I’ve ranged between pants and fantastic. Here are my last 17 email subject headings Thank you and a wee refund Another little thing Introduction RE: 17 Exercise Programme Ella x […][...]
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Are you having crazy dreams too?
May 13th 2020 by
Every morning, I wake up relieved. Relieved they were just dreams. Not that they were nightmares. Just weird. Very weird. My mind is whirring at the moment. I did a little research and found that if you write down all the stuff that’s been going on, your dreams will be less whacky. Something to do with the brain needing to put less energy into […][...]
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Can you have cheap, fast and good?
February 12th 2020 by
An old sales manager friend of mine used to use this antiquated method in a desperate attempt to close a sale in his favour. The idea was simple enough. At the end of his pitch, he would assume the client wanted a discount. When they asked if there was anything he could do with the price, he’d draw three circles and write one […][...]
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I Was Absolutely Useless
April 18th 2019 by
Yes, I was absolutely useless. But the worst thing? I thought I was good. I’ve been having a garage spring clean and came across a box of old MiniDiscs. For younger readers, MiniDisk was the technology after cassettes and before MP3 players. I popped one into the old garage hi-fi, hoping to find a disco […][...]
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The Curse of Chaos
April 3rd 2019 by
Early in my career, I was invited to work with a ‘creative agency’. It was a hoot! Painted pigs in reception. Table tennis and space invaders. Pizzas on Thursday. Pub on Friday. ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here – but it helps’ posters. You get the idea. And almost everyone was happy to work late. […][...]
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Are my networking days dead
February 7th 2019 by
It’s called ‘In the Middle’ and you can find it right in the middle of Corbridge, Northumberland. It’s our friends’ new sandwich, snacks and coffee shop and it opened this week. Sublime chicken, pesto and mozzarella toastie – but I’m not writing to you about that. I’m writing to you about Jerry. I was waiting […][...]
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Why Our Retailers Must Step Up
October 31st 2018 by
I’ve presented at several retailer conferences this year. The atmosphere has been buoyant at some and desperate at others. Sometimes, when I’m giving a keynote, I use fear as a motivator to give the audience a whack on the side of the head. For retailers, I used to name the shops which no longer exist […][...]
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