I do like whisky. Most nights, I have one before bed.

Malt whisky is nicest. Nicer than blended. Malt is somehow richer. The only exceptions I’ve ever tasted are Ad Gefrin’s blended whisky and Johnnie Walker Black.

Now, I know exactly why I really like Ad Gefrin’s blended whisky. It tastes great.

And I also know exactly why I really like Johnnie Walker Black. It’s because it was Christopher Hitchen’s favourite whiskey. And (secondly) because (I think) it tastes great, too.

This is really interesting to me. I don’t want to like the thing just because I like him and he likes the thing. But I can’t shake it.

I think I want to be a little bit like him. His intellect, funniness and fluency. And because he liked Johnnie Walker Black Label so much, I do too. If I hold the square bottle in my hand, like he held the square bottle in his hand, maybe I’ll be cleverer, funnier and more fluent as well?

It’s amazingly complex. What makes us like what we like. And I like that.

“Johnnie Walker Black. Breakfast of champions. Accept no substitute.”
Christopher Hitchens.

The challenge of making a train station a nice place to be, on the face of it, sounds really hard. Because unless everyone there is Francis Bourgeois*, train stations are tetchy places. Packed with people pining to be somewhere other than they currently are, fast.

Standing in Kings Cross this month, I wondered whether the pining was more about people racing towards home, or people racing away from the train station itself. You see, Kings Cross is a bit yucky. And the sugary brands housed within are a bit yucky too. Bins are full. Tables are unwiped. Front liners frown.

I remember reading, 20 years ago, that you can, to a degree, Remote Control how people behave in public spaces. By how you create the space and how you treat the people within it. To illustrate, this article listed places where people were least likely to litter. Number one was churches. Number two was Marks and Spencer.

So with the Kings Cross yuckyness, it seems to me that to improve public behaviour, the behaviour of the station itself needs to improve – first. I wonder if Francis agrees?

*https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-iS5lINyI5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA

Half term. So it’s chats and games with an 8 year old Izobel. This morning – a quiz.

Me: “So. Izobel. It’s your question. A jellyfish is 95%… what?”

Izobel: “Jelly?”

Me: “No. No. Not jelly”

Izobel: “Fish?”

Life is such a lovely, lovely thing when you’re relaxed isn’t it? Saying and doing whatever you like. Turning your brain off and just chilling.

We’re reviewing our Old Post Office holiday cottages at the moment and we keep this front of mind. We don’t want our guests to have to think. So for example, we just replaced the convection cooker that had (slightly unpredictable) touch controls, with a ‘knob’ version that goes from 1 to 6. Easy peasy.

And this winter, inside the slow cooker, guests will find the 6 ingredients they need – and 3-step instructions – of how to make a 5 hour soup for after their Hadrian’s Wall walk. (We matched the cook-time to the walk-time).

We’ll keep going. Making things simpler and better. Because switching the old brain off from time to time, and just chilling, is such a nice thing to do.

Have a lovely week.

Distilling your business offer down to a brutally simple idea, promise or change you want to make, gets into your target’s mind quicker, and stays there longer.

All you need to do now is pick-and-describe the best idea, promise or change you want to make in fewer words than this post.

Good luck.

Let’s imagine you have these two choices.

You treat all customers like they are your best kind of customer.
Or you treat all customers like they are your worst kind of customer.

Which would you choose?

I ask because the chiropractor I’ve just started going to pressures me to pay really quickly. I get asked to pull the car over whilst I’m driving, to pay. I get pointed texts, to tap, tap, tap remind me. This is, I assume, because their worst kind of customers pay slow. And as they don’t yet know if I’m their best or worst kind of customer in this vein – they have chosen to treat me like I’m the worst kind.

Like posh jewellery shops locking me out in case I’m a thief. Like toy shops asking an 8 year old Izobel not to play with display toys in case she treats them like shit. Like stores saying, ‘All breakages must be paid for’.

Business is hard. Customers can be trixy. But all of the above is shitty, lazy, short term business thinking. I think businesses that treat all customers as if they are their worst kind of customer, are amongst the worst kind of businesses. I don’t want to be made to feel like your worst kind of customer. I want to be made to feel like your best, and in some cases – only. But that’s a whole other story.

I have a Finnish client.  This week, she sat on a plane from Finland to the UK. And for two nights stayed in one of our Old Post Office Holiday Cottages in Northumberland.

Zoom is fine. But a face-to-face meeting meant we both sat in chairs, in the same room, at the same time. Exploring her product. Discussing the global change it will make.

We considered the product from where the client sits. I considered the business from where I was sitting, as Associate Brand Director and Writer. And suddenly, I realised something about the actual chair I was sat on. Right there in Garden Cottage. One of our holiday homes.

It was a bit shit.

It was wobbly. Unstable. Uncomfortable and disconcerting.

So there I was. A chap adamant for years that anyone advising other business leaders is infinitely more capable if they’ve run businesses of their own (I’ve run 9). But at the same time, I hadn’t even taken the time to sit in one my own chairs. In one of my own cottages.

A few turns of an Allen key later, and all was well. A timely reminder though, that actually ‘being my own customer’ is not optional for me. Or indeed any business leader. It’s (Allen) key.

When I ran my creative agencies, the building that clients visited was 3,500 square feet. That’s the footprint of a four bedroomed house. So quite big. Within it, there were four meeting areas. And within each meeting area – was a toyshop.

Well, not a toyshop exactly. But shelves of still-boxed, brand new, still in their point-of-sale ‘stands’, nostalgic, quality toys. Marbles. Bags of toy soldiers. Bouncy balls. Little hurdy-gurdys. Hairy scary jumping spiders. Paddle ball games. Clockwork chattering teeth. Bubbles. Finger monsters. Fortune telling fish. You get the picture.

Now, this next bit was true of almost every high-flying, big-brained business leader that visited us. They did three things. First, they ‘woooahed’ at seeing their childhood toys. Second, they were super happy to be in a free toyshop. They could take home what they wanted. Third, they became that little more childlike.

You see, I think that the best thinkers are children. They’re relaxed and unguarded. Open to adventure and fun. And that’s how I wanted key senior decision makers to be and feel as we chatted.

When an MD becomes an MD, she doesn’t stop being a woman. And when a little girl becomes a woman, I do think that it’s nice when someone helps her, from time to time, to feel and think like a little girl again.

I was eating Tony’s Chocolonely ‘Milk Chocolate Chip Cookie’ chocolate today. It’s nice. And I’m a fan of Tony’s Chocolonely and their open chain approach. They want to change the way chocolate is made globally, ending exploitation in cocoa. So they willingly share positive supply chain secrets with other cocoa users, so they can copy. Nice!

And whilst I’m not as globally significant as Tony, I do like sharing useful things with nice people. So, here’s something that’s been useful for me and people I try to help for years when it comes to strategy. Here goes:

You only have 5 types of customer:

1. Core Customer. They only use you. And in a fixed pattern.
2. Development Account. They normally use you. But they are sometimes unfaithful.
3. One-off Customer. They used you once.
4. They know about you, but have never used you.
5. They don’t know about you, but should.

There’s no sixth category. When you’re pondering how to grow your business, develop 5 separate strategies that move 5 to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to 2, 2 to 1 and something designed to keep a 1 at 1. Loyalty schemes can move 2 to 1. One-off incentivised offers move 4 to 3. Education about the power of sole supply move 3 to 2 and maybe 2 to 1. Friendly, laid back loveliness (a brand build) can move 5 to 4. And so on.

Look, I know it’s not as yummy as chocolate. But with the right attitude and systems, it’s a fab way of looking after different types of customer with care and common sense. It moves us from the broadness of (say), ‘what’s the best way to sell’ to the precision of ‘how do I move a 3 to a 2’ etc.

Good luck.