In a pitch don’t be like Theresa May. Never, never, never cede control of the process

October 22, 2018

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The second Theresa May triggered Article 50 on Wednesday 29 March 2017, she put the UK at a negotiating disadvantage to the EU.

By agreeing to a deadline – their deadline – she handed over control of the process of Brexit to the EU.

If Theresa May had taken our pitchdeck mastery course, she would know that if you want to be considered an equal (which is vital in any business relationship) you must never – never, never, never – accept your potential clients’ pitch process. To do so immediately puts you on the back foot and there you will stay throughout the pitch. Your chances of winning the work will also be much reduced.

It may be too late for Theresa May and Britain, but it is not too late for you. Come to our course, on Wednesday October 24 at IdeaLondon and learn how to pitch and win.

After Brexit, it may be the most important skill set there is.

Details here.https://winningpitch.london/

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When it comes to pitching, you can learn a lot from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos

October 22, 2018

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As you may know, Amazon is currently looking for a location for its second US HQ, or HQ2, as it is known.

A plethora of US cities have jostled with one another to be the chosen location, offering world’s richest man and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos various tax breaks to place his new office in their city.

Miami, Pittsburgh, New York, Indianapolis and Columbus have all pitched, offering handsome inducements to the king of online retail.

They don’t stand a chance. Can you honestly imagine one of the world’s richest men spending up to half his time in Indianapolis?

The smart money is on Washington DC. Bezos has a house there and right now the greatest threat to Amazon’s on-going dominance of e commerce is government regulation. I could be wrong, but DC looks a no-brainer.

I believe this entirely pointless exercise can tell us a lot about pitching.

First: the pitch is not a level playing field. A city such as Columbus Ohio never seriously stood a chance.

Second: someone in this process has an unfair advantage. It is worth noting Bezos already owns a home in Washington.

Third: a rational business decision like where to put an HQ can sometimes cloak the bosses’ personal preference.

As one insider put it: “I’ve been on the board of seven public companies, and I’ve gone through four headquarter relocation processes, you know what it always comes down to, in retrospect? You find out the CEO cloaked business reasons in the decision, and the decision all came down to one thing and one thing only. Where the CEO wanted to spend more time – where he was chairman of a golf club or where his next wife was living.”

When you are invited to pitch it pays to know whether the client is intending to pick you or is just merely interested.  Or put another way,  ask yourself honestly, are you Washington DC or Columbus Ohio? If you are the latter, save your self the time and money and don’t pitch.

 

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Seven in 10 single people would rather date an iPhone user than an Android user. Here’s why.

October 15, 2018

 

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Seven in 10 single people would rather date an iPhone user than an Android user, according to a new survey from Decluttr.

This does not surprise me.

There are three kinds of benefits you can offer a consumer: Rational Emotional and Status.

Only one company has been all three.

Apple started as a computer firm (rational, in the head, low margin); then it discovered music, first with the iPod, then iTunes (emotional, in the heart, more profitable) and finally it has become a luxury good (status benefit, all about the sexual organs, 40% profit margin.)

We buy expensive status goods like handbags and iPhones because we think it will make us more attractive – it will show us to be a better candidate as a partner.

Turns out, we are right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Why does the Facebook Portal have a plastic lens cap?

October 15, 2018

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Facebook Portal was released last week.

Does anyone want a camera in their home, controlled by Facebook?

The most telling thing about this product is that it has a plastic lens cap.

Nobody trusts Facebook, so they had to make it really obvious you could protect your privacy with a lens cap.

Tellingly, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously has tape over the camera AND speaker of his own laptop.

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Amazon did a good thing this week

October 5, 2018

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Amazon’s decision to deliver a minimum wage to its employees this week was, on its face,  the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.

Amazon build moats around their moves that competitors struggle to match. Whether it’s price or speed of delivery or convenience, Amazon sets a bar that competitors cannot reach.

By pushing up hourly rates for workers, Jeff Bezos has thrown down the gauntlet to his competitors. (Walmart pay $11.50 an hour for warehouse staff).

It’s worth remembering, of course, that Jeff Bezos is worth the annual GDP of Denmark. So communism this isn’t.

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The recurring Facebook scandals mark the worst management crisis in business history

October 5, 2018

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“Your data security has been accidentally strengthened.”

That is a sentence you never hear in Tech.

This last week Facebook once again had to report a massive data breach.

As you will recall, Facebook revealed that 50 million user accounts that had been hacked, making users profiles visible to the hacker. (It is worth remembering that the Cambridge Analytica scandal was not a “hack” and the Russian “hack” was not a hack at all, but just Putin’s puppets using the platform to advertize).

Luckily for Facebook the confirmation struggle of Judge Brett Kavanaugh pushed everything off the front pages.

Luck because this is the worse management of a crisis in modern business history. One is increasingly getting the impression that privacy breeches are not a bug in Facebook’s business model, they are Facebook’s business model. While else do they seem unable to fix them?

 

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Tim Berners Lee is building a new internet where you control your own data. Will it catch on? No

October 4, 2018

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Tim Berners Lee is building a new internet where you control your own data, says the BBC. 

Surely any platform that says “we have put safeguards in place so we cannot be weaponized by a hostile foreign power, come advertise with us” must be a good thing.

So will it catch on?

On current evidence you would have to conclude the answer is no.

When Facebook were revealed last year to have handed over user data to Cambridge Analytica the hashtag “De-install Facebook” did not trend.

Consumers may talk a bit game but at the end of the day they want to share their fabulous life with their friends on their Instagram feeds. We should not expect too much from them.

But what about advertisers? P&G, Unilever and Ford would love to come out against Facebook and stop advertising but they cannot disarm unilaterally. If they were to announced in their earnings that their e-commerce sales had slowed because they refused to advertise on Facebook, they would be commended for taking a stand and their stock price would drop dramatically.

This is what happens when two companies control two thirds of all digital marketing in the US – you end up in a situation where monopoly abuse runs rampant.

If Facebook Inc was broken up into Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, perhaps one of them would see a margin in protecting users data.

But right now,  no one is making Facebook do the right thing.

So God speed Tim Berners-Lee and good luck.

 

 

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