D'oh $176m Loss for Masters

D'oh $176m Loss for Masters

No rocket science needed to explain why Masters is a dog for Woolworths…

It’s Sunday in Perth and megalith Bunnings’ Morley store is open at 7am… and the carpark is crowded… and the cash registers are signing as people rush in to get their supplies and off home to finish the task before going out for lunch.

Just 3 km down the road Masters Bayswater store doesn’t open until 11am… and Sunday is done for most DIYers but as we wait for the doors to open, the staff park… not at the back of the carpark so customers ight park close to the door but RIGHT UP FRONT in the bays conveniently marked out by management with neat BLUE LINES.

And nearly every staff member is a smoker so, light up on the way to the staff entrance, and but the cigarette out, or not, on the ground near the customer's door because there are no cigarette bins anywhere…

We make our way in only to be bold over my a Masters staffer driving the floor polisher straight at the flock of customers trying to get in.

So, blind freddy and the drovers dog know that when the customers come second, the cash stays in their wallet.

The article I am reading on The Australians website says Woolworths will loses $176 m this year and look like they will write of $2.1 billion before turning a profit. And the head office MBA’s look at cutting costs so they can get to break even quicker… as Homer Simpson would say “D'oh”

Big Thumbs can be a problem

Typing with BIG thumbs can get you into trouble

Big Thumbs can get you into more strife than you bargained for.

Sometimes there is nothing like a good story to raise your mood.

Some friends decided  on vacation but Mary was on a business trip so Bob went to the holiday hotel first and Mary decided she would meet Bob the next day.

When Bob reached the hotel, he sent Mary a quick email.

He typed the email on one of those fancy iPhone 6’s which auto complete email addresses Unfortunately Bob mistyped the first letter of Mary’s email address so he email  was directed instead to Church Pastor’s wife whose husband had passed away only the day before.

When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the message, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.

Her daughter who was staying over to comfort her in this time of need rushed into her mothers room and noticed her clutching her iPad:

Hello honey,

Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.

P.S. Sure is hot down here.

Marketing 101 with Buddy

Lance BUDDY Franklin

Marketing 101 with Buddy 

What a weekend… I am a AFL fan but my team, the wonderful West Coast Eagles was denied one last chance of playing finals this year when Sydney rested Lance "Buddy" Franklin against Richmond. But when Buddy turned up to play on Friday night, North Melbourne had no answer so by a “country mile” Sydney dispatched the Roos and will be playing on the last Saturday in September.

Saturday was a different type of game with Port Adelaide nearly rolling Hawthorn and going down gallantly by 3 points. However the effort to dispatch the South Aussies will cost Hawthorn dearly and I predict a Sydney win next week.

What can we take from these two games into making our marketing work better:

1. Don’t Follow the Leader. Sydney have invested in their Bondi Billionaires - Buddy and Kurt. When conventional wisdom says small forwards kick goals Sydney have 2 giants up front and to counter them the opposition must play a different game.

2. Have more than one plan for success. Sydney whipped North Melbourne because if Buddy wasn’t firing, Kurt could step in, and if that didn’t work, 350 game veteran Goodesie just popped up. So three super stars played for the team and the games was never in doubt.

3. Invest in the system. Sydney are paying there Bondi Billionaires bucket loads of cash and getting a return. In other teams, the stars are sharing their spoils with lesser lights and while everyone is being “buddy buddy”, the stars aren’t out to play.

4. Hawthorn and Sydney’s fans expect to win. So, expectation trumps want. Giving it a “good shot” won’t have you winning the battle for customers mind and wallet. when push comes to shove we want our best teams to win and out buying decisions to be backed up with superior service and product.

5. Be Constantly Checking the Score. Who won on the weekend?? Was it the team leading at half time?? Maybe but to lead at half time and not at full time, then you will have wasted all that effort. Port Adelaide got off to a flyer but keep missing the goals. They scored 9 minor scores in the first term and that ultimately cost them the game. When are you checking how well you are going in your marketing and selling?? I suggest you check more often. Alastair Clarkson, Hawthorn's coach changed his message to his team at quarter time, and the result was a win. Are you adjusting your game plan??

OK… sport can teach us many things. Critically, a lesson to be absorbed is that without the best coaching staff the best players wouldn’t win. So, who is coaching you?? And, what new techniques are you using to get you “in front of the game.”

Here is a chance to get "ahead of the game." So, join me as I present the "learn, unlearn and relearn" seminar series on Marketing and Sales during October. You will be able to pivot for change join the ranks of the disruptors.

When was the last time you received a TELEGRAM?

When was the last time you received a TELEGRAM...

Sunday morning, when it is belting down with rain, is a great day to reflect on the "good old times..."

what sparked my thoughts today was a list of telegrams that were read out at a wedding... and it got me thinking, when was the last time you received a telegram?? And also what else has just disappeared??

So here we go... 7 things that have just "disappeared..."

The Dodo Bird Long since extinct

1. Getting film processed... now I do have a friend Lyn who says there is nothing wrong with her camera so why should she change but how many of you have had a film developed in the last 12 months?? Failure to adjust to how people were taking pictures bankrupted Kodak while it created one of the world's great companies, Facebook and its first acquisition, instagram which was purchased fo $1 billion. Are you still taking pictures on film??

2. Street Directories... yes I know they are fighting a rearguard action with new issues for Christmas but truly, if you don't know were some thing is, do you each for your trustee UBD or do you punch it into google and then let google tell you how to get there using their GPS application...

3. World Book or Britannica encyclopedia... in Australia 15 years ago there were 5000 salespeople selling those beautiful books of knowledge... there are less than 10 now. Encyclopedias were replaced firstly by CD's then the internet in general and more lately wikipedia.

4. Hand written letters... writing by hand has become so uncommon many people just can't write stuff out anymore. More people are writing [actually typing] to each other than ever before but the poor old handwritten letter is going the way of the dodo... that is an extinct South Pacific flightless bird.


5. Cheques or as our American cousins call them Checks. Once the backbone of the banking system the humble cheque book has nearly become a thing of the past. In my business, I get 1 cheque every 3 to 4 months... and I don't have a cheque book on the current business account.


6. VHS tape, or vinyl records, or cassette tapes or floppy disks. Physical storage gave way to digital on tape and disk and now we have this strange thing called the "cloud" where digital matter exists.  My first digital memory was 1 meg for a eye popping $1,000 compared to my pro account on dropbox of 1 Terabyte [that is 1000 Gigabytes ] for $10 per month.

7. The iPod! Yes, after changing the way we listen to music the ipod has been retired after just 13 years, replaced by music streaming services like Spotify.

So my question is this... what are you doing that is already obsolete?? Are you the dine in Pizza Hut when everyone is pick up or deliver, are you the Yellow Pages Directory company when google is quicker and free... well you get my drift.

iPhone 6 Agony

What colour iPhone did you get??

Wayne's White iPhone 6

iPhone 6 Agony...

Well I have my shiny new WHITE iPhone 6 and it is GREAT!

But new things bring pain and I am having dramas repairing bluetooth toys and keeping the wifi connected.

With the blue tooth I found this amazing tip... ready for discovery is alternating red and blue lights... and they don't appear until, yes I can confirm this as tru, 8 seconds of holding down the paid button... once that secret revealed itself, my pairing started to occur and work... so my car phone is working, my powerful desk speaker is beating out Spotify and my wireless sports headset in piping podcasts into my ears as I walk to have coffee at Red Man Cucinaeach morning.

But today my iPhone 6 didn't recognise my house as its' home so I need some gentle persuasion to get it working well. I am sure that it will take a little while longer and all will be back to normal.

One unexpected pleasure is that Foursquare has become usable with iPhone 6 where as I had ditched it after they added swarm and it became unusable.

so, there is some joy with my new toy...

Disputor or disruptee

I was thinking this morning... what am I doing that doesn't work any more... and my humbling answer is: MOST OF IT!!

So, using a term that keeps recurring, I have challenged myself to repurpose everything!! That is keep doing some of the same things but fine tuning them to get a different result.
Some of the problem about why my outcomes are less successful than previously is that my targeting hasn't adjusted to the new reality. I was prompted to this thought on my morning walk listening to Joel Weldon. He said he nearly starved selling success programs to people who he thought needed them, so he started selling them to successful people who wanted more success and became himself a major success.

So here are some ideas for a pivot in your thinking:
Keep the machines in your factory but make different things.
Keep your customers but change what you sell them.
Keep you mission, but change your scale.

and in my case, rethink what I have done in the last 20 years.

Rather than think of myself as a renegade think of myself as a disruptor. A renegade is looked down on as someone doing stuff "against accepted practice" and therefore really not to be admired.

Yet, by reframing what I have done, a disruptor is someone who sees the new way before the rest of us, and changes forever how we do things.

25 years ago, I was at a direct marketing conference put on by Australia Post... and at the time I was pioneering fax marketing, and I told the presenter that mail would be obsolete one day, to which he scoffed.

Strangely fax marketing and the fax machine are becoming a distant memory due to the rise and rise of email so faxing was a short flare int eh world of marketing.

However as a disruptor in pioneering email marketing I have seen Australia Post announce its first loss on ordinary mail as people stop sending "real" mail. They haven't stopped writing to each other, rather they have stopped paying Australia Post to deliver their message.

So, I am proud of being a disruptor to ordinary mail. Firstly using fax marketing and then email... and rather than hide from my run in with authorities and those who would protect the unprotectable, I now see my email sending fines as a badge of honour.

UBER is facing fines of $500,000 in Germany for disrupting the taxi industry, yet in 10 years we will struggle to remember how bad taxi service was. Oh I long for the wait in a taxi queue at S
ydney airport to be shorter in time than I spent in the plane on the flight from Melbourne.

So, join my as I "learn, unlearn and relearn" and pivot for change and be happy and proud to be known as a disruptor. http://www.stumpjump.net