Good salesmanship is alive and well
Posted: March 24, 2011 Filed under: Do something Now is good, Interesting, Retail | Tags: Business, marketing, sales Leave a commentI popped into the local londis store, around the corner from my office here in Dublin at Lunch time, grabbed a Kit Kat (cause they are fat free, didn’t you know?) and handed the guy on the till’s a cool tenner.
“Would you like a lottery ticket for tomorrow night, it’s a €14million jackpot” he asked enthusiastically. Why not, I thought, he took the extra €3 out of my change and we both got on with our days.
Excellent, had he not asked, I would not have bought the ticket. Simple but effective. The point is this, to many people simply don’t ask and if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Shops don’t make much on lottery sales, a few % at best but it adds much needed cashflow to a small business and in todays market, cashflow is king.
I can’t find the article now but I remember reading in the past that the ‘extra shot’ Starbucks are always encouraging you to take, adds up to something stupid like 15% on their BOTTOM line.
Go ask for some business, you will be surprised at the results!
Calling all hoteliers……. Do you think you are good enough?
Posted: February 10, 2011 Filed under: Business, Do something Now is good, Interesting, Internet, Retail | Tags: Business, hospitality, hotel, uk Leave a commentFancy some free UK wide advertising?
Think your hotel is good enough to go under the TV lens spotlight?
Read on
I received the below press release today calling for hotels to put themselves under the spot light for a month of filming, ‘The Hotel’ will film everything in a chosen hotel for a month, hiring, firing, good service, Corp business, the restuarant and coping with the recession.
In terms of advertising, you could not get better value for money but be careful. There are two types of hotel out there;
The hotels that are shit hot &
The hotels that think they are shit hot
Can you guess which one the producers are after?
Get your house in order and get applying !
Silicon Valley says no to Wi-Fi
Posted: August 19, 2010 Filed under: Business, Do something Now is good, Government, Interesting, Internet, iPhone, Mobile, OpenCoffee, Restaurant Reviews, Retail, Social Networking, Tech, Telecoms, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: bitbuzz, Free Wi-Fi, free wifi, hotel free wifi, limited free Wi-Fi, too bust for Wi-Fi, turning off wifi 1 Comment
“We had big parties or family groups who wanted to eat but had no room,” said Jean Paul Coupal, who runs the cafe with his mother, Nancy. “They were getting upset about it. They felt the whole place was being taken over by techies.”
Coffee shops were the retail pioneers of Wi-Fi, flipping the switch to lure customers. But now some owners are pulling the plug. They’re finding that Wi-Fi freeloaders who camp out all day nursing a single cup of coffee are a drain on the bottom line. Others want to preserve a friendly vibe and keep their establishments from turning into “Matrix”-like zombie shacks where people type and don’t talk.
This issue doesn’t just occur in Silicon Valley the mothership of all techies. It is an issue being encourted more and more by cafe’s and hotel lobbys here in Ireland and the UK. With the shift to mobile internet, the fact more of us are online now than ever before (The 5th Billion Internet device is about to connect to the ‘web‘) and with mobile opererators restricting the amount of data we can pull from cell towers, it is easy to see why more people are seeking out Wi-Fi hotspots during their working (and resting) day. Read the rest of this entry »
The great eBay rip off
Posted: July 25, 2010 Filed under: Business, Do something Now is good, Interesting, Internet, Retail, Telecoms, Web 2.0 | Tags: e-commerce, ebay, ebay rip off, ebay scam, online rip off, online trading, paypal Leave a comment
It has been a while since I sold anything on eBay and I was discussing it last week with my brother. Did you know they now charge 10% of the final price plus the listing fee’s ? He asked. I thought, no that can’t be right.
It appear’s he was absolutely right.
Here is a breakdown of the closing fee’s (and don’t forget you have to pay to list the damn thing as well)
Final Selling Price : Final Value Fee
| £0.01 and above
|
10.0% of the amount of the winning bid, up to a maximum Final Value Fee of £40.00 |
and for business users Read the rest of this entry »
Nobody beats Laser ! except the banks off course
Posted: April 21, 2010 Filed under: Business, Government, Interesting, Northern Ireland, Retail | Tags: Belfast, currys, harvey norman northern ireland, laser bargin, laser bust, laser direct, laser electrical northern ireland, laser midnight sale, laser sale, lasr bankfupt, Northern Ireland, who will buy laser ? 3 Comments
The stark news hit just at the Start of this month that Laser Electrical had gone into Administration. Usually when this happens the administrators try to trade the stores until a buyer or a way forward can be found. Sadly with Laser things were grimmer than most, just hours after the receivers took control of the business the stores were closed and days later the firm was placed into full liquidation. The final nail in the coffin for the ailing retailer.
But why did things go so wrong ?
Quite simply the business model had not worked for a number of years, 2008 /2009 accounts showed a profit of only £34,177, not what you would call great for a retailer with 10 prime locations, good cachment areas and 140 staff. There was however a few ways this business could have been saved.
As I said, the business model had not been working for a number of years. Currys and Harvey Norman have better buying power and better terms with the bank for getting consumers finance. What Laser needed to do was to create more ways of doing business rather than sticking to the tradional ‘waiting for people to come in the door approach’ Read the rest of this entry »
Sexy new Complimentary Wi-Fi co-branding with Costa !
Posted: April 9, 2010 Filed under: Business, Interesting, Internet, Retail, Telecoms, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: costa coffee, deals done, Free Wi-Fi, Northern Ireland, Wi-Fi 1 Comment
Henderson Group to take over local coffee fanchise chain 'the streat'
Posted: January 5, 2010 Filed under: Belfast, Business, Do something Now is good, Interesting, Northern Ireland, Retail, Telecoms | Tags: franchise, franchise northern ireland, hendersons group, hendersons northern ireland, spar, spar northern ireland, the streat, the streat ireland, the streat northern ireland, the streat scotland, vivo, vivo northern ireland 1 Comment
I have been working with ‘the streat’ for nearly two year’s now, providing a complimentary Wi-Fi service to customers in their key stores. They are a local success story started by Michael and wife Nikki McQuillan (of no relation).
The business started from just one store in Belfast in 1999 to a massive franchised coffee and sandwich store chain with over 30 locations in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Their stores are fresh, clean and provide good food at reasonable prices.
Their support network and business start plans and assistance are what keeps them alive and makes choosing them as a franchise a no brainer, over the past 10 years they have won several training awards and pride themselves on brand and quality.
Open Coffee Lisburn on tour / Open Coffee Banbridge, a new beginning
Posted: January 4, 2010 Filed under: Do something Now is good, events, OpenCoffee, Retail, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: iCal / gCal subscriber tool, junction one, Open Coffee belfast, Open Coffee Lisburn andrewgribben.com, Open Coffee Lisburn on russellmcquillan.com, Open Coffee Lisburn on Twitter, starbuck Leave a comment
I am not sure if we should say that Open Coffee Lisburn is on tour or if we should just go right ahead and start calling it Open Coffee Banbridge, after all the Lisburn (cell / chapter / branch / franchise / who cares?) was started by a few of us that were attending Belfast Open Coffee.
Anyway to make a short story long a few of us were chatting about how to expand on our bi-weekly meeting, get more people involved and generally shake things up a bit in 2010 ( twenty ten / two thousand and ten / again who cares? ) and Open Coffee Banbridge was born (exactly one year on from Open Coffee’s birth) !
However rather than Belfast’s weekday evening or Lisburn’s Friday early o’clock, this will be on a Saturday at Outlet, meaning you can bring the family and make a day of it.
The first meeting will be on Saturday 16th at 9.30 at Starbuck’s, of course Open Coffee Lisburn still continues as usual on Friday mornings with our next meeting being on Friday 8th at 7.15am in Dalton’s Lisburn.
If you have never heard of Open Coffee, here are a few links to help you better understand what on earth I am talking about !
Open Coffee Lisburn andrewgribben.com, Open Coffee Lisburn on russellmcquillan.com, Open Coffee Lisburn on Twitter, iCal / gCal subscriber tool
I hope to see you there !!
Russell
T-Mobile and Orange to merge UK businesses to become largest mobile telco
Posted: September 8, 2009 Filed under: Business, Interesting, Internet, iPhone, Retail, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: 3, g1, hutchinson, Internet, mobile providers, o3, orange and t-mobile merger, orange uk, t-mobile uk, telco, telefonica, uk, vodafone Leave a commentDiscussions with other Telecoms people lately have left us all thinking the same thing. 5 Mobile operators in the UK is to much and not sustainable.
It was thought that eventually Hutchinson (3) would eventually merge or be purchased by one of the smaller UK operators such as Orange (once owned by Hutchinson) or T-Mobile (the worlds 6th largest provider).
In 2005 T-Mobile tried to purchase its smaller competitor O2 but was beaten to the post by Telefonica.
The UK messes things up and all is not as it appears, Vodafone the worlds 2nd largest provider (after China Mobile) is the 2nd largest provider in the UK but telefonica O2 which does not even rate in the worlds top 20 provider is and always has been the largest provider in UK, this is however set to change as Orange (France Telecom) and T-Mobile (T-Mobile AG) have announced they are to merge their UK businesses creating in the process, the UKs largest and leading mobile operator.
The deal (subject to competition commission approval) will take around 18 months to fully complete and see a full merger of all assets, transmitters, stores and customer bases into the new company – yet to be named.
The joint company will hold close to 40% of the UK mobile market.
From a backhaul point of view – both companies use GSM 1800 so this will make the merger of assets easier and from a customer point of view, customers will have access to more masts, faster data, edge and 3G – something that both companies have been poor at but combined the network will be not to shabby however you will have to share it with close to 30million other users.
It is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal and job losses are very likely !
Sometimes you just have to grab an idea and run with it ……..
Posted: June 19, 2009 Filed under: Business, Do something Now is good, events, Government, Internet, Retail | Tags: bristol, bristol zoo, business oppertunity, civil servants, con man, council, excellent 6 CommentsTaken from Wednesdays Bristol Evening Post is a story of man who grabbed an opportunity to make some cash and also a story of how civil servants are the thickest people alive !
Outside Bristol Zoo is the car park, with spaces for 150 cars and 8 coaches.
It has been manned 6 days a week for 23 years by the same charming and very
polite car park attendant with the ticket machine. The charges are £1. per
car and £5. per coach.
On Monday 1 June, he did not turn up for work. Bristol Zoo management phoned
Bristol City Council to ask them to send a replacement parking attendant.
The Council said “That car park is your responsibility.” The Zoo said “The
attendant was employed by the City Council… wasn’t he?” The Council said
“What attendant?”
Gone missing, is a man who has been taking the daily car park fees
amounting to about £400. per day for the last 23 years…!
It equates to nearly £3m !!!!!!!
Russell McQuillan 