Stay Young And Beautiful

Brands, like people, age over time.

The older a brand gets, the more risk-averse it can become.

Defence replaces offence, lethargy replaces agility and inertia replaces innovation.

Eternal youth is what people want and brands should strive for.

A healthy diet and plenty of exercise work for people.

New thinking and fresh ideas work for brands.

Choose Love

When growing a business or a brand, it’s better to have 100 people who love you than 10,000 who simply like you.

One hundred passionate followers will tell their friends about you while 10,000 people, who only like you, will tell no one.

Whipping up the support of cheerleaders is how Brian Chesky turned Airbnb into a global brand.

Isn’t it strange that when mass communication is so easy, nothing beats word-of-mouth!

Get Home Safely

People don’t die climbing to the top of mountains.

Tragedies usually occur on the way back down.

Reaching the peak is only half the job.

Getting home safely is the part they take for granted.

It can be much the same in the world of business.

Attaining a particular coveted goal is exhilarating but the onward journey is a lot more important. 

Seven Words Of Advice

The best advice in life is simple advice.

It does not require chapters of text, charts and illustrations.

It can be condensed into a sentence and can be understood by a child.

Here are seven words of advice that a parent can give to a child, a scholar to a pupil or a CEO to his people.

Be so good they can’t ignore you!

Identify Your Stars

Every company says its people are its most important asset.

It’s why every company should be striving constantly to improve the quality of its team by retaining its stars and replacing its under-achievers.

To decide who should stay and who should go, you should ask yourself one question – Which of my people would I fight to keep if a rival tried to recruit them?

You then need to put in place a strategy to retain your best people while looking for fresh talent to replace your under-performers.

Step Into My Shoes

Leaders often feel it’s their responsibly to come up with brilliant ideas to drive the company forward.

The best leaders realise, however, that brainwaves are not the sole preserve of the CEO or even the board.  

Great companies are built on great ideas that come from the highest and the lowest.

To spark a flow of ideas, leaders need only ask one question – what would you do if you had my job?

The Art Of Conversation

I love visiting the island of Guernsey. It feels like travelling back in time.

Summers are sunny. Beaches are empty. People are friendly.

Everyone knows everyone else and strangers are warmly welcomed.

People talk, laugh and smile instead of having their eyes glued to a screen.

The world’s a better place when we talk to each other!

Good Enough Is Never Enough

My grandmother lived through the boom years of the 60s and the bust years of the Great Depression.

As a widow left to bring up four young children in the 20s and 30s. She certainly knew a thing or two about life.

“You can’t put in what God left out,” was one of her sage sayings.

That’s what Larry Page and Sergey Brin realised when they set up Google.

They wanted people who were born smart. That’s why they insisted, in the early days of Google, on interviewing everyone the company hired.

For them – good enough was never enough!

Set A Deadline

The more important the decision, the more people prevaricate.

Delay is useful as long as you use the time working towards making the right choice.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to push important decisions to the back of your mind.

And, of course, out of mind is out of sight.

When faced with important decisions, fix a deadline.

Deadlines focus the mind and a focussed mind usually makes the right choices.