Bloggertone

I’m just back from my honeymoon, we had an amazing time on a Med cruise-would recommend it to anyone. And for customer service there is literally nothing better, the staff are incredible. I’d almost recommend sending your staff on a cruise to find out how it should be done! Anyway, it struck me how similar customer relationships are to a marriage. Initially, there’s the wedding – that exciting part when you land the contract and everyone is full of energy, anticipation…

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So this is the second of two new initiatives here @bloggertone. We will be highlighting some great businesses & interviewing the people behind them. Australian-born Cathy Albanese is a fitness instructor and the lady behind Ireland’s FITT Ladies Bootcamp. Bootcamp is for women who are sick and tired of the same old routines, same old classes and lack of energy day after day. Workouts are outside during the summer and weekends & indoors during the winter. ‘FITT Bootcamp is…

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I was at the Irish Internet Association‘s Annual Conference held in Dublin yesterday, where the theme was “Vision 2020″. I could only stay during the morning, but it was worth my while, with some good presentations, some “same old”, and some thoughts that I brought back with me… There was a panel discussion which ranged from the future (if any) of journalism as we know it, through to the feasibility of paid-for-news online, mobile ready websites and even…

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The birds just wont leave me alone – they continue to entertain, educate and inspire! I am watching a Song Thrush collecting twigs and grass for its nest. I am thinking it is quite late for her to start, but I am sure she will catch up lost time, and speed up the process of having and raising a family before the summer is over. In fact, she will have 2-4 clutches of eggs. Why was this song bird so picky about her pickings? It’s all to do with foundations. If we do not built a strong…

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Recently one of my colleagues shared his thoughts on some of the challenges that we face during online meetings, which are becoming more and more prevelant, especially in large multinational corportations, where it is quite common to have teams or projects where all people are based in different locations. The challenges of online presentations are something that I’d like to return to in a later post.  For now I’d like to share my thoughts on how to make your presentations more…

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Seasons in my back garden fascinate me. Snow melts quickly. The plants and weeds compete avidly throughout the year. After observing my neighbours’ gardens, it occurred to me that there is a micro-climate in my back garden. Certainly it makes it easy to grow vegetables and flowers! The fact that weeds like growing there too means I have to stay on top of it which reminds me of recent conversations about how businesses thrive. Individual businesses can be micro-climates. A…

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I was recently introduced to a great band called Mumford & Sons. They sing an interesting song called ‘The Cave’. The scenes of the video that accompanies the song uses themes and content from two famous bands of old: The Beatles (Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) and The WHO (Quadrophenia).  The video continues with a connection between the new band and the old favourites. I am also reading a book called ‘Made to Stick’ by Chip & Dan Heath. The books discusses how to…

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A couple of days ago I had the unfortunate experience of having to stand in a queue in a local convenience shop to get a couple of things before guests arrived for dinner. I use the word convenience loosely as that’s what they’re called more so than what they provide in my view. As I was waiting my turn, I couldn’t help but start to watch the staff as they interacted with the customers that were coming up to the counter to make their purchase. I really started to become aware…

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As a business woman I have a matter-of-fact approach to finance. If you want to make a profit you need to have more money coming in then going out. You need to make sure that you are not losing a significant amount of money on a large aspect of your business, and that you have a broad spread of customers to supply you with a regular income. There are three core areas of your business which you need to focus on – cash flow, sales analysis and cost control. Focusing on these will allow the rest…

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Warning – another bird story!! I am sitting in Amsterdam Airport at 6am, or was it 5am? Well it was 10am where I was coming from, so needless to say, I was a little disorientated. Armed with a strong coffee and a muffin, I began to do some work. Something caught my attention. It sounded like a bird, could there be a bird in Schiphol airport? Did it get trapped? Sure enough, as I squinted up, there was a Sparrow sitting high above me (I was a little concerned about my exposed coffee and…

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