Author: Paul Handover

Understanding your Market, Part One

Market research for sales people.

John’s Post yesterday on Riverford Organics nudged me into writing this Post, something that has been in the back of my mind for ages.  My topic is understanding your customers or more properly described, understanding your market, because the word ‘market’ feels a better description of the objective: knowing why your present customers bought, what they like and dislike so you have a better idea of the buying intentions of your potential customers.

magnifying-glassThe term ‘Market Research’ is not a difficult or uncommon phrase (a Google search returns 132 million links!) but, in practice, it is one of those terms that is very tough to pin down as to what it means as a set of practical tasks.  Let’s try a few quotations from a Google search (this time only 6.6 million links!).

…. research that gathers and analyzes information about the moving of good or services from producer to consumer …
The systematic collection and evaluation of data regarding customer’s preferences for actual and potential products and services …
A study of consumer groups and business competition used to define a projected market.
The collection and analysis of data obtained from a sample of individuals or businesses relating to their characteristics, behaviour, attitudes …
…the activities undertaken by an organization to determine the nature of its customers and competitors, as well as the demand for its products or services along with the features that customers prefer in similar products or services. …

ad nauseum …

For something that is a critically important component of business strategy, such a wide variation in definitions is totally unacceptable.

Now it’s important that you know where I am coming from.  Since 1966, I have been working as a business-to-business salesman.  Since 1978, I have run my own companies but have still seen my only competence as that of a salesman.  (Technically I ‘retired’ in 2007 but still keep my hand in through mentoring and coaching.)

Cim_logoIn the early 80s, as my first company, Dataview Ltd, was growing rapidly, I became a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I thought that marketing was a skill I needed to know more of. But, to be frank, apart from a nice certificate and a glossy monthly magazine, it’s difficult to recall any life-changing experiences from that relationship.  Marketing seemed to be about medium to large businesses – not correct but that was the impression given.

Back to the theme of this Post. Read more about market research for sales people

Well it is Sunday!

Time for bed

Unlike the funny pic posted yesterday which clearly has been ‘edited’ this one looks to be genuine.

dog and boy praying

Thanks to Dan G for forwarding it. Classic!

By Paul Handover

Improved clarity

The authors of Learning from Dogs held a conference call last Sunday to review the progress of the Blog.  As a result, we have added both a Vision and Purpose and amended the Welcome page.

We hope that it greatly improves your understanding of what motivates us to be authors.

Without you, the Reader, this Blog is pointless.  Here are some more ways you may want to participate.

Finally, all of us at this end of the Blog really appreciate you stopping by to read what we have to say and the growing audience is all the thanks we need.

Unintended consequences – for the albatross!

Using our Planet as a dustbin!

Once again, a piece in Naked Capitalism caught my eye this time courtesy on one of Yves’ readers who came across this:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

Midway chick

More pictures of this terrible way to treat a magnificent bird are here.

By Paul Handover

Climate warming – two very different views!

Thank goodness for two so very different opinions.

The problem for lay persons, such as me, is that it is very difficult to read in the popular media well-reasoned arguments for each side of important issues, such as climate.  You can see my confusion being expressed in the opening paragraphs of an earlier Post on Climate Change.

It might not be rhetoric to say that the issue of man-made climate change could be one of the most pressing issues of all for mankind.  Thus having two very clearly opposing views is incredibly useful.  Learning from Dogs is grateful to both guest authors.

On the 16th October, we published a general Post about the subject that tended to lean towards the view that mankind was not affecting the climate in such a direct way as had previously been thought.

That was then followed by a Post largely consisting of an article by Patrice Ayme arguing, scientifically, that there was a direct link between mankind and global warming.

Then a Post that contained the full article by Alan Carlin arguing, again on scientific grounds, that there was not a direct link.

Patrice commented on the Alan Carlin article.  But to give greater visibility to this debate, this Post carries Patrice’s comment.  We hope to have a response from Alan Carlin soon.

Read Patrice’s comment on Alan’s article

More truth about this crisis

“Never in the field of financial endeavour has so much money been owed by so few to so many. And, one might add, so far with little real reform.”

Thus spoke Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, on Tuesday night, 20th October, to a group of Scottish

Mervyn King
Mervyn King

business people.  Echoing one of Churchill’s many famous sayings, Governor King is probably one of the highest ranking people around to state, at last, what everyone on the Clapham Omnibus (a London bus route) knows to be obvious.  Whether the forces can build to a point where common sense is applied by Governments before we enter another Great Depression is another matter.

Mention of the Great Depression (the last one) triggers a step back in time.

On June 16th 1933 Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Glass-Steagall Act.  In fact that was the second Act signed

Senator Carter Glass
Carter Glass

into law, the first Act was passed by Congress in February 1932 and was largely designed to stop deflation.  The second Act was, in a sense, much more important because it set out to prevent bank holding companies from owning other financial institutions.  It was repealed on November 12th, 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Just a little under 10 years ago.  10 years which have seen the biggest boom-bust probably ever in modern history.  And has much of the Western world slipping into another great depression.

US Senator Carter Glass and US Congressman Henry B. Steagall must be turning in their graves

Steagall
Henry Steagall

But thank goodness for investigative journalism and the role of the Internet in creating a truly open ‘meeting place’.

Read more about this Post

Janet Tavakoli on Warren Buffet

The following is reproduced in full from the TSF website and is reprinted with the permission of Tavakoli Structured Finance, Inc.

It’s a fascinating tale about Warren Buffet in the midst of all the financial turmoil.  And in case you think that Tavakoli Finance is run by the grey suit brigade …

Janet Tavakoli
Janet Tavakoli

Read Tavakoli’s article about Buffet

Climate warming: the debate continues

Alan Carlin believes that rising greenhouse gases are not the cause of warming, on scientific grounds.

Yesterday we published a long guest Post from Patrice Ayme who argued that climate warming is a very serious risk to this planet, as we know it.

Alan Carlin has gracefully given Learning from Dogs permission to reproduce his article that argues, on a scientific basis, that man-made greenhouse gases are not the cause of warming.

Again, this is an article that needs to be read.  Alan’s Blog is here.

Read Alan Carlin’s article

Lost for words!

Sent to me by Neil Kelly, a long-standing friend in Devon, England.

Wish I could add something witty to this, but I can’t!  But it does remind me of the saying, there’s no such thing as error-free software!

plane

P.S. the image is too small to read the copyright notice – anyone help out?  It would be good to credit it properly.

By Paul Handover

Climate warming: the debate

Patrice Ayme believes it is real, on a scientific basis.

On the 16th October, we published a Post called Climate warming?.  The sub-heading gave a clue to the content of the Post: What’s the truth about climate warming, e’rr change?

My stance was to express doubt about man causing climate warming. But then, a good friend of this Blog, Patrice Ayme, added this comment:

Lowest ice on record in the Arctic was 2007, then 2008, and now 2009. [More exactly the sea with more than 15% ice reflecting.]
As I pointed out on http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2009/05/ (May 31, 2009).
The sun has been going down in the last 30 years or so… Watch the nice graph there, extracted from Science Mag…
We are just coming out of a solar minimum so pronounced that cosmic rays, less deflected by the sun’s magnetic field, have become a problem… This explains why greenhouse heating has been less pronounced than some expected in the last few years. Things should pick up in the next 7 years, as the sun heats up. The multiplying factor is 3 or 4…

It seemed appropriate to ask Messrs Ayme and Carlin for permission to reproduce both their Blog articles. Both very kindly agreed – thanks Gents.

These are long articles – but will inform you in a way that the mass media never do.

Here’s Patrice (Alan Carlin’s article tomorrow):
Read more about this important subject