Geoff Burch is Europes number one business speaker and writer. This is his Blog http://www.geoffburch.com/ en-uk 2010 enquiries@mediaeden.co.uk http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2009-06-26 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:31:43 +0100
I recently performed my first live web broadcast seminar for Highlands and Islands Enterprise. You can find the talk online at httpwww.zolk.nethielearningworksvc2.phpconf4

Also some scamp has found footage of me performing at the Comedy Store Not my usual material but you can find these videos at YouTube

Bongo the Bear
American vs UK Business
The world has changed

]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2009-06-26 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2009-03-12 Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:51:28 +0000 THE STORY OF A CREDIT CRUNCH

By Geoff Burch

There was a land that was on the edge of the highest of high cliffs. The people of this land toiled and worked and struggled to make a living. They made things and they grew things. They lived by the strength of their backs and the sweat of their brows.

This life made them strong and resilient and they were proud to tell outsiders that they lived on the edge. They were very competitive with each other and always tried to better one another. Despite this they considered themselves close-knit probably because they were united by their dislike and suspicion of outsiders.

So you can imagine their consternation when a strange silent young stranger occupied a deserted cabin in their land. They decided to check this guy out and it didnt exactly put their minds at rest to discover that he was exiled from his previous land for treason and sedition. Apparently when he was a young boy the king of his land had ordered a fabulous magical suit from some internationally renowned tailors. The enchantment of this fabulously expensive bejeweled garment was that if you were stupid the suit became invisible to you. The king subsequently appeared naked to this boy who was therefore clearly stupid and instead of quietly admitting his disability went around shouting that the king was in the altogether Fortunately despite rumours and fairy stories to the contrary this disgraceful behaviour ceased when the heartbroken tailors gave him a good kicking and the king exiled him. Everyone watching acknowledged their own intelligence and admired the fine suit.

Now this boy older and somewhat wiser lived among the people on the edge and they werent happy. Sometimes they would challenge him to say anything critical about them but he had learned his lesson and said nothing which gave them no excuse to get rid of him.

Then one day there was a miraculous event. The people awoke one morning to discover that from the top of the cliff a small bridge had grown. At the other end of the bridge was a small pink fluffy cloud. For weeks people came and viewed the bridge but no one dared set foot on it but the one day two intrepid young men crossed the bridge into the pink cloud. In there they found a sunlit land with blue birds rabbits and trees laden with luscious fruit. On the ground were a scattering of precious gems and metals. The young men picked fruit and treasure and returned across the bridge a lot wealthier than they had been before. Soon more people crossed the bridge to harvest the bounty of the pink cloud. The people celebrated their luck and the only sour note was that the path to the bridge had to pass the strange young mans cabin and when he stood outside and watched them they felt he knew something they didnt. Sometimes folk would challenge him to tell them.

OK what Go on what Whats your problem
He would pull a face shrug his sad shoulders and disappear back behind his front door.

A strange thing about the bridge and the cloud was that the more they were used the bigger they grew. The bridge became a magnificent sight to see and the cloud was huge and so was the land inside it. In the land was a very beautiful kind of tree that had been in blossom ever since the place had been discovered. The people had wondered what fabulous fruit it would bear. Finally the tree produced large pods which before anyone could pick them erupted into coloured fans. On closer inspection it was clear that these fans were wads of money Everyone laughed. Their parents had always said Money doesnt grow on trees. Well now it did. People surged across the bridge with barrow loads of cash treasure and fruits. Again the only downside was that young man just watching.

With so much wealth literally falling from the trees why break your back in the fields wear your fingers to the bone at the lathe or sweat your life away in a kitchen. People in far-off lands who mainly survived by growing stuff and eating it wanted a share of this wealth. So they either sold their crops to the people on the edge or they started making things for them or they moved to the edge themselves and did the toiling for a handful of the cash.

The people on the edge realized that all this success could be attributed to their superior intellect and that physical effort was far beneath them. They also knew that they never wanted their children to toil with their hands. Intellect brings better rewards. So they built schools and colleges where the young could get intellect from the people who had chosen themselves to be professors.

One of these mighty brains prepared mathematical formula which would show birds how to fly. He crossed the bridge and as the young bluebirds hatched from their eggs he strutted about holding his lapels reciting this formula to them.

A few weeks later amazingly the bluebirds flew. He was carried shoulder-high back across the bridge and given a big gold cup and his own university to be in charge of. Another professor watched the bridge grow and could predict its size each day. The people would gather under his balcony at his university and he would say things like

I predict bridge growth to be between 12 and 16

And the next day when it was clearly 15 bigger he got a cup too

Another amazing event happened. One day a man harvesting money in the fluffy cloud-land dropped a bundle down a rabbit hole. He didnt notice until he got home and realized that he was short a bundle of money. He went back the next day and searched about the tree. Putting his hand down the rabbit hole he realized that not only was the bundle of money there but it had doubled in size. For a while he tried putting the odd wad of cash in the rabbit holes and overnight they always doubled. He shared this secret with a very few friends and out of those few friends this phenomenon only worked for some of them but that didnt matter because those with the gift could double anyones money. These men declared themselves bankers or barons of the bridge. Soon the traffic had reversed and everyone was bringing home loads of cash back over the bridge to the cloud.

The young man just watched with that funny annoying puzzled look on his face.

The people from the foreign land were soon handing their cash to the bridge barons to have it doubled. The money doubled the bridge doubled and the pink fluffy cloud just grew huge. The more cash they piled into the rabbit holes the bigger the cloud grew.

Then the people woke up one morning and the bridge had completely collapsed. It had cracked and crumbled and hundreds of pieces had tumbled into the gorge below. The people watched as the pink cloud now not anchored to anything started to drift with the wind which tugged and blew as little wisps and tendrils like candy floss disappeared into the turbulent air. Before their very eyes it was pulled into smaller bits until it was gone as if it had never existed.

We are ruined the horrified crowd cried.

All our wealth was in that cloud.

And so was ours the people from the foreign land cried angrily We will have to go back to growing stuff again.

The cry went up Why did the bridge collapse

The professors didnt know despite their intellect. Then someone said
I bet that sly kid knows why the bridge collapsed

A huge mob went to the young mans cabin. When he came out they cried

Alright smartarse. Why did the bridge collapse

The young man sadly replied You foolish people. You are asking the wrong question. The question I have been asking myself every day and what you should have asked yourselves is not why it collapsed but why it stayed up. What was holding it up in the first place


]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2009-03-12 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2009-03-02 Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:51:28 +0000
As a Martian it is very difficult to explain the tragedy of the sad little folk known as the Numpties but let me try.

First a bit of background. Sometime ago the Numpties who live in Numptie land worked very very hard making things. A long time before that they lived very simply growing stuff and eating it but it is always wet and drear in Numptie land and this created an itch they could never scratch in other words the Numpties always wanted more so they started to make things. The cleverer Numpties invented artful things such as Bykees machines that Numpties could sit on and by whirling their legs round they could travel faster. Numpties love to go faster to where I never really understood but by golly they got there quicker and quicker. Some Numpties were artful at making money some were artful at making bykee bits. The ones that had the money made the ones that built the bykees work very hard for just a little bit of the money. This some Numpties said was unfair and they got very cross and sometimes refused to get out of bed to make bykees which made the rich ones cross and worried. Then someone invented the haulers big metal boxes that burned the underground stuff that the desert people had but didnt want because they had bumpy animals to ride around on. These haulers meant that rich Numpties could whiz about even faster without whirling their legs around and they soon got the clever Numpties to work in big sheds making Haulers. The clever ones got even crosser because they wanted Haulers so that they could whiz about without whirling their legs.

Now it is at this point that we have to understand the Numpties obsession with money. Money is little bits of paper with a number painted on it and a picture of their Queen but that simple description cannot give you a clue of how important these bits of paper are. There is a strictly limited amount of this paper which is literally a measure of the Numpties life. If a Numptie makes bykees for one hour he will receive a piece of this paper. At the end of his life the number of these bits of paper that he has is literally his score and his value and the more bits of paper he gets each hour say how valuable and important he is.

A time came that clever Numpties were getting so tired grumpy and difficult that they had forced the rich Numpties to pay them ten bits of paper for every hour that they spent making bykees and haulers. As a bykee takes twenty hours to build it cost two hundred bits of paper to make but to buy a bykee also costs two hundred bits of paper so the rich Numpties started to stop being rich. They wailed and gnashed their teeth and fought with the clever Numpties. Then they discovered a far-off land where lived some people called Ayshuns who not only were extra clever at making stuff but were very poor and never expected ever to be rich or even own a bykee. They hardly ever even saw a Hauler. The rich Numpties asked the Ayshuns if they could make bykees. They said they could and would for just one piece of paper each hour. This meant it cost just twenty pieces of paper to build a bykee which left a hundred and eighty pieces for the rich Numpties who of course became richer and richer.

I know you are wondering that if all the other Numpties have no jobs how can they buy the bykees Well now we come to the really weird thing about Numpties. Because their bits of paper are so important to them and ultimately are the value of their whole life before they die and things are totaled up they scuttle about collecting stuff like nuts and wood and rocks and other things that they try and compare in value to their bits of paper. As I have said Numptie land is very wet and muddy in fact there has always been plenty of mud so the Numpties build their shelters of mud. They claim a patch of mud and pile up lumps of baked mud on it. Of course this takes time and to a Numptie time is bits of paper and their pile of mud is even more value to them than their bykee or even hauler. They buy and sell these piles of baked mud for sometimes more than the paper it cost them. This makes them feel safe and happy.

Every now and again the Numpties choose a parent. For some time the Numpties had a horrid strict parent who would smack them when they were naughty and wouldnt let them have the things they wanted. This parent could see that if the Numpties didnt work harder for less bits of paper they would all be in trouble. She made the Numpties feel very dark and sad and grumpy so when they got the chance they elected a new parent who would be nice to them. Because he smiled all the time and was always nice they called him Toe-knee I know it doesnt make sense but thats Numpties for you. Toe-knee loved to be loved and said that every day would be cringle day and if every Numptie would put up a tree Toe-knee would leave a present every day. True to his word Toe-knee left train sets dolls houses and even bykees. This made the Numpties very happy and time and time again they chose him as their parent.

At about this time some bad folk did a dreadful thing by getting poo yes poo and convincing Numpties that it was worth paper. Afterwards this crime was called the Plop Con bubble and it worked like this. Numpties biggest failing is believing someone is doing better than them and it drives them crazy. The bad folk would stand with a bucket of poo and the Numpties would point and laugh. Ha Ha why have you got poo You are stupid They would reply I gave ten pieces of paper for this poo and it is now worth twenty pieces. You are the stupid one because you have got no poo and I have doubled my money ha ha The next day this person would have two buckets of poo and would say I gave twenty pieces of paper for the second bucket and now they are worth forty pieces each. You sure are missing the boat
This went on until the buckets of poo reached one hundred and even two hundred pieces of paper. The Numpties believed that if they didnt hurry they couldnt even afford one bucket and had to borrow just to buy one but they thought what an easy way to make pieces of paper. The bought and sold these buckets and with the extra they bought bykees and haulers and were happy. Toe-knee was happy because a lot of the poo profit came his way and he explained that because underneath it all nobody did any work they had now got a surface economy which would make everyone happy but in the Numptie society there are very annoying folk called Smart Harriss who tell the truth and that is very inconvenient.

One day a Smart Harris pointed to a Numptie and said That is just a bucket of poo and its worthless. With that all the Numpties scampered about crying Urgh poo and lots of them lost all their paper. The bykee makers had thousands and thousands of bykees coming in from the Ayshuns and were worried that Numpties with no paper could not buy bykees. But their parent kind Toe-knee smiled and said The Plop Con bubble gives me an idea The magic of paper from poo only failed because it was poo but baked mud now thats another thing. We could raise the value of baked mud shelters for ever

Everyone who heard this clapped and cheered because nobody really wanted to go back to working hard again as they liked the surface economy. Soon baked mud was gaining value faster than poo ever had and because most of the grown-up Numpties already had a shelter of baked mud that had cost them very little and now was worth lots they felt very rich. They borrowed money to buy big treats bykees and haulers for themselves. The bykee makers didnt know what to do with the huge amount of extra paper they were making. Kind Toe-knee said to them kindly that they were making too much and he would have to take a bigger share if they didnt do something with it.

At this time the old clever Numpties said to their children Dont be clever and work hard and be poor like us. Instead have clean hands and be rich.
So when the big sheds that made things shut Toe-knee was not sad. He called them Universe Cities places of excellence where Numptie children went and did team-building management Numptie resources and all kinds of other completely useless things. The bykee folk built big glass towers with their extra paper and filled them with eager young Numpties who didnt want to be clever and work with their hands. They were paid lots to go out and buy bykees and haulers. The boy and girl Numpties wanted families of their own and they needed baked mud shelters which were now very expensive but they could borrow paper from lenderers and it didnt matter how much they borrowed because their baked mud was always worth more. Sometimes it became worth more so fast it earned more than they did so some Numpties borrowed twice as much and bought two lots of baked mud just to watch it grow. The lenderers made paper by asking for extra paper on top of that borrowed but because paper was limited they sometimes couldnt get enough to lend. At the same time the Ayshuns had too much paper so the lenderers sold the debt to them for a profit and could start all over again.

Lenderers were not always good and in a far off land lived the Merry Cans who in a lot of ways were stranger than the Numpties. Their land was much much bigger but they still treasured their patches of mud so much so that they always walked about with their sleeves rolled up and if a stranger went on their patch of mud they were allowed to kill them because they said it was their right to have bare arms. But they had a lot of poor folk who you would think no one in their right mind would lend money to. Then some wicked lenderers thought a nasty but clever thought. If poor folk found it hard to borrow you could charge them even more which was very profitable even though it made them poorer. Then they would get so poor that they couldnt pay and you could take their patch of mud away and have it for yourself. Very very very profitable.

Remember how the Numpties always think that someone is doing better than them Well Numptie lenderers were jealous of the Merry Can lenderers and paid lots to get a share of the poor peoples mud. Then strange things started to happen. First because everyone was getting rich the Merry Cans the Numpties and even the Ayshuns all bought bigger and bigger haulers. The desert people who had the underground stuff realized that it was running out and charged more. Toe-knee said This is bad. underground stuff costs more than food so we must burn food in our haulers. Which made food very dear and the poor folk went hungry. Because the poor people couldnt eat and at the same time buy the mud they gave their mud back to the lenderers. Then Smart Harris said That is mud its not worth anything The Numpties decided to go to the lenderers and get their money back but when they got there the lenderer had gone and so had the money. Toe-knee said Dont worry I will pay what the lenderers owe you. But secretly he was very worried. He had a sour goblin that helped him to look after the money. He knew the goblin had always wanted his turn at being parent so with a smile he gave him the keys and ran off. When the goblin and the Numpties got into Toe-knees room they found all the tons and tons of unpaid bills for all of the presents.
Well said the goblin No more presents I cant even afford to pay for this lot.
We hate you said the Numpties We need a new parent
This is when they realized that the values of their patches of mud had started to fall and fall because anyone can see except a Numptie that an economy based on the value of mud where nobody works well just doesnt work The Ayshuns didnt fare much better because they had put all their money into making bykees that now no one wanted to buy so they were ruined too. Everyone cried out Toe-knee was nice lets find him and ask him what to do.
Well said Toe-knee There is not enough of anything to go round there are too many of us and we hate to work hard to live. The solution is simple we should eat each other.

]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2009-03-02 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2008-10-24 Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:31:35 +0100 If you didnt catch my new TV show on Tuesday night at 730 on BBC Two dont worry all is not lost
Thanks to the wonders of technology you can catch last weeks show on BBC iPlayer by following this link.
]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2008-10-24 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2008-09-07 Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:27:30 +0100 DOOM GLOOM AND THE HOUSING CRASH
Those of you who follow my blogs will know what a cheery little ray of sunshine I am. I have scampered about for years calling out We are all doomed I tell you But now we really are all doomed. Even I am surprised at the power of this perfect storm however as someone who can see a jet black lining in every silver cloud I also ruminate on finding the way out of trouble and believe me there is a way out a cheery light in the tunnel that just might not be an on-coming train. But first lets consider where we are.
The house price bubble was simple and pure madness. I met a very junior clerk at a drinks thing who told me he had a five million pound property portfolio financed entirely by mortgages partly supported by rents and topped up from his own pocket working on the theory that with growth in a few years he would flog his properties and pocket millions in profit. Of course the stupid halfwit bought new flats off plan which are now sinking like a stone. But is he a complete idiot Well guess what I asked him that very question plus what was the plan if prices fell which is what they are doing. He smiled a grim little smile and said I have got nothing to lose. If that happens I will hand back the keys declare myself bankrupt and walk away. Under the new insolvency laws he will be discharged and free in a year so the real idiot was the one who lent him the money in the first place boy are they in trouble
My little clerk hasnt gone down yet because the falling property market for the buy-to-let brigade is a slow death of a thousand cuts. The more shrewd homemaker is not stupid enough to buy on a falling market so there is no shortage of tenants. What there is though is a shortage of profit. As mortgages soar through the roof rents dont to the point that the rent is about half of the mortgage cost. This might have been OK if property values continued to rise in fact that is how the game was supposed to work. Runaway property value growth fuelled the whole lunatic thing but when property values start to fall the trap snaps shut. Put the rent up No chance because the desperate home sellers are forced to rent when they find there are no buyers so there is no shortage to drive up prices. If you had the cash you would get double the return simply by putting the money on deposit.
On the other side it is hard to get a mortgage for anyone who is misguided enough to try and buy so why is it so hard to borrow now when the banks just a few short months ago would give anyone a one hundred or even a one hundred and twenty five percent mortgage Because I am a miserable git let me give you a fairly dark and cynical answer. Perhaps just perhaps a less than ethical bank would think the following Poor people cannot get big loans on the face of it because they are a poor risk. This means that if you do lend them money you can ask a much higher interest rate so while they can pay you make more and if you lent them money against a house it has been growing hugely in value. When the inevitable happens and they drain themselves paying more than they could ever afford you can repossess a far more valuable house. Its win win and win again for that greedy bank. But then the house prices fell and the sub-prime horror raised its ugly head.
Even responsible lenders can do their sums. If you lend one hundred percent you must be sure that the asset i.e. the house will stay worth a hundred percent. If there is a ten percent fall then a ten percent deposit must be expected plus a safety margin lets say a fifteen percent deposit but if houses just fall and fall do you need forty fifty or even seventy percent How can you be sure your money is safe
I then came across a lawyer who represented a vulture fund people with cash who could take advantage of difficult situations. Legend has it that there was a city centre development of flats and the developer was in dire trouble. The vulture fund bought the lot at an eighty percent discount. In other words two hundred thousand pound flats for forty thousand pounds each. Bad news for the developers but at forty grand each that makes sense. The rents give a reasonable return just and that is where a tiny ray of sunshine glimmers.
A farmers field is worth say four thousand pounds. One buys it and decides to profiteer outrageously and multiplies its value ten times to forty thousand pounds. At eight houses to the acre that would be five thousand a plot. With the cheap and cheerful current building methods costs work out at around fifty pounds a foot therefore a very useful one thousand square foot starter home would cost fifty thousand to build plus five thousand for the plot and a nice juicy profit of twenty thousand that is a seventy five thousand pound house. That is what it should and could cost. The house price bubble became so stupid in my home town that people were buying half million pound houses and knocking them down to build two or three as yet unsold houses. Everyone is also up in arms about garden grabbing but that is like the old joke that comes to the conclusion that everyone has their price. If you loved your garden you would not sell it for five thousand pounds but for two or three hundred thousand When the five thousand pound plot becomes a reality all the garden grabbing will stop. Actually to save the building industry the government should relax planning as long as the plots were limited to five thousand pounds and the new homeowner having paid seventy five thousand could not sell for more than a few percent more each year.
Where does that leave us Well here are a few simple tips.
If you are thinking of buying a house dont. Rent one and let the owner take the cost.If you want to rent dont listen to the rubbish about shortages everyone who cant sell has to rent so always offer less than the asking rent.
If you own a house live in it and enjoy it. It isnt a pension and when your teenage daughter screams Whatever and slams the door or when your young princes slack-faces illuminated by the lights of the games console a thread of silver drool hanging from their chins realize that by not leaving them a million quid you have probably saved them from a fate worse than death. If you are a developer quietly lock up your machines and go and hide in the woods from your creditors after all if you are in a hole stop digging.
Finally to all the wonderful small business people reading this understand that the government intentionally created this bubble. No one makes anything anymore. Between them the idiot bosses and the aggressive unions destroyed industry and production moved away to China and so on. The dot com bubble caused a little surge and then went completely on its arse but our lords and masters had to deliver an economic miracle. By allowing interest rates to let house prices run away we all thought we were rich and spent money we didnt have to buy cheap rubbish from the Far East. Its all built on mud bricks are baked mud and a house is a pile of baked mud put on a patch of mud. Wealth based on the value of mud is sure to end in tears so come on small businesses lets build real value again. Lets start seeing Made in England on our bikes our furniture our food and just about everything else. Its our only hope.

]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2008-09-07 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2007-08-17 Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:48:40 +0100
My book Writing on the Wall took a bit of stick from the critics who described it as a bad tempered rant particularly my less than optimistic look at the global economy. As so many of you have been enjoying my blogs I would love to know what you think of it so I am giving away the chapter on the global economy for you to see what you think. Please read it and let me know your thoughts

Download it here]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2007-08-17 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2007-02-12 Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:56:46 +0000
This is a tirade but in it somewhere are some points about empowerment and the state of mankind but mostly it is a frothing rant to relieve the total frustration I feel towards the ghastly gnomes at Orange.


If you are allergic to cats the powers above dictate for their amusement that any cat within a five mile radius will head for you and climb on your lap. As your breathing fails your lips swell and you slip into anaphylactic shock you hear distantly as you fade away the old woman saying Isnt that funny Georgie never normally goes near strangers


Well dear reader as a guru of customer care empowerment and service you can bet that if trouble is coming in the shape of mind-bogglingly bad service it will come my way. But first a story about my new book which now wont get written for reasons I shall explain.


A key to making your business successful is to encourage and enable the people who work with you to conduct the business successfully and profitably on your behalf. The management gurus describe this process as empowerment. That is such a nice juicy word. Like abracadabra it was believed to have mystic healing and even magical powers. These powers were conjured by management simply by scampering about like headless chickens chanting the word empowerment out loud and including it in ever more vicious bollocking memos to the crushed and beleaguered staff.


Things came to a head for me when some lunatic rang me up and asked me to empower his staff.


Empower them to do what I asked.


He replied that he wanted them empowered to do what they were told.


The real point of empowerment is closely tied to the whole entrepreneurial culture thing where you share your ambitions for the enterprise with your people and they make the same profitable decisions that you do. This is where the one-person business gets itself into all sorts of trouble. The first hurdle is to construct profitable employment for yourself. The next is to expand by creating it for someone else. A true minefield of business-destroying mistakes with lazy people inappropriate people untrustworthy people or worse enthusiastic loyal people who dont have the foggiest idea what to do because you didnt train them or you dont allow them to do what is right.


My new book was to be another story to illustrate all this and had the working title of Arming the Peasants. It is the tale of a mediaeval prince who inherits his fathers lands and discovers big financial troubles so he summons the consultants Machiavelli Co much against the jesters advice the only intelligent person there. The consultants tell him to re-structure by getting rid of all the non-productive team members such as the army the knights etc leaving the peasants who by simple labour make lots of money for the prince and the consultants. A great idea until they are attacked by the wicked baron who has still got an army. The consultants decide that the solution is to arm the peasants multi-tasking but as the peasants are not skilful enough to use swords or bows they decide to invest in new technology in the shape of the latest thing guns.


But the peasants hate me the prince points out. If we arm them the first person they will shoot is me


Ah we have the solution say the consultants. You give the peasants guns so to the outside world they will look armed but we wont give them any ammunition.


This is not empowerment and the relevance will soon become clear so now to Orange.


They have been a steady but unremarkable provider of mobile phones to my organization so no reason to change. Our broadband was provided by Freeserve which became Wanadoo also steady also unremarkable but with a sufficient level of technical support. Then Orange bought them it became Orange Broadband and even became a little quicker. Then one day it went off completely and utterly off We rang Orange and did as instructed the switch it on and switch it off stuff.


We will do a line check. Call back in 24 hours.


One day later.


What was the result of the line check


There may be a fault. We will do another line check.


This continued for four weeks whilst we rang them every day sometimes twice without any change in the standard reply or any forward progress whatsoever. Bear in mind you have to ring them on a premium rate line and are often on hold for up to an hour listening to the same ghastly pop music over and over and over again with and get this We are very busy at the moment but maybe able to help you on our website. With no connection how am I supposed to do that In the meantime we discovered with technical tests of our own the fault was definitely on the BT line. We needed a BT engineer Orange have to request one.


There may be a fault. We will do a line check


Ring BT and get me an engineer.


I have no authorization to do that I must do a line check.


But you have done about 25 line checks.


Then and this is what got me frothing Thank you for calling Orange. Is there anything else I can help you with Mr Burch


This is not the operators fault. They are only an un-armed peasant. The How can I help you is the musket and the I am not authorized to do that is the lack of ammunition.


We wrote directly to the Chief Executive and were totally ignored if you are a CEO never never do that it is so insulting. We finally rang Offcom the regulator. They were charming brilliant and armed. They bollocked Orange and BT and a few days later my Broadband was magically fixed actually not that magically but the story of the BT engineers visit I will save for another blog on another day. Then to add insult to injury we got a fairly snotty letter from Orange saying that if we could prove the cost of the phone calls made to their operators never mind the total disruption to my connection to the outside world and the grim hours spent in a cave-like internet caf trying to deal with my emails we could claim this cost back.


POINTS TO PONDER


1.If you have a dreary trudgey business that is OK dont get into a different discipline that you are so crap at you destroy your previous reputation and enrage your current maybe foolishly loyal customers.


2.Dont train your staff to ask how they can help if they are then not allowed to help.


3.The first quick customer-delighting solution needs you to trust your people and will always be the cheapest one. If you employ people you dont trust you are an idiot.


4.If a customer is so frustrated that they are forced to complain further up the food chain dont ignore them.


5.Never use Orange Broadband.


6.When you apologise dont hold back or expect the customer to contact you. You are trying to save your business. Be generous in defeat and remember Finding and keeping customers is the only activity that generates revenue. Everything else will involve you in cost.


Finally why isnt the book going ahead In the story the peasants get surly and resentful at being responsible for all the work so they clearly need motivating and to that end the consultants hang a huge banner on the castle which reads Passionate about feudal agricultural solutions Oh how we laughed until someone at the head office of the publisher rang to say and I quote We dont get it.


Dont get what I asked.


Well the peasants didnt improve their attitude. If our CEO said he was passionate we would shout a big WAY TO GO and work twice as hard.


What remains of the manuscript after I had jumped on it was flung into the garden and the pigeons have taken it for nesting. On reflection probably the best thing that could have happened to it.]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2007-02-12 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-10-26 Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:33:29 +0100
A telephone rings a withered claw-like hand picks it up and clamps it to a sucker-like ear.
Ello cackles the crone.
Oh says the cultured masculine voice at the other end.
Is that International Food Hygiene Consultants
No came the terse reply.
I am sure that is the number Mr Peterson gave me the bewildered response.
Oh The light dawns. You want our Terry hes in the lav at the moment. He was on the curry last night and hes been bad ever since. I reckon he could go through the eye of a needle
Do you train your staff I ask you reply
What staff
In this virtual world you can be virtually anything you want. When your customers dont know how big or how small you are they only have that small point of contact to make their judgment of how professional you are. What would happen if you ring International Food Hygiene and get
Thank you for calling International Food Hygiene this is Agnes. How may I help you today
Oh Mr Peterson please.
May I tell him who is calling
The name is Jackson of Super-Con Mega Bean Corp
Oh yes Mr Jackson Mr Peterson is expecting your call. He is in a short meeting but I know he is eager to speak to you. I will try and put you through
Pass phone under bog door job done in every sense of the word.
Yep that was your mum but a trained mum. When that is done the client doesnt know that you dont work from a glittering fourteenth storey headquarters. But then you do as advised and still fail to make bucket-loads of money. Bear in mind that if International Food Hygiene did have a forty storey headquarters it would charge more than you do.
But that is my trump card you cry I am cheap.
There is a row of timber garages by us and each one contains a small car repair outfit. Each raggy arsed mechanic charges about fifteen quid an hour compared to the main agents who charge around eighty pounds per hour. They say they can be cheap because there is only one of them to do the work that is apart from one garage where there is a grey-haired man with half moon glasses who used to be Ferraris race mechanic in the 1970s. He charges 160 per hour because there is only one of him in the world and people with treasured cars queue up for his skilful hands to mend their beloved babies. Mind you his workshop is like a surgical operating theatre and his business cards and headed notepaper have become collectible works of art.
So become more professional and because you are unique dont be afraid to charge what you are worth.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
A bad workman always blames his tools but isnt it funny that the good workman always has the best tools.
]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-10-26 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-10-17 Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:39:18 +0100
My techno-troll phoned frothing with excitement. Our free Go It Alone Lite e-book was being downloaded in squillions Mega overwhelming huge beyond our wildest dreams world domination he howled. So its doing well then. I must admit I am hugely chuffed and seeing the numbers clocking up by the thousand has really made my day. But then my mother in law appeared a truly terrifying person who could have intimidated Attila the Hun and because of her advanced years probably did. The e-book is doing well she was told. How do you make money out of that she asked pointedly fixing me with a cockatrice stare. Well the answer is that it doesnt. The only tangible financial benefit is that it has pushed the full fat Go It Alone book soaring into the bestseller list. This has pleased everyone except my miserable publisher who has complained that an unexpected and huge rise in sales completely cocked up his production planning and he wished I hadnt done it.
It is this sort of risk-driven clear-headed thinking that has got British business to where it is in the world today. In cash terms the author of a book gets something like 0.000000003 so an extra million or so sales would leave me being able to afford a packet of Liquorice Imps.
Then why do it why give away this book As a project this is one of the most exciting and unexpectedly successful things we have done. This blog is about sharing business ideas and the lesson I have learned with the e-book is that once you have earned a penny more than you can spend the real joy comes from making things work. The thought that thousands of you from all over the world have downloaded and enjoyed our little book delights and thrills me and the fact that people are passing it on to their friends is really the icing on the cake.
So thank you all so much and if anyone has found Go It Alone Lite useful please let me know. After all thats why we did it.]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-10-17 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-29 Fri, 29 Sep 2006 14:36:42 +0100
If you have had the
dubious pleasure of reading my stuff or listening to me you may have
noticed that I classify certain business ideas as doomed. I have
also noticed that certain business premises have a similar effect.
There are one or two venues in our town that regularly play host to
the dismal crushing of peoples dreams - tragedies of Greek proportion
that tend often to be wine bars or restaurants with jolly names like
Maggies El Tropicana or Guiseppes. There is one place in
particular that destroys the aspirations of budding restaurateurs.
It has been pizzas Indian Thai and even can you believe it
traditional British. The latest lambs to the slaughter have opened
an Italian restaurant and on their first night there were a few
people in there. On the next night a few more and now a few months
on it is so packed that you can rarely get a table. Well that is
the old doomed predictor on the fritz predictor. Once I had had a
little stamp about like Rumplestiltskin I do like to be right you
know I had a think. If these people can succeed in that place
there is hope for all of us and as it is my lifes work to help all
you lot succeed I need to know their secret.

Their marketing had
been vigorous and clever but not earth shattering. They are located
in a commercial district so they leaflet-ed all the local offices
with vouchers that gave discounts and even free meals. If you ate
there you would get a free bottle of wine voucher to use on your
next visit. They are briskly raising brand awareness or as the
marketing men would say increasing footfall more people coming
to sample what they have to offer. But if what you offer is crap
all that you can do is make people aware that you are crap even
faster.

This whole problem is
brought into focus by my favourite story from Tom Peters who told how
a huge US food giant decided to go into making dog food. They spent
millions on can design. A psychologist burned the midnight oil
deciding what colour to have the labels. Distribution was the envy
of world logistics and the advertising campaign stunned the globe.
A year down the line everything had gone horribly wrong and a mass
inquest was held with all the employees involved. The CEO stood up
and said The cans were great the colours moved me distribution
was perfect the ad campaign was the best. What went wrong And
a voice from the distant shadows at the back of the room called out
The dogs hated it

That is the secret of
the Italian restaurants success. The grub is fantastic. It is
consistently the most delicious good value Italian food I have ever
eaten. So there you are it is simple. Be the best and be
consistently the best.

It is very easy for us
self-employed to lean more towards the crap end of the scale than the
excellent. I needed my house painting inside so I got quotes and one
guy clearly a professional produced a reasonable quote and a good
timescale and no this is not one of my hilarious disaster
stories but he worked too fast. He obviously had been a contract
painter and used a huge roller therefore he was a little bit
careless and a little bit splashy I still pick the odd freckle off
my windows. My plumber is great truly wonderful but tends to turn
off his mobile phone when hiding from me. My window cleaner is kind
funny and totally unreliable. Would I use them again Maybe.
Would I recommend them Only with a warning. To guarantee your
future you must be outstanding. To do that you must be brutally
honest about your offering. If you cant be brutally honest then get
someone else who will be friends and family rarely are. Get it
right and you have the proverbial licence to print money.]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-29 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-26 Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:08:38 +0100 If you are ever tempted to criticise anybody before you do you should be prepared to walk a mile in their shoes.nbsp That way when you do criticise them they will be a mile away and you have got their shoes.]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-26 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-20 Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:40:02 +0100 When planning this site we went to the search engine a thing I
believed to be a bit like Thomas but with better eyesight but my
techno-trolls tell me it is in fact a way of finding the most popular
things in cyberspace. Now my vanity dictates that I should be the
most popular thing in any space so when we typed in small
business self-employed work from home etc imagine
my horror when the top scorers were all banks BANKS I ask you
its like inputting childcare creche parenting
skills and getting King Lear King Herod and
Caligula. The banks obviously heavily promoted their position
on the net therefore by virtue of the way banks think they are
doing this to make oodles of wonga. If one was charitable Im
not you might think that they do this I dont to gently take
the seeds of your idea and at loss to themselves fertilize it with
the warm excreting of their spare cash until it flourishes into a
huge global corporation that will be forever in their debt and repay
their kindness a thousand-fold. I can go along with the concept of
repaying a thousand-fold but the fertilization plan has a few flaws
in it.

Think very carefully about this. You are starting out on your own
for various reasons love of mankind rebellious spirit great ideas
or like me from every other real job but whatever happens an
income is needed one that you may be loath to share with a fat
greedy bank. I can see why banks support students for a couple of
years with drinking vouchers because they will emerge from their
stinky poly-cotton chrysalis to spend a lifetime as a respectable
wage slave and then be sucked dry by the bank with mortgages credit
cards pensions and over drafts. A good harvest by the banks you
will agree and because we are too lazy to change banks a pretty
safe one.

But small businesses Some claim nine out of ten fail. Do you
think students would be a good bet if nine out of ten of them died
The question the banks have to answer is can you make money out of
the poor and desperate The answer is of course yes If you are a
nice fat fly that just happens to be wearing a t-shirt with poor
and desperate written on it as you flounder in the sticky web
called bank as the big fat hair thing with dripping jaws and a
badge saying small business adviser creeps towards you you
have to ask yourself was this a good idea

Small businesses and banks also make some genuine-ish mistakes so
in the useful bit of this tirade here they are.

CRAP IDEA

We tend to have flights of fancy when planning our businesses and
breeding cannibal restaurant dolphin-walking service etc. If the
bank refuses to lend on it the horrible prospect is they may be
right. They will lend on crap ideas because they know they can have
your house so if they dont lend it might be a very crap idea
indeed Hurtful maybe but you need to be told.


THE BUSINESS PLAN

In some of the bank-issued guides they invite you to prepare a
business plan and cash flow forecast to enable you to get your
finance offer. Seems like a good idea until you realize that these
plans are works of fiction that make Harry Potter look like
verifiable British history. Dont believe me Consider this when
did you last see a business plan that said something like this
Initial capital investment 50000 to be followed by a
disappointing first year and shockingly unexpected set-up costs.
Second year to start with the remaining 19000 totter on
with break-even or possibly small profit. Third year likely 20
decline in business. Fourth year product malfunction which puts a
childs eye out. Fifth year do a bunk before creditors catch up
with me.

As we have said this actually happens up to nine out of ten times
so why dont you ever see a declining cash flow forecast


IM NOT A BUSINESS

This one really gets me. If you are a wage slave you get a private
account which gives you access to all sorts of yummy extra-interest
accounts low interest loans and because of fierce competition even
free banking. This is where I take issue. You may not want a
business a place that employs people has a machine and a building
you may just want a job. The only difference is that you give this
job to yourself. The bank immediately classifies you as commercial
banking with all the attendant costs and loss of benefits. It can
also put you in the wrong mindset. Small businesses may fail but
self-employed people rarely do. If you are self-employed you wont
be unemployed skint perhaps I grant you but not unemployed. Just
because you want to spend time with your kids you dont want a
boss you want to keep the money your talent earns and you want a
little joy in your life does not mean you want to start a business
you just need to be self-employed.

OK we need banks but watch them like a hawk and be ruthlessly
realistic and truthful with yourself.]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-20 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-14 Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:48:43 +0100 I am often asked to talk to groups of people who want to start their own
business. Whether they are right or wrong or their ideas are crap
we can leave for another day but some fail simply because the work
failed to materialize. Speaking as a relatively talentless person I
find talent very intimidating and to be honest depressing. I look at
my skill set to try and determine my future wealth I can wiggle my
ears I am a demon on a pinball machine and I can make great owl
noises but thats about it. Then I see a wonderful musician
playing on the street for pennies and wonder why they didnt become
a multi-millionaire rockstar. I hear all your great ideas and then
see you broke months down the line. Why People often say to me
these words Geoff for an idiot you have done really well. What
is the secret Is it something that you have read Everybody has
some life-changing book they can quote but my life-changing writing
was on a teeshirt I had when I was a hippy. On it were two vultures
and one vulture is saying to the other Patience my arse Im
going to go out and kill something In other words go out and
make it happen. When you had a proper day job you will have been
recruited for your talent or skill. Your bosss talent or skill
was to find work that would occupy you for forty hours a week and
fill his pocket with wads of cash. Now the deal is you get to keep
the cash but you have got to go out and find the work. Tout your
skill from door to door talk to everyone you know and those you
dont know about your business. Think of the vulture on the
t.shirt and go out there and make it happen actually ask for the
work. OK you wont have too many friends to start with but when
people see you lighting cigars with large denomination banknotes you
will have more friends than you can handle. GO FOR IT
]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-14 http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-13 Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:46:51 +0100 I regularly visit a forbidding cave which is under a local public house of dubious reputation where dwells a nest of scary techno-trolls. They lurk there because their ever-increasing demand for alcohol has now become intravenous. On payment of coin they will let you enter and leave relatively unmolested. The reason for risking such horrors is that they understand computers IT e.commerce and the mighty mystic power they call the Net. We live in Gloucestershire in the UK where we are a little behind the times. Emails are delivered by a smocked yokel with a note held in a forked stick. He will throw rocks at your window and yell Emails for you Mr Burch If when you look out he is pushing a barrow one can guess that he has attachments but my IT trolls tell me that the only way to get in touch with you all is to blog. Apparently the Net is the place for every business to be so here we are the first ever Go It Alone blog entry.
By virtue of my rackety life and dodgy way of thinking these entries by definition will be a bit erratic but I will try and produce regular and provocative nuggets on how to make it happen for you in a self-employed sort of way.]]> http://www.geoffburch.com/blog.php?d=2006-09-13