Business Talk covering New Zealand small business.

Sep200913

A very interesting interview that Bernard Hickey (Interest.co.nz) shared with me. The interview highlights the difficulty that the papers have in dealing with the Internet and all the free news and content. No doubt papers are looking at the delicate balance of attracting enough repeat visitors to earn advertising revenue but also applying some kind of pricing model for their content.

Its a very interesting subject.

Bernard Hickey and National Business Review (NBR) Publisher Barry Colman talk on TVNZ’s Media7 about how to make money from financial news online in the wake of the Colman’s decision to charge for some news. It’s fair to say Barry and Bernard disagree in a respectful way.

Sep200902

Business Blogs

4

Journalists should research more if they are going to attack something

Jamie Hanton’s article on Twitter provides a good overall view of how not to write an opinion piece.

The article oozes his lack of understanding of the power Twitter has as a communications and networking tool. His research seems to have been confined to Christchurch, New Zealand when in fact he should have covered other major New Zealand cities. What I find almost ironic is that Jamie’s last Twitter post was over a month ago.

To help Jamie out I will provide my opinion on how Twitter has benefited my businesses in bullet points.

I have meet some amazing people on Twitter. Some I have meet in person and established business opportunities.
Twitter has increase traffic to our websites including pre-qualified prospects that have resulted in signed contracts. Yes – that’s right – we have earned extra revenue from Twitter that is worth the effort we put in.
I have learned many new topics on Twitter and enhanced my own knowledge in my own skills.
I have helped people connect for business benefit and help many with information that they needed.

Overall Twitter is one of the most effective business marketing tools we use and we will continue to use it.

I suppose what annoys me more than Jamies opinion piece is Stuff.co.nz inability to recognize the importance of adding a comment section to all of the opinion pieces. Maybe someone should educate the team at Stuff.co.nz on inbound marketing?

Aug200917

Business Blogs

1

Cadbury Should be Congratulated and Supported

Cadbury issued a press release on 17 August 2009 stating that they are removing the palm oil from Cadbury Dairy Milk products.

“Cadbury today announced it is responding to consumers by returning Cadbury Dairy Milk to a recipe containing only cocoa butter.”

Now I am not going to voice my opinion on whether they should have added palm oil into their products or not. What I want to talk about is how Cadbury listened to consumers and responded to the overwhelming opinion to change back.

The fact that this site, which appears to be an official Cadbury web site, mentions that they added palm oil into the product to keep down production costs and keep the price down for consumers shows that they are they an open and honest business.

The fact is cocoa prices have doubled in the last two years. For most of this time, we’ve taken this on the chin. We’ve soaked up the price hikes whilst trying to minimize the cost impact to consumers.

So we had a choice – increase the price of our Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate and potentially put it out of reach for many of our customers or reduce the product size and costs. We didn’t want anybody to miss out just because of price and so we decided to reduce the size and reduce the price we charge our retailers.

Cadbury listened and responded to their customers in a timely fashion. I doubt many businesses of that size would respond with such speed and gusto.

But it doesn’t stop there. Cadbury via their http://www.choclovers.com web site encourages people to voice their opinion in public. Cadbury staff monitor the chatter and respond.

We should all be proud of a company that actually listens and admits when they get it wrong.

Jul200930

Business Blogs

0

Want to be Happy? Maxwell Maltz of Pyscho Cybernetics can help

A few years ago I read Pyscho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. This book removed a lot of demons from my mind that I had accommodated for over a decade.

To keep it short Maxwell was a plastic surgeon in the 1950’s who found out that you can change the physical look of a person but unless the person’s self image was healthy no amount of plastic surgery would make a person happy. In his book he teaches the way to improve your mindset.

Pyscho Cybernetics is one of those books that you read when you feel down or lost in this world. I always feel I can take on the world after reading a few pages of this “bible” in self-help.

Watch this video below of an interview with Maxwell Maltz for an introduction into this wonderful person. He changed my life for the better and the many millions which have also read his book.

Jul200926

Business Blogs

1

Home-made video. 7 million views already. The power of social media.

Below is a home-made(?) video of a wedding entrance for a young couple. The video on YouTube at the time of this writing had 7 million views.

This video is ultimate proof for me that you should always fight against the norms that society imposes on your life. “Life is what you make it”

Plus – food for thought here.

Will the music company which owns rights to the music played in the video demand that the video be removed or understand that this video could dramatically increase sales of this song.

I for one will buy the album that this song is on. I never heard of the musician until this video. That is the power of social media.

What do you think?

Jun200929

Marc Krisjanous

0

Business ‘ruined’ by TV show Target

I have to admit this is my third revision of this post.

Each previous revision was quite frankly too abusive towards the TV3 show Target that I ran the risk of legal action.

You may not have read the articles published on both NZ Herald and Stuff web sites this weekend about Cafe Cezanne and the poor café owners terror experience of nearly losing their business to what appears to be gross incompetency and lack of internal processes on the part of “Target”.

I have never watch the show “Target” and now, after reading about the massive lack any internal processes to double check their facts I will recommend no one watch them.

Everyone in the real world knows how incredibly hard it is to not only start a business but keep it in the black. It takes years and years of hard work and dedication to make it work. Only a business owner knows of sleepiness nights, long hours and zero cash flow.

Then along comes some show called “Target” and it a matter of minutes puts all that hard work at risk.

How can a production with a budget that most small businesses only dream about cause such destruction and get away with it by issuing a silly apology? I would assume that the editors or whoever approved the release of that episode have never owned a business before. They nestle in the lap of employee status where everything is okay and their wages are in their bank accounts on time.

I have talked to few people today about Cafe Cezanne and all state what a wonderful café it is.

In order to help Cafe Cezanne I have done the following and I hope you can help somehow as well:

Wrote this blog post and published it on a business focused web site.
Posted it on our Twitter profile with over 4000 followers mostly of which are NZ based.
Posted a link to the NZ Herald article on another NZ based discussion forum that is frequented by many NZ journalists.
Posted a question to the TV3 Twitter profile asking them why “Target” is still on air.
Rung the owners up to provide my support. (If I lived in Auckland I would also be having lunch there today).

We are currently in the worst recession for the last 6 decades. We cannot let some TV show that shows a lack of incompetency that brings me to my needs still be on air!

Do what you can – ring the Cafe Cezanne owners to voice your support, go to the café for lunch, ring Tv3 and demand they take the show off the air. Anything to help these business owners out!

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