Paper planes

I have been making lots and lots of paper planes.

My middle son got a paper plane kit for his birthday. Well it’s probably a complete exaggeration to call it a kit – it’s actually just 40 pieces of same-sized coloured paper and a how-to-make-paper-planes booklet.

But it is brilliant.

You see, somehow I had managed to get to this point in my life without mastering the how-to turn-paper-rectangle-into-flying-object skill. And this is despite six years of trying. Seriously my boys had even taken to asking God for a mother who could make a paper plane that did anything other than plummet like a stone.

God is off the hook now. One birthday present, a few simple instructions and a diagram later and I am mistress of the skies. My planes fly fast, travel long distance, sky dive and (applause please) loop the loop.

My nibble is this: there are things which you feel you should just have been born knowing how to do. But if you didn’t inherit the know-how gene don’t waste time – just get help.

And I have another nibble too: isn’t the paper plane kit a great example of a simple idea elegantly executed?

The only issue I have now is that my son wants his present back…

Styling the hairdresser

My hairdresser, George, is great at cutting and colouring hair but he is hopeless at training and managing staff. So hopeless in fact that except for a lone hairwasher-tea-maker-general–sweeper-upper he works alone in his salon.

And he makes more profit than ever.

How has he done that? By skilfully changing his business model.

In the old days George made money in the traditional hairdresser sense by having a team of hairdressers working for him.

Now he makes money by selling niche, luxury, hard-to-find skin care and cosmetics to his customers.

Because George isn’t running around managing staff he can devote himself entirely to his clients which gives him ample opportunity to showcase his products and persuade his clients that they can’t possible live without Tracie Martyn cleanser and Eve Lom lip balm.

The model works for lots of reasons: the products that he sells earn him a very high margin; his clients trust that he will sell them only the best and he has the ultimate captive audience – the client is rather stuck in the chair/under the heater/prone at the basin

When George had staff they were a cost to the business - he couldn’t keep them long enough to be useful.

I think the message here is that if there is part of your business that you are really hopeless at one option might be to look at how you can change your model so that you play to your strengths.

The smile train business model

Put simply your business model is the answer to the question “how does your business work?”

So how does your business work?

Puzzled? This question is so often greeted with bewilderment that I thought I would showcase some business models.

My inspiration for this was a fabulous article on http://www.freakonomics.com/. It’s a story about Smile Train, a charity that fixes children’s cleft lips. Initially the charity used the donations it raised to send a team of doctors to treat poor children in countries such as Vietnam and India. Frustrated by the relatively high cost of doing this and the low number of children they could treat, they changed the business model. Instead of sending American doctors to treat the children they used the donations to train local doctors. The result – same amount of dollars, many many more children cured of their cleft lips.

How can you improve your business model to make the money go further?

Nothing compares to U

More on the theme of things that worked 10/15/20 years ago but don't work now.

I saw a picture of Sinead O'Connor in the paper today. About 15 years ago, maybe more, I wished I had her sort of face that could look awesome with short hair -my face was too moonlike to do anything other than long.

Sinead still has the same hair cut but the 15 extra years don't do it justice.

It's hard to update yourself - I no doubt have some wardrobe shockers -but it's easy to update others.

Maybe there is an opportunity for you to update a business idea that's in need of renovation.

Tupperware

For the life of me I can't understand why Tupperware don't sell their stuff on the internet.

50 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago it was probably fun to go to a Tupperware party and stock up on plastic containers. But surely today most people just want to buy the wretched stuff with one click of a button.

The other day I tried to order some Tupperware:

I phoned the Head Office and asked how I could buy some tupperware without going to, or hosting, a party. The friendly receptionist suggested that I call the Regional Office and added that she spent much of her day fielding calls from potential customers wanting to buy on-line......

The Regional Office said they would contact my local distributor.

My local distributor called me 2 days later and gave me her address so that I could send her my address so that she could then send me a form to complete and send back to her. (Yes I was completely stumped by that too).

I later found out that the distibutor makes just one trip a week to the warehouse to collect orders and then posts them out in the ordinary mail. So had I ordered the tupperware from her it would have taken roughly two to three weeks for me to receive the order whereas it takes two or three days to get a book from Amazon.

In 1950 when Brownie Wise came up with the idea of selling Tupperware at parties it was very forward thinking. Because the Tupperware concept was so new people didn't understand how the Tupperware seal worked - demonstrating it was key to selling it.

58 years later plastic boxes with lids are ubiquitous.

Tupperware does make the best stuff, but what's the point in making the best stuff if you don't make it easy for your customers to buy it?