Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Tiffany's

There was a time when a Tiffany Celebration ring would have been more than enough.

Nestled in an eggshell-blue box tied up with a white bow, a platinum band sprinkled with diamonds was the once-in-a lifetime gift to celebrate a most important moment.

And then Tiffany came along and told us we had got it all wrong.

We weren’t celebrating enough.

There are lots of times to celebrate; they said “Maybe there's a baby. Maybe it's your anniversary. Maybe just because. Capture your life's important moments. For all time”


“Good point” we thought, “we can’t let life’s important moments pass by unrecognized” but what should we do, we couldn’t mark them with a Tiffany Celebration Ring because we already had one.


“Build a stack” they suggested.


“A stack?” We replied


“Yes, a stack of rings” they cried “Each of life’s important moments turned into stunning brilliance”.


And so ring by diamond ring, Tiffany achieved stunning brilliance themselves. For they found a way to sell the same thing to the same people time after time after time.


My nibble is this: Getting a new customer is costly. Developing new product lines is costly. So how can you take a diamond out of Tiffany’s book and work on increasing your sales of current product lines to existing customers?


Oh and if my husband is reading this it’s Mothers Day on Sunday. I think that counts as one of life’s important moments…

work at home

When is BIG too big?

I have been reading Cathie Black’s book “Basic Black”. Cathie is the president of Hearst Magazines and the book is really just a collection of career lessons. I don’t agree with all of it – in fact I felt quite irritated when she wrote about dressing for work and stated “when in doubt wear black” – but some of the stuff is great, especially the stories.

One of the most illuminating tales is Cathie’s take on the rise and fall of Talk Magazine.

If you aren’t familiar with Talk; it was a magazine launched by Hearst in 1999 amidst a buzz of enormous expectation and dribbled to a close just over two years later.

Cathie mentions a number of reasons that Talk failed but one in particular stands out:

The first edition of the magazine carried an interview with Hillary Clinton in which she spoke for the first time about her husband’s infidelities.

This spectacular interview set the expectations of its readers at an impossibly high level which it just couldn’t meet, let alone exceed, issue after issue. The magazine’s fans felt let down, subscriber numbers fell, the advertising dried up and the magazine closed.

Seth Godin http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/four-words.html says in has blog today “Make BIG promises; overdeliver”. Talk magazine’s mistake was making the BIG promise so big that it couldn’t over deliver.
So my nibble is this: If you are starting a business make sure you don’t make your BIG promise too big. Better to overdeliver on a smaller promise.
There’s nothing worse than setting off with a big bang and running out of ammunition. Well, maybe there is. Wearing a colour other than black.

work at home

It’s the little things that make an impact

I love Jo Malone and as a natural extension I tend give Jo Malone stuff as gifts.

So yesterday I popped in to buy a candle for a friend and they asked me if I wanted to join their mailing list. I often say no to mailing list requests but I do like their stuff so I dutifully obliged.

Today the postman delivered a lovely handwritten card from the Jo Malone team inviting me in for a complimentary hand and arm massage.

Now I know the massage is just good marketing to get me back through the front door. But because it was handwritten, personal (“I do hope you enjoy your new candle”) and quick (I gave them my address less than 24 hours ago). I’m taking them up on it. Tomorrow.

And it also reminded me how easy it is to overlook the little things which make the biggest impact.