Aug 1, 2011

Mike Ames identifies ways in which you and your fee earners can differentiate yourself from your competition: This is nowhere near as hard as it sounds. Most professional service providers actually conform to a relatively common set of values: Work hard and long hours: a big focus on hours worked Very focused on the here and now: pressing, proximate,...

Jun 28, 2011

I’ve been set a challenge. Come up with the definitive list of five books that every professional should read. Yes, just five. This sounds easy – but actually it is very difficult to whittle the list down to just five books (as I found out!) My first recommendation is ‘Eat that frog’ by Brian Tracy. Anyone who sells their time for money knows the value...

Jun 23, 2011

It was 12:00 on a wet Saturday. I and my family were on our way to South Devon and wanted to stop somewhere to eat our lunch. We found a small, almost deserted garden centre with a medium-sized cafe. We asked the proprietor if we could eat our lunch in the cafe in return for buying drinks. We were politely told ‘no’, as they had a policy of not allowing...

Jun 15, 2011

When I ask you to think of a beach toilet, what comes to mind? I suspect a damp, smelly, graffitied place with at maximum three or four toilets. They are not normally the types of facilities you would willing use – but often you have no choice as they are all available. Very often that’s how we view some professional services, e.g. when we move house or get...

Jun 13, 2011

My daughter is four, and typical of many girls her age, it has to be pink. Doesn’t matter what it is, it just has to be pink. We’ve just recently returned from a week’s camping in south Devon, and this meant a 450 + mile round trip in the car. Along the way, we amused our two young children by getting them to spot cars, trucks and vans of a certain colour....

Jun 8, 2011

Have you ever tried getting a doctor’s appointment on a Friday afternoon? Frankly, this is almost impossible – and this was the problem I was faced with at 11:00 last Friday. My problem was made even harder as I was in South Devon – not known to be a thriving metropolis. I had been directed to a minor injury clinic at Dartmouth Cottage hospital by NHS...