Sticky Learning Lunches #15: Create Your Own Personal Development Plan

Understand the 5 simple steps to create your personal development plan in Part 4 of this PDP series.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Amazing. Good afternoon people. Yes, I'm excited. We're on Thursday. We've got people arriving 30 seconds to make sure we're getting set up for success today. Gina, thank you, Chris. Gerd, Ivan. Mark. Samantha. Stewart. Great to see you. See you all arriving. Some of you got some new faces, the regulars. Really appreciate all of you being here. Hmm. Let's give it a couple more seconds. Let's make sure we got, we're getting ready for this.

Nathan Simmonds:

As always, mobile phones. First of all, let's remove all the distractions that we've got today. Mobile phones. Let's get your phones out. Let's make sure they're in airplane mode. No beeps, no buzzes, no pings, no nothing other than a full hundred percent attention to the time that we're gonna spend together. Um, going through today's content around personal development planning.

Improve your goals with a 30-day plan

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Just had a message there regarding a document I'm gonna share with you all at the end of this session. So I've got a little gift, a little bonus for you at the end of this that we've been working on this week and I'm looking forward to sharing that. Making sure you've got drinks handy, herbal teas, coffees, waters, whatever it is you're set up. And as always, making sure you've got your, uh, clean sheet notepad, pen at the ready. Now, making sure you've got plenty of ink and you're not gonna be looking for another pen halfway through this session, set that page up at the top of the page, you're gonna write keepers.

Nathan Simmonds:

Keepers are the things that we wanna remember, the keep the things we wanna keep hold of so that when we read back through those notes, it creates new thinking and it keeps the, the, the, the ideation flowing and progressing forward. Really important. We do this objective for today. We wanna be aiming for three or more keepers as we go through this session. So anything that I say, any questions that comes up or anything in the chat box, you think, oh, I need to keep hold of that. Get to on that sheet so it reminds you,

Nathan Simmonds:

Heading into this lasted a couple of people coming in. Let's get off the screenshot. Now remember to do it this time. That in itself is amazing. Before the last thing, before we get into the, the, the, the session, making sure that everyone that you are registered for tomorrow's session Friday, last day of the week, we're gonna be looking at some tools and ideas to really help keep that momentum down and get some deeper, um, introspection and reflection on what you do, why you do it, and how you make sure the plans and the strategies that we're putting in place now maintain that forward momentum and, and looking at different tools and different lenses to help you intensify your understanding of the challenges that you are setting for yourself.

Nathan Simmonds:

Because life needs challenge, we need that positive friction. When we understand what our challenges are, we can stack them in the right order. And those tools that we're gonna share tomorrow are gonna help you to do that stacking. You're gonna share a link in the, in the chat box, make sure you are registered for tomorrow. Other announcement, we have a guest speaker coming in for next week, Jeff Birch. Very funny, brilliant keynote speaker. Uh, he's talking about the the cunning sales plan strategy that you can employ. So you've got four days of Jeff Birch, there'll be jokes, there'll be entertainment well worth.

Nathan Simmonds:

Let's make sure you are registered for next week as well and maximize these free sessions. Let's do this. My name is Nathan Simmons, senior leadership trainer and coach for MBM Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky learning.

Sticky Learning Lunches #14: Create Your Own Personal Development Plan

Understand the 5 simple steps to create your personal development plan part 3 of this PDP series.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Rah, right. We are in getting carried away with a deep conversation looked up and it's one o'clock. Good afternoon everybody. So good to see the people here. Oh, fantastic. Seeing some wonderful people turn out. I see you. Julie's here. Evan's here. Gina, again, thank you very much for being here. My pronunciation on this is gonna be wrong, but I wanna say Carra or Ciara. You can correct me on my pronunciation. Please do . See you too. Really appreciated that you are here. Fantastic.

Nathan Simmonds:

We're just gonna give it 30 seconds just to see if anyone else is turning up like Kira. Thank you very much Kira, thank you for being here. Very appreciated. Let's making sure as we're just waiting for any last people to turn up that we are setting ourselves up for success. It is one oh one. Let's get the phones on flight mode, zero distractions. We have a drink regret to advise. This is lukewarm tea.

Improve your goals with this 12-month plan

 

Nathan Simmonds:

It's as good as it's gonna get right now. And we have a nice blank piece of paper in front of us ready to go. So on that piece of paper at the top you are gonna write keepers. These are the things that you want to remember here at Sticky Learning at MBM. This is what we refer to the reminders. So when you read back through those notes, it's gonna support your new thinking, your new thoughts, and that new learning to stay in place for a much longer period of time. So let's dive into this day three. Day three of the PDP session. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me.

Nathan Simmonds:

Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home of Sticky learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider for the grocery and manufacturing industry. And the idea of these lunchtime sessions is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now in this situation where you're working from home and preparing you for the return back to work so you have a whole new set of skills and thinking that's gonna help you become more incredible than yesterday. Where are we today?

Nathan Simmonds:

What actions? Let me ask this question. First of all, to everyone that's here, if you've been in the previous sessions, what actions and you've seen the other videos, what actions have you taken so far from what we've talked about in the last two days? What have you put in place? What are you doing differently? What have you written down as a result of the previous two sessions? Let's see those in the chat box, in the questions box. For those that haven't, we're gonna dive into this session. I'm gonna give you a bit of a recap shortly and then we're gonna get some momentum.

Nathan Simmonds:

Started to think about my exit plan. Absolutely taking a stab at where I want to be in five years. Amazing. Still trying to work out my exit strategy. The fact that you are working it out right now, that's the key thing. Started working on my PDP with the concept is not a format, it's a way of thinking. Absolutely. This written goals for myself for the next three months. Amazing Chris. Thinking about the big goal, getting it bigger. So when you set your big goal, when you put it in place, ask yourself the question, when this happens, what does it enable me to do? And then that way what we can do is start to seeing what comes after that moment.

Nathan Simmonds:

Because what happens is, is when you are setting a goal, it becomes like a conveyor belt. As you start to move towards it, it starts to evolve. So although you may achieve that goal, there'll be another goal that starts to form because you've achieved it. The faster that you work through or process this thinking and development,

Grocery Guru Episode #33: The Bid For Morrison's Supermarket

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the thirty-third episode of the Grocery Guru. They discuss the bid from United States private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, of which Terry Leahy is a Board Member, to buy Morrison's Supermarkets. But will Amazon now make a bid too? So here's today topic, Bid for Morrison's Supermarket.

You Can View the Full Bid For Morrison's Supermarket Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to episode 33 of the Grocery Guru. And we are here today with that guru, Andrew Grant. How are you?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, morning Darren. Yes, very good. Thank you very much.

Darren A. Smith:

Now, we've both had the lurgy, but that's not why we're on video, to tell everyone we've had the lurgy.

Andrew Grant:

No, I think you're right. As I think you put it, we've done so little social interaction in the last 15 months. At the minute, you actually come near anybody else, you catch something.

Darren A. Smith:

Does seem that way, does seem that way. But more interestingly, for our viewers out there, what's in our postbox, mail bag, on your lips, on your mind today?

The Bid for Morrison's Supermarket

 

Andrew Grant:

Well, there's only one big news in the world of grocery today, I'm sure nobody's missed it. But it's the possible bid for Morrisons. Interestingly, we're doing this a couple of days late. It's Monday morning. The news broke Friday, that... What are they called? Clayton Dubilier & Rice? American venture capital group. Best known for floating B&M, Home Bargains.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh! I didn't know that. Okay.

Andrew Grant:

And have got ex Tesco CEO Terry Leahy on their board. So, they've got a bit of knowledge and a bit of experience. But yeah, that news broke Friday evening. And this morning, Morrisons' shares have gone up over 30%.

Darren A. Smith:

So, the news is that this venture capitalist, what do they want to do? I know you know this.

Andrew Grant:

Well, interestingly the supermarkets are incredibly good value. We've talked so many times in these sessions of how well we did over the pandemic, et cetera. But that hasn't been reflected in their share prices.

Darren A. Smith:

No.

Andrew Grant:

And there was an article I read yesterday, to say that Morrisons' share price prior to today, was the same as it was 20 years ago.

Darren A. Smith:

Wow! Okay.

Andrew Grant:

So, all that effort, hard work by 115,000 people who work for Morrisons has added effectively no value in 20 years.

Darren A. Smith:

And just remind anyone who hasn't seen the previous episodes, we've talked about the pandemic, that supermarket sales have gone up roughly 10%. So they've done very well, if one believes. But as an example, it's cost Sainsbury's 468 million in COVID costs, which means their profits went down by about 40%. So, they seemingly have done well, but they haven't. Sorry, back to you.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. And obviously that's what shareholders are most interested in, are they making profits? And yeah, Tesco had its Q1 results out on Friday. Sales flat, if not slightly declining. Because as we've talked about, they're now like for like with the massive boom last year, and everybody's going out to restaurants and pubs again.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes, yes.

Andrew Grant:

So yeah, the share prices of all the quoted retailers are really struggling. And they're saying that this might create a feeding frenzy, even Tesco is not too big to be taken over.

Darren A. Smith:

Well, that's very true. So this venture capitalist comes in, so what are we thinking? They might buy Morrisons? Morrisons are currently number four, their market share's about 11%. Have I got that right?

Andrew Grant:

Yep.

Darren A. Smith:

But we've also got in the wings here, Mr. Bezos and Amazon. What's your take on that?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, your mind is thinking the same way as me, yeah. Morrisons have a pretty huge distribution agreement with Ama...

Grocery Guru Episode #32: Preliminary GSCOP Survey Results & Sainsbury's Range Reset

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the thirty-second episode of the Grocery Guru. They discuss the preliminary results of the latest GSCOP supplier survey, whilst the announcement of the Groceries Code Adjudicator's concern about Sainsbury's range reset and how they are dealing with their suppliers.

You Can View the Full Preliminary GSCOP Survey Results Transcript Below

Darren A. Smith:

Hello, and welcome to episode 32 of The Grocery Guru. We are here with that guru. That is Andrew Grant. Andrew, how are you?

Andrew Grant:

Morning, Darren. Yes, very well. Enjoying this lovely, lovely weather we're having.

Darren A. Smith:

We are having lovely weather. So now lovely weather, moving on to regulatory stuff. There's a lot going on in the media right now, The Grocer and others, and I think you're going to tell us more about it.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, no, we're always trying to keep up with what's happening out there in grocery world. And this week, it is quite interesting, you feel sorry for the politicians sometimes, or maybe you shouldn't, but they go from hero to zero in a flick of a finger. I think with this government it's been the other way around; they go from zero being blamed for the whole pandemic, even though I don't think it was quite their fault, to now suddenly being heroes because of the success of the vaccine rollout. And the flip of that is the grocers, as we've been reporting for the last 30-odd episodes, I mean they really pulled out every stop during the pandemic; they kept the nation fed, they've kept us safe, they've spent gazillions on repurposing their stores, et cetera.

And what happens the minute we're now seeing light at the end of the tunnel of the pandemic, Morrison shareholders veto David Potts's bonus, I'm sure a very well-earned bonus. So yesterday 70% of the shareholders vetoed his bonus for all the hard work that they praised him for during the pandemic and then the Grocery Code Adjudicator, Mark Davis, the new kid on the block-

Preliminary GSCOP survey results

 

Darren A. Smith:

Mark White?

Andrew Grant:

Sorry, Mark White, sorry. Yes. Mark White. Where did Mark Davis come from? Mark White. Yeah, he published his Annual Supplier Survey, praising Sainsbury's for topping Aldi to the top of the tree. So ever since the survey has been done, Aldi had been top of the tree. Sainsbury's number one this year; 97% compliance, according to suppliers, with the code. So well done, Sainsbury's.

Darren A. Smith:

That's very good to top Aldi, as you say, they've been top of the tree for a very long time. I sense a "but" coming.

Andrew Grant:

I was just to say but Mark has now, with the same breath, almost the same press release, announces he's concerned about Sainsbury's range reset, having heard from a number of suppliers about allegedly non-code compliant practices. So yeah, Sainsbury's are doing a range reset, most of the retailers have post-pandemic, because, as we've been talking about, shopping habits have changed.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes, [inaudible 00:03:11], of course they have.

Andrew Grant:

But yeah, he's been approached by a number of Sainsbury's suppliers alleging that Sainsbury's are giving very short notice of D-lists and, I can't quite believe this number but it's in the press, it's black and white, asking for up to 20% of a supplier's sales turnover as a range reset or business fee.

Darren A. Smith:

And I read that too; 20%. So if you are a 5 million pound supplier end-sales, you need to hand over 1 million pounds as a lump sum to keep your business?

Andrew Grant:

Well, it's more than that. If you think of some of Sainsbury's biggest branded suppliers and you can name those as well as me, they will have 100 million pound businesses. Are they really going to hand over 20 million quid? I don't think so.

Darren A. Smith:

They're not.

Weekly Training Booster #3: Improve Your Communication Skills

Join Andy Palmer and Darren A. Smith in the third episode of the Weekly Training Booster. This episode is about how to improve your communication skills using HBDI. Know someone that you just can't seem to communicate with effectively? I bet you are speaking a different 'language'.

You Can Read the How to Improve Your Communication Skills Episode Transcript Below and Watch the Video:

Darren A. Smith:

Hello, and welcome to the Weekly Training Booster. We're week three and our booster this week is Andy. Andy, how you doing?

Andy Palmer:

I'm good. Thank you. Yeah, I'm good. So we're talking about how to improve your communication skills.

Darren A. Smith:

We are. So how to improve your communication skills. I'm interviewing this week. I'm asking Andy because it's his specialist topic, and we're particularly talking about it around HBDI, a psychometric test, but let's come back to that. Andy, how to improve your communication skills. Where would you start?

Andy Palmer:

Good opening question. Where would I start? I think I would start with understanding the simplicity of communication. I think all too often people are far too motivated to complicate stuff and say too much when actually just sometimes that whole principle of less is more, getting to the point and being absolutely clear on the message you're trying to deliver.

Darren A. Smith:

Yep. Absolutely agree with that. You hear people influence and communicate by repetition. Ah, it drives me nuts. They keep telling you the same thing.

All right. So let's build into communication. You're an expert in HBDI. What the hell is that?

Click to watch the video

 

Andy Palmer:

All right. HBDI, so the HBDI is the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument. It's a psychometric tests. You will have heard of many of the Myers-Briggs, Belbin. There's a whole host of them, all particularly good in their own individual way. For me, I favor the Herrmann profile, the HBDI profile because it's incredibly easy to understand. And once you've understood it, it's incredibly powerful and simple in how you then apply it.

So the understanding and the thinking behind it is that we have four quadrants of our brain. So it's a metaphoric model. It's an incredibly complicated pieces of kit that we've got upstairs. But actually where it starts to understand these, the differences between our left-hand and our right-hand hemispheres and then our upper and lower parts of our brain.

So we're talking about our limbic motor at the bottom, our cerebral motor at the top. And then the thinking behind the whole brain thinking of HBDI is that each of these quadrants are responsible for different thinking preferences. So it's about how we prefer to think, how we prefer to communicate and how we prefer to make decisions. It's why we as individuals have differences and it's why we can start to appreciate and understand what we have ourselves and then that of others.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. All right. Got it. So it sounds a little bit like the L'Oreal advert. There's the sciencey bit over here. All right. So let's see now if we can get into, if I understand this HBDI thing, I've got four quadrants type of thinking preference, how does that help me improve my communication skills?

Andy Palmer:

Sure. Okay. So each of these quadrants, and we're not going to do it any justice within our 10 minute video here today, but actually the value comes through understanding what those different quadrants deliver. So a very, very top-line level. We've got our upper left quadrant, our blue quadrants. These are the people that are very factual and logical and want precise facts. So when we're either being communicated to or from a blue, it's going to be here and now. It's going to be matter of fact, it's going to be precise and very logical and very rational.

If we then come down into the lower left-hand side. This is our green quadrant.

Grocery Guru Ep #31: Supermarket Cost Price Increase

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the thirty-first episode of the Grocery Guru. They discuss increasing costs for suppliers. From diesel to cargo costs, to minimum wage labour. Whilst the supermarkets slug it out in a potential price war. And, all of this whilst everyone in the supply chain tries to recover Covid costs.

You Can View the Full Supermarket Cost Price Increase Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hello and welcome to Episode 31 of the Grocery Guru. We're here with that guru, Andrew Grant. Andrew, how are you?

Andrew Grant:

Good morning, Darren. Yes. Very good. Thank you very much.

Darren A. Smith:

Good. Good. All right. Short week, this week. We're Friday. What's been happening in the world of grocery this week?

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Something that I picked up on through the various news feeds we get access to, the nasty word inflation.

Whilst covid costs are still here, suppliers are increasing their costs

 

Darren A. Smith:

Oh, okay. All right.

Andrew Grant:

And a bit of a perfect storm brewing, I think, for grocery suppliers in that just about everything seems to be going up in price or is in severe shortage.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. If I take you back to the '80s, there were price increase negotiations every year and they always went up about 3%,4%, 5%. The supplier asked for 11, we got it down. Okay. Now, what's happening is we got inflation coming again, but it's not the typical round that used to happen, is it?

Andrew Grant:

No. It's going to be really awkward, I think, for the poor old suppliers out there. Remember, everybody's trying to recover from this pandemic. Not only if you look at global food commodity prices, whether it's wheat or soya bean or whatever, they're in orbit. Well, actually, what worries me is, it's all those ancillary costs that buyers are really, really good at swiping away are going up like nobody's business. The price of a shipping container from China, $1,700 to $8,000.

Darren A. Smith:

Wow!

Andrew Grant:

That's a six fold increase.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. 100% increase. Wow.

Andrew Grant:

All of us have probably had to fill our car up for the first time in a year. That's gone up from what, about $1.08 for diesel to $1.28 plus?

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. I think there was a point where Morrisons got it below a pound. But yeah, it's up now. I think I saw it yesterday, $1.38. Yeah, diesel's up.

Andrew Grant:

25% plus rise in your transportation costs. If you can get minimum wage labor, you're having to compete with the restaurant sector and everybody else. If you need somebody for your factory or to pick stuff in your fields, the shortages of labor and the cost of that labor is going up. Obviously, you've also got the COVID costs. You're probably having to run your factory with safe distancing rules and all sorts of various extra costs as a result of COVID. All of those costs will now be building up and building some severe pressure on supplier's cost bases. And unfortunately, it's those costs that buyers are so, so good at batting away.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes.

Andrew Grant:

I know you and I will have done it. It's very easy to say, "Well, you need to break down exactly what your make up of cost is." You say, "Shipping costs have gone up from 1,700 to 8,000," and I'll say, "Oh yeah, but you're using a spot price based in Shanghai. I've got the three month Singaporean index in my hand and that's flat." You're just then in a world of pain.

Darren A. Smith:

Very true. We've got costs going up in the supply chain of [inaudible 00:03:36] ancillary costs. Plus we've also got supermarkets that are trying to recover from what was a good increase in sales. We talked here a few weeks ago about the average increase was let's say 10% across the supermarkets. The but is that Sainsbury's for instance, I think it was 468 million pounds worth of costs on COVID.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Yeah.

Weekly Training Booster #2: Improve Your Time Management Skills

Join Andy Palmer and Darren A. Smith in the second episode of the Weekly Training Booster. This episode was about how to improve your time management skills with frogs, badgers, and woolly mammoths. Plus, the 7 hurdles of time management.

You Can Read the How to Improve Your Time Management Skills Episode Transcript Below:

Andy:

Good stuff. Okay. Welcome to this week's MBM weekly training booster. Good afternoon, or good morning, depending on when you're watching this video. I'm Andy from MBM here with my colleague Darren. Today, we're talking about how to improve your time management skills. So for me, this is certainly the skill that unlocks all others. If we get this stuff right with a solid foundation to our core time management principles, everything else just magically falls into place. So let me throw that out there. Darren, how would you more better define time management?

Darren A. Smith:

Time management for me is the king of skills. It's the key that unlocks the door. If you can get this one wrong, you can be a great influencer, a great negotiator, all those things, but if you haven't got any time managed, then A, you don't really know what you're here trying to achieve ultimately, and B, you probably can't do it because you're all over the place. And you don't look like a credible confident leader. You're not really prepared for your negotiations. Your [inaudible 00:01:05] is done, but it's natural, it's not prepared, it's not improved. So for me, it's the key that unlocks all the doors. And it's the one that a lot of people chase and never get right.

Andy:

Okay, cool. And if I was to throw it out there, just because I find it a little bit contentious. You can't manage time, but you can manage the things that you do within that time. What's your view on that kind of thinking?

Episode 2 discusses how to improve time management skills

 

Darren A. Smith:

Well, I love the phrase that goes time flies, but the good news is you're pilot. Which is quite nice and that suits my right brain thinking. If I had my way I'd call it stuff management, not time management. Because you cannot manage time, you can only manage all the stuff. And when I say all the stuff, in our head, we don't have work and home, we have things. So you have to manage both the home and the work stuff together. So when you've got a to-do list, it has a home and work on it. It's not like, I'm at work, I'm at home. And particularly now that we're all mostly working from home, although we might go back, it's stuff, you've got to manage all the stuff.

Andy:

I think it makes good sense. I kind of liked the term stuff because actually it doesn't matter if it's big or it's small, where that that can then take us then is how we then prioritize that stuff. And one of the best things I learned over the years was then how to prioritize the important stuff first, because I think we've seen it so often, people just tend to get the quick fun and easy done first. If we were to look about how you can improve your time management skills, not you personally, but how people can improve their time management skills, what for you would be that single simple, but yet powerful suggestion?

Darren A. Smith:

What I see, and particularly we're pretty good on Google, is I see a lot of people searching for time management tips. They're looking for the really small, easy win that makes the bigger difference. And here's the bit that they're going to hate me for, it doesn't exist. Now for someone who used to be rubbish at time management that had to learn it over 15 years, I know it doesn't exist because I've tried them all. So unfortunately this stuff is about mindset. And the one I'd like to share with people is eat that frog. So it came from a phrase of, if you do the biggest horriblest thing first, the frog, then the rest of the day is going to be easy. And as someone who does it,

Weekly Training Booster Ep#1: Improve Your Negotiation Skills

Join Andy Palmer and Darren A. Smith in the first episode of the Weekly Training Booster. This episode is about how to improve your negotiation skills with better preparation. Darren and Andy discuss using the squaredance, being more ambitious, and knowing that there are 8 methods of resolving conflict.

You Can Read the How to Improve Your Negotiation Skills Episode Transcript Below:

Andy Palmer:

All right. Good morning. Welcome to MBM's Weekly Training Booster. Over the next few weeks, we are going to be covering a whole host of soft skills. Here at MBM, the home of Sticky Learning, we are looking to improve those soft skills that you've got, very practically and pragmatically in the workplace. I'm Andy from MBM. My colleague here is Darren, and today we are going to talk about how to improve your negotiation skills. So our Weekly Booster is how to improve your negotiation skills. Darren, let's kick off. For you, what is negotiation skills?

Darren A. Smith:

Negotiation skills. Yeah, it's a question we get asked a lot and we have over the last 20 years of training. Most people think that when they haggle, they're negotiating. They're not. They're not. There are eight ways of resolving conflict. The one I'm going to talk about right now is haggling versus negotiation. So, you know when you go to a market, a foreign market, and you buy a pair of Roy-Bans. And Roy-Bans, you got them for €5 and they're worth about €900; they're not.

Haggling is you start here, I start here, we meet in the middle. That is not negotiating. That is one valid form of resolving a conflict, but haggling and negotiating are different. Negotiation is where we are discussing and we have more than one variable. So haggling is one variable, price, negotiation is one, two, three, four, five variables.

Andy Palmer:

Awesome. Brilliant. Great overview. You mentioned eight stages, eight stages to negotiations and how you can improve those negotiation skills. Can you give us a flavor for some of them?

The first episode of the Weekly Training Booster with Andy and Darren

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. There are eight methods of resolving a conflict. So we've got haggling, negotiation, surrender, where you just give in, normally with the kids, we've got problem solving, we've got unilateral action, and so on. So there are eight, but the one we're really talking about today is negotiation. And we have to be careful when we think we're "negotiating" ... hate doing that ... where it's normally we're either haggling or we're problem solving. They're both absolutely valid, but we're not negotiating.

Negotiating has four stages to it. And those four stages, so we prepare, which most people don't do. Then we go in and we ask a bunch of questions; we poke around. Then we propose, and then we count the winnings, right? So really four stages. And the one that most people miss is the prepare one.

Andy Palmer:

Cool. And if we were to kind of just talk about preparing for a moment, what one thing in your mind and the experience that you've got stands out to being the best way you can prepare for a negotiation?

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. So when most people prepare for a negotiation, they do one of two things. They either have a bit of a think about it and then they go into a negotiation, hit a brick wall, wonder how they got there. Or they do the dreaded PowerPoint. You open up PowerPoint, start typing away, and present. Actually, that's not negotiation either. We created a Squaredance, a simple template, A4 template of how you can prepare for your negotiation with competence. So it's a Squaredance, and we named it something rather apt, silly, so you can find it on the web. So if you just search Squaredance Negotiation, you get a free template, please use and abuse it as you wish.

Andy Palmer:

Good stuff. All right, so maybe we can include that template in the video and we'll certainly put the link aro...

Grocery Guru Episode #30: The Rise of Rapid Groceries

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the thirtieth episode of the Grocery Guru. They discuss Rapid Groceries - The Rise of 10-minute Window Deliveries by 8 Start-Ups. Plus, the moves by Tesco and Sainsbury's with 'Whoosh' and 'Chop-Chop', to compete.

You Can Read the Rapid Groceries Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hello, and welcome to Episode 30 of the Grocery Guru. We're here with our guru, which is Andrew Grant. Andrew, how are you?

Andrew Grant:

Morning, Darren. Happy, happy new week.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes. A new week twice. We've just had a bank holiday. Andrew, what's in the press at the moment around the world of grocery?

Andrew Grant:

Well, let me throw some words at you, Darren. See if they spark anything. Gorillas, fancy, wheezy, deja, zap.

Darren A. Smith:

Is that them calling?

Andrew Grant:

Jiffy. It was them calling, yeah. Zap, jiffy, deja, wheezy, gorillas, get here.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. So what's in my mind is animals with asthma.

Andrew Grant:

Oh, okay. Aren't they all plays on fast, nippy, quick? I think that's what they're supposed to conjure up. But yeah, the world of rapid groceries.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh, okay. So we talked about this a few episodes ago, around there was one that Justin King had put some money into. Am I right?

Andrew Grant:

Snappy.

Darren A. Smith:

Snappy, right? Remember. Yeah, cool.

Andrew Grant:

I know a couple of weeks ago you were gently chiding me about getting a prediction wrong about Jack's stores and Tesco Metros.

Darren A. Smith:

I certainly was.

Andrew Grant:

But I'm quite pleased that I picked up this trend, I don't know how many episodes ago, and all of a sudden it's like double feature in the Sunday Times.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, you picked up on snappy and Justin King made an investment, I think of a hundred thousand pounds, and we talked about short windows, weren't we? Narrow windows.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. But the crazy thing is 19 billion of venture startup money has gone into these businesses in the last five years.

Darren A. Smith:

Wow.

Andrew Grant:

This blew my mind away. Have you any idea? You used to work there. What's the market capitalization of Sainsbury's?

Darren A. Smith:

Gosh. Now you're asking.

Andrew Grant:

I know.

Darren A. Smith:

It's start of the week. No idea.

Andrew Grant:

Okay, it's 5.9 billion.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh, okay. I was going to say 12. I don't know why 12. All right.

Andrew Grant:

Okay. Share price times the number of shares, basically what the business is worth.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah, it's expected. Okay.

Andrew Grant:

Gopuff, which is a American rapid delivery service, just arriving in this country. What do you think their market capitalization is?

Darren A. Smith:

Oh, I don't know. But they sound like they're new. They sound like they're not worth much. 10 million.

Andrew Grant:

Well, 6.3 billion. So bigger than Sainsbury's. More valuable than Sainsbury's.

Darren A. Smith:

Wow.

Andrew Grant:

GetHere, that's already over here, five billion. Morrisons is only 4.3. So these businesses, literally only just starting, are worth more than our second and fourth biggest supermarket chains.

Darren A. Smith:

Wow. So let me just get this right. These start up speedy delivery companies have a worth at the market. The stock market believes these things will be worth more than Morrisons and Sainsbury's.

Andrew Grant:

Are worth more [crosstalk 00:03:07].

Darren A. Smith:

Are worth more because basically they have potential of what's possible.

Andrew Grant:

Yeah. Now it's got all the hallmarks of a bubble that's going to burst big time at some point. Because I don't know how many I read out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight players are in the market. There can't be that many people who want a 10 minute delivery service to keep that many businesses going.

Darren A. Smith:

Well,

Grocery Guru Ep #29: Tesco Metro's Demise and Fewer Formats for Tesco

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the twenty-ninth episode about the demise of Tesco Metro, what is happening to the Tesco Jack's format, and maybe the start of Tesco managing fewer formats.

You Can Read the Demise of Tesco Metro Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hello, and welcome to episode 29 of the Grocery Guru. We're here with Andrew Grant. Andrew, how are you doing?

Andrew Grant:

Morning, Darren. You well?

Darren A. Smith:

Yes, I'm very good. I'm very good. We'll ignore all the technical issues we've just had, because no one cares, but we've just had a few. What are we talking about this week?

Andrew Grant:

Well, I picked up the news. We often try and bring the most topical items in the grocery world. So yeah, I picked up this week, didn't get a lot of press, but the demise of the Tesco Metro. It will be no more.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh really? Okay. Tell us more.

Darren and Andrew discuss Tesco Jack's format and the demise of Tesco Metro

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, so I've got to do some very quick math here. 147 Tesco Metros, all being rebranded either as Tesco Express or as Tesco Superstores, which I find interesting. I can understand 89 of them becoming Expresses.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. I can.

Andrew Grant:

58 Superstores, god, there must be some big monsters out there forgotten about.

Darren A. Smith:

That seems odd, so just remind us what is a Tesco Metro?

Andrew Grant:

Well, originally it was a reason to take... So if you think back to what Tesco's original heyday of operation check-out and Green Shield Stamps, all their stores were in bustling town centers.

Darren A. Smith:

Yep. Very true.

Andrew Grant:

So, you and I are probably old enough to go back that far, but your quintessential high street with your Woolies, your Marks & Spencer, your Boots, and your Tesco. [crosstalk 00:01:46] So Tesco ended up in the 80s as it was starting to build their out of town estate, which was the making of them, left with all of these city and town center stores on a high street, and they thought, "What the hell do we do with them?" And they came up with a Metro format. But essentially all they did was took an existing small supermarket and stuck a camp sandwich cabinet and some soft drinks chillers at the front, and still to this day most metros have far more range probably than the shoppers need. And it was interesting in the press release, Tesco said that 70% of the shopping missions in Metros are for top-up shops.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh okay. All right. So we've got a good understanding of Tesco Metro. All right. So these guys are saying, they're going to take 80... How many was it? 89?

Andrew Grant:

89 into Tesco Express format, and I'm 58 into the Superstore format.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. So does this mean that Tesco Metro format will be gone completely?

Andrew Grant:

It's like the proverbial parrot. It is no more. It is dead.

Darren A. Smith:

All right. Okay. Okay. So do you think this is about head office trying to manage fewer formats, or the other format's more popular? What's your take on this?

Andrew Grant:

No, I think, again, it shows the power of shopper insight and club card. They know precisely what every single one of their shoppers is buying in every single store, every single minute of the day, and it's fine tuning a very, very well honed engine.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. All right. So I get that. I get the insight into shoppers, but why remove Metro? What does it add, or what does it add by removing it?

Andrew Grant:

Well, no, I think you said it as you said that first, what does it add? Express is a phenomenally successful C-store concept, the out of town extras again phenomenally successful. Why do you want a Metro stuck in the middle, which is neither one thing or the other. It's not a full on c-store, and it's definitely not a full range, weekly supermarket shop store. And of course we know,