The quality of your suppliers shows up in your own product: in response times, products that work, backup, communication and a host of other areas.

Being a good customer has always been something enlightened businesses aim for. Now it's more important than ever. This week, 6 tips on how to do that.

It's the sequel to this story: Rules that turned upside down in 2022.

WHY THE FROG NOISES 🐸 ?

One of our staff has discovered that this show puts his 18-month old son to sleep in quick time. I love that! And I don't want him picking up a nasty swearing habit. So from now on, you'll hear a frog instead of other f-things. Got a sleepless infant at home? At last, a proven use for the blog!

What can business learn from one of the greatest songs of all time?

Plenty. It goes to your culture of killing ideas that aren't based on data.

Ignore the people who understand the groove of your business, and you can kill your chances of a hit.

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WHY THE FROG NOISES 🐸 ?

One of our staff has discovered that this show puts his 18-month old son to sleep in quick time. I love that! And I don't want him picking up a nasty swearing habit. So from now on, you'll hear a frog instead of other f-things. Got a sleepless infant at home? At last, a proven use for the blog!

Business rules that have operated forever have been turned upside down, at least for a while.

Balances have shifted. Buyers are no longer gods that must be appeased at all costs. Suppliers are over-run by demand and can’t get enough supplies to handle all the work. Nobody has enough staff.

This shift in balance will test who is good at business. This week, thoughts on how to adapt and thrive, rather than just complaining.

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WHY THE FROG NOISES 🐸 ?

One of our staff has discovered that this show puts his 18-month old son to sleep in quick time. I love that! And I don't want him picking up a nasty swearing habit. So from now on, you'll hear a frog instead of other f-things. Got a sleepless infant at home? At last, a proven use for the blog!

Most business inspo is about where you’re going and what you're going to get. The riches. The power. The house with a 25-metre tunnel from the garage, built by a team of off-duty opal miners.

Those things are cool, and might not happen. Then you’ve forgotten to appreciate one of the best parts of your life.

Year one of your business is the most fun.

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WHY THE FROG NOISES 🐸 ?

One of our staff has discovered that this show puts his 18-month old son to sleep in quick time. I love that! And I don't want him picking up a nasty swearing habit. So from now on, you'll hear a frog instead of other f-things. Got a sleepless infant at home? At last, a proven use for the blog!

So you think you're a badass business rebel. You want to stand out from the boring crowd. But is your rebellion just a different type of conformity? And will it cost you money?

I'm just back from holidays, some of it in the US. I bring lessons can we all draw, from all the time I spent in bars. 

And specifically, from the Sharkinator White XPA craft beer.

Find out what happens when great products kinda run out of control and lose track of what normal customers want.

Link to the blog story so you can see the Sharkinator: https://ianwhitworth.net/no-beer-for-you-dont-get-too-close-to-your-product/

WHY THE FROG NOISES 🐸 ?

One of our staff has discovered that this show puts his 18-month old son to sleep in quick time. I love that! And I don't want him picking up a nasty swearing habit. So from now on, you'll hear a frog instead of other f-things. Got a sleepless infant at home? At last, a proven use for the blog!

Running a business means suppressing your strongest instincts. Like when staff decide to leave.

It depends on the circumstances, but sometimes dark urges within you want to freeze them out for being a traitorous dog.

This is a mistake and reflects badly on you.

NOTE 🐸

One of our staff has discovered that this show puts his 18-month old son to sleep in quick time. I love that! And I don't want him picking up a nasty swearing habit. So from now on, you'll hear a frog instead of other f-things. Got a sleepless infant at home? At last, a proven use for the blog!

There must come a time when Brenda from HR is not the boss of you, and that’s one of many reasons to start your own business.

The small humiliations of employee life feel normal when you’re starting out. Do you want to be in your forties and still have to do psychometric tests for HR creeps?

No, fuck that.

One of the burdens of business is overcoming the lifelong legacy of lies, from others who got to your customer before you.

You are a decent person and your product is good, but customers don’t trust you. Because all their life, marketing and sales scumbags have been telling them that crap products are actually great.

Learn how to get around this barrier.

Links:

‘I tried the non-alcoholic wine that tastes like a Penfolds Bin 389' news.com.au Body & Soul

The Facebook reviews of that wine, scroll to comments.

Celsius cryto: Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead

The profit benefits of long-term branding

'An Australian business classic' - reviews of Undisruptable by some well-known biz people

It's easy to load up your website with too much information, just because you can.

But you should ask yourself: does more information mean more sales? Or is it a distraction, burying your core advantages beneath a mountain range of generic info-spam?

Our new website is designed to be as small as possible, and get people out of there and in touch with our sales people as soon as possible. We believe it's a more profitable strategy. Find out why.

Links:

Our new website

Hicks Law: how more choice makes it harder for people to act and buy

Mark Ritson on the ROI of branding for B2B (got to 4 min for Mark's bit)

I love to see anyone have a go, and I feel for the founders of  instant grocery startups. Groceries-in-fifteen-minutes brand Voly is slashing staff and seems in deep trouble. Send is gone. Milk Run soldiers on, with bigger, richer investors.

It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business, and combined them into a massive bag of dicks. Not for their customers, but for themselves.

I'm no startup wizard. But we do have businesses around the country that have to cope with the same factors as the grocery pedallers. Let's break a few of them down so it doesn't happen to you.