News Flash! Pollen counts are very high this year!
Oh! The hayfever season appears to be getting longer. I am sure there are a number of climatic and scientific reasons for this, but this is no comfort for the thousands of people that suffer the symptoms of hayfever in the summer. Hayfever is caused by allergies to pollen, grasses and fungal spores. There are [...]
The Elephant in the Room – Discrimination (The Apprentice BBC)
During The Apprentice Programme last week, a ‘nasty’ side of teams was flagged up: one of discrimination – and in this case – sexism. I watched the programme with my husband and initially was surprised that he said “Ah, she’s using the sexism card”. Interesting. Obviously I wasn’t able to see everything going on during [...]
The art of ASKING
Asking for assistance, requests, help, finance etc is challenging. The asker faces the risk of being rejected – or worse! Certainly as a child I was told “Those who ask don’t get” and was told never to ask someone to pass the salt at the dinner table – bizarre but true. However, there are occasions [...]
Silence could make you invisible: The Apprentice
The latest episode of The Apprentice featured more fingers in faces than an average TOWIE episode. The behaviour of some of the female contestants continues to make me cringe when watching. It is hardly an endorsement of female business women: the fact is that I have rarely seen behaviour so vicious – even in the [...]
Health Warning: No Apprentices’ egos were damaged in the making of this programme
I delayed posting my comments on the new series of The Apprentice, since we were ‘treated’ to 2 episodes this week, including one billed as “The most explosive episode ever”. I should get the ‘Health Warning’ over first of all. The BBC ‘Cast’ the show with those best suited to a television programme. Billing the [...]
Why does a person become mute?
Continuing the fascinating series about the human voice, hosted by Jeremy Vine, this episode covers selective mutism. Children in this episode are featured; occasionally children will only speak in certain situations or to certain people. It has been recognised that speaking in certain children can be an extremely stressful situation. Listen to the podcast. It was [...]
So what do our voices look like?
Continuing with our coverage of BBC Radio 2′s series on the voice, I am including a video of Jeremy Vine visiting an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) expert in Harley Street, London. In the video, we see Jeremy’s vocal folds! My assistant, who is slightly squeamish, couldn’t watch! Watch the video We all have a [...]
The life of a voice
During the excellent Radio 2 “Voice Week” one edition considered how the voice matures during a person’s lifetime. When we speak to people on the telephone, we will have a mental picture of how old the speaker is on the other end of the phone. Some people’s voices ‘age’ better than others due to good [...]
Regional Accents in UK – Jeremy Vine tackles them!
In Britain we are lucky enough to have a wide variety of accents. Personally I love the range of accents and an accent is part of a personal ‘brand’. Jeremy Vine was coached in a couple of accents on his show. Listen to the podcast. Jeremy was challenged to try to speak a couple of accents, [...]
Radio 2 Voice series – losing your voice
On Monday, Jeremy Vine interviewed the West End Singer, Connie Fisher, who lost her voice when starring in the lead role in ‘The Sound of Music’. The devestation of this is included in an interview Jeremy conducted with her. Listen to the interview here. In the case of Connie, she had a congenital fault with [...]
Voice Week on BBC Radio 2
I am very excited that Radio 2 with the excellent Jeremy Vine, is featuring a number of programmes on the Human Voice, ending with a celebration of the voice on Friday. Here is more information. Our personal brand is partly defined by our voices: the tone, volume, timbre all make us unique and memorable to [...]
Margaret Thatcher’s Communication Impact
You could not fail to realise that Margaret Thatcher died this week. The politician polarised opinion with her policies and whilst I personally didn’t agree with all her policies, I have been sickened by the “Death” parties – and the scarily misogynist comments about her. However, I wanted to focus on her vocal, communication and [...]
The perils of social media communication on your brand
I have mixed feelings about the backlash over the appointment of Paris Brown as the first Youth Police Commissioner for Kent, when her twitter account was made public. Here was a young woman who had been appointed to represent young people, in a very responsible job, yet she had made a number of very inappropriate [...]
A company projects its brand in many ways
A company projects its brand in many ways: its logo, Web site, advertising, office and even employee attire. Yet with such an emphasis on developing an appropriate small business marketing strategy, it is surprising that one of the most active customer touch points is often ignored. The phone call still reigns as the primary mode [...]
Being a Cold Calling Genius CD
Being a Cold Calling Genius Cold calling is something that most people will happily avoid at any costs. However it is an effective marketing activity and if done well enables you to start and develop business relationships with carefully targeted businesses. If you have a good product or service you need to let others know [...]
Pitch of Voice
One of the most frequent questions people ask when I give presentations is “How can I lower my voice?” Now this is possibly a loaded question: why would someone wish to lower their voice? I know that Margaret Thatcher famously lowered her voice, in order to become more ‘audible’ and acceptable to [...]
BAFTA acceptance speeches and branding
Watching the BAFTA awards last night, I was struck by how acceptance speeches add value to your personal brand, or otherwise. This also applies to stars announcing the awards. The way you prepare or otherwise tells the viewers and audience something about your personal brand and also how you wish to be perceived by others. [...]
Do they REALLY want to talk to us!
Last week my assistant was researching companies for a specific marketing campaign. She used the internet to research companies and created a database of information including a telephone number. BUT a significant number of the companies had NO telephone number on their website, or it was so deeply embedded within the company that it took [...]
The power of saying “NO!”
There have been two business situations in the last month, where I have had to say ‘No’ to clients, and prospects. On paper, both opportunities looked good, but the interaction I had with clients meant I had some doubts as to how the services would run. In the first case, an existing client was wanting [...]
How effective are you at representing your company or brand?
This week I attended a trade show, where over 500 companies were exhibiting. I was wanting to engage with specific companies – and existing clients, but was drawn into other companies by the effectiveness of their team to engage me as they walked past. Other companies were, at the very least, in effective at doing [...]
Communicating with people, not customers you BELIEVE are right for a product
Oh dear! The Apprentices seemed to miss the point again. I am sure we all fall into the trap of wanting to sell to people just like us; who have the same tastes, income, age as us. But unfortunately in order to become more successful in selling we have to be prepared to communicate with [...]
I “Hate” Corporates – The Apprentice BBC
What an interesting comment from one of the budding business partners of Lord Sugar: “I hate Corporates”. As Karren Brady correctly stated – you can’t have that attitude if you are seeking investment from a bank. Like many people in this country, I don’t work in the corporate environment, and have never done so: my [...]
