Month: July 2011

How to waste time

Getting your priorities in order and keeping them so.

Hello there again.

Odd title but very appropriate is you find yourself going round in circles with too much to do. This happens from time to time to me too, so I know what it is like. Usually it’s because of:

1 Too many things to do that will take quite a bit of time to do, so they never get started and just pile up.

2 Constant interruptions so that you can never get anything finished.

3 A mounting number of tasks where you cannot complete them until someone else gets back to you or completes their part of the job.

Dealing with any of the above leads to a feeling of loss of control, increased frustration and high anxiety.

So how can it all be rationalised? This is what I do now:

1 Work out what only I can do and delegate the rest.

2 Allocate a sensible amount of time to a piece of work. If you know it will take 2 hours, give it that and take no calls or interruptions. Do not check email.

3 Stop checking email for more ‘must be done now’ actions. Learning to not react is the best way to sort out the things you really need to do right now. Most people don’t but lots of message senders want you to react immediately as it makes no difference to them if you have to abandon your work to sort out their issue.

If the above appears a bit hard on other people, that’s fine.

Having too much detail to sort out while the phone rings all the time will drive you to distraction. Have a good long think about how to prevent this happening and once you have a plan that will work and that will stick to, it all becomes  a lot easier to manage.

All the best-Roy Lewis

Our liqueurs and all made by hand – video now on Youtube

Proof that our liqueurs are handmade – it’s on YouTube now.

Hello,

Over the years, whenever I have been selling our liqueurs either at a consumer show or over the phone, it is always been a bit of a struggle convincing customers that our liqueurs really are made and bottled by hand.

You would think that this should be easy.

I do not have a large company, but most people think we are owned by Diageo or Seagram’s and that all our brands must be made in a giant factory on a high speed line.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but if you can’t actually show customers what we do, they just don’t believe it.

Well at last I have filmed a video of Hebridean Whisky Liqueur being made. This is the best one to show as it is the most complicated and you can see all the stages involved.

The amazing part of getting the video on to YouTube is that the software that comes with the Flip meno camera I have, also has a Movie magic option that joins together the clips and sets them to music – I chose a nice acoustic guitar tune. I had set aside a day to do this – it took less than 20 minutes, so winners all round there.

Have a look at the video: my profile name is ‘theliqueurman’ and choose ‘Making Hebridean Whisky Liqueur’

Following this one, I am now looking at what else I can film – I am amending our Online Survey too so that I can find out what customers would like to see. Nothing like asking the customers what they want. Novel idea that.

At this time of year, I am besieged by Show organisers wanting us to attend their events. They all say that the events will be great for us but when I find out the costs involved, the only ones to benefit are them, not us or our customers, who have to pay too much to get into the event.

My new policy is that a new event to us will have to be free for us to attend or it will not be considered. If it is a good one, then it is likely that we will do it again and pay for it. To make these events a success, the organisers need to take into account that the businesses attending need to make money and the public need to be sure they are not paying too high a price to buy a ticket for the show. The successful shows have this about right: most don’t.

More fun and games to come-bye for now.

Roy Lewis

 

 

I wonder what would happen if…..?

Finding out that customer want free delivery and how I found out that is what they wanted.

Hello everyone and welcome to another Blog.

This week I have have thinking about how to move our Liqueur business into new areas.

Considering that I manufacture liqueurs, it may come as a surprise to find out that I do not consider that I am in the Drinks business.

Rather, I am in the Gift business.

This means that all new products and initiatives have to be seen through the prism of the Gift market and our customers. I do not supply supermarkets, pubs or hotels – I sell direct via our website, at consumer shows and via specialist drinks retailers.

What this means is that I do not have a high overhead company unlike some of the companies that are in the Drinks business. They have factories to keep open so they need to shift the products to make room for the next lot coming down the line. What this means is that particularly at Christmas, it is a great time for consumers to buy Malt Whisky – you’ll never see it so cheap. The stocks have to be shifted as there is another warehouse-full about to be bottled and then sent to the supermarkets.

In the Gift business, customer service is more of an issue and one that has to be taken seriously. One change that I am about to move to is to offer our mail order customers ‘Free delivery’ for all orders.

Up to now, they had to spend @ £50-60 to get free delivery – now it will be free for all orders. Obviously, our prices will have to alter a bit, but not by as much as you would imagine as most of our customers tend to buy over 3 bottles at a time anyway.

How did I work out if this was what customers wanted? Well, I started asking them to fill in a simple surevy last Autumn at a few large shows and then sent an invitation to our online customers to fill in an online survey – in return for doing this for me, they and anyone they know, get 10% off any of our liqueurs for the rest of 2011.

The number one service that our survey respondents wanted was ‘Free delivery’ – and now they are going to have it. I shall write another blog after this sales season to let you know if the move to ‘Free delivery’ was successful

All the best-Roy Lewis