A picture paints a thousand words – even my words.

At last, my National Geographic subscription arrived (Christmas gift to self) and I was able to thumb its inspiring pages. No page was more provoking than that portraying the art of Jason deCaires Taylor, an artist, diver and photographer based in Mexico.

He uses the clear tropical waters as the backdrop for installation art exhibiting life size sculptures of ‘real people performing contemporary acts’.

The figures are cast from coral-friendly pH-neutral marine concrete, which soon host sponges and corals in turn attracting fish and colourfully assorted symbiosis of sea life.

Art is a multi-dimensional expression of feeling, emotion and service.

Service?

Yes, why not - service?

Why shouldn’t business communication tug at the human side of your client’s make up?

A procurement department sits all day tasked to source sustainably effective dip moulded plastic caps and sleeves, solutions for masking and protecting components in finishing.

Board Directors meet to consider financially and tax efficient solutions to build and protect their collective and individual wealth.

Architects and building groups are looking for build partners to effect roofing strategies across their development programmes.

But they are all ‘people’. So why don’t we treat them as such and write more personality into our CRM – our business communication strategy. Write to set yourself apart from the hungry competition.

Take this blog for example. Baited with a sickening headline, pictures of fish, an SEO-friendly video – and a few well chosen words (that is what I do after all), and I have a simple excuse to re-canvass my database.

The blog is like a crossbow bolt to fire by e-mail across the desks of those I hope to do business with, if not now, then at some time in the future. I sincerely hope that includes you.

Please call me - 02476 609 104

Or visit www.aspiruscopy.com

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG - driving sales through your CRM

“ I think we should, but I don’t have time…”

As part of a corporate CRM, the blog is a great way to keep the sales communications plate spinning at the simple push of the return key.

Remember the days of the Newsletter when we used to fell and pulp forests to print and post interesting collections of headline-driven words and illustrated articles to remind clients and prospects of the breadth of service genres we had to offer ?    Well, now we blog it.

I don’t need to tell you how many stamps, trees and envelopes you save and how many dustbins now avoid the thud of the wasted mailing. But, perhaps I do have to tell you how the blog helps drive your CRM and how little of your time (practically none in fact) is required to make it happen.

Words, style, frequency, contents – leave all that to ASPIRUS Words.

By way of an example, let me show you how it works with Sinclair & Rush in Maidstone, Kent. They are a global plastics manufacturer and distributor, fabricating a huge range of product to protect components and goods in the engineering, finishing, HVAC, automotive, electronics and – well anyone needing to cap, plug, package and display work-in-progress, components and merchandising goods.

Materials revolve around the world of Plastic and the varying derivations thereof. Industrial, transit and display applications are limited only by the constraints of one’s imagination. They have a corporate website that umbrellas and collection of sub-sites, each presenting core brands, products and applications.

Customers use Sinclair & Rush products in such different ways that one would probably not recognise the other as having the need to buy from the same manufacturing supplier. On the face of it this presents a massive headache for the sales team – each prospect call being different from the last in terms of need, solution and application.

MD, Peter Boulton, started working with ASPIRUS in the Summer 2011. Having been referred because of a need for writing and communication skills, he soon realised that whilst words were the ultimate product, the actual service is based on a remarkable ability to appraise the corporate environment and build exciting solutions into the communication strategy.

Peter Boulton is a ‘Noah thinker’. A corporate thinker who instead of simply predicting rain, steps forth and builds an ark. Goals are important and their pragmatic delivery essential. His aim is to turn his technical team around, from an outbound sales resource to an inbound sales consultancy.

An effective communications CRM is already being implemented, working the database with a series of generic, brand, industry and application-based mailings and e-mailings, all written by ASPIRUS. Now, the thread that holds the process together and accelerates / supports the individual messaging, is the Sinclair & Rush blog. Each article reflects a product / brand / application and links directly to the appropriate web site page to support the reader’s understanding.

It has just launched and we will use this ASPIRUS blog to follow its progress: 
 http://plastic.blog.co.uk/

What S&R gain:

1.       Strongly branded regular communications.

2.       A zero cost key stroke presenting an illustrated case study.

3.       Examples of application, problems and solutions.

4.       A tool that removes the need to ‘predict contact timing’.

5.       A growing archive of brand / product examples that the sales team can use to illustrate solution possibilities.

6.       An electronic outbound to inspire application-related inbound.

And at what cost:

1.       A mutually agreeable fee.

2.       Ten minutes only, as part of a monthly marketing agenda – that’s all, as ASPIRUS do all the research and build the article from the half dozen key points offered by the Sales Manager.

3.       Well that is all – you really do not need to use your own time to gain the benefits.

Add life to your own CRM -

call ASPIRUS on 02476 609 104

www.aspiruscopy.com

Silverstone Education - Golden Opportunity

‘Silverstone motor racing circuit is to house the first of a new wave of specialist university technical colleges (UTCs)’ – when I read this this morning I was at first intrigued and then inspired.

Although my job is to write and stylise words to fine tune the corporate message – my life started at Lanchester Polytechnic sponsored by Rolls Royce in Coventry.

What a wonderful opportunity Silverstone is going to provide: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15216987 . Students aged 14 to 16 will combine mainstream studies – English, Maths, Science, PE  etc – with ‘technical studies’. These form 60% of their timetable. Their remaining time is focussed on specialities including high-performance engineering; motor sports; event management and hospitality.

Wow. But like all things new this has its objectors. Many no doubt reject the idea simply because it’s flag ship thinking of the Conservative Party. Others throw scorn because it’s different, radical, hybrid etc etc.

Well, frankly, it’s not that different, radical or hybrid now is it?

Before I was taught milling, grinding and metal work on the shop floor of Rolls Royce’s apprentice school, I did my A levels in a year at Henley College of Further Education (Coventry) – a Technical College.

Whilst I read Chaucer, Keynes and Sartre, their Catering Dept taught cheffing, waiting and hospitality management skills at one end, with mechanical and electrical engineering skills being honed at the other.

Late 70s Coventry understood the values of vocational education. Perhaps even the skills being shared back then were too late for the motor industry, gas turbine manufacture and chemicals processing that preceded the call centres and Council Offices, which now stand in their stead.

This is still an engineering centre with manufacturing ambition – all it needs is investment and skill. At the moment, you are more likely to get the former … but where is the skill?

Political folklore paints an over-generalised picture of a manufacturing wasteland. But these are views based on FT100 despair. We forget that UK Limited is run by SMEs.

Take Double Glazing for instance. Simon Jarman, MD of Everest told James Hurley of the Telegraph in January this year that: “…despite being the second-largest player in the windows-and-doors market by turnover, Everest has just 3% of a fragmented sector.”

At least 80% of this £1.6b industry (IBIS World) is made up of the plethora of small owner / fitter businesses like Streamline Windows, each of whom would like a little more skill from the school-leaver fitter they might hire. Multiply the same problem across the breadth of industry variants across the Midlands alone and the need is the same.

OK. Back to title. A possible downside of the Silverstone association is that every budding engineering student will want to be a Button or a Hamilton (well, a Button at least!). But what’s wrong with ambition and aspiration – nothing at all.

Take a look at Pasquale Lattinedu. Who? Just the nicest man with the best ever job in the world. Colloquially referred to as Bernie’s right hand man, Pasquale is responsible for just about everything logistical at each of the F1 meetings across the world. From Pits to Paddocks, motoring oil to cooking fat, paparazzi to pepperoni. If he hasn’t ticked the box, it just doesn’t happen. As event management goes – this is top of the pops.

So, if a young person gets the chance to learn something exciting at Silverstone UTC and you’re concerned about aimless aspiration – go talk to Pasquale.

ASPIRUS.

www.aspiruscopy.com

Lady Godiva - think of the embarrassment we'd have saved her...

Think of the embarrassment we could have saved Lady Godiva if only she’d used Facebook and Twitter to network her social message as we’re doing for Coventry now:

What I find wonderful about working with words is that the same 26 letters can be used to enhance the presentation of all manner of product and service. Obviously they’re used in a different order and frequency and the syntax varies somewhat, but the basic tools are the same.

I may have to do some research - but that’s on my time not recharged. Getting to know my colloquial way around the plastics moulding industry was fun in June. Once energised, Google responded bravely to my seemingly endless searches for Injection Moulding, Vinyl Dip Moulding, Thermoforming and, well, life just wouldn’t be the same without a little Extrusion.

Re-styling and writing the new web site and promotional portfolio for a Westminster IFA required less on line research but much reading around a once familiar subject.

The aim here was to set the message apart from the ubiquitous competition and inject personality into the prose. The copy needs to reflect the ideal audience, so they recognise themselves in it as they read. And the individual style of the advisors can be stylistically written to pre-empt the initial meeting, preparing the strength of the crucial client / advisor relationship from the out.

So it has been refreshing to contribute to the efforts of Coventry Cathedral’s marketing and communications team. No ‘industry’ research, just fresh ideas and observations drawn on experience and creativity.

Preparations for their 2012 Golden Jubilee celebrations are well under way and involvement has immersed me in some of the rich history that pervades the Cathedral Quarter’s one thousand years of lives, lifestyles and architecture – all of which we’re developing in press and blog story lines as part of the celebration message.

By developing the story rather then revealing the history in one, we build a relationship not only with the press but with the public as well. The reveal is reflected on the web sub-site and the whole thing is to be balanced with a social networking campaign.

Targeting and motivating local communities - schools, families, colleges etc - needs a fine tuned message across multiple media to deliver it.

Think of the embarrassment we could have saved Lady Godiva if only she’d used Facebook and Twitter to network her social message as we’re doing for Coventry now.

http://www.aspiruscopy.com/

Of Web Copy, Needles and Haystacks.

Too often I look at a web site and shudder at the blinding volume of visual noise that throws a smokescreen of confusion across a miss-match of magazine-style headline options. Behind this is an astonishing Pandora’s Box of pagination revealing layer after layer of promises but no real corporate ethos, personality and service. Well, it might be in the haystack somewhere.

Traditional services and professional practices tend to do one of two things – they brief a web designer and buy on price, or they syndicate to their professional body’s stock site, filling the gaps with their own images, messages and USP’s … but all too often not even that.

Financial Services is a case in point. But, Accountancy and Legal practices are not far behind in their decade of transition from ‘faceless necessity’ to ‘hip groovy friend of the people’ … “follow me on Facebook and we’ll tweet you the latest happenings”.

Slow down chaps.

I need advice in forming a partnership; dealing with probate; establishing a trust; acquiring a business; setting up a group pension scheme.

I want more traditional gravitas and less ‘I wanna be your best mate innit!’

There is nothing wrong (and everything right with) applying traditional writing skills to any communication platform befitting the business / client exchange. From web site to brochure; newsletter to blog; letter to e-mail. Your 140 character tweets can even be fine tuned to deliver the message appropriate to the nature of the business.

To return to the Financial Services business web site – by having us lend a commercially attuned ear to the practitioners’ explanation of their business and the type of person fitting their ‘ideal customer’ match, they’re now the proud owners of a fresh armoury of new business development materials:

They have long copy letters targeted by client segment that Drayton Bird (Mr long-copy guru) would be delighted with. They have corporate and personal bios on LinkedIn that reflect the personalities of the persons involved. They have follow up materials that rally the initial proposition, in style and tone as well as the content itself.

And, they have a web site. One different from stock IFA sites. A site carrying virtually oral qualities, written in digestible, relevant, informative prose. One of character, cadence and clarity.

Plain English, plain speaking, pure correspondence. Words that work.

www.aspiruscopy.com

Great Knights off Libya's Thundery Shores

We were just 40 short miles from the busy shores and ports of Libya, where refugees queued with fear behind them and uncertainty ahead.

Inbound, arms and expertise to fuel and influence the war were being exchanged for shallow promises of loyalty and ongoing supplies of oil in whatever new Libya might eventually unfold.

A lone Bell UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter of the Armed Forces of Malta flew low along the shore line on one of its twice daily patrols.

The memorable phwhud phwhud phwhud of its rotors announced the presence of its authorityto ensure that any overloaded floating refugee camps continue north towards Italy.

The uproar would be enough to rock the poolside cocktails if, heaven forbid, one were to slip the net and dock alongside a sleek Manhattan 63 of the plentiful Sunseeker range docked in Portomaso’s Marina adjacent to the Hilton here on Malta’s steadfast rock.

It’s only because my mind was fuelled by a particularly good thriller (a lightweight Peter Robinson but a great post conference read) that I noticed even this much activity. Poolside, Hilton, Portomaso at St Julian, Malta was disturbed only by the gentle rustle of the palms overhead and the occasional gloup of a bubble easing through the sea of mint to break the surface of my Mojito.

It is so pleasing, to the point of shock and disbelief, to fly somewhere (in just under 3 hours) where the British are so welcome – rare indeed. Here still the post and phone boxes are red, the steering wheel is where you’d expect it to be and they drive on the left hand side of the road … mostly!

Laptop now resting in my Marina-view room and replete from a breakfast befitting the Knights themselves, today my breakout room was a quiet sun lounge with deck service from the bar and ‘Bad Boy’ – my book.

The Hilton Resort Hotels are a different breed to their standard native city series. You can’t compare the two even though they fly the same flag. Take the formulaic service levels of the resort hotels and add the kindness and culture of the Maltese people and you put icing on the Hilton cake in Portomaso.

The Hotel itself has several dining experiences. Poolside dining is an option, though fewer covers are available than requested. But note, for corporates and incentive groups, these guys are well versed in setting up a privatised al fresco function with choreography worthy of the Queen’s Birthday Celebration Parade.

The atmosphere of the Bottega del Vino is very pleasant and the food excellent. For an Asian interruption to Mediterranean cuisine the elegant Blue Elephant Thai repertoire can be savoured from its private deck overlooking the Marina. Dining beyond the hotel is an extensive must with something for every palate and pocket.

We enjoyed one of the best Indian meals ever – and we’re based in the Midlands so there was much to beat. Equally, squid, octopus, barracuda, shark, bass and bream are just part of the local catch to be enjoyed in any one of the dozens of water side restaurants in the old Spinola Bay. The flavours are Mediterranean, the influence Italian, the result wonderful, and great value.

For a pizza with attitude, you have to try Raffael’s Restaurant where fellow guests applaud the arrival of the truly enormous Calzone Bolognese – comparable in size only to Desperate Dan’s Cowpat Pie.

Chic this is not, so if you want to wear the sleeker threads you hauled all the way through Gatwick then the Marina Restaurants at Portomaso are a must, at least for one lunch or evening.

There are eight establishments set together and tiered overlooking the chandlers’ dream and boat voyeur’s steamy high below. The boats reflect a chic wealth in their gleaming chrome and the restaurants are priced accordingly.

That intimated, there is a good range and if you’re sensible with the wine selection (how does that work again!?) you may still get it through on expenses.

'Do Brazil' kills cows and grills them before your hungry eyes. Al Molo offers a fine Italian menu. The Spoon is Chinese, whilst Zen offers a delightfully refined Japanese alternative.

Nightlife is extensive in St Julian. From The Hilton, one of several Casinos on Malta is right on the doorstep adjacent to the Conference Centre. Next to this, 22 is a bar on the Tower’s 22^nd floor but you’ll have to tell me what you think as it and its architecturally naïve home is way beyond my social comfort zone.

If you have to walk more than 4 minutes to find what you are looking for, then you’ve taken a wrong turn – or Portomaso is not for you.

Our thanks go once again to United Travel our Destination partners in Malts & Gozo - truly superb.

ASPIRUS

Incentive Travel

02476 609 104

A piece of the Middle East – insh’a Allah

It was just eighteen short months ago that I was in Cairo on an inspection trip, building the itinerary for a group incentive.

For over 4,500 years the Great Pyramids of Giza have stood over the extraordinary bloody turmoil that has blighted and corrupted the countries evolving in the geographic arc from Turkey round to Morocco to this very day.

Eighteen months ago we marvelled at the relics of an ancient world dubbed the creation of civilisation. Having just finished reading “Jerusalem – the Biography” by Simon Sebag Montefiore it is easier to understand the current conflicts and the desperate history on which they are based. In Syria this morning the Sunni majority population hurled makeshift missiles at the tanks of Bashar al-Assad’s Shia Government, their sandals kicking up clouds of four thousand years of skeletal dust and decay.

One of the overpowering feelings of hope that quite literally warmed my heart as I spoke with our Egyptian partners and their staff came from the fact that here, in the sweltering heat of down town Cairo on the soulful banks of the River Nile, Arab worked and lived hand in hand and side by side with Christian.

We cast off on a felucca excursion as Nile traders had done for hundreds of years. Our guide, Muhamed Samy, was a professor at the University, is so knowledgeable and a joy to listen to. When asked he said that he, Arab, lived alongside Christian ‘because it is so’.

It was Ramadan at the time. Muhamed and Rehab sat with the little water they were permitted in the mid day heat, whilst we guests and Egyptian Christian hosts enjoyed a cool beer and hearty on-board buffet.

The problem with ‘because it is so’, is that it can so easily become ‘not so’.

Sadly it seems that ‘not so’ is becoming the new ‘so’ in Cairo. There appeared to be a settling down after the removal of Hosni Mubarak, but this was possibly more of a lull after the euphoria of the people’s apparent triumph over thirty years of an oppressive regime.

Jordan was an up and coming Incentive Travel destination, which is now in the danger zone. Egypt, well Cairo and the Nile delta regions are a risk not worth taking. Tunisia is troubled, though The Residence north of Tunis Airport is still most definitely worth the effort.

Skip on round the southern Med and even Morocco has joined the worrying loss of safe place status thanks to the recent bomb attack in Jamaa el Fna in its famous Medina quarter.

Nil desperandum – there is still a world of safe adventure and innocent play waiting to host your Incentive Travel winners. And we’re not referring to the recent well publicised American ‘team building’ event in Abbottabad, including abseiling, paint-balling and dawn panoramas by helicopter.

We’ve a Maltese recce in a couple of weeks. Despite its close proximity to Libya (being just 60k offshore), its fortifications have seen off better men and open warmly still to welcome deserved guests.

Yes, you may see the odd Tornado fly over heading south from Italy and double take at the dolphin as it breaks water, which could be a sub launched cruise. But Potomaso still suns itself peacefully in sartorial elegance, serviced by The Hilton and a wonderful array of chic boutiques, bars, restaurants and clubs.

The genesis of multiculturalism has decipherable records dating back nearly five thousand years and still can’t make up its mind where it wants to be and how it’s going to share.

Travel is a faux blend of cultural mix but still offers those who partake of it a glorious array of colour, character and cuisine far from the mundane pressures of meeting targets and managing domestic life.

For those who believe in the values of Travel as an Incentive, there will always be a new horizon worth working for – insh’a Allah.

Make a difference to your sales and staff motivation

by calling me directly today on

07500 896 783