2013

November proved to be a winning month for John Stanley associates. After winning the Belmont WA Small Business Exporter of the Year Award, the next week we went to our local Chamber of Commerce awards night. We were awarded The 2012 Micro Business of the Year Award. This is awarded to the business in the […]

While I was passing through Dubai I came across this display. I have been promoting putting the familiar with the unfamiliar as a means of making consumers stop and stare. This is a great example of this. What are these guys selling…..you would never guess? Gin!

As I write this article I am seeing retailers getting ready for Christmas, one of the main selling months of the year. But, once Christmas is over then what? In the northern hemisphere retailers often hunker down for January as there is a chance of bad weather and consumers staying at home. In the southern

Over recent months I have been promoting the fact that “Pop Up” retailing is one of the major trends of the future. In the last month things seem to be popping up everywhere. I was in Ireland and went to a “Pop Up” park in Dublin. The community had build a park for three months

One of the themes for this month’s blog is Sense. Prof Jason Castro from Bates College and Chuka Chemnubhotla from the University of Pittsburgh released their research on Human Senses last month. They found that the human can only sense 10 types of smell. Fragrance Woody Fruity (non-citrus) Chemical Minty Sweet Popcorn Lemon Pungent Decay

There are a number of books that I am reading at present. Michael Shuman’s is one of them. I am passionate about promoting and developing local business and therefore this a book caught my eye. It takes a different approach to most and provides advice on how local business can get capital to develop their

As many of you will be aware one of my most poplar workshop is “Get rid of salespeople and develop day makers”. I was therefore fascinated to read the 2013 American Express service study that was released in September. This study took an interesting approach. It looked at the “feel good” factor and what made

In August, I presented my Ghost Town, Clone Town, Home Town presentation in Boddington, a rural town in Western Australia. The aim of this presentation is to work with small business in the community to address the needs of the consumer. This is a small town and many of the retailers are not using social

When I was in Chicago last month I met up with Kurt Fromherz from Connecticut. I have known Kurt for many years and he is one of the innovators in retail marketing. He identified, like me, that loyalty clubs are still an essential marketing tool, but consumers do not want their wallets and purses filled