As the Daily Telegraph reports newly crowned prime minister Gordon Brown has appointed Sir Alan Sugar to the new Business Council for Britain.

Yet another body that will meet and offer advice to the government that the government will simply ignore.

The council is tasked with advising Government the impact its policies have on the UK's competitiveness.

Don't you think that's rather strange when there are organisations that already fulfil that role. 

Hold on let me think, which ones are they...

How about the CBI? They never seem backward at coming forward to make the point that this government has slowly strangled almost every business, school, university and charity with bucket loads of red tape.

Then again what about Business Link, doesn't it feed back what it finds from the people who use it?

Oh, hold on don't we also have the myriad Chambers of Commerce around the country. Aren't they meant to reflect the voice of their members?

What about newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and the rest of the media, including bloggers of course?! Surely they all comment on the impact government has on business too?

And then we have all the civil servants who deal with industry, commerce and anything to do with business. Are they all deaf? Or maybe Gordon Brown doesn't want to listen to civil servants.

Plus, how many business people already bend ministers and the prime ministers ear already? Are they going to be ignored too?

Finally, we're a democracy, so can't her Majesty's opposition provide feedback as to the impact the government has on us all.

Ok, rant over, normal service will now resume...

 CBI fulfils that role already. And in fact and with a slightly broader range of

This is a review of a jolly useful little category on Garry Conn's blog on making money online. It's called Google Adsense Tips and is one of several categories related to making money.

As I read through the postings I noticed that Garry has removed a number of links as part of his overall blog concern about using nofollow for links.

Unfortunately that makes one or two of the postings unusable.

However, the rest of the postings, with their comments, more than make up for it.

Why Google Adsense Doesn't Make Money

Google Adsense is used to display short ads on blogs and web sites.  So much many of us know. Or maybe we don't?

Garry Conn reckons that if you've a blog about making money online - and let's face it almost everyone on the Internet hitting those sites knows lots about Adsense. And you're not going to make massive amounts of money from it.

As Garry also says there are a lot of blogs out there that would benefit from using Adwords that don't.

The real point that Garry makes is that us bloggers aren't going to make each other rich by clicking on Adsense Ads. Because we all know about the ads and pretty much ignore them.

No Adsense Ads - Does It Make Sense?

Garry has removed these ads from this site and uses them on his other blogs to target people who know pretty much nothing about the whys and wherefores of Internet Marketing and will click on the odd Ad and maybe even buy.

In fact to encourage us Garry even shows a couple of days Adsense earnings and each one is more than I've made in 3 months of restarting Google Adsense on my own blog.

Making Money With Google Adsense

The real value to Garry's posts is the sheer volume of interesting comments he gets. And the value increases because Garry discloses a lot of useful information about what he does to make money to cover the mortgage through Adsense.

The free consultancy that Garry gives out is great, on one post's comment ( and I'll let you find it within the Adsense category) he spells out step by step how to make money from a blog about gambling. And I don' think he gambles himself.

In summary a great category for a truly interesting blog. Check it out.

Oh, and before you go click my Google Ads!!

Despair no more!

Garry Conn has redesigned his blog and come up with the natty idea of getting people to "sponsor" one of his categories and then to comment on it. He wins and so does the "sponsor."

Category Sponsorship

This is a great idea for Garry as the number of comments he's generated so far on his category sponsorship post is pretty good.

In fact I've actually spent almost the whole morning reading a number of intriguing posts on his site. Including one about "do follow" and "no follow" links with Andy Beard, amongst others.

And it's a great idea for the rest of us because Garry provides links back to the "category sponsor."

Check out my review of Garry's Google Adsense Tips.

In a strange way this short series with Mary, Queen of Shops doing a nice Gordon Ramsay to fashion boutiques has been fun and contrary to what I expected not always the same.

As I've noted before it seems it's invariably the case that the shop owners start off well then get into a rut and their shops become more charity shops than fashion houses.

Welcome To Fashionable Islington

Divorced couple Ruth and Anthony continue to run their boutique unhappily called "Comfort and Joy." Designer Ruth is producing clothes that compete head-on with major chains and she's trying to compete on price.

Not a good situation to be in.

When Mary suggests changing the name Anthony is not impressed and explains the name is a clever reference to a 70's Sex manual called "The Joy of Sex" by Dr Alex Comfort.

As Mary points out it's a book that the tribe the shop should be attracting wouldn't even have heard of.

So which tribe's that then?

Clever Mary Portas has realised that with Ruth designing and making her clothes for the shop the shop could clean-up by selling them to the individualistic woman shopper.

The first thing you notice as you walk in the shop is a central Berlin wall down the middle made up of hanging rails and topped by handbags.

On one side is Anthony's clothes a mish mash of designers sourced from around the globe. and the other contains Ruth's designs - some good, some not so hot.

Down With The Walls!

The first thing Mary suggests is removing the Berlin wall. Anthony is not impressed.

Then Mary suggests taking down the wall that blocks Ruth's design studio from the shop, so Ruth can go out and talk to the customers about the designs or simply say hello from the design table. And of course Anthony wasn't impressed.

In fact Mary got quite frustrated by Anthony's lack of enthusiasm for many of the points that at one moment she looked as if she'd throw in the towel.

Finally she takes Anthony material shopping to Liberty's and there she finds he's an absolute star for choosing exactly the right materials.

She also gives them both the chance to dress a side street shop window at Harvey-Nicks. And they do a good job of it. And of course Anthony is not impressed by what he sees as being "damned with faint praise."

After many moments of Anthony being under-whelmed, under-impressed and reluctant he relents and takes part in changing the shops' name to "Handmade and Found" (originally made and found and subtly improved by Mary by to Handmade and Found), designs and stamps the bags with the new logo and designs the new shop window and incorporates his designer buy-ins with Ruth's garments.

And The Result?

Of course the refit brought Ruth's designer backroom and her credentials out into the shop.

Anthony's materials really added something to Ruth's designs and they both found that they worked well together. The shop also become one unified shop rather than a shop with battle lines drawn between two talented and creative people.

The tribe they brought into to see the garments were very pleased and Ruth (if only she could see her own value) is able to charge more than she has been.

"My son is now an ‘entrepreneur.’ That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job." - Ted Turner.

Do you tell people you're an entrepreneur, or remember this one, intrepreneur?

You can't really call yourself an entrepreneur because it's a label other people attribute to those that have started and run companies. So until other people start calling you an entrepreneur you're simply working in your business, like every other employed person.

I'm not saying entrepreneurs make a success of their businesses. It's just that they (and their families) take what is perceived as, and usually is, a massive risk to go into business for themselves.

So someone who has a job and buys and sells on eBay may become an entrepreneur, but until their whole life is on the line and income from their business feeds the family they're not an entrepreneur.

When Cortez landed in South America and was massively outnumbered some of his men attempted to steal one of his ships to go back to Cuba. To ensure no mutiny could happen again, Cortez scuttled all but a small one of his ships, by claiming they were not seaworthy. That meant he and his men had no choice but to defeat the Aztecs or die trying. History shows who won that one - Cortez!

In the same way an entrepreneur thinks only of the business as he sets it up and gets it going.

So my definition of an entrepreneur is "someone who thinks of an idea for a business and with all the resources at their disposal focuses on making that business move forward, either to success or failure - either one is a learning experience for them."

What do you think?

At last I've done it!

I may be mad but I finally decided to transfer to the new blogger widgetised template.

It meant losing some of the customisation that I'd built up in the previous template. Although to be fair I didn't lose that much.

And I'm gaining...

Labels!

So if you fancy stuff about Tycoon or The Apprentice they'll all be neatly labeled.

Hurrah!

Why did I decide to go for it now?

Because Internet Explorer wasn't rendering my customised template properly (my fault I know) but it was fine in Firefox.

By the way Firefox is now pretty much the only browser I use. I did use IE6 to check whether my blog displayed OK but I'm hoping that'll be less of an issue with this change.

Let me know what you think.

Richard Bandler (co-founder of NLP), Peter Thomson (owner of Achiever's Edge) and me (Power Packed Copywriting and Coaching) all have something in

common.

So what is it I hear you shout!

We're all on this blog in audio form.

Thanks to the existence of amazing technology I've put a BOXFILE in the sidebar of this blog that gives you a number of files that you can download, or just listen to online.

In no particular order they're 

• Richard Bandler - talking about NLP and other good stuff
• Steve McDermott - very funny presenter and won European speaker of the year award a few years ago
• Peter Thomson - an example introduction from his Achiever's Edge monthly CD programme
• Me - an introduction to me and this blog (hear what I sound like, am I sincere - you decide!)

So have a listen and feel free to leave a comment, which was the best audio, who was the best speaker, what nugget did you personally discover? 

How often have you heard that every business needs to be
different and unique to its competitors? In other words it has to have a USP.

You've probably heard of the marketing term USP. Unique selling proposition or
unique selling point.

Has the concept got a little pedestrian!?

Everyone claims to have one. Unfortunately the USP is often stated as  the company offers quality, speed or dependability. Features you'd want any company to provide as standard.

Having a USP is a good thing, if you get it right...

After all the attitude of trying to differentiate yourself from your
competition is a useful one for your prospects. It gives them something
they can latch onto to explain to themselves why they're buying
you.

The only problem with a USP is it's completely internally
focused. We're telling the customer how we're different.

We're saying we're special because we're the lowest priced, or we
offer a 20 year guarantee or we offer the largest range of colours
and so on.

Introducing the UCP

In addition to understanding why you're different you need to
create your own Unique Customer Position or UCP.

Your UCP is oriented towards your customers. So for example.
Let's say your USP is currently "we service more cars than any
other garage in the community."

That has no customer orientation to it, does it?

The UCP could be "we help customers to keep their cars in top
mechanical shape for longer."

That UCP addresses the customer concern that they want their cars
to be at their peak of performance for as long as possible before
needing another service.

That's a lot more interesting for a customer compared to the USP
of "we service more cars than any other garage in the community."

This idea of a Unique Customer Position is applicable to any
business and any industry,

The other point about having a unique customer position is that
you can easily use it during a sales call as the customer
immediately understands what you're talking about and the benefit
to them.

I don't think anyone else has ever used the term Unique Customer
Position in this context so you're heard it here first.

As I warned in a previous post about Tycoon there are some interesting businesses being worked on over, possibly, the next 10 weeks.

The show is very Apprentice like: pictures of smart suited men in Bentley's, images of London and quick cutting between sweating "apprentice entrepreneurs" maybe we should call them "appreneurs"?

The appreneurs seemed to have thought they'd already won the competition by getting into the final 10 companies. Certainly that was the initial smug expression the competitors wore when they started the program. By the end of the first 2 weeks they looked distinctly more frazzled as Peter Jones looked worriedly at them and asked slightly searching questions in a Dragon's Den like meeting at the end of two weeks so he could decide which companies to invest a further £20,000 in.

So far it's a bit like The Apprentice and a bit like Dragon's Den...

So here's my twopence:

Tom Thurlow

Tom Thurlow seems to have taken a leaf from Richard Branson's book by starting a student's newspaper. Tom's vision was that the newspaper would be free to the customer and paid for by adverts. He managed to impress initially by calling the newspaper "Snap."

What he knew but didn't tell Peter Jones were:

• Piers Morgan, probably the most famous news editor known, was starting a paid for newspaper for kids
• Tom's printer wasn't getting a newspaper mock-up to show when he'd expected

Also the newspaper turned out to be a folded A3 flimsy piece of paper which looked to be uninteresting. And yet Tom claimed to be proud of it.

My Advice: Don't invest any more money in Tom and sack him because he obviously doesn't understand business yet.

Elizabeth Hackford

Elizabeth Hackford decided to go down the Innocent fruit drinks route but with a dash of Vodka in hers. So isn't that an alcopop?

Peter Jones wielded a bottle of drink that was exactly like hers. She claimed hers wasn't from concentrate, the one Peter had said "not from concentrate." So nil points for market research.

Peter advised her to come up with a great name to get attention for the drink - rather like "Death" as a name for cigarettes. So she came up with some really pedestrian names and after talking further with Peter decided on something that wouldn't sound too good in a bar, you know, "could I have a Fruka please?"

I noticed that she's got an equally insane name now on her web site: VTox. If you're an extreme sports junkie (like Elizabeth) and you know mountaineering terminology you could translate VTOX when ordering a drink as "can I have a Very TOXic drink?"

There's nothing wrong with a me-too product but there has to be something interesting about it - as Peter says - a good name.

All in all I was under impressed with Elizabeth "make it happen" Hackford. Particularly when she tearfully exclaimed that she would move mountains for Peter.

My Advice: Rename the drink, something like "Mule Kick." Also give her some more rope to hang herself with next week.

Iain Morgan

Iain Morgan actually seemed reasonably clear as to what he was doing: importing and selling radio-controlled toy helicopters.

Other than a few brief glances that's all we say of Iain until presentation time to bid for money from Peter to go forward.

So he produced a presentation that showed exactly why he needed every last penny of the £20,000 Peter Jones had to invest this week.

And of course he got it, because without further investment to import the helicopters he'd have nothing to sell!

My Advice: Seems to know what he's doing from the ordering point of view. My only thought is the quality of the helicopter.

Lauren Pope

Lauren Pope was producing "thicker, longer" hair extensions. To me they looked like nicely packaged hair extensions. I don't claim to be an expert in the product though. Peter thought that they would go well in Top Shop. Great...

Lauren wanted to go to China (I think) to investigate sources of hair for the extensions. She was disappointed when Iain won all Peter's investment money.

Again Lauren didn't really feature too much in this episode.

My Advice: Use the phone and ask for samples from a select few suppliers!

Justin Chieffo

Justin Chieffo is producing an environmentally friendly carrier bag dispenser. My wife immediately said, "that would be really useful." My thought was - isn't it just a carrier bag stuffed with more carrier bags?

Still it's certainly an interesting idea. It should mesh well with "bags for life".

That said I noticed that local Sainsbury's had a day when you could take as many "bags for life" as you liked. All the bags went and Sainsbury's didn't need anymore old throw-away bags? Well certainly all the "bags for life" went but I've not actually seen anyone using one. Even I have two in my car and haven't actually remembered to take them out to re-use.

So an interesting concept and one that all us environmentally concerned people are interested in...but we don't often do as we say do we?

That said whenever Justin is talked at by Peter Jones he gets very tense, anxious and looked incredibly worried. Rather like a tailor who's made the Emperor's new clothes and doesn't want to get found out.

He also tried to go for £15,000 investment for no other reason than to get rid of Ian. What a stupid thing to do when you consider the winner gets the profits of everyone else! So he's trying to cut his profits by getting rid of one company!

My Advice: Really hit all the supermarkets with the concept. But first actually target a few stores and ask if you can try it out there. Then present the results to the supermarkets. If the idea is going to work the supermarkets have the biggest vested interest (reduced costs) in getting it going. Then if the supermarkets show no interest bin the idea.

Helen James and Cathy Caudwell-Todd

Helen James and Cathy Caudwell-Todd had come up with a fun name for a range of gardening garments aimed at women. A good idea but one that was only hitting part of a big market. So Peter Jones suggested that they rename their range so they could take in men and kids gardening garments. The pair were most put out but on mature reflection realised Peter had a point and renamed the clothes SOD for men and SOD for women. They also paid a fair bit for some well produced polo shirts that looked fairly classy.

In fact they then went on to sell over a £1,000 worth of clothes from their web site in the week. The winner so far!

Peter had a lot of praise for them, particularly as they'd taken onboard what he'd said and made money too.

My Advice: These two are ones to keep. They're doing well we just need to see that they can capitalise on their early lead without having to pay for advertising and I can think of lots of different ways you could get PR for fashionable gardening clothes.

Is It Worth Watching?

I found the opening episode interesting.

My main concern is that Peter Jones is not great as a "balls of steel" entrepreneur's presenter. Maybe he'll grow on me but at the moment I believe he should have sacked Tom and didn't and going on what Elizabeth thought was OK with a name given her more of a hard time.

The other concern I have is that you didn't see any interaction with the businesses customers or suppliers.

Still it is week one, so like Tom and Elizabeth I'll see what happens next week.

This is a test post to allow me to find out how Google is indexing my site.

I wrote an article called "Do Your Adverts Sell?" in early September 2006 about the importance of direct advertising compared to branding advertising and how Cannes Lions are what Ad agencies chase rather than sales!

This year the Cannes Lion Award are 17th to 23rd June, so if you're not there now I suspect you already know you're not an award winner!

Suzanne Vranica, writing in the Wall Street Journal notes that Yahoo and Google are going to Cannes with hundreds of staff to pitch digital media as the medium to go for to the big, and not so big, Ad agencies.

At the same time the article notes there are executives going to recruit stars at Cannes to beef up their digital offerings.

Cannes Lions are probably the advertising equivalent of the Oscars. And like the Oscars generally they don't reflect how well an advert sells the product but how arty, or how much "impact" or how well designed an ad is.

Hopefully with the digital media's intense interest in analysis the Lions will begin to reflect the important ratio of (cost of Ad Campaign/Total Value of Sales-(Cost of Sales).

So good luck to Yahoo, Google and all the others sending out the digital advertising message and good luck to those agencies looking to recruit the young digital lions to their zoo.

Right Kristina you've done The Apprentice how about persuading Sir Richard Branson to put on another series of  "The Rebel Billionaire" which you could go into and win!

But seriously, I'd be surprised if Richard Branson wasn't deciding whether to offer her a job. After all it's rare that you get to see a potential employee put through their paces so you can evaluate them at your leisure. And one that almost everyone had tipped to win.

Plus, and I'm sure this will appeal to him as the ultimate PR animal, if he asks Kristina to come and see him for a chat that's news!

And as for Katie Hopkins...

Hopefully she's stopped talking about herself as a pantomime villain now and recognised that she's shot herself in the foot with the way she's behaved.  Sir Alan reckoned she was unemployable. I don't actually think that's the case. It depends on how she sorts herself out.

In Katie's case I'd say she's given the word articulate a bad name because she can talk smoothly about all manner of things - some of which she seems to think up and react to on the spur of the moment, rather like Simon Ambrose!

Anyway The Apprentice is pretty much over. I'll keep a weather eye on Simon and Tre (a good double act name), Kristina and possibly Katie and let you know anything I find that seems interesting.

After 12 weeks Sir Alan finally made up his mind.

Rather than polishing a tried and true older apprentice he went for the one who claimed he would be malleable because he was "not fully formed."

So Simon Ambrose becomes the third apprentice and Kristina Grimes grits her teeth, gets her hair done and smiles during the "You've Been Hired" programme.

Interestingly Katie Hopkins was in the audience at "You've Been Hired"  and Sir Alan suggested that she hadn't needed to resort to the tactics she did. If she'd wanted to get the job with Sir Alan I'd agree.

Anyway, the point is that Simon who has not demonstrated very much ability at anything except break dancing and, according to Tre, having a photographic memory gets the job.

Well done Sir Alan for popping Simon's belief that he's a good leader - no, I think not. Maybe in time, we'll see.

In the meantime I've got 38 weeks until the next Apprentice. So I'm looking forward to Tycoon on ITV with Peter Jones starting on the 19th June.

Last Thursday I was so excited because just as I left for a networking meeting I noticed that my blog had attracted 998 hits. I knew with the USA just waking up I'd get a few more so after my previous record of over 600 earlier I'd now hit another milestone - 1,000 hits in a day!

When I woke up the next morning I checked the traffic stats and found that I'd actually had 1,670 hits. A new record for the blog.

So a big thanks to everyone reading this blog. I used to think that simply writing because I like writing was its own reward but I've discovered it is truly fab to get such a great amount of traffic.

In fact I was quite disappointed on Monday to "only" get 691 hits, just kidding!

And I'm really looking forward to The Apprentice finale, which as I explained previously is entertainment and not to be confused with real business.

Yesterday I was talking with my brother Roddy about The Apprentice and he said that he "hated it with a passion." He believes it just doesn't reflect business.

As I said to him and others who commented in a similar vein, "it's entertainment, it's not business it's show business."

What I would also say is that Sir Alan makes it clear that "it's the job interview from hell." That's all it is, so it's rather like candidates going to an employer and taking tests to see whether they'll fit with the business.

So anyone who goes on this TV interview is effectively being interviewed by Sir Alan and a rather large number of other companies around the UK.

If you're good or even reasonable you become famous and as I said after the last series people like to work with famous people. It makes life slightly more interesting doesn't it?

Why else do you think Michelle Dewberry and The Badger were able to set up management consultancies and get work so easily? Why do you think Jo Cameron, the one we all thought was as mad as a box of frogs, could start up a HR consultancy and on and on...

 So if you'd like to open your horizons The Apprentice is the programme to go for. Apply now and let me know if you get accepted. I'll be rooting for you next year!

The BBC have really been out scouring their Apprentice archives to capitalise on this years Apprentice success.

Last Sunday, just before this season's final we had "The Apprentice: Why I Fired Them".

This was Sir Alan explaining his reasoning behind each firing. Some of which we'd already heard as voice overs when the candidates were fired.

That said it was intriguing and we got to hear his opinion on each candidate and what they should have been aiming for when they were running each task.

Interestingly enough whilst Sir Alan agreed that Katie wasn't very nice he also said that he didn't always employ nice people in his organisation.

Katie Comes Unstuck

I understand that Katie has been fired by the Met Office (why they need a global branding consultant baffled me anyway). Of course with Katie's exposure (as she planned) she can still go for her own global branding consultancy selling The Emperor's New Clothes or even back to the roots with a Management Consultancy to tell everyone else how to run their business.

Tre Fired At Last!

DigitalSpy has an interview  with Tre Azam and Lohit Kalburgi after they were fired.

Apparently Tre wanted to be fired because part way through the competition he realised that he didn't want to work for Sir Alan. Nice one Tre.

He also said that he did really like Simon but discovered he was two faced after watching week 11 and and that he was using hindsight to make himself look good. Which I think is actually a very astute comment.

I've already noted that Simon waffles in the boardroom until he can find some ammunition to throw at other people.

He also said that Simon had a photographic memory which should have helped him and his teams immensely.

Lohit's interview came across as being smug and boring.

Who Gets To Win The Apprentice?

We're left with Simon Ambrose and Kristina Grimes.

Their final task involves Sir Alan inviting previously fired candidates to work for one of them.

And remember some of the people who were fired needed some managing.

Having seen Simon as a project manager I don't believe he can bring his team together to win the day.

Also, previously Tre had supported, Simon but if Tre works for Simon I'd be surprised if Tre does very much to help someone he's called a "bit of a pr**k."

As Tre noted Simon is a "scatterbrain" and "logic and commonsense evade him a little bit."

Yes, I think we've seen that side of him.

Kristina is driven, she's no ties to hold her back and everyone says she's very loyal. Plus she's actually proven to be a reasonably competent project manager.

If it was me choosing I'd be tempted by Simon because he has potential that he's wasting. But then I'd wake up and realise that if he had potential why isn't he already using it?

And I'd hire Kristina.

The coolest guy on the planet must still be Seth Godin because his blog bounced back to the top of  The Viral Gardens top 25 Marketing blogs.

Every few months I like to see what's happening on the traffic front for other marketing blogs.

In May Mack Collier decided to change how he rated the top 25 marketing blogs on his The Viral Gardens blog.

Instead of using Alexa rankings he's now changed to a, possibly easier to understand, rating of the number of links into a blog.

That's meant quite a few changes in the table, as you can see below. Quite a few blogs have dropped out and others have joined.

The new entries in our June 2007 dip into the Viral Gardens latest top 25 are shown in red.

There are 7 blogs in the top 25 which weren't there in March 2007 (shown as ??).

Blogs that have dropped out since I looked in March 2007 are:

The following blogs dropped out between October 2006 and April 2007: HorsePigCow, Emergence Marketing, Brains on Fire, Marketallica, Beyond Madison Avenue

When I last blogged about the top 25 marketing blogs I did wonder about combining a Technorati rating with the Alexa rating to see if the top 25 would change.

The only issue I have with using links is that you could see blogs encouraging more people to link into them to get into the top 25.  Or maybe I've a few sour grapes!? Because I've only got a few links coming in and probably about 500 less than the lowest blog in the top 25.

Tim Campbell won the first series of Sir Alan Sugar's Apprentice. He wasn't the favourite to win because like Lohit he was "too nice". Well nice doesn't have to be boring does it?

I found this interesting video at a great short film site of him telling exactly how the Apprentice producers wanted him to act. He then also speaks about how he acted.

Put it this way - it's different to Katie Hopkins. Speaking of Katie... According to an article in last Sunday's News Of The World she thinks that the winner (ie her) of the Apprentice is not going to win it. Well the news is the winner is the person who Sir Alan hires. And Katie, here's some news for you - it ain't you. In the meantime check out Tim's video.

To its eternal credit the USA has kept faith with NASA and continued to send men and women into space.

After all without space activity how can we believe in Star Trek, or any variant of it?

Although the space programme is an important part of the global community it can also be part of a businesses PR campaign.

If you're a restaurant you could tie in food names, drink names and shuttle offers with launch dates and publicise it with your current customers and around about through the press and simply by word of mouth.

If you're a printer you could introduce space and shuttle-related postcards and artwork and offer it at shuttle launch times.

There are so many things that a business can do to tie into a major event, without being cheesy.

Have a go!

And by the way...

Do you know why I picked the shuttle to talk about? I checked Google Trends and found that shuttle launch was the 6th most searched on subject today.

That's why it's so important to keep your linked to a buzz in your market, or even outside, so you're ready to hang onto their coat-tails as that subject soars into orbit.

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin space company will undoubtedly be used to add PR to other companies in the group. and so it should, it's exciting!

The second episode of this 4 part series on fashion shops went very much like the first. The main difference was that the boutique concerned appeared to have more staff.

This time Mary Portas helped the shop's owner get rid of a vast swathe of old-fashioned gear that nobody wants to buy and is really just blocking everyone's view of the good stuff. 

Yet again Mary concentrated on the shops tribe. This time it was  "The Forever 40's. Interestingly the shop owner hadn't a clue who was buying her stuff. Or more crucially who she wanted to buy her stuff.

This is a recurring theme in almost any business you look at that's suffering from a lack of trade.

Mary persuaded her to buy designer stock and attract "The Forever 40's".

And of course the re-stock and re-freshed shop  started to do very well.

Although I enjoyed this episode of Mary Portas pointing out the shops problems I'm beginning to think that all retail problems are the same. That is:

• Owner sets up and runs shop successfully, then several years go by ...
• Shop doesn't change with the times and
  • continues to hold onto lines that don't move - sunk investment
  • avoid change - just in case it's throwing good money after bad
  • wont update - because it's money they need simply to survive
  • Forgets who they want to sell to
• Shop becomes overfull of different and diverse items
• They continue to make a pittance for fear their customers will desert them

I look forward to the next episode when Mary will unearth a completely different problem to solve.

Check The Mirror for a story about how Katie has always wanted fame.

Certainly she appears to be keeping tight-lipped at the moment as the refused to do an interview with with another blog. One that ran interviews with all the other fired candidates.

Like I said, expect a new company announcement, a book serialisation of her time on the Apprentice and one on "How To Brand Globally."

I wonder how much Sir Alan's faith in human nature has been shaken?"

The final point the Mirror's Kate Jackson makes is:

Katie was yesterday unavailable for comment, with her representatives saying: "Katie is likely to sell her story to someone and hence won't be commenting."

After the interview round in week 11 Katie showed her true colours. She rabbited on about how she was going to move nearer to London. How her parents would probably fit in nicely by moving to be near to her and her sister to offer her support for her children. How she was committed... and on and on.

Then a few minutes later she realised that she'd just spouted a load of bullshit and didn't know whether her parents would move as she'd said. If they didn't she couldn't go anywhere for Sir Alan at the drop of a hat.

This really begs the question - why was she even in The Apprentice without resolving these issues first?

As she's told us she's the cleverest clogs in the whole wide world so yah boo sucks, she would have discussed the issuing of moving closer to London with her partner, her parents and any other of her "supporters."

So that means there are 2 possibilities:

1. she just flies by the seat of her pants, bull shitting all the time and doesn't consider the consequences of what she does, and therefore would be completely unsuitable for running any part of Sir Alan's business anyway
2. she planned it so that she would become famous to open her own business

Personally I think she wanted to become famous. Obviously that improves her brand image. I mean gosh she'll be able to start her own branding consultancy earning more than she could for Sir Alan.

What leads me to that thought?

For a clever person she's made some clearly outrageous statements that she must knew would be televised. She's become one of the best known of the candidates because of that, her back stabbing and flirting.

All I can say is watch out for an announcement around next week as The Apprentice concludes (to maximise publicity) as Katie tells the world she's formed her own global branding consultancy.

We're down to the final 5 candidates for a job with Sir Alan.

They are, in no particular order:

• Simon Ambrose
• Tre Azam
• Katie Hopkins
• Kristina Grimes
• Lohit Kalburgi

Let's do a reality check of who I would look at for the final. Will they be the same two as Sir Alan? Who knows...because the clever BBC editors are just giving us enough information so we form the opinions they probably want us to have.

Simon Ambrose

Simon is by all accounts very clever.

My thought is that he may be very clever but if his QVC showing is anything to go by he doesn't appear to think about what he does. For example:

• He chose a folding wheelchair to sell on QVC - why?  He needed more high volume, mid to high value items
• He didn't direct his team when they were on camera - which is one reason why they sold very little and looked so clueless
• He looked (as Sir Alan said) a "right pillock" because he was screwing the trampoline leg right in front of his groin so it looked very "odd"

Tre Azam

Tre appears to have managed to keep his temper in check more lately.  However, he does appear to sulk when things aren't going his way.

In week 9 ( selling imported products) he was on the losing team and as Sir Alan said "cocked it up royal." He's definitely a doer. However, that seems to be at the expense of very much planning. So it looks to me as though you could point him  at a task, tell him clearly what you required and he would do it

Tre was the project manager that week and made some very strange product choices. Particularly the air filter that seemed to give people who came close to it a shock.

He's also spent his time moaning about decisions when he's not project manager rather than getting on doing what he's been told. That despite being on the winning side the most times.

Katie Hopkins

Katie, Katie, the girl we all love to gasp in wonderment at as she outlines how people that rub her up the wrong way should be killed.

Katie - the flirt, personally I'd run a million miles before I got involved with her flirting, ugh!

Katie - the two-faced silent assassin - working on people to get them to point the finger at anyone else but her

Katie - the below the belt fighter. She took Adam on and made it seem as though he was a borderline alcoholic - when she drinks wine too

Katie - the global branding consultant who doesn't seem to understand branding or marketing

Personally I wouldn't trust Katie as fat as I could throw her. She's a complete snob which must mean she's making negative judgements about mass markets. And mass markets are those that Sir Alan is selling into.

Why is Katie going for this job if she's already a "global branding consultant" earning £90,000? She doesn't need the money, she thinks she's cleverer than almost anyone else in the world.

Kristina Grimes

Kristina has been very ambitious and aggressive in trying to become The Apprentice. She's resorted to underhand tactics to help her win - for example selling sweets to children at London Zoo so that parents have to cough up or risk a scene with their children.

She's also made sure that she's stood out at the expense of her team - as witnessed by her appalling presentation of the steam cleaner on the shopping channel task in week 10.

Lohit Kalburgi

Yay Lohit, level headed, nice, maybe too nice...

Lohit has quietly got on with the job all the way through this series. He sold when required, project managed when required and has kept completely calm at all times. Sometimes though he appears to lack any passion which paints him as bit of a grey man. And I suspect Sir Alan doesn't want a grey man on his payroll, he wants a mover and shaker.

The Final Two Prediction

The two people I'd take into the final task are Kristina and Tre. The reasons I exclude the others are:

• Lohit - too nice, not demonstrated any assertiveness
• Katie - back stabbing snob who thinks (wrongly) she's cleverer than the rest of the candidates and Sir Alan. Sir Alan wants shrewd, not clever!
• Simon - he lies, he talks BS and blathers

Tre has improved over the weeks and Kristina had been a steady performer. Either could probably do a reasonable job for Sir Alan.

 And so

to week 10's task...

This time the teams had to select a bunch of products and sell them on the QVC channel on TV.  

The teams split so they each had two people presenting and one person producing and then the person producing did the selling while the team's couple did the producing.

Kristina Grimes was the team manager for Stealth with The Silent Assassin (Katie Hopkins) and Mr Who? (Lohit Kalburgi). Eclipse was managed by Simon Ambrose (The Blatherer) and contained Naomi Lay (Miss Bland) and Tre Azam (Motormouth).

The whole point of this exercise was to demonstrate street smarts when it came to choosing their products for their advertising slots. And for an extra twist the couple and the singleton in each team had to sell products found by the other part of their team.

The Rubbish Products That Were Chosen

The products for Stealth were:

• Slimming corsets (Kristina)
• Chocolate fountain (Kristina) 
• Plastic footspa (Lohit and Katie)
• Steam cleaner (Lohit and Katie)

Eclipse's products were:

• trampoline (sold by Simon)
• Decoupage stickers (sold by Simon)
• Folding wheelchair (sold by Naomi and Tre)
• Leg hair remover (sold by Naomi and Tre)

Does Strategy Matter With The Apprentice?

And of course strategy...

Does anyone in The Apprentice understand the concept of sitting back and thinking for 5 minutes to get a much more effective bang for their buck?

And I don't mean Katie Hopkins laughable attempt to create a person that they want to sell to: Mavis a big-bosomed loser who has nothing to do but watch day time telly.  I hate to use the word snob but I really do think that Katie has a very superior view that anyone who doesn't move in her circles is the lowest of the low. Like I've said before I don't believe she wants a job with Sir Alan - after all he's only a minor multi-millionaire within the view of a global branding consultant.

Why didn't anyone ask QVC what their best selling lines were and also what products were best suited to total beginners? I suppose the problem then becomes that the candidates look as though they don't know everything!

Also choosing products that were difficult to sell:

• Electrical products - risk of not working - steam cleaner didn't work did it and was fiddly to set up
• Specialist products - if they don't know the market don't choose them - Decoupage stickers because they're usually part of a card making kit
• Risky products - as Tre said who's got £200 in their pocket and are simply waiting to buy a wheel chair?

The Winner Of The Worst Producer

The worst producer by a huge margin was Simon.

During training Simon had told Tre to talk about a red rug, so Tre talked about a different colour. The producer reminded Simon that he'd told Tre to talk about the red rug so Simon asked Tre to talk about the brown rug. Simon when you're producing you're not visible to the audience so there's no need for stage fright.

Simon didn't so much as not produce he basically blathered and didn't speak and looked like a rabbit caught in car headlights. I was surprised the QVC producer didn't just pull his team off their slot because he seemed incapable of helping his team. Unless of course that was his game plan. To leave Tre and Naomi without any useful information to impart to the audience and therefore not provide any benefits and so not to sell anything and therefore to be prime candidates to leave.

If the task had been to highlight the candidates ability to pull a team together Simon didn't just fail he failed "big style."

The Winner Of The Worst Presenter

Everyone except Naomi and Tre and to a lesser extent Lohit were cringe inducing.

Katie selling to Mavis was appalling. But at least she did what she was told to highlight the benefits of the products as Kristina told her.

I felt for Lohit as he tried to get included in the selling for ladies foundation garments. Trust me on this, men aren't interested in these types of garments and I suspect women don't want men to be.

Kristina went through her presentation of a chocolate fountain and came completely apart at the seams (including searing) as the steam cleaner proved more difficult to set-up or use than she realised.  She kept saying Ok and Alright - which is something her producer (Naomi and Tre) should have picked up on during training and it meant we all started counting the number of times she said each one (OK > 12, Alright >3, then I lost the will to live).

But Simon wins this award hands-down. If anyone had been tasked with doing a bad a presentation as possible Simon would have won. Firstly he just didn't know what one earth the decoupage was about, what it was for or its benefits. Clueless springs to mind. Then once he'd given up on that he went to the trampoline and proceeded to really muck that sale up too. He just looked too manic and as for screwing in the trampoline legs right in front of his groin area - laugh I nearly bust a button!

So Who Got Fired?

Simon got fired right?

Well actually, no.

In fact Naomi got fired for choosing the stupidest products - decoupage stickers and the trampoline. An interesting one that because Tre had mildly suggested that trampolines had had their day but didn't argue further when Naomi extolled their benefits.

After all the task had been about choosing the right product to sell.

Personally I'd argue that the only product that was the right choice for the candidates was the chocolate fountain. Everything else was aimed at a very limited market:

• Slimming corsets - people who are fat but want to appear slimmer 
• Chocolate fountain - still popular with people
• Plastic footspa - everyone appears to own one and not use it - limited appeal
• Steam cleaner - the number of people who want to steam their floor coverings must be limited
• trampoline - how many people really want to exercise at home with this?
• Decoupage stickers - these are usually sold to help people make birthday and special occasion cards - a small market
• Folding wheelchair - people who need a wheelchair usually have one
• Leg hair remover - It looked like an orbital sander and there was no clear benefits compared to wax, cream or shaving

And the nub of it all was that the product features were dutifully trotted out but no major benefit of owning any of them was given.

As an example: The Wheelchair

As Sir Alan said, "what brain-dead chose that?" But the team found a pocket at the back of the chair and said what a useful pocket it was for...something. Oh I know a mobile phone. No, that's not a benefit. Benefits of a portable wheelchair are many, here's 3 off the top of my head:

• It's lightweight so one person can easily fold it up and put it in a car without needing anyone else around
• When you arrive home it can be easily stored folded up so it doesn't get in the way
• If you've visitors who need a wheelchair it's easy to keep handy for taking them into the garden or to nearby shops

As soon as Sir Alan gave Simon an opportunity to blame the rest of the team he was on it like a ton of bricks. Naomi was flabbergasted and Tre kept fairly quiet as Simon laid into their lack of support - ammunition provided by Sir Alan's view of proceedings.

So Why Didn't Sir Alan Fire Simon?

The reason that Sir Alan didn't fire Simon was because he didn't see what a chump he was as a producer and team leader. You could see Tre didn't want to make too much of an issue of Simon's massive shortcomings and Naomi allowed Simon to get away with being a bad producer, choosing one of the worst products - the leg hair remover - and presenting the products really badly.

He'd also been reminded that Naomi had mucked up being a project manager on an earlier task.

As he said he had to look at who he thought he could work with and Naomi just didn't look as though she could. So she had to go. Unfair if you simply look at the task but fair if you look at the aim of the whole show - an Apprentice to work with Sir Alan.

PS: The Apprentice Camel Stays On

Adrian Childs in the "You've Been Fired" program after The Apprentice was searching for a look-alike animal to represent Katie Hopkins. He managed to produce a camel's face and compared it to Katies. I laughed...

It seemed so perfect. What do you think? 

Shock Horror! Stop the presses!!

Google product manager Eric Case apparently reveals that blogging is dead!!

Apparently the shift is to Twitter where you get to tell everyone you know that "you're on the train", "down the pub", "on Every Street in Manchester."

Yes I'm on Twitter too but I don't expect that I'll be stopping  blogging just yet.

Now this is a PR person's dream (isn't it Rob?).

A software company releases a new online game that relates to Paris Hilton and then gets their PR person to do a news release about it, complete with URL.

Do you think it's going to be on the news? You bet!

You can play the game here. Or get to put it on your blog or web site too!

Hint: If (when) the music gets too much press the loud speaker button on the large blue button below the game graphic.

Paris has to stamp vanity license plates as the guards watch her. Clinkerbell (her dog) trots along the belt as the plates pass to be stamped with 'PRTYGRL, ABUVLAW, DUI4ME, DRV2FST and the like. You move Paris between the different stamp-machines and need a good tiger finger to hit the plates just right. Too many bad plates or a squashed mutt and the lights go out and oh.oh...

The link to the game is here:

Paris Goes To Jail

Enjoy, share!

So this is a great example of viral publicity the company involved knew Paris Hilton was off to jail for a driving offence. She's in some segregated posh cells so don't feel too sorry for her.

The company wrote the game and then today as she toddles off to jail (she's there now) has released the game.

Do you think they'll get hits? You betcha! Nice one.

Well that's what I should have said to myself before I posted about my record traffic day.

I felt a bit bad because I got some emails from people saying their traffic seemed pretty crummy even though their blog was one or more of:

• Been going longer than 12 months
• Posted to 4-5 times a week
• Influencers were reading it
• Their posts were being commented on

This post is in answer to the question: "How do I get lots of traffic".

The first point to make is that my record traffic day is peanuts compared to people who've hit a chord with people and have people flocking to read them.

I certainly have very loyal followers, and that's brilliant, but nothing like John Chow or Michel Fortin or Dave Taylor. And they're only some of the high traffic sites.

So What 12 Things Must I Do To Get Traffic?

I'm glad you asked me!

A lot of it comes down to a huge amount of midnight oil reading other bloggers experiments and trying out my own experiments.

However if I boil it all down these are the top ways I've used to get consistent traffic:

1. Write about what your reader is interested in
2. Write yourself into the blog
3. Use photos to break up the text
4. Add the blog to directorys (check out Robin Good's Top directorys for blogs)
5. Add tags to the bottom of posts. At the least add a tag to Technorati
6. Ping after every post.  I use Pingoat.com but there are others
7. Comment on other people's blogs
8. Make sure you get links into your blog from other blogs and web sites
9. Link to other people (as I have to John Chow, Dave Taylor, Michel Fortin and Robin Good)
10. Put your blog address on everything: Business cards, literature, web site, email sigs...
11. Bear in mind but don't feel constrained by Search Engine Optimization (check Brad Fallon's SEO thoughts)
12. Enable your comments and reply when people make comments

Apply the 12 points and unless your content sucks you will get more traffic.

Does that guarantee huge,enormous, amazingly awesome volumes of traffic?

Of course not but it does make it more likely that you get and retain a loyal readership that builds your blog readership day by day. 

For the first time I've got over 600 hits in a day (676 if you want the figures).

To find that information out I use Statcounter - a fab piece of FREE software and to confirm Google Analytics.

Two years ago I would have been happy to get 600 hits in a month.

I was doing pretty well before. Thanks to you loyal reader!

The increase beyond the blogs previous best is down to the fact that Technorati discovered they weren't indexing my site. Now it's indexed, or at least they've noted the tags the traffic has got a lot better.

So that's the thing to watch out for when you're blogging - check you're indexed on Technorati!

Last night with very little fanfare BBC2 introduced a new business mentor or guru onto the small screen. Mary Portas, retail shop reviver.

She has written for the Daily Telegraph for some time and this foray into the world of business makeover was fun and really helped the struggling fashion boutique (Ju-Ju's) she'd been brought in to turn around.

Ju-Ju's owners were obviously in a rut and had been hanging onto everything they'd ever bought - regardless of whether it would sell. The consequence was that the shop had a stuffed with clothes feel to it and the window shouted not fashion boutique but "don't come in."

By persuading the owners to buy some fashion designers gear Mary moved them back to being a designer shop where rather than pricing clothes at £20 a piece priced them to make a profit.

Soly was given a makeover too and her partner Tim created a mini mob to make a fuss on the Brighton sea front and then hand-out promotional flyers - great idea!

It worked and the made-over shop had a sudden influx of the "tribe" that Tim and Soly wanted.

Great television and with tips that any retailer could pick up and use. Well done BBC!