• "The first sign of a nervous breakdown is when you start thinking your work is terribly important." - Milo Bloom

• Marketing your Services – for people who hate to sell. Author: Rick Crandall. Publisher: Contemporary Books. Jay Conrad Levison, one of my marketing heroes, says this; "I consider this book to be required reading for anyone who is in the business of providing services. If you have plans to turn a consistent profit, start out by reading this book." I agree.

• www.allnewspapers.com Tired of reading your local daily newspaper? This site provides you with news and articles from many different newspapers around the world.

Some years ago, I fought a major battle at a retail client’s place of business to try and convince firstly management, and secondly the retail staff, that the background music playing in the retail area of their premises was totally inappropriate for their clientele. Whilst the majority of retail staff were aged between eighteen and twenty-five, the bulk of their customers were older men and women and family groups. It took awhile, but finally I was able to get them to realise that loud head-banging heavy metal music was not the favoured music for the majority of their customers.

So what is appropriate music for your customers? That of course depends on who your customers are. And if your don’t know who your customers are, then now is the time to set about finding out. If you are like most businesses that undertake a study to find out, you’ll be surprised at what you discover.

My advice is that it is far better to err on the conservative side when it comes to providing background music for your staff and customers. This can occur in a number of ways.

Most capital cities have a wide variety of radio stations to listen to, so it is very easy and inexpensive to have a suitable station playing over your PA system. When deciding which radio station is most preferable for your customers, try and match up the readily available demographic statistics of the respective radio stations with the demographics of your customers. Again, if you don’t know, find out.

Another option is to invest in some specifically recorded ‘elevator’ music to have playing quietly in the background of your office, showroom or retail store. As with your local radio station, recorded music can be linked into your telephone system to entertain customers waiting ‘on hold’. Providers of this type of music, through extensive research, are able to design recordings that vary throughout the day to match the energy levels of your staff. For instance, as the day draws to an end and energy levels start to wane, the tempo of the background music speeds up.

The other way to determine what type and style of music to having playing at your place of business is to match the music with the nature of your business. A fun park or rollerdrome which caters primarily for younger people would have current top forty music playing, the louder the better, whereas light classical music would be more suitable for a medical specialist’s surgery. The key is to focus on what’s appropriate for your customers, however if the music is not something that you and your staff can tolerate, it is better to have nothing.

Until next week, many happy customer returns!

Graham Harvey APS

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