The report, “…and the Pursuit of Happiness: Wellbeing and the Role of Government”, examines the flaws in attempts to measure happiness. It suggests that:

• The government should not be trying to measure or maximise happiness as an explicit policy goal.

• There is no evidence that more equal societies lead to increases in happiness.

• Contrary to widespread belief, the evidence suggests that happiness is in fact related to income and economic growth. The so-called Easterlin paradox (the idea that wellbeing does not increase with income) is shown to be fake.

• Attempts to promote “wellbeing at work” through regulation are likely to be counter-productive in so far as increases in employment regulation increase unemployment. There is a strong link between unemployment and loss of wellbeing. In general, more intrusive and bigger government leads to a loss in wellbeing. One study finds that increasing government spending by one third would cause a reduction in happiness of 5%-6%.

• Smaller government tends to make people happier. Public spending cuts could actually be the key to making Britain a happier place.

Commenting on the report, Mark Littlewood, Director General at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:

“Governments have shown how hopeless and inefficient they are at attempting to run the basics of our economy. They seem to find it nearly impossible, for example, to resist racking up colossal debts.  To trust them with something far more intimate, complicated and confusing as happiness would be inviting disaster. We need our government to do less, not more – and to stick to the very simple and straightforward tasks which they are just about capable of. All of us are better advised to pursue our own dreams, hopes and goals than to entrust such personal and intimate things to David Cameron.”

Commenting on the report, its editor, Prof Philip Booth, Editorial Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:

“The government is spending money on collecting happiness statistics in order to promote government policies to try to increase aggregate national happiness. This is a flawed policy and based on a complete misconception that governments hitherto have focused only on increasing national income. The nation’s wellbeing will be improved if the government cuts back its activity and allows the economy, employment and families to flourish. The government should not be trying to increase aggregate happiness as a specific policy goal, nor should it be wasting money collecting data on the subject.”

Max Clifford pointed out the complexities of the PR world by putting into sharp relief the differences that have taken place over 50 years in the industry.  Clifford started in 1962 as the press officer for ‘a little known band called The Beatles’.  He said that, at that time, you probably needed to know 20 people in order to get national coverage for a story.  Today’s PR world is a massive industry and the sheer volume of media (print, TV, youtube, blogging, social media and so on) make it much harder to get your message across.  He offered us a series of tips on how to make the most of media coverage that were both wise and easy to do, given sufficient time.

But, given Max Clifford’s track record for taking on controversial clients at considerable fees, he is guided by a strong set of values.  Just the other week, he turned down an approach for an unlimited sum of money by the Gadaffi family, who, in his words ‘currently need some image improvement’.  He went on to discuss some of the less public activities that he indulges in, for example working with a charity that provides Hospice care to children.  Not quite what I had expected at all.

Mr Clifford’s honesty and integrity surprised me when he pointed out his concerns with the UK media and the legal system.  After all, these people are, in a sense, his customers.  He was also candid enough to tell his audience that (a) none of them could afford him and (b) there were plenty of good PR people there that could do a good job for small businesses.  I admired his ‘Robin Hood’ pricing strategy – charging a high price to those who could afford it, in order to give his time for free to the Hospice etc.

I am left wondering who will end up reading the copy of the book I gave him on his coffee table.  Given his love for music, it would be a great thrill if some of his clients were to get to see ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’.  From Max Clifford’s salacious stories of dealing with people from Frank Sinatra and The Beatles to Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole, it seems that many of them will be familiar with the former and the latter part of this trio!

Peter Cook is The Rock’n’Roll Business Guru and leads The Academy of Rock, delivering exceptional corporate events that blend business and music.

Read’s article, “The Science Of Sales Growth In A Recession: The 5 Most Dangerous Mistakes A Company Can Make” shows that forecasts can be altered. He reveals the dangerous mistakes your company can make, how to turn around dismal sales numbers, get the money moving again and put an end to the current economic down-turn.

The Science Of Sales Growth In A Recession: The 5 Most Dangerous Mistakes A Company Can Make
By Nicholas Read.

As the global economy continues to tighten, most businesses appreciate they won’t get different results by doing things the same way. But much of the science for growing in a recessionary market is counter-intuitive, and managers whose hands were on the rudder in previous downturns are no longer in the workplace. Few of today’s executives therefore have ever faced this kind of storm in their career.

It’s a situation primed for old mistakes to be made all over again.

Former executives of Fortune companies and start-ups, who captained the ship through the ‘70s stock market crash to the ‘90s dot-com bubble, reveals some useful home truths. They report a range of signs that it’s time to rethink how your company sells:

• Tenders appear to be an exercise to justify decisions that are already made, and not a serious opportunity to win the business.
• Key customers slash budgets or rationalize their number of suppliers.
• Deals you thought were ‘hot to trot’ go ‘off the boil’.
• Your pipeline bloats with opportunities stuck in a holding pattern, with the seller not achieving any forward progress for several months.
• Decisions become more complex, involving more people and taking longer to get across the line.
• Price and risk mitigation become main topics for discussion in the negotiation phase.
• Sales are for amounts far less than forecast.
• Salespeople spend time on low-yield activities like prospecting because the quality and quantity of leads from Marketing is too low or dries up.
• Your forecast is murky when you look out further than six months.
• You win deals, but can’t repeat success across the sales force.
• You lose deals and don’t know why, or when it became irrecoverable.
• Good sales people bail out into management roles in other departments or leave the company altogether.

When organizations are dealt with these challenges, their typical gag reflex is to:

• Spend more on advertising.
• Cut back on salespeople.
• Cut back on training & coaching.
• Cut back on pricing.
• Tell salespeople to “work harder and smarter”.

So what happens next?

• A downward spiral commences.
• Managers focus on activity metrics and demand more calls, more leads, more proposals.
• Salespeople chase anything that moves, filling their funnel with unqualified, low potential deals to meet the activity targets.
• Forecasts fill with fiction.
• Managers start weighting the forecast report, which sends the message they don’t trust their team.
• Salespeople invite managers to help close their big deals, knowing that if the manager can’t win, the salesperson is off the hook.
• Customers invite managers to attend the final pitch, knowing they can approve larger discounts.
• Coaching stops as managers don the cape of “SuperRep”.
• Non-standard promises made in the heat of battle are off-menu for what the delivery team actually does, establishing a gap between the customer’s expectations and what they then experience.
• Repeat business drops, as promises are not met.
• Margin erosion begins.
• Managers focus on even more activity metrics, more calls, more leads, and more proposals.
• The downward spiral gets deeper and deeper…

If any of these danger signs look familiar, you’re in good company. Most executives who turned their companies around in former recessions first fell into the same traps because they represent a natural response in times of uncertainty. People go to risk and get tactical.

But these same executives report the secret to pulling out of the nosedive is to act contrary to the natural impulse, keep your head, and take a contrarian path. Those that did so achieved stability and even growth while their competitors fell by the wayside. They cite the five most dangerous mistakes a company can make as:

1. Ignoring the problem
Fear and panic can cause indecision. When they do, business leaders can fail to evaluate options rigorously, and so make inappropriate decisions to maintain the status quo. Poor choices—or safe choices made too late—cause a company to go backwards. When the warning signs appear, take swift action.

2. Increasing advertising
For fast moving consumer goods, brand advertising can sway preference and so take market share away from competitors in the short-term. But in complex B2B sales, advertising does not lift short-term revenue because institutional buying decisions require a protracted period of assessment that outlasts most advertising campaigns. So don’t advertise and expect an impact on B2B sales this year. However consulting firm PIMS Associates1 reports how companies that advertise more end up growing faster over the long-term than firms that drop off the customer’s radar, seemingly swallowed by the downturn.

3. Cutting the price
Buyers in a tight market will naturally gravitate to low prices. But this simply reduces your margins, which must be paid for by cutbacks to operating expense elsewhere. It leads to short-term gain but long-term pain; the loss of sustainability. Conversely in the B2B space, higher prices positioned as necessary to reduce the customer’s risk, actually plays better to executive perception than “getting a cheap deal”. Sometimes putting your price up is the best way to grow your market.

4. Freezing sales expenses
Putting a hold on sales costs such as travel, entertainment and training are typical areas targeted by nervous CFOs. But a study reports: Only 27% of companies that indulged in intensive cost cutting were growing as a result of their pains.

5. Pushing more calls
Pressuring salespeople into making more intrusions on the same number of prospects actually reduces sales. Neil Rackham (author of SPIN Selling and Rethinking the Sales Force) concludes: “The least successful people are the ones making the most calls. Increasing the call rate results in fewer orders, not more.”

To avoid reinventing the wheel, learning from executives who weathered past recessions is a sound approach to reducing risk. In your own organization, your alumni or your online social network there may reside active or emeritus officers with deep experience to share. Talk to them. Pick their brains.

But one thing is certain when an ailing economy mimics a black hole – piecemeal remedies fail to achieve escape velocity. Cutting back on cost, though logical, is the opposite of what has pulled businesses through recessions in the past. Increased investment in the sales process, governed by greater discipline, is a more reliable approach for achieving sustainable revenue growth, even in difficult times.

Buzzin Media is indebted to Nicholas Read president of consulting firm SalesLabs and co-author of Selling to the C-Suite (McGraw Hill, 2010) for his work on this excellent article.

For more information, please visit www.cxo-selling.com.

sustainable event management

Every year events of every possible description are held around the world. Be they community events, large conferences, business meetings, religious celebrations or enormous music concerts, festivals, expos and sporting events, they all have a massive impact on our environment.

It could be said the most environmentally friendly event is no event at all. But that’s no fun. Public parties always have been and always will be a part of the human story. Yet those who stage events have a social and environmental responsibility to reduce their impacts. If all event professionals kept sustainability at the core of their planning and decision making, then the cumulative outcome across the globe would be impressive. But where do you start?

Meegan Jones has spent the past twenty years organising events around the world, for the most recent three years she has worked in the UK as Sustainability Co-Ordinator for Festival Republic, the producer of Latitude, Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds Music and Arts Festivals.

She has also developed sustainability solutions at Peats Ridge Festival in Australia and worked on sustainability issues for Live Earth India and the London Marathon. Meegan is currently the global greening consultant for the next round of Live Earth events, is the events consultant for UK-based music industry climate impact organization Julie’s Bicycle and is on the working group for Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) events industry sector supplement. Meegan is also working with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on their new Music and Environment Initiative, to be launched in 2010.

There is no doubt that Meegan Jones is a leader in the field and in this new publication she gives a practical step by step guide through all the key aspects of how to understand and manage the impacts of events of any type and scale in most places in the world.

The product of tried-and-tested methods used across the event industry, coverage includes an overview of sustainable event management and detailed discussion of energy, zero emissions options, carbon management, transport, water, waste management and reduction, procurement and supply chains as well as communications and marketing.

Numerous examples and case studies from across the world are integrated throughout to illustrate key points including how to avoid common pitfalls. Festivals profiled and their systems revealed include the iconic and incredibly green Boom Festival in Portugal, desert-based Burning Man in Nevada USA, grandmother green event Glastonbury Festival, UK rock icons Reading & Leeds Festivals and the Danish over-achiever Roskilde Festival.

Case studies and examples also come from leading Australian events including Peats Ridge Festival, Big Day Out, Splendour in the Grass, Meredith Music Festival, Falls Festival, Southbound and the iconic Woodford Folk Festival. From the USA green ground is covered by Boonaroo, Rothbury and Coachella festivals, along with the recent US Democratic Convention.

Readers are provided with checklists for action as well as additional tools for measuring performance and assessing key sustainability indicators. The book is coupled with a companion website that provides further materials, case studies, contacts for suppliers, discussion groups and more.

This is the indispensable one-stop guide for facility and event organizers, managers and professionals, and event management students who want to adjust their thinking and planning decisions towards sustainability and who need a powerful, easy to use collection of tools to deliver their events sustainably.

For more information or to purchase the book visit Sustainable Event Guide.

There are a host of reasons for choosing to outsource your printing needs rather than printing your mail shots, flyers, leaflets and posters yourself. The factors fall into the following fairly obvious categories: cost, quality and convenience.

Firstly, even if you have invested in a good quality colour printer, it is never going to work out cheaper than having your printing done professionally. It won’t take long to calculate that in paper and printer consumables your outgoings are likely to be prohibitive when it comes to printing in even fairly modest quantities of, for example, the leaflets you require.

A key finding of one reputable trade magazine, having carried out a recent test to ascertain in-house printing costs, makes sobering reading. They found that a single A6 sized photograph cost a full 43p to print on a desktop inkjet printer. When multiplied by the modest print-run figure of 500, the resulting figure for a batch of A6 leaflets containing full ink coverage is a staggering £215. Online printing firms will supply the same item for less than a quarter of that price. And when a greater quantity is ordered, then of course the unit cost plummets even further. This is not something that can be said for the office printer on your desk.

As far as quality is concerned, the paper stock which commercial printing can accommodate is simply not able to be handled by the desktop printer. The weight and finish of the paper is what gives the end-user that essential impression of professionalism. But if for no other reason than the fact that few office printers can print right up to the edge of a sheet of paper, it is necessary to turn to the commercial print suppliers. Even when it comes down to cutting the finished item down to size, the professionals win hands down. Naturally enough, when it comes to business cards, there is absolutely no alternative to using a good company with its dedicated equipment.

Finally, outsourcing to one of the many online print services, some offering a next-day service along with free shipping, frees up office space and staff time for more vital tasks. The savings made on efficiency and convenience scarcely need mentioning.

karen birch

On Monday March 1st the UK’s first online journal aimed at women in business was launched by the brother and sister team of Karen and Phil Birch, themselves serial entrepreneurs.

The name 3rdi derives from that ‘extra’ intuition that women have; their intrinsic ability to empathise, communicate, share, spread their ideas and “network.”

The magazine has been ‘beta’ testing over the last six months and is now available live online at the 3rdi website. The publication is offered as an inspiration to its readers rather than a marketplace or networking site.  It is a magazine with high editorial standards using new technology and the internet to deliver its content.

The magazine will be available on a regular monthly basis on the first Monday of each month.

“Our aim is to challenge the norm, to encourage our readers to think and act. Intelligence is too readily associated with tests and measurement; typical in a male-oriented business world but we feel that intelligence is far wider reaching. Business intelligence, market intelligence, social intelligence, relationship intelligence, communication intelligence, emotional intelligence are not the sole domain of the male ego,” explains co-founder Karen Birch.

Brother Phil Birch adds; “I have no issues whatsoever in stating that we’re primarily a journal for women – women ARE more intuitive. In my business experience it’s important to value this intuition and I hope The3rdi encourages more women to take advantage of their “sixth-sense”.

Every month a range of experts and regular columnists contribute to the magazine on a variety of subjects covering business, lifestyle, self development, family and contribution (charity and volunteering).

“We are an ethically-driven team of professionals, with the united goal of passing on our knowledge, experience and, hopefully, wisdom to our readers. We hope that they will benefit from this information and use it to make their own business and private lives as rewarding as possible,” said Managing Editor Karen Birch.

Sub titled The Cost to British Business of Complying with the UK Tax System, the authors claim that tax related red tape costs UK business £20 billion a year.

The book reveals that the UK has the longest tax code in the developed world, running to 8,300 pages of primary legislation compared with 1,700 in Germany and 1,300 in France.

The report also reveals that the average Finance Act in the 2000’s has been three times as long as the average Finance Act in the 1980’s – a damningindictment of New Labour’s record on red tape. The UK is one of only 3 out of 43 most advanced economies where the cost of tax collection is not falling.

It is suggested that the impact on small businesses is particularly devestating, with the costs of tax collection bearingaround sixteen times more heavily on the smallest business than on the largest.

The authors consider that this acts as an impediment to competetion and to the expansion of employment among small firms.

The report calls for a radical reform of the tax system and the book contains examples of how this could be achieved. Examples of this would be:

• Definitions and procedures should be consistent across all taxes
• Taxable and accounting profits should be aligned
• Special tax reliefs on company investment should be abolished
• Investments returns that are disguised as capital gains should be taxed in the same way that income is taxed
• Taxes generating minimal revenue with high compliance costs (eg inheritance tax) should be scrapped

The report further argues for the abolition of the annual Finance Act to reduce the political pressure on Chancellors to complicate further the tax sysyem with headline – grabbing measures in eacj Budget.

Director General of the IEA, Mark Littlewood comments:

“Often debate focuses on the overall level of taxation, but this report clearly shows that merely complying with tax laws is an enormous burden on the British business. Not only do we need to slash tax, we need to simplify it to allow enterprise ro thrive.”

The publication Taxation and Red Tape is available in PDF format here.