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Amazon Boss Brian McBride finds the cream
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The cream always rises to the top states king of the online jungle!
This morning, Thursday 21st March 2009, I attended a seminar hosted by Thames Valley Economic Partnership entitled Economic Outlook “Facing Tough Times”. The speakers were Brian McBride, Managing Director of Amazon UK and Chris Piper, Bank of England Agent for Central Southern England. The venue was the brand new Hilton Reading, in their words “A hotel created with location, innovation and a warm welcome.” And they ticked all the boxes. Shortly there will be traffic lights to make for an easy right turn off the motorway to the venue, perfect for travelling football fans or those taking part in the Reading Half Marathon. They are next to Green Park where you’ll find tons of innovation and we had a warm welcome with hot bacon rolls, a quick word with a passing chef and mine was so crispy, the only place I was going to catch flu was in the auditorium!! Chris Piper was up first with graphs showing figures since the 1970’s and this quarter’s downward line was the lowest on each chart. We are not out of the woods yet and the Bank of England is not sure where we will be in 6 months. So, if I have this right, you should cautiously spend 90% of your income with local businesses and that would both be jolly decent of you and put us on the right track. Stashing it all away is no good to anyone and blowing it all on the lottery probably will not get you anywhere, so spend it with local businesses who will in turn spend it with other local businesses and we can all enjoy a steady flow of cash. We can then enjoy talking to each other in real time about football and how Simon Cowell is well worth $40,000,000 a year!! Brian McBride followed with a summary of their market intelligence, from across the globe, which ensures they are in the right markets at the right time as they know what people want and when. With a bank of servers that require the equivalent energy of a major city to ensure their websites are up and running 24/7, ready for the next order from around the world. They have majored in books but they now do a ton of other stuff and their market growth is very much the silver surfers, 55+, who enjoy quality products and services and have the disposable income ready to buy Simon Cowell’s next album for their grandson or daughter at Christmas! Simon and Brian are happy! It seemed appropriate, so when it came time for questions I asked, “If your son or daughter had just graduated with a 1st from university and was sitting at home, looking for a job, into which market would you send them?” Chris wanted what most of us would like, for them to pick a path that would make them happy but was unsure into which arena they should dive. Brian had more time to think and came up with a great answer, he suggested they should go and work at Tesco. “The cream always rises to the top” was his philosophy. We place such emphasis on getting a top job but actually just getting a job in a big company will mean, if they are good, they will rise through the ranks quickly. Excellent answer... It was a great to get out but what I could not believe was the speed at which everyone left the building. There was myself and dkl at the end and that was 30 minutes after the speakers finished. These guys had come to listen to speakers about the economy, they didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t know already. What we do know is we need to do more business. How do you do that, by talking to each other! I can only conclude that the room was full of bean counters and not business developers. If you want your business to thrive in a downturn then you need to be out pressing the flesh. The web can help us maximise our exposure and provide business lead generation but we need to talk to real people in real time to sell our wares. Thank you. |
