Squash & Racketball look to the future

Spent yesterday with the team from ProActive West London exploring the future role of the County Sport Partnership (or County Sport and Physical Activity Partnership as they might soon be known).

Really inspiring presentation from Justyn Price at England Squash and Racketball, with highlights from their Whole Sport Plan. The future for squash and racketball in the UK looks incredibly exciting. Interesting to note that 38% of their facilities are in Local Authority sites and 8.3% in Higher Education and they are looking to focus on these areas to assist venues in maximising usage.

It was also really refreshing to hear from an NGB that clearly recognises and celebrates the demographics of its participants. Of those currently playing squash 82% are male, 51% are aged over 35 and those in the higher social bands outperforming all other sports by 12%.

With so much focus on getting children, women, SMEs and those from deprived areas involved in sport, it's easy to forget that increased levels of physical activity benefit everyone's health. In the Active People survey over half a million people play squash, with an impressive 380,000 stating that they would be interested in playing in the future.

England Squash and Racketball are also developing programmes to appeal to a wider audience, with programmes for young women like 'squashaerobics', which include a group workout on court activity followed by basic racquet skills.

England leading the world squash rankings. If their other development managers are anything like Justyn Price then I have no doubt that squash and racketball will meet its goal to become on of the country's best known sports by 2012.

The Hidden Secrets of the Creative Mind

It seems there is a reason that I so often find myself saying 'I had this great idea in the shower this morning.' Psychologist R. Keith Sawyer, author of the book Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation refers to the three Bs - bathroom, bus, and bed - as places that stereotypically produce groundbreaking ideas.

There are more interesting ideas for business people on this forum, where his interview if featured.

Email signatures

I was just about to call someone, but realised it's going to take a little longer than planned as I need to find their telephone number BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO EMAIL SIGNATURE!

Without wishing to insult anyone, in this day and age, not having a simple email signature with details of your full name, company, telephone and web address, is a bit like using a scrap of plain paper to write to people rather than using the company letter head. It's just not professional.

Here is a very simple 3 minute tutorial to show anyone how to add signatures. So no more excuses.

Rant over.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

My husband despairs that the only books I read these days could be classified as 'business, biography or self help.' Long gone are the days of reading fiction for pleasure.

It's rare to find a business book that you can't put down, yet this weekend I read David Meerman Scott's 'The New Rules of Marketing and PR' in just a few hours.

It's a great read for opening your mind to the way in which you can use online news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing and media to reach audiences.

He even offers some free stuff with a link to the key elements of the book online. Enjoy!

The future of LinkedIn

Superb day at the TFM&A conference.

Very entertaining session from Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group UK. He also offered access to a free presentation about the recession and its effect on the marketing sector.

An interesting analogy that people's buying patterns in a recession take on an 'Atkins' approach. His view is that it's not in human nature for people to slightly reduce consumption levels. Instead they are prone to making really big changes, completely re-framing their behaviour. This can be seen as people change where they choose to holiday (UK rather than overseas), where they shop (Asda rather than Sainsbury's) and what they purchase (dramatic increase in the sale of frozen foods).

Another interesting session in the afternoon with Kevin Eyres, Managing Director Europe of LinkedIn. It was reassuring to hear so many people in the audience with the same issues as me. Namely, that whilst LinkedIn is fantastic for creating business networks, it is very limited in its application and has, to date, been very poor at helping users to understand its capabilities.

Hopefully this will change in the future with new services being launched in recent months including a learning centre. Mr Eyres also alluded to their researching opportunities around Twitter etc.

Clearly they need to sort this out before LinkedIn suffers the same fate as Friends Reunited.

Technology for Marketing and Advertising show

If you are keen to find out more about opportunities in digital marketing and advertising and have a spare day this week, then why not pop along to TFM&A (the Technology for Marketing and Advertising Show).

This impressive event takes place at Earl's Court 2 this Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb 24-25), with speakers from organisations including Facebook, YouTube, Google, LinkedIn, the BBC and Reuters.

Five of our team will be at the event - hope to see you there.

Customer service in the fitness sector

I changed my hairdresser for the first time in 15 years this weekend.

The reason? I was disillusioned that they didn't value me as a very loyal long term customer. So having spent around £1,000 a year at Toni & Guy in Windsor, and despite the fact that I was perfectly happy with my hair cuts, I decided to experiment with something different and was tempted next door to the new Rush salon by its special offers and superb customer service.

Despite the fact that I have been visiting the same salon for so long, I was never made to feel truly valued by them.

The reason I tell this story is that how I felt towards Toni & Guy is how so many loyal members of health clubs must feel too. It was over 15 years ago that Peppers and Rogers wrote The One to One Future highlighting the simple truth that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new one. They identified that there are only four types of customers – prospects, customers, loyal customers and former customers – and that your loyal customers are happy to spend more money with you.

The things I feel our industry could learn from my experience at Rush...

- Customer service was excellent. From the way in which the coffee is served on its own little tray with a cafetiere and biscuits, to the attentive way the same person colours, washes and cuts your hair. My visit was full of little 'delighters' - those extra things that make you feel special.

- They did a great job of getting all my contact details on that first visit, email address, birthday, age group, how I had heard about them etc . I know they are going to use this information to start a dialogue and relationship with me as a customer.


- They gave me lots of lovely freebies and samples as I left which made me feel warm and friendly towards them and more likely to refer. Slightly superficial I realise - but who doesn't like free gifts?

- They have an incredibly powerful referal technique offering both me and anyone I refer 50% off the next appointment.

It's all too easy to focus on getting new people through the doors, but ultimately Rush appear
to recognise the importance of keeping regular customers happy and generating referrals.

Health club operators please take note.

Too much Radio 5 Live

Sat watching The Brits in the week - my annual attempt to get a little more in touch with contemporary music.

I'm not embarrassed to admit to being a fan of Girls Aloud (who couldn't love Cheryl), Take That (see you at Wembley in June boys), Coldplay and James Morrison.

But just as I was enjoying watching the show, and poor Kylie's attempt to look natural on stage (had she modelled herself on Sam Fox in 1989?), bands started to appear that I had never heard of. Ever. And there were lots of them... Seasick Boy, Elbow, Santogold, MGMT, Beth Rowley, Elbow.

Clearly I need to start listening to more than Radio 5 Live.

25 Random Things About Me

I not a fan of chain letters, but must confess that I rather like the latest craze on Facebook which is '25 Random Things'. The idea is that you write down 25 random things about yourself and then 'tag' 25 of your friends to do the same.

So here are mine...


1. My Dad was a PT instructor in the Metropolitan Police

2. My only A grades at ‘O’ level were in ‘needlecraft and dress’ and ‘food and nutrition’. At the time my brother said this qualified me to make me a good wife. My husband now questions my ability to cook or sew.

3. I love Thomas Hardy. My youngest daughter Tess is named after Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

4. I wanted to be a PE teacher when I was at school.

5. I start a lot of books, but don’t always finish them. I am currently reading 4.

6. My middle brother was a Gladiator – at the Birmingham NEC not in Rome.

7. I ran the London Marathon in 2001. Not sure I will be running another.

8. Having shared all significant birthday’s with my twin brother as I grew up, I married a man who was born two days before me. When I am feeling selfish, I begrudge the fact that I have to share my birthdays.

9. My dad was on the Krypton Factor (the first series in the 1970s)

10. I met my husband when I attended a conference for Gatorade at The Four Seasons Hotel in Santa Barbara.

11. I regret never representing my country at a sport. Not too late to qualify in age group triathlon when I have more time to train.

12. I love lots of American Drama – NYPD Blue, Gray’s Anatomy, ER, Brothers and Sisters, Weeds, Lipstick Jungle. All time favourite series is without doubt The West Wing.

13. An ex boyfriend competed at 5 Olympic Games.

14. I was a vegetarian for 7 years, but weakened one night and shared a Chicken Korma with Karen, my sister-in-law.

15. I still play netball fairly regularly – Goal Defence.

16. Song that most makes me smile: ‘There must be an Angel’ by the Eurythmics.

17. I really love cabbage and sprouts. Must be the vegetarian thing.

18. Wish I’d learnt to play the clarinet when I was young.

19. My favourite film of all time is 'Love Actually'.

20. The last film I saw was 'Hotel for Dogs'. On Valentines Day evening with 5 children. How times have changed.

21. I worked at Harrods on a trainee management programme for a year when I left school.

22. I truly believe that in life “what goes around comes around” and “you reap what you sow”.

23. My love of Australian red wine and bread will prevent me from ever remaining a size 10… or 12.

24. The most excitement I have ever felt at a sporting event was when I won the Hounslow Borough Championships for the one length breast stroke in 1977 (age 11) and beat Wendy Vincent.

25. I would have liked to have been an actress.

Mashable

Just discovered a fantastic blog for all things going on in the Web 2.0 arena - mashable.

With over 100,000 followers, TIME voted the blog in its top 25 by last week saying: “Besides relaying the latest news about Web 2.0 giants MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, it’s loaded with tips on enhancing your own social networking experience.”

Now I just need to find more time in my day to read all that fantastic content.

And now for the good news? 9,000 jobs at KFC

Disappointed to see the only bit of 'good news' celebrated on the BBC last night was the fact that KFC will be creating 9,000 new jobs. Of course I appreciate that new jobs in this climate are a great thing - but should we be getting so excited about 9,000 jobs at KFC, which tells us it will be opening as many as 300 new outlets in the next 3-5 years to add to the 760 already on our highstreets.

Martin Shuker, the KFC CEO proudly boasts that two weeks ago they opened a new drive-through in Worcester and it brought in £100,531 in the first week. He goes onto to say that you can feed a family of four for a tenner and clearly that's where lots of their new customers are coming from.

Not wishing to go all 'Jamie Oliver' on you (especially as I don't do much of the cooking in my house), but surely as a nation we should be doing all we can to show people that you can cook wonderful meals for a family of four for a tenner - rather than picking up a bargain bucket of fried chicken for the kids.

For all the government is doing to fight childhood obesity with the likes of Change4Life and Be Active Be Healthy, it's going to be a tough battle when they are fighting the likes of Colonel Saunders.

Beverly Eckert

I found myself in tears this morning as I read the story about Beverly Eckert who died in the Buffalo plane crash on the way to a memorial for her husband who was killed in 9/11. Pretty poignant words from President Obama : "Tragic events such as these remind us of the fragility of life and the value of every single day."

The expanding world of Twitter

The world of Twitter seems to be completely taking off and reaching the masses this month and much of that seems due to Stephen Fry.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that he was on The Jonathan Ross show saying how amazed he was to have 50,000 follows, and now he has 178,000! When he launched a new shop for T shirts online yesterday it was swamped with 40,000 visitors in the first few minutes. Clearly demonstrating the power of a strong online fan base.

The Promote team are starting to Tweet along with others in the world of active leisure - like LIW.

It's been entertaining following celebrities like Jonathan Ross, Philip Schofield, John Cleese and Stephen Fry who are witty and concise with their tweets.

In the beginning

Seems like a good week to start a blog with so much happening at Promote.

Spent time at the TCR event at Sandown Park at the weekend. It was absolutely heaving - clearly the sport of triathlon hasn't been hit by the credit crunch.
Monday morning attended a photoshoot with Dr Tim Brabants for the Daily Mirror (with subtle branding for his new sponsors Matrix Fitness Systems and Gatorade.) Look out for it later in the year, in a series of articles along with other Olympic heroes Rebecca Adlington, Chris Hoy and Rebecca Romero.
Yesterday's the Promote team were in London for a range of meetings including some enlightening sessions with the likes of the FIA, SkillsActive (in preparation for next week's AASE launch at Roehampton) REPs and Fitness TV - all of which have some great plans for 2009.

Attended a Board Meetng for the County Sport Partnership ProActive West yesterday evening which was held at the incredibly impressive Willsden Sports Centre. We were all amazed to witness just how many people were active in the centre at 7.30 this evening in all areas of the centre. Yesterday was also a big day for physical actvity generally with the Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo, Minister of State for Public Health, launching the Government's new physical activity plan - Be Active, Be Healthy.