If Music be the Food of Life...

Yes, yes, I know.  Apologies to Mr W. Shakespeare for stealing his lines and then misquoting them.

Mrs F and I are the proud owners of a Squeezebox radio which some very good friends bought us for Christmas a couple of years ago.  It pretty much does what it says on the tin “A compact all-in-one network music player—that lets you rock the house with digital music.”

I’ve been listening to it at home today.  I started off listening to Radio Paradise, which is just the best radio station, internet or otherwise, I’ve ever come across.  Reader, get yourself over there and listen!  Your ears will love you forever.

Is Selling about 'manipulating' customers?

I’ve recently been following, and occasionally participating in, the discussion “Is selling about ‘manipulating’ customers?” on the ModernSelling.com LinkedIn discussion group.

There is a fascinating range of opinions centred on the concept of manipulation and whether or not what happens during a sale should be termed manipulation, influence, managing the situation or something else.  I thoroughly recommend reading the piece (it’s an open group so you should have no problem if you’re already on LI) for the very learned and thoughtful approach of the contributors.

It got me thinking along two divergent lines – firstly why selling has such a bad reputation and secondly about life in general and all of the transactions that occur on a day-to-day basis.

Simple Pleasures

At the time of writing (which was a few weeks ago!) , I’ve been in Australia nearly 22 hours after a 28 hour trip door-to-door. That’s not the pleasurable part!

It’s Sunday and I’m staying at the Stamford Grand Hotel in a northern suburb of Sydney. After a good sleep and a good breakfast I thought I would take a walk down to the local shopping mall just opposite Macquarie University. I’ve been there before and it’s a good way to kill a couple of hours when you are recovering from a long flight.

It’s summer here so it’s warm and humid and I started grinning to myself as I walked down the road. No, I’m not mad (well, not too mad) but I was loving the fact that I could walk down the street in February in a t-shirt and jeans, I could hear the birds squawking unfamiliar squawks and I could smell the eucalyptus trees.