After 40+ years of marketing and media, in January 2019 I decided to move into semi-retirement, and return to my first career in property, by focusing on our extension planning business which had been a sideline for the last 25 years.My father always told me that sweating through the RICS exams in the early 1970's would be worthwhile, and indeed that knowledge, together with over 25 years of house remodelling and property development, is now proving invaluable. This year has found me dealing with projects as diverse as an Edwardian kitchen extension, through several semi detached orangeries, extending in National Parks, conservation areas and Listed buildings to designing the total remodelling of a 4,000 square foot Scandia Hus. We've also been involved in several planning enforcements, successfully getting permission for clients in the teeth of local council complaints.Dealing with people looking to improve their home is so different from dealing with many of my past marketing clients: They recognise one's experience, and value it. They don't all think they know better, but listen to advice.They don't insist on everything looking or sounding the same as everyone else.They welcome innovative ideas.They recognise that sometimes what they want to achieve, needs a totally new approach.They realise that you're acting in their best interests.Above all, they pay their bills on time and don't make you wait, or try to screw you down once the price has been agreed.We're achieving a 100% success rate with planning permissions, and have got a similar level of client satisfaction. So if you're living in Sussex, Kent, Surry or Hampshire, and thinking of extending rather than moving. check out our website...

When it comes to long-term growth, especially among large organisations, your internal sales cycle isn't worth jack - to them you are just another supplier, of just another commodity to be bought only when they are ready. If you want to break out of that cycle you have to tap into your customers' buying psyches, rather than following your sales cycles, which very few companies or sales people know how to do. Nor should they - their job is to keep the customer satisfied, so they rightly spend their time managing the day-to-day obstacles to a happy relationship, and have no space to lift their eyes to the future.Which is where we come in.Generally we work in a very discreet role at CEO/CFO /CxO level on behalf our clients, organising executive research, strategy discussions. We use this to drive programmes of executive dinners and strategic content that help our clients engage at a far more senior level than is possible from focusing on engagement through ITTs.We are deeply immersed in how the world of work is changing, and have built deep experience meeting and interviewing strategy makers at most of the UK's best-known brands. We use our ability to engage at the highest level to help our clients understand where their customers see themselves going in the next 5-10 years.From this we then help them shape and execute executive level strategic engagement that show how our clients can help them on this journey.It is hugely successful - many campaigns that have yielded ROI off the scale - one client opened up a £1 billion pipeline over a four-year campaign period.Specialties: Strategic researchC-Level engagement Executive events - Directors' dinners, round tables, focus groupsWhite papers and thought leadershipCustomer benchmarking

Working Knowledge invited me to help out at one of their sixth form workshops in business skills in 2012, and I found it one of the most rewarding days you can have. As business people the chance to work with tomorrow's workforce should never be passed up and it has led to some great opportunities, so I try to help them whenever I can.

This is a fascinating consultancy role working at Senior Executive Level with the FTA on a range of Strategic Engagement projects on a project consultancy basis. These include:* Designing and executing Research into the future of logistics - Automation, AI, Environmental challenges, Manpower shortages, integrating SCM and customer service pressures* Setting FTA services in context with the increasingly automated world of Logistics to maintain a leadership position as a key and trusted adviser* Developing a Strategic Engagement programme working with senior execs across the sector on events, research, content and vision* Supporting the Events Team in developing and delivering new events to attract this audience* Leading services development workgroups around technology and infrastructure development* Creating thought leadership materials including,strategy guides and white papersWe have already identified some terrific opportunities being opened up by the introduction of connected and autonomous vehicles as well as the increasing use of AI in business operations.This is very forward-thinking work and will significantly benefit the FTA's membership as it helps to frame the context of all future marketing, services and product development

While working very closely with a large group of property directors over the a four year period researching and writing about the huge changes in the workplace on behalf of Mitie, it became obvious that despite the plethora of trade magazines and other relevant publications, there was no dedicated information resource for senior directors responsible for setting and developing workplace strategies.We also received a lot of feedback from guests at the Mitie executive relationship programme dinner series, confirming that situation and encouraging us to share the quality of content and information that we get from these meetings, and other activities.We agreed that the best way to meet this need would be to launch a new, and independent, editorially-led information ports. This provides a single comprehensive source curating research and news and be invaluable to executives trying to identify the best way to shape their workplace strategies.In order to preserve the editorial independence, Mitie agreed to sponsor the launch and the first year of operation of WorkplaceStartegy.info, which went live in April 2015.Since then it has grown a very high level following with several hundred regular CXO readers, all of whom are vetted to avoid dilution of the quality. In 2018, following the departure of the then Chief Executive, Mitie elected not to continue the sponsorship, however we are continuing to operate the site and support the readers interests.

Wow - this came out of the blue! Having originally set out to put together a skills training day for our local IAM motorcycle group, it soon became obvious that there was a thumping great opportunity for a biker show in the South East. After securing a tenancy at Goodwood, originally for a small corner on a quiet summer Saturday, it started to morph into a full-blown event as more and more folks expressed interest in exhibiting and coming along. So on the Saturday evening of June 10th 2017 we started to see the arrival of our first exhibitors, by 6.30 on Sunday morning the trickle had become a flood, and at 8.30 we opened the doors to the first of 7,000 odd visitors who turned up for a great day out.The event was a huge success - 90% of visitors in an exit poll said they would like to come again, we had the same reaction from exhibitors, and plans are in hand for the 2018 event. It's wholly unlike the corporate work we do, but shows that the same principles apply to all good marketing 1) Understand consumer demand2) Identify how it can be better answered3 Produce the answer and 4) Enjoy the success It was a terrific, and unexpectedly successful, day. Who knows, it may well happen again!

AlphaZulu was a fantastic piece of software that we used heavily in the Lightning group and with which we were heavily involved in the development.The business was originally owned by an old friend of mine who was taken very seriously ill around the time I was looking to reduce my involvement with the agency, so I was asked to step in temporarily and run his ship.Over a three year period we sold it to over 60 PR and marketing companies with some outstanding results - some companies reported a 25% productivity boost, but by 2008 everyone wanted it to be web-based rather than on-site servers.Doing this called for more investment than we had at our fingertips, so we sold the technology and goodwill to a competitor.

After selling out the publishing business to EMAP, I moved into freelancing, mostly doing corporate writing and publishing support, One day a very important client asked me over lunch 'do you do PR?' When I asked why she pointed out that she was paying her PR agency £9k a month and getting less coverage than I was placing case studies!Over lunch, we dreamed up the idea for Lighting PR, a new kind of agency, and they became my first client.The ethos of The Lightning Group was to help companies demonstrate how their technologies solved business problems, rather than sell their technical capabilities. We worked with some great names ( see below) and created some fantastically successful marketing programmes which were all based around the idea of capturing and sharing their customer's experiences.Having a long track record in the media, which helped hugely when it came to placing customer case studies in the press, we developed a new model for charging PR services designed to deliver excellent value for money. Rather than charge a retainer, or a success fee, we charged only for things we actually delivered, so the client had total transparency on their bill, and the more successfully we built their presence the happier they were to pay our fees!Computacenter was the inspiration that got us into PR and was one of our anchor clients for an 11-year period.We developed some great programmes for them, including executive engagement, sector and account based marketing events, seminars and thought leadership. Across the period we worked together, we took their PR Presence to #1 against some serious competitors including ATOS, CapGemini and Accenture Our other clients were equally stellar, and we delivered a similar range of programmes for them including companies as diverse as:AppleBritish AirwaysComputacenterIBMInformaticaJaguar CarsKPMGMarshNetAppNASAOpenTextOracleRainfinitySun MicrosystemsXerox as well as a whole lot of others.

During my 'early career', having failed to get enough 'A levels' to attend uni, I studied to become a chartered surveyor, spent a short while in the army before falling off a mountain, then moved into the media industry, working with Capital Radio, the Daily Express and IPC/Reed. I ended up running the Transport Publishing Group, as well as playing a key role in launching Reed's first digital publishing division.During this time I sold advertising, wrote radio ads, launched five new magazines and four exhibitions, and became a journalist, as well as studied management sciences and went through the Reed Management Development Course which would be recognised by anyone completing a Cranfield MBA today.When Reed decided to relocate its entire online division to the USA, I took the redundancy package on offer, and decided to launch my own publishing company in direct competition with my former colleagues!After two years, we had achieved a market share of over 10% of advertising revenue, which was causing the major publishers some pain, and we ended up in a bidding war between Reed and EMAP, with EMAP being the eventual winner