Supply and demand

See Neptunus’ Managing Director April Trasler’s insightful comments in the supply and demand feature in the October issue of Exhibition Bulletin. Investigating supplier relationships in the exhibition market, including contract trends emerging in the industry.

Worried about energy costs in your business?

A by-lined article in Modern Building Services for our client Honeywell Building Solutions sets out a cost-effective strategy for significant energy and cost savings. Let an expert pay for the required improvements!

Three foundations for building-control success

Having a whale of a time!

Delighted to announce we're carrying out a pro bono media relations campaign to promote WhaleFest (www.whale-fest.com), which happens next March in Brighton. 

The last event, held at the same venue last year, was an excellent mix of entertainment, exhibition and information, with over 6,000 people visiting over a two-day period. If you fancy a family weekend by the seaside, it's well worth a visit.

More information to follow...

Top questions posed by your customers re social media

Following on from the top five questions to ask yourself about whether or not to adopt a social media programme, here are eight questions your customers might ask you, should you decide to venture online...

1. Why should I like you on Facebook?
2. Why should I follow you on Twitter?
3. Why would I value the experience i.e. what would I take away from it?
4. Why would I keep coming back over time?
5. Why would I keep engaged with you, rather than my real friends?
6. Why would I urge other contacts to follow you?
7. Why would I spend time in your network rather than keeping my own?
8. Why should I care about you, if you don't care about me?

Developing great answers to these are your best chance of developing a successful social media programme.

The top five questions to ask yourself about social media

If you're thinking of adding social media to your marketing platform, here are five questions you need to answer before making a final decision...

1.  What do I hope to achieve by adopting a social media programme?
2.  What should the programme consist of?
3.  How important is social media to my customer base?
4.  How much am I willing to invest in developing and maintaining a social media presence?
5.  How am I going to measure the value of the programme?

If you need some help with working out what's best for you, feel free to get in touch.

A genuine Masterpiece

Have you seen the August issue of Exhibition Bulletin? Check out page 12, which shows the work Neptunus undertook for Masterpiece London. They replicated the look of the nearby Chelsea Hospital using a printed wrap around on the temporary structure they constructed. It’s hard to distinguish the temporary structure from the real thing!

Technical triumph

It's always a busy time of year but as always we've met the deadlines and our clients' award entries have been signed, sealed and delivered - for now at least!

We'll have to wait until the end of the summer before all the results are announced but we already have one victory under our belt….. Our materials handling client was the worthy winner of a national United Kingdom Warehousing Association Award this month. A technical triumph for all those involved!

10 rules of reputation management

“O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”

Now we’re not sure we agree with Shakespeare’s Cassio when it comes to bestiality, but he has a fair point when he talks about the ‘immortal part’ of himself. When reputation’s gone, it’s gone – as Gerald Ratner knows only too well.

In business, reputation can mean the difference between success and failure, profit and loss, work or the dole queue.

So, how do you keep hold of what you have – and how can you enhance it?

Here are what we believe to be the top ten rules of reputation management…

1. Tell the truth. You don’t want to be known as a liar. Customers will disappear – and will also talk negatively about you to other customers and potential customers. Your workforce will never trust you again – and that’s not good for motivation or, indeed, for staff retention. And as for journalists… well, the hope will be that they never mention you again, but the likelihood is that you will be publically lambasted and news of your deceit will be spread far and wide. Not good, not good at all.

2. Build up goodwill (a.k.a. making allies in peace time). All reputations are vulnerable, but if you have spent time and effort in building yours up during the good times, the more chance you have of surviving the bad.

3. Deliver on your promises. The easiest way to build and keep a good reputation is to ensure that you deliver what you promise – be that a product or service of consistently high quality; training and career development opportunities for staff or even getting back to a journalist when you say you will.

4. Talk to people. If there’s one thing worse than knowing, it’s the not knowing. People don’t like to be left in the dark and they hate surprises – especially in business. If there is an issue that is affecting or about to affect your operation, talk to the relevant parties. The workforce is more likely to be onside if it knows the scope of the issue and what needs to be done; customers will appreciate being kept up to speed so they can take action within their own business to alleviate any consequences.

Of course, the above should be the principles of any business. But there will be times when things within or outside your control have an adverse impact on your activity. These are the times when your reputation is really on the line. Curiously, these times also provide opportunities to enhance your reputation.

Business guru John Nicholls says a crisis gives a business the chance to shine. “If I have two suppliers that are as good as each other, and one supplier has an issue with deliveries that it overcomes successfully and with the minimum of fuss, I would be more impressed than I am with its competitor, who has not yet had a problem,” he says.

So, are you ready for the crisis that will inevitably happen and threaten your reputation?

5. Plan for the worst. It’s easy to turn a minor crisis into a major disaster if you don’t know how to handle it. Look at every area of your operation, ask what could happen that would be damaging to your reputation, then develop a plan to help you address that issue. To get you started, here are some of the crises we’ve handled over the last few years. How many could apply to your business?

• Redundancies

• Site closures / transfer of operations

• Road accidents / deaths and consequent prosecutions

• Site accidents and consequent prosecutions

• Racism

• Theft of stock / security issues

• Loss of customers

• Illegal immigration

• Communicable diseases / management communication

• Customer service issues

• False performance claims

• Subcontractor issues

• Trade union issues

• Business performance issues

• Organisational change

• Product recalls

• Staff assaults

6. Test, rehearse, revise and review. Test every area of your crisis plan thoroughly. Make sure everyone knows their role and is comfortable with putting the plan into practice. Keep revising the plan until you are confident that it will work. Review and update the plan as frequently as is sensible, but never less than annually.

7. Know your messages. Agree key messages and stick to them. Ensure that everybody knows them and be certain that they are in every communication with the outside world.

8. Get buy-in from the top. Somebody in your business has to be in charge of the crisis plan and they have to be recognised and accepted as such from the outset. If your managing director is unhappy to follow your lead, the worst time to find out is when the company’s reputation is on the line. Senior management must buy into the plan from the outset – and their commitment must be open and obvious.

9. Select and train your spokespeople. Pick two or three reliable and senior people within the business to talk on behalf of the organisation; then train them to make sure they are confident in talking to the media – whether that be over the phone, face to face, down a microphone or on camera.

10. Know your limitations. If you are not an expert in reputation management, or if you don’t have the time to devote to the development of a plan, hire somebody who can help. You would not entrust the company's legal or financial affairs to a well-meaning amateur. A damaged reputation will kill a company faster than any court battle or financial crisis.

By the way, following Othello’s suicide, Cassio ended up becoming Governor of Cyprus – which just goes to show that things can still turn around, no matter how desperate they may look.

Double whammy

It’s great to see Neptunus’ work at the London Olympics recognised in the temporary structures feature on pages 31 – 36 of the June 2013 issue of Access All Areas. There’s a great image showcasing the London 2012 Megastore that Neptunus built.

In the same issue on pages 6 - 8 Neptunus showed off more blooming marvellous structures at the Royal Chelsea Flower Show.

Tiger's loss is good news for Augusta

The dramatic finish to this year's US Masters, the fairytale conclusion to Adam Scott's quest to win a Major following his last-round collapse in last year's Open and the crowd's vociferous reaction to his victory drowned out the huge sighs of relief emanating from the committee room of Augusta's clubhouse.

Having added a stroke to a 14 year old Chinese amateur's score for taking a few seconds too long over a couple of golf shots - the first penalty of its kind in 17 years - the Master's powers-that-be then shot themselves in the foot by showing Tiger Woods the kind of leniency that the Catholic church has shown some members of its priesthood over the last few decades.

Surely, the golf world's number one golfer is well aware of what happens when his ball goes in the water... as well as the penalty for not following the rules of the game.

And every golfer in the world knows what happens when you sign for the wrong score - which is what Tiger did. You're disqualified. Full stop. End of story. Unless you're Tiger.

The committee dragged out a rule of golf brought in a couple of years ago specifically to address the issue caused by eagle-eyed television viewers watching hi-definition close-ups of televised competitions and reporting the minutest of transgressions that went unnoticed on the course itself.

It recognised that disqualification was too draconian a punishment for instances where players inadvertently incurred penalties when, for example, their ball shifted slightly while their attention was elsewhere.

Desperate to ensure their box-office attraction kept up the viewing figures for all four days of the Masters, the committee invoked this rule. By doing so, it trampled all over the spirit of the game and possibly changed golf forever, with club players demanding a two-shot penalty for signing for a wrong score, rather than accepting disqualification.

That result is bad enough. But what if Tiger had won? What would that have done for the credibility of this particular tournament - possibly the biggest in the world? What would it have done for the integrity of the game as a whole?

This issue would have run and run. Tiger's image would have taken more of a battering. Augusta would have been discredited. Reputations would have been in tatters.

When asked about the one-stroke penalty imposed on the Chinese eighth-grader, which happened on the same day as his own transgression, Wood's response was "Rules are rules."

Apparently, that succinct statement is open to interpretation.