Do people really know what you do? This may sound like no brainer and obvious question and answer but it’s really not, let me explain further. We recently launched a new side of the business and we now offer brand strategy and professional websites for consultants. Through this program I’m getting the chance to work […]
Do People Really Know What You Do? 4 Examples of Consultants with Clear Brand Messaging is a post from: Consulting Success
Not all clients are the same. They certainly aren’t all worth the same to your business. Yet consultants often pay little attention to this truth. In the consulting business there are two core approaches to growth: 1) Focus on volume – where you take on as many projects as you can. The more projects the […]
5 Reasons to Work with Small Clients and Projects is a post from: Consulting Success
“Oh! The practise of the time is to tear down houses! But to rebuild? That is frightening! We are tearing down to get air and light; Is not that enough?“
- August Strindberg – The Esplanade System poem, 1883
We have written last week about London’s first place at the Wealth Report as a place of excellence for the Super Rich to be. There are a lot of rankings like the Mercer Quality of Living, Brookings Global Metro Monitor, KPMG´s Competitive Alternatives, IESE´s Cities of Motion Index and PWC´s Cities of Opportunity (PWC), to mention a few.
Basically all these quality of life rankings reflects the particular interests, for whom this measurements will be beneficial for big corporations and policy makers within their frames of references.
Hundreds of different rankings are published and updated every year. They continuously assess and measure places, regions and countries using hundreds of parameters and indicators, from quality of living to gender empowerment, to identify the winners in specific categories and establish the standards of excellence. Rankings are widely used by government bodies, corporations and organisations to track performance, trends and opportunities for further analysis and strategic moves.
But what really stands behind the logic and choice of measurement parameters reflects the particular interests of the “customers”, for whom the ranking results will be beneficial, within their frame of references. For example, if the ranking is issued keeping in mind the attraction of new businesses, then it will measure "how innovative the place is", what are the benefits for opening new businesses, quality of infrastructure required for these specific new comers, talent attraction factors etc.
But what can be beneficial for one group of "customers” may not be necessarily important for the other group. What is attractive for investors might not be attractive to the tourists or residents and vice versa. What is attractive for policy makers or the big corporations might not be attractive for public.
There is an international ISO 37120:2014 management standard, which defines methodology and indicators for measuring the city services performance in terms of quality of life. In fact as it is created for policy makers, it reflects the city makers understanding of the city excellence standards.
Thus these rankings do not give the objective picture and do not show the "nature" and uniqueness of the city. The results are data-decision based and do not take into account human perceptions and emotions. Even for the advanced in Big Data analytics skills, it’s not easy to numerically describe the intangible factors, which make a city attractive, and a real value, brand equity of a place is lost behind the numbers.
When one speaks about the recent fashionable concept of “smart city”, we imagine sort of a robot city dense with computerized sensors and remote controlled functions, techno-utopia, and kingdom of “internet of things”. No surprise, taking into account that the global market for which is now estimated at 1,7 trillion USD and an urban database remains monetized by private companies.
Talking about sustainability, convenience, efficiency and optimization the city managers (for whom the Smart City ratings are created) forget about the main purpose of the city – to be a place where people live with their choices, preferences and demands highly driven by emotional factor, which is hardly measurable by numbers. How one can measure “cultural availability”, or express historical heritage and infrastructure as a percentage? Otherwise what is the distinguish factor between the cities, which have the similar set of attributes: affordable housing, good education, low crime rates, green spaces and connectivity.
It is a source of never ending challenge for the place managers and a question of a big complexity to make a city smart in true meaning of this word. Along with Place Branding and Place Development, successful Place Management is fundamental to the process to achieve Place Excellence.
During the last few decades Place Management has developed from a few simple quantifiable elements into the complex art of attraction development. This means that, besides tangible and hard factors that are easy to measure, a number of subtle, soft factors, or intangibles, have gained importance.
In our work with places and regions, Place Management is a key factor to achieve positive development in towns, cities, regions, science parks, innovation districts and other places. Place Management deals with professional management and direction for regional and local growth.
As far as we know, the topic of Place Management has not been covered in economic and management literature until we published a book on the subject in 2011.
Place management takes tangible factors, which are easy to measure and express in numbers, and intangible factors, which are measured with unique tools, in consideration and how it helps to build an attractiveness of a place, to identify its sweet spot.
None of the surprise that the world metropolises such as London, New York and Barcelona remain the places of the true “smart city creativity” and are hugely attractive to all sorts of city target customers: visitors, residents and investors.
Many people believe London is the smartest city of them all and not only because of its primer positions in various respectable rating. These positions are the consequence but not a cause of London’s glorious reputation.
Boris Johnson, arguably the most controversial and the most famous mayor in the world, stands behind London’s future growth.
It is estimated that until 2021 London’s population will grow roughly by a million of new inhabitants, which is the fastest rate of acceleration ever. “We are going to hit nine million before New York, and approach ten million by 2030”, says Johnson. “With these demographic projections, we will have at least another 641,000 jobs, another 800,000 homes, and more than 600,000 extra passengers will need to travel by public transport at peak times by 2031.
There will be the challenge of dealing with increasing waste and meeting extra pressure on healthcare and energy supplies”. Additionally London remains a “formidable generator of new enterprise, jobs and inward investment” and the main concern of the authorities is how to make the capital work even better not only as a service provider for business infrastructure but how to be a better city for all Londoners, and how to be responsive to all their needs.
Since its formation in March 2013 the Smart London Board advised by the Greater London Authority follows its vision for a smarter London and a “ tangible path to integrate opportunities from new digital technologies into the fabric of London”.
And the concept is simple and puts people in the centre of its focus. A smarter London must be “a place in which people want to live, work and play”. And Big Data based intelligent technologies will be employed to serve as an instrument to achieve London’s sustainable prosperity for all its human stakeholders. Isn’t it really Smart?
The post The Soul of the City appeared first on Bearing Consulting.
Each morning my alarm goes off at 6am. By 6:30 I’m jumping up and down and moving side to side at my strength and fitness class. After being in Europe for two weeks on vacation with my family I noticed a change at my class when I returned. There were far fewer people than before. […]
The 8% Secret to Getting More Clients is a post from: Consulting Success
At this time of year when the momentum of the New Year is still fresh many of us (especially all you motivated readers of this blog!) have set up some big and exciting personal and business goals that we’re working towards. We change, our lives change, priorities shift and some of our goals get accomplished. […]
Achieving Your Goals: A Simple 4 Step System is a post from: Consulting Success
I recently posted this on my Facebook page: “Clarity comes from subtraction not addition. In my business and for so many of my clients the greatest growth has come from stripping away underperforming offers and getting focused on more powerful ones rather than adding more features or products which almost always complicate things.” Consultants often […]
How to Become More Productive By Doing Less is a post from: Consulting Success
“It’s not about what you know — it’s about who you know.”
Yesterday I attended the Global High Net Worth annual conference in Monaco organized by Ian and Martina Brodie, publishers of MonacoLife, one of the most renowned English speaking newspapers in the Principality of Monaco. The conference was arranged in partnership with Savilles.
The event is planned to be annual and this first occasion took place in the heart of Monaco at Salon Bellevue in Café de Paris, and attracted professionals in wealth services and family offices for Ultra Rich Individuals (URI) from all over the world. The event was an excellent opportunity to network with the key Monaco figures in private banking, wealth management and real estate.
Ultra High Net Worth Individuals are defined as people having a net worth of at least US$30 million. According to Wall Street Journal, there were 199,235 UHNW individuals in the world in 2013, with a total combined net worth of US$27,770 billion. Billionaires are a special category of UHNW individuals, having net worth in excess of US$1 billion.
According to Forbes. Not surprisingly, Monaco has the highest number of billionaire residents per capita in the world.
Today Monaco is known for its tourist industry, but with its high concentration of world class experts and talents, Monaco is striving to become a leading competence centre for corporate investment and private equity.
This will drive local and contribute to global economic growth and to the image of the place as a safe and convenient world destination for UNHWs, many of whom have already chosen Monaco as their second home for its safety, natural beauty and exceptional lifestyle.
But successful business people after the great recession have different preferences than before. What matters today is networking in the sense “who else is there”. In todays global world, for success, and especially for business success, one’s knowledge and skills are less important than one’s network of personal contacts. We have written about this previously on this blog.
With the total population slightly over 36 000, Monaco is the most densely-populated place in the world, and also the most millionaire dense. One person in three is a Euro millionaire according to Spears 2014 global ranking.
Monaco does not have enough space to accommodate everyone who wish to have their home there, which leads to a challenge to make Monaco “home” for at least their wealth. The ambition for the Principality is to develop Monaco´s reputation and expertise in wealth management, investment facilitation and in ultimate efficiency of its financial services, first, to attract new wealth and, second, to satisfy those crème de la crème who are “already there” and can spread the “knowledge” further.
According to the Wealth-X survey, the average URI is connected to five times as much wealth as their own, through only three UR known associates and is connected to at least eight other UR individuals. Events similar to Monaco Private Label and Prince Albert II Foundation gala dinners and initiatives make sense to target the Ultra Rich and serve as a promotional tool for Monaco as an attractive investment destination.
The Principality´s agenda is busy with all sorts of business events, conferences and symposiums and the Global High Net Worth conference is exactly the kind of event Monaco needs in order to gain the reputation as the right place for investors to do business and “park” their wealth.
Yesterdays Keynote speaker, His Excellency Henri Fissore, Ambassador in detached service to the Prime Minister of Monaco, opened the conference with a speech where he emphasized the excellence of Monaco as a business destination, its unique incentives and offerings for high profile investors reinforced by strong government support.
The Conference agenda included vivid dialogues and a roundtable discussion on the up-to-date subjects relevant to the HNW professionals, to mention a few:
The business agenda was combined with an exquisite entertainment offering, to experience the spirit of glamor of Monte Carlo. Whisky and Cigar tasting was on the agenda, with the Monte Carlo Whiskey Society and the Monaco Cigar Club, and the Gala dinner in the Pacific restaurant were just perfect.
How cam one choose the right branding approach for a destination like Monaco to be attractive and reach out its target customers and taking into account the place unique capabilities? The article Place Branding as a Competitive Tool is about this.
In the case of Monaco, as I wrote about in an article last year, co-branding of all aspects of Monaco life (culture, tourism, healthcare, financial services) in the same direction is of vital importance, and this goes for all of the three target markets,visitors, residents and investors.
The post Global HNW Conference in Monaco appeared first on Bearing Consulting.
In 2014 one of my businesses generated over $596,536. The actual amount is significantly higher as this figure doesn’t include speaking fees and other client payments received by bank transfer. What’s important to remember is that a higher priced offer must provide exceptional value. If it doesn’t, the success of it won’t last long. This […]
How I Made Over $596,539 in 12 Months is a post from: Consulting Success
Damien Wilpitz is like many of the consultants I work with. He’s smart, great at what he does, dedicated, and committed to getting results. And yet he faced a common challenge – how to attract more clients for his business. Within a short 8 week period Damien went from having a lot of IDEAS on […]
How to Turn IDEAS Into RESULTS Fast is a post from: Consulting Success
“We can therefore understand all of the cardinal virtues by considering how each is embodied in the organization of an ideal city.”
- Socrates in The Republic, by Plato
Humanity has not put up a single beautiful city since 1905, claims the narrator. The video below presents a manifesto about how to make attractive cities. The main point is that six things are required to make a city feel right. They are:
Why do we not make attractive cities in recent times? The video claims we have an intellectual confusion about beauty and a political lack of will to regulate opportunistic developers that puts profit before ambitious city planning regulations. The proof of success? It lies in visitor statistics.
I was recommended to watch the 15 minutes video by John Banka at Colliers in Warsaw, and I fully agree with him that this video is fascinating. It is produced by The School of Life.
The post How to Make an Attractive City appeared first on Bearing Consulting.
A consultant was looking for help to attract more ideal clients and wanted to join my coaching program the other day. We got on the phone and had a conversation to decide whether the program would be the right fit for them. So if someone wants to ‘just call up a few of your clients’ […]
4 Ways to Handle Buyer Reference Requests is a post from: Consulting Success
The Apple Watch made its fashion editorial debut on the cover of Vogue China’s November 2014 issue, featuring supermodel Liu Wen. Now in the March issue of Vogue´s American edition, the device will get a 12 page advertisement mainly based on images.
As if we had not known so before, this ad placement confirms that the Apple Watch will be more about Fashion than Function. In less than two weeks we will know the launch plan for the device.
Earlier this week, Apple issued invites for a media event on March 9, with the tagline “Spring Forward”, which likely refers to time, hence the Apple Watch is a good guess for the star of the show. The event will be held at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco beginning at 10 a.m. on Monday, March 9 and it will be broadcasted live on Apples home page.
We already know the Apple Watch will come in three distinct lines, with a variety of options within each. The Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition will be priced lower and higher in that order.
We also know the Apple Watch will be a touch device, with a new kind of haptic feedback and a digital crown, and apps that essentially run remotely from an iPhone. It is also thought to have a battery that can last approximately a day with normal, mixed used.
I think we can expect the Apple Watch to be a huge success, and the first disruptive innovation from Apple since the launch of the iPad five years ago. In true Apple style and like fine timepieces of the old times, the Apple Watch is designed to be admired while remaining unobtrusive.
Below is a video from Bloomberg TV with some interesting dialogue about what to expect.
The post Apple Watch will be Apples first Disruptive Innovation Since the iPad appeared first on Bearing Consulting.
