How do you persuade people to do something? An age-old question that doesn’t really have one correct answer. It’s a conundrum that marketers and copywriters spend their careers trying to solve for the product or service they are selling. A cleverly written piece of copy can translate into millions of global sales, and a carefully placed advert can subliminally nudge people in the right direction without them even realizing it. It’s all around us, our governments do it to encourage…

So, the Christmas Tree has dropped its last few pines on the pavement outside the house, awaiting its recycling collection. The remnants of the least favorite chocolates, rumble disconsolately around the sweetie tin, and the decorations are parcelled taped up and posted back into the loft for another year. Forlornly we all have started back to work after the lazy food and drink-infused lay-ins and disconnected alarm clocks. Hello, 2023! Another year has been born, another diet has been promised,…

When I started my career, as I’m sure many people do, I imagined a straightforward path in front of me. A clear step-by-step road, to becoming successful, whilst I continued climbing the rungs of the ladder. The process seemed simple. Work hard, and get promoted. Eat, sleep and repeat. What has transpired instead of a ladder, is more of a game of the proverbial snakes and ladders board game. Or something akin to a Lewis Carroll story, when Alice is…

The C-word. (Not that one, reader!) You can’t escape it. Every year it creeps in, chews you up, and spits you back out. This will be my 1st Christmas in 11 years of not working in hospitality. The 3-course dinners, the next day 7 am finishes, the Christmas roadshows in July, the vomit clear-up in the toilets, the repetitious Mariah Carey sing-along every night at closing time, the 14-hour shifts, the cook-offs, the 250-person buffets, the students eating with their…

About a month ago I saw this phrase on LinkedIn and it stuck with me. “Authenticity cuts through the noise” I’m from a generation that has grown up with social media, and it was all so easy once upon a time. You came home from school, logged onto MSN messenger, and spend four hours choosing a song lyric to add alongside your name whilst picking one of ten emojis that existed at the time. Over the last twenty years, it…