Getting A job in Marketing in the 2008/2009 recession

Job Hunting in 2009 for the Strathclyde University / business school MSc Marketing Graduate.

Okay there is going to be a recession ….in many business sectors at least this means slow growth, and in some areas downsizing. It means less recruitment and less marketing budget.

This is going to be a big recession in some sectors- housing for example and recruitment consultancy luxury ‘capital items’ (yachts, holiday homes, camper homes, flash cars) and premium mass consumer items because joe mortgage punter has been using his capital as leverage on loans. Now him, the bank and any given company which did the same based on it’s stock value are in the same boat. Fubar.

Given even a recession as bad as the early 80s, it is still vital that companies recruit competence in marketing at this time to capture share, retain customers and in fact use the opportunity to make their marketing even more cost effective.

For you people at Strathclyde's MSc Marketing course, it is going to be even tougher to get on the career ladder because the competition for jobs will get worse- fewer general graduate traineeships (milk-round), fewer people risking to change job, fewer people starting on their own, fewer people retiring early... and so on, the career ladder or tree is more locked internally and at its roots of entry level.

On the last point this means that there are in fact fewer experienced people out there applying for jobs FROM within a good job, but this doesn’t really help you against the masses of applications for advertised jobs. However it does mean that many companies with needs to recruit or expand in marketing, and other 'foot in the door' jobs of interest to you, do not get many open applications from experienced candidates . Also higher risk jobs, mainly in establishing new businesses, divisions, regional/country S&M attract less interest.

So now you will get the feeling that scouring the S&M pages and searches on your usual web sites will no longer be your prioritized, time weighted job searching activity. Instead you will turn the usual system on it’s head and utilize open approaches to companies, networking and new shaping.

First of All let’s talk about the most attractive market sectors and job types:

Attractive Market Sectors in a Recession

This is for your personal job market and not just by product / industry category. When I was graduating in the early nineties I would say most marketing graduates or oxbridgers looked upon the demigods in FMCG as being their future womb for APM to brand manager career.

Now I suspect there is a different attitude amongst you, post the dot com boom and “reboom” when google, yahoo etc sold out, and the years of down sizing and “euro marketing” which have ravaged the blue chip companies. Also there is far more public focus on the SME sector than in the early 90s.

In a recession, or economic slow down, there are actually companies which grow their top line, or just bottom line. These broadly split into:

· Gazelles

· Recession Opportunists


Gazelle companies are those young enterprises who have exhibited the highest growth in a given geographical area ( and to given top line targets in maybe achieving 100k GBP or euros or what ever in year 1 and growing more than 10% or twice the general company or GNP figure. ( see gazelle awards / competition from Scottish enterprise, the Scottish office or for other areas in uk or feks. Dagensnæringliv dn.no/gaseller)

Many of them have such sound business propositions and strong, hard working teams that they continue to grow in recessions. However many are very related to those areas hardest hit in the recession- retail, travel and housing/ building. Those that live outside a housing, consumer or IT bubble may well continue to out-grow the market and actually perform relatively much better, thus attracting more investment from the stock markets or hungry private investors starved for decent ROI.

Gazelle companies are always upsizing at the time you catch them as a gazelle!

Since the IT and internet revolution there is no longer the expectation that gazelles simply fall prey to acquisition by the big entrenched players. Often they move so fast and give such firm ROI that shareholders or VC do not see the need to sell out to the big companies and float on the stock market! Or they are better than that- privately held by entrepreneurs like bill gates or the yahoo / google boys until they float out as multi millionaires while retaining heavy interests and salaries!


Recession Opportunists:

There are of course ‘vultures’ out there or rather canny entrepreneurs or flexible divisions in larger companies who spot a new market sector or know that an area is going to be attractive.

For my money in 2009-2011 as we ride out the housing finance crisis, the best of these will be in rental accommodation. “loan sharking” be that illegal or barely legal may also grow but as a marketer working in rental property can be a very good career start for working in this hole area or just getting a portfolio or web pages, flyers, database marketing, customer/client handling, sales and administration behind you.

The building boom around Europe has left a lot of new properties unsold, and first time buyers have been locked out by the ‘ladder leverage earnings’ most people enjoyed over 2001-2007 or over a longer term. Now there is a new dynamic in the market and first time buyers will be a sought after quantity when credit stabilizes around the key western economies.


There may also be a return to ‘bucket’ supermarkets or other products or even services being sold at a premium. More people may travel by bus and rail or buy the super-budget Kia type cars. All areas fighting for peoples lower dollar. Of course in the EU and EØS lands so many people work in public sector or in unionised industries that they will be in a bit of a bonus time- finally affordable houses and a safer than most job! Recessions at their worst mean that two out of three people of working age are in work.

Personal services such as babysitting or stress counseling may well also show growth in 2009-11 as people work longer hours to make up for negative equity or just to keep their jobs. As things pick up, home improvements become attractive (DIY as it used to be) because people want to sell up while they can in a busy buyers market.

Other areas attractive under a recession can include management consultancy and venture capital- well known vultures in recession. VC an do quite well out of recessions because people have money and their ROI is much less on the “street” ( wall street) Shares are devalued and dividends slashed. The safe havens of bonds, secuirities etc are low ROI so any signs of recovery mean the “money” wants to jump ahead of the game – get high ROI and then go back to the stock market. Also in any VC fund there is a spread betting across industries or even competing emerging companies and so they act like a high growth hedge fund, defending at least in part one area by having investment in either complimentary areas or other sectors where the lead indicators and, erm bullshit is looking in double figures ( now an entrenched view of ROI / Top line and profit growth for it to be worth VC going into)

VC and management consultancies act like true vultures in terms of mergers and acquisitions- many of these are more attractive on paper than they turn out to be in reality. Talk of ‘reduced redundancy’, shared overhead and market-access are actually little proven in reality, but in the short term, firing a lot of people is good on the balance book. Eventually customers get pissed with crappy service and enough of the good former employees go out and compete in one form or another that the merged company looses share.

Recession opportunists also like to work cheap- fees are down, and they don’t want to pay 100K a year for people with a good CV from the city but no work in the last 6 months! See new shaping. So you are in with a shout. Many fresh MBA graduates go there without much work experience.

However recessions are good for real-world capitalists, if not bankers and stock brokers – dead wood can be cut out, some sectors can be exploited.



Job Seeking in A Recession

Networking, Open Approaches and New Shaping

These are all actually well trodden paths in the job seeking market, especially in a recession or downsizing time. However I want to give you a new spin on these. They relate to paths fought out by you, the individual, and should be the focus of your job “shaping” activity out over the next year.

Networking

I’ve written fairly extensively about this in a previous Freddie blogg. But now there is a new spin:

Your friends and family now have a far better excuse for unashamed nepotistic acts!

It’s a tough time, she’s really struggling to get work that is going to take her anywhere….anything you could do…......I want to pull in that favour you owe me Jim…do you know of anyone taking people on..….

To recap there are two things important in 2009:

1) Degrees of separation- there need only be one or two – everybody knows somebody who can at some point get you a job.

2) Plead desperation: use any family emotional levers, or favours owed to your family!

3) Personal branding- clever, hard working, reliable and fits in the team are enough for now.

4) Avoid the word ‘marketing’ necessarily ( more on that soon)


Snowballing will be less effective in the now “bear market” because you lose any emotional blackmail by being too many degrees of separation away! Combine any tenuous links now (and not in the good times as presented earlier) with open approaches.

Open Approaches

I choose to say ‘approaches’ very consciously over ‘applications’. Open applications are too easy to be lazy over. You can just fire them out.

If you aren’t really skilled at DM writing and execution then in a recession you will get no where, even locked out when they do recruit because you were so generic and blasé with your first letter.

Your objective in an open approach is to be a good marketer – listen to the needs in the market and adapt your communication to meet the customer expectation and close the deal.

Also another big door slammer if you like, is to approach a firm’s personnel division or for an SME their director or general manager and mention the word “marketing” in the first sentence. Why ? well for the larger companies they are inundated with people wanting to work in marketing while they only have maybe one graduate position a year. For SMEs they equate marketing with spending money and not making it - not good in a recession! -and may have had their fingers burnt with young, naive over spending marketing graduates before.

So don’t mention marketing, at least at first.

In fact be very coy. Go so far as to introduce yourself as a mere "business graduate". The focus is firmly not on you but on them! Take time to research who you approach and flatter them by showing interest in their company, then ask what areas they may need to recruit in over the next six months.

Okay, so now you have noticed I am moving you into the area of getting on the dreaded telephone and talking to people. I am myself very, very skilled at writing well targeted letters selling myself and have had good jobs on the back of this, they contacted me back in fact. But in a recession you have to work harder and raise your game to get the best hidden opportunities or even to get a job as a stepping stone out of shitty student jobs.

What you are doing is a classic open consultancy sale. You are flattering the person or corporate adoptive personality, and then establishing their needs. After establishing their needs you can match some of your competence to those in a well targeted open application. Management consultants get paid to define problems and needs and then of course are experts overnight in any given industry and market.

Your Approach > Be to the Point, Polite and Prepared to Walk Away and Come back later.

Foot in the Door Jobs

In a recession it can be the best thing to get into a company and spring board internally, because there are many factors in favour of internal promotion. Of course you may end up going down a completely different and rewarding career path: project management, customer services management, sales/Key account, etc But if you are able to be enthusiastic and motivated to work for a company which really interests you then getting in the door is better than sitting in a BS marketing assistant “gofer” job elsewhere getting demotivated in the company selling washers or washing powder or whatever.

BE thee the extrovert networker, the quiet hard working type or the assertive pedantic one - working in an entry level job can lead to a rewarding next move into marketing - that move being from a job in customer services, purchasing & logistics, business analysis, book keeping, IT (database and web can be integrated to marketing) delivery or last but not least of course sales or sales support.





What’s in it for the employer in Open Approaches?
As with any time, you save them money by avoiding recruitment costs in going direct. In a recession companies know that they will be inundated by applications and calls if they advertise and are pretty happy to get someone quick while the bosses\investors are willing to allocate that head count (people are dreadful empire builders and like more toy soldiers on their floors!) Also recruitment consultants can milk them under recessions just to survive on current customers.

It is well worth while contacting lots of local companies to where you live/ this saves them relocation costs or worries at least, you too, and in a recession you be offered less to get in the door. Don’t oversell yourself- in recession some rich parents were paying firms so that their law graduates to get their years practice instead of being unemployed!!!

In relation to getting a foot in the door job, there are other costs which are avoided because you have been there a while! For example general corporate H&S training, data system courses and learning curve, company wide quality initiatives etc.
Not in the least is that as far as personality, reliability and ability to work hard and affectivity goes they have had maybe six months to a year of test driving you while you have been avoiding the dole queue. Not to mention a graduate who can't egt out of their bed in the a of m.


Account Mapping and the DMU

Using a very open approach with personnel departments, in order to enquiring about future recruiting is the very best foot in the door to a company. After all it is their job to hire good people and do that quickly. Even if they have no jobs now, they may be interested in taking in an open letter and CV or if you have sent a letter (don't send a CV ever in the first place!) they will maybe remember you.

But in fact especially as far as marketing goes, quite often they are either blind or reluctant to tell about the forthcoming positions. Marketers by nature are ambitious and competitive and compared to say accountants or personnel people they change jobs far more often, either internally or by moving on to pastures green(er). So it is important to get in touch with the marketing manager or director to uncover any un mentioned acctual forthcoming percieved needs at least which personnel may not be savez to.

Furthermore, personnel are merely gate keepers for marketing recruitment. It is the marketing director or line manager who selects candidates for interview once need arises to employ. They then have the final decision or most influence if it is just rubber stamped by the CEO. Hence define your DMU/ decision making unit in terms of an actual job or potential.

• This can be more torturous than you may think and there are often hidden agendas and nepotism along the way. But at the end of the day they will consider several people for any position most often. You just have to be in there and keen by that very presence.
  
  In contacting the decision maker, or strong influencer, once again the approach is the same> research, flattery, interest in the company either now or in their future and when with they may be recruiting.
  
  When the two doors of personnel and key marketing manager have for now shut with no fruit, then it's the time to put them on the back burner for a wee while. BUT if you really, really wanted to work for them or within that industry or job position then, now go and find someone else in marketingthere. Say at product manager or marketing comms level who is prepared to speak to you at a meeting to find out more about the job, company or industry.
  
  Now if you are working at this level we can move on to making your own luck so to speak, in talking about new-shaping.
  
  To summarise so far>
  
  · You have identified desirable companies you want to work for
  o Hand picked from gazelle companies
  o Near home for working cheap!
  o Relevant to your first degree
  o Relevant to your motivations and career goals
  § Pre/requisite that they have a positive view on marketing communications and maybe market research
  
  · You have made an initial approach expressing interest by letter or phone
  
  · At this point, or at the next, you have established ANY recruiting going on
  
  · You have found the key decision maker in marketing recruitment
  
  · You have built an open application and CV around THEIR current recruitment need
• 
  o or if they are not recruiting at all, you present your MOTIVATION and any USP in relation to their marketing department
• 
  · You have sent this targeted appplication and followed it up
• 
  o Focusing on getting a foot in the door, forget marketing if they aren\t hiring there.
• 
  o Ask if you can have a first brief interview for a specific job or recruiting area.
• 
  o Focused on working for them, that industry, that chance to work now!
• 
  o maybe asking for an opportunity to present yourself for their future reference
  
  
  New Shaping
  
  Now as a class you could just do a very basic thing to ring around the top 100 employers in Scotland and the top 20 gazelle companies in your home area to ask if they are recruiting into marketing. The productivity of even generating leads would be quite low and then you would be 30 or 40 people applying wouldn’t you!?
  
  Far better, as an extension to your open approaches, to really think about what motivates you and where you want to go.
  
  Marketing in terms of defining customer needs, shaping product and communicating benefits to those ends is a business fundamental. The world\s first marketing manager was probably a cave man pimp. At some stage all companies need to do marketing of some form.
  
  So your objective is to present yourself to companies, entrepreneurs, investors, technology transfer/new start agencies and find out what they are up to and then turn it all around to the basic need for marketing.
  
  For an SME, market communication is far more cost effective than sales, but it’s hard to pull off because people who can do it, like to have more budget. However todays SME is tomorrows Microsoft or Apple. Often their greatest need for marketing is market research at the very outset of what I call “decision to commercialise” a term taken out of just tech transfer.
  
  Many companies fail because of bad market research and a proposition to a niche which had no market size in it. In high tech arenas they are often ahead of the time when consumers or businesses will be comfortable to use the product and the technology would be better being sold into R&D boffins than people\s homes.
  
  In many cases what the new start entrepreneur believes is a totally unique spin in the market is just that to consumers/ a spin, a bluff, bullshit and not truly a unique differentiator. Often a new service, technology or style just doesn\t actual perform that much better in getting the consumer from A to B, so to speak. There are many pitfalls which can be avoided in start ups by having good market research and an awe inspiring, insightful and actionable bit of research can not only lead to success for the company but allow you to build a whole marketing empire!
  
  As a new masters graduate I was lucky to have some quality work experience in a graduate professional sales position prior to coming here. But it did trap me in the belief that some nice corporate in Scotland was going open it’s doors with a fan faire for the marketer with a sales track record. I would go into the womb of a major FMCG or medical marketing department and be born again a shining brand manager. I hope this belief is somewhat more balanced in your minds by working in gazelles, in the emerging industries and in new start ups.
  
  That’s not to say don’t apply to Guiness Distillers PLC or Baxters soups or the likes. Just be aware that you can often shape your own future more fruitfully and more satisfactorily by looking at alternative approaches to what creating a job and career step means.
  
  Everyone is unique, has a USP to say it in an acronymous way, and often the most rewarding job is one which is uniquely shaped by that individual.
  
  In intellectual businesses, like advertising or many internet bureaus, often new business development focuses on shaping something the customer has never even thought of. In going to customers locked into other agencies with fresh ideas or actually sources of marketing funding!
  
  Now I happen to have some examples of new shaping in my own career> firstly a very good demonstration of why the response to advertised jobs fails and secondly in working around the recruitment chain to get an open application to the key decision maker. I was able to present my USPs and what I could do, and had jobs either made for me specifically or had then matched around me and faced no real competition in landing the roles, all of them key in my career incidentally.
  
  Back in the early nineties I didn\t feel much like a new shaping, entrepreneurial type with a silver tongue and a nose for potential. I felt more like an expectant spoilt middle class kid who didn\t feel they should have to try to hard. At first in November 93 it went well for me with a little bit more than a practice place in RFM consulting on an interesting project. But through lack of savey and grasping all that I could maybe, I left behind that potential springboard to flounder for basically the next two and half years!
  
  I feel that new shaping is a likely consequence of my own need for control, variety and the impatience to move on to the next project. Also that until now I have had no choice in my relationships at work and now want to create those which are most positive and find those under workers whom most support the team and my visions. I do continue to feel that I need “one more meaty marketing job” and I have the luxury of piles of experience to make applications on. However do I really have the motivation beyond that usual, hee I am getting a pay cheque 30 november for this??
  
  In ten years time from today, some of the SMEs you will work in will be blue chips or remain very dynamic and stimulating companies to work for anyway! Conversely, many of today’s blue chips will have merged, some gone bust and yet others centralized European marketing to somewhere in Belgium!

A lot of you aren't going to get lucky on the blue chip marketing career chain and if you do struggle either there or in boring SMEs then please reconsider what you are doing...........> >> If after a couple of less than fully satisfactory years go by, find out who, where or what type of company culture you want to work for and try to shape your own position and future within that.

The last comment on new shaping is the obvious one in this topic- start your own company. I think this should be the practical experience unit of ANY business course. As soon as you take the initiative and start going to all these LEC and SE meetings and the universities initiatives you find sources of money to do most things like feasibility/ (read market research). Even if you don't get anywhere after a few months of establishing contacts with potential funders, grant & course providers and not in the least customers then you will be doing an apprenticeship in hard knocks and it will pay you in good stead later if you see the opportunity to start something good.

As a parting comment, think of this-

like an athelete you set your own goals, your own milestones to achieve and shape yourself to get there. No one else is going to jog five miles a day for your heart, and no one else is going to make your career happen and shape it into a stimulating and rewarding journey in those many working hours you have before you.

Well the wee man cam to the world of light and wonder almost exactly a week ago.

18:53 on the 14th. With a fairly sunny evening underway in arndl maternity wards.

The birth was only remakrable by it's speed. Waters had gone on the wee hours of friday 2.30 about. Thereafter it was clearly needing to happen within three days. We hoped for a voiding the terrible 13th and did so. They told us to come in early sunday, we obliged and they stripped and induced at 12 ish. Everything came in motion quite literally after that where 2cm as soon opend to 4 then 8 then 10 and out. We had nice, matter of fact and caring jordmor this time. I got to sit with him a long time looking at him with the eyes of an exoperienced 40 year old father! Maturity. A little distance and understanding for him being just a wee flekk right now with only routine and the usual things to avert or pander to his crying.

This time was more of a regular daddy visit than with evamo. Then we had our own wee womb of hospital for several days with the smell of new baby with me 24 hours. Now big sister is of an age to be just out of all things baby- she walks most places now and we are only giving her dummy as a kind of tuller thing. So it's a good distance between births to walk.

Big sis' needed quite a lot of time but was good as gold in the car helped along byt casper og jesper og jonotan. In total we did a trip thursday, friday saturday then in for the birth and then back again tuesday and finally home quite early on wednesday. I was sick of the road but to add a sting in the tail an accident in fortn of us made for a long way round along the horrid twisty coast road in the car we had loaned.

So felix came home in the end in the rather cramped three up back seat of a citroen zsara we had loaned amd saw the back end of Tvedstrand and a fair few corners in the 410 before coming down the swings to our new found home town.

Arendal actually is very tempting- a feel of life about it with boat commuting seemingly populatr across the Tomøy sound. Our wander lust again. The grass does seem greener when you are helt new to a place.

Nayway this is the wee man blogg, so we are on the way home and there is an accient...yep. we got home and I am on a camp bed in the south land house with it's chamring ans certainly not king size built in box beds. The wee man likes feeding at night, maybe a primeval instinct. mum hunts and gathers in daylight, he reaps the profits in milk dividends at night-

He is both quite simialr to his sister and different. Temperament is quiter but grumpy as heck when he is hungry...hmm womnder where he gets that from. He can almost hold up his own head as well. lovely new born smell of soap and warm skin perisists though as does the endless orang bæsj.

we are home and all is in it's place. His wee bed and day cot. The stella table and the patented nappy bin. The wee glimpses of personality and the peaceful sleeping outwieighing any actual crying.

Getting the flat tidied out and washed must have been the biggest anticlimax in my life.

From the monday night through saturday 1pm I must have doen 16 hour days to get it done, and all this after 22 hour stint on sunday with the van.

The main problem was just the confusion and the unknown. Eventually I plnned my work and worked my plan. It didn' get too scary until about midnight friday. Then I was knackered and needing coffee and pizza and beers. I managed to get the hall and the bog done, just leaving the kitchen and the balcony along with the final once over the thoroughfayres.

The main stress point was the stuff to chuck. Eventually like a lull in the gale, and after failures with various attempts to rid me of cooker, desks and chairs, I got Nikolai to help me up the stairs and then arne and me took the stuff away. Fretex refused it, but as if the sun had now come out after the storm, the recycling dump was almost void of people because it was shuttign on the 30th not for the 30th.

Arne was lured by further cash payment and so came to do the balcony. Proff job while I stressed over te kitchen and even final 'sergeant majors' on the bathroom and windows.

Done and almost dusted so Arrived the owner with daughters on a lovely dry sunny day, perfect for moving. She was veryt pleased with the cleaning. With the car stuffed for the tour I just had to take off down the road....

the sense of anticlimax was enourmous. As if I ran a marathon to discover the finish line had been cancelled due to lack of interest.

So the new life and family focus came upon me with the amazing Risør energy. Fills the soul with peace.


That is where life should be now.

Further Notes on Pulling the Plug on your erstwhile gainful period of employ


Often people leave for either or both of two main reasons: dissatisfaction and stress. The two are inextricably linked.

However what you really need to ask yourself before pulling the plug is if it is the company or just the position you are in? Or even just a paticular set of circumstances, a situation or something else which is going to blow over. The point being that you can influence your situation and environment more than you may think. Think of your exit point as being rather the rebirth of your career and personal-job-lifestyle balance. An emergence with new found assertiveness in a hail of positivity rather than just a 'phew, Got TFO of there.

One observation i have is that when people are leaving to do something better ( not being fired as in'¨persue new challenges" ) and are not given the so-called gardening leave or get-out-of-jail-free cards, then their effectiveness increases. Basically they focus on what's important to tie up and finalise, what is worth spending effort delegating on, and those internal and external relationships get a new spin of relaxed positivity. What happens is the shit gets dumped off. All company video conferences are mysteriously forgotten. Continual improvement committees are left a seat empty roudn the table. Small, time consuming 'pet acorn' customers are ignored. Large,low margin customers get the bare service vaneer they actually earn! So the reasons for a the rise in effectivity are clear- but why didn't you put some of these into place before you resigned?

In considering a move it is worth preparing long in advance. Dissatisfaction comes from either having too much work, or the wrong type of work tasks or actually not earning enough because your work tasks and position are not "percieved" to be of high enough value to warrant a bigger salary. So there is a clear first asseriveness tool for the would be resignee. List out what you do want to do, what you don't, and what you know has money or prestige on it: usually this is obvious financially, but for other tasks you need to be cunning.

The key to success in big companies and small is understanding that you have to suck up more than you dump on people UNTIL you are in a position where you need to dump on everyone. Being assertive means not being a little doubting thomas or wet-blanket (like I have been often myself when less than enthusiastically recieving a delegated 'dump'.) A reasonable task to get dumped on you is a reasonable task if you have the time to do it and the person you do it for is able to help you in your current position- Excepting ambushes where a prick/bitch sucks/feltches your own boss or internal customer into getting the task done and sits you in a meeting to force you to do it. (this is an assertiveness rant paragraph) Once you get your head around the feeding chain and where you are EXPECTED to behave on it's links , and that you get paid to do something less tedious than play with the kids all day, you should think a little more positively.

But often there is a frustration between where you are and where you want to be or unfortunetly where you expected to be given either a vague job description, false promises or plain old self-delusion. In your career you have to be very clear on WHERE you want to be next, ( even if that is just continuing on, a bit irrelevant to this? no actually, no) Once you are clear on where you want to be long term so can you begin to chart out the dots to then fill in with your career line.

Being realistic ? Set a goal you can see yourself acheiving in light of your personal life and nothing much more. You want to be a MD? Burn to ride the tour-de france? You are only morally grounded in what you owe your family and loved ones. If 14 hour days are not in your happy daily life with the kids, then forget CEO of a wall street listed company.

So start with Gap analysis- your own little situation and status now, a SWOT, and the goals / measures which define or ar demanded of the future 'dream job'. This is how atheletes achieve, they measure their current performance and have not just blind ambition- they set a long term goal, get coaching and break down tasks into daily routines, then new challenges, preparing for events, competing, working their way up the ladder. The trick is in moving out of the comfort zone and taking the first step. It can be a real leap of faith and that belief is in your self. Often the lever in achieving the very first step is to threaten to leave or at least open discussions on dissatisfactions or better, positive personal development to the betterment of your performance.

Knowing where you are is have the battle if not more, won! Working yourself into a position of indispensibility as a key bargaining position is another approach rather than just plain sacking yourself.

I had a coworker who was a business analyst. Basically a laid back former blue collar guy who was street smart. He kept a low but freindly profile. He was advanced if not expert in excel, but that is more than any boss over the age of 45 is. So he could run rings around them and make a fairly simple task out of complex 'slicing and dicing' and do it quickly. ( slicing and dicing montly reports was high need for bosses BTW) He found new means of doing things quicker and getting IT to deliver cleaner data but only so far that his own little manual operations remained integral and in a black box twixt the geeks and the suits. He had worked his way up to a little niche and reached the dissy heights of BA, better paid than me for half the work load and half the brain power!


So this is to exmplify that a "must have" information need can actually lead to a higher percieved value of your work and developments. A good IT manager could have put our man Jim out of existance in short order but he did his little magic niche and became indespensible.

The other issue is that in many positions reporting to white collar management you are higher value in leaving than you were at your desk. Just like posthumous record sales, you can be worth more in your mnetaphorical coffin particularily if you have gardening leave as company security policy (your personal items will be returned to you at security!) Why??



I had another coworker by the name of Dr. Klenka, seriously that was his name, and this bouncing Czech as he was known became a grand master of getting ever higher salaries. He managed to more than double his salary and move positions seemlessly as if being promoted magically by outstanding information. He just threatened to leave all the time. What he was able to exaggerat was the loss of a highly qualified person. Whether or not he was wily enough to time this around stress points at management I don't know. But he played on the modern-man-managers weak points: 1) retention of staff targets 2) development of internal staff / internal sourcing. These are both two little figures which lead to sweat on the brow if a departmental manager has had the dick out the trousers on this. That is to say it is no problem what so ever until it is a problem and sticks out. So like hitting a gofer with a hammer he nails two goals with one swoop.

Your strategy in choosing this path has to include a back up plan. In fact you should have a back up plan as soon as you get the deep urge to get up an leave before you take any visible, audible or even psychic action to resign!


HAVING TO GO

okay we have discussed around nice ways of coming out shining by either threatening to leave or asserting what tasks and position is of most mutual benefit to both parties. What if, as in my last blogg, the situation is truly one of intolerable cruelty? Is your treatment really actually outside that which you expect? Agrression and sarcasm, social exclusion, domineering micromanagement ? Talk with your freinds and don't stick out one of these situatons very long. Maybe you are the source of anger, stress and resentment in others. This may be a severe personality flaw or mental illness or actually just that a couple of key colleague relationships are chalk and cheese, cats and dogs. It just is square pegs and round holes, you are just a catalyst for their bad behaviour but the focus can be placed on YOUR behaviour. This tends to happen when very extrovert personalities work with stable, quiet, controlling types or the reverse. Opposites do not often attract in the work place- hence IT are geeks , marketing luvvies and accounts are the way they mostly just are- dull and flocking.

Is there a definable boundary for when a situation is serious enough to just GTFO?

# inability to switch off at home
# disturbed sleep or appetite
# palpitations
# heighten anxiety or even panic attacks
# loss of concentration and ability to perform tasks proficiently as before
# dizzyness, tiredness which is a danger in driving, operating machinery etc
# stomach or chest pains and distrubed bowel movements
# high aggression from you to coworkers and others outside work


If you have two or more of the above and you work in a small concern with no real touchy-feely atmosfere and no personnel division to cosset you then plan to GTFO.


THE SUB CONSCIOUS AND YOUR JOB


I think it starts with maybe the majority of people being either B mennesker or A people who would rather not conform to any time table. Anyway for most people in the west the daily commute gets the various stress chemicals going. THen the very act of coming in the doors of the orroffice can get the blood pressure up. Like pavlov's dogs we fall victim to subconscious conditioning. In fact we get completely and utterly masochistically addicted to this state of stress. It becomes not only a 'natural' daily reaction to our environment but also the norm, the safe, the to be protected. Moving away from a status which makes us eventually very ill is positively resisted. Like some kind of magnet from our inner deamons we carry on carrying on.

So be aware. That clinging, sinking feeling you get when your conscious left hemispered personna tries to take control and resign (plan first now!) has to be conquered otherwise you will continue in a stressful situation without probably realising anything of your at least nine-to-five potential.

extended notes on cessation of gainful employ





I have quit on more occaisions than I usually care to mention but here goes:


balfours, dales, kennings, wimpey, KM, McCanns, Ivgn, and maybe you could count crumby lil' ol night and day - maybe even an.n.oter I forget. KM was a two way street but I effectively refused new conditions.

On the other side of the coin I have been roundly fired from two positions - Hoffsvei and earlier the cafuffle in Cannonmills. Also MarbleH and you could say KM as per above.

On balance I have done more quitting than dusting my ass off on the doorstep.

So what are they key steps? Roughly you can divide it into the hard and fast shut down, the

preparation for this and other preparatory steps to make your exit safer, more productive,

painless, and generally more fun.

well here are the actual orderly methods :

1) Do a lot of organisation before you go. Prioritise. Look professional.

2) read and re-read your contract and any law in your area or rules at your company then read

again. You may have lapsed into or unwittingly signed a 3 month notice, work-every-god-dammed

-day period. Read ten times any new contract of employment you have. Agree ten times and in

some dtail the actual working tasks you will have in a new job.Know the minimum legal notice

and payments(usually a two way street i.e. the same for both sides)

3) when the big day comes, do it in writing and to multiple contacts- personnel, your boss,

and their line manager / director. Don't do it to the MD / CEO or owner-director if you can

avoid it. Let them hear second hand if it is a clean break. The reason for this is that you

may get quite a lot of BS blackmail and payrises to stay so that they save face, later

highlighting you for the chop in any cut back round and generally making you uncomfortable.

This avoids little incidents and bosses hiding. If your boss is losing staff because he/she is

a dickbitch then they should be the last to know. Some bosses will try really nasty tactics if

you are a performer or just if they will miss their retention targets.

4) if you are leaving just because of pay and conditions then get another job and then go to

personnel. You can go whine before or threaten to just leave, but the security of another job

is a much better bargaining tool. In the forkant of enough discontent to draw up your pitch,

then sound out possibilities with personnel and your bosses.

5) Presume that you may well be asked to emtpy your desk and leave that day- get organised.

All those gonks and mugs should be gathered up, one by one over a period of 'cleaning out'.

5) organise your references- use some smoke and mirrors or just get them confirmed before you

go. It can be an embarrising or surprising let down if you don't get them agreed as or before

you leave. A reference for a sports club for example is a good way to open them.

And the tactics:

1) know when you get paid- in clear monies, and resign after this! With two months pay

outstanding you are at a disadvantage- they have a lever over you in that they don't need to

pay cessation payments maybe until you leave.

2) In advance organise any expenses and other outstanding benefits in kind get to you. Ask for

advances on any commision and make sure you are getting paid. Perhaps hold back on holidays

in the expectation of a 'double bonus' ie.e gardening leave, untaxed cessation AND holiday

pay!

3) steal all the stationery you need and put together a CD rom of all your work or anything

else you wanna take- remember e-mail addresses - do this several weeks b4 your post-payday D-

day!

4) give everyone your personal phone and e-mail details without any particular reason- just

for future reference.

5) work longer hours so you can do all the above when no on is in the office!

6) make passes at anyone you find flirty or interested or just with a pulse. You may as well

get a lay out of the old place.



9) your Boss should be the last to know, given the average relationship and management style

I've encountered. If you are in sales, you should start suggesting to your customers that you

are thinking of a move to something more interesting and would they see you under that guise?

In purchasing make it even clearer to your best and cheapes bttom dollar sellers.

10) write an org'chart and find out a little more on who BUYS what in your company and who

decided on HIRING. These are both worth money to you in future.

There is then how you handle the post trauma scenario of 'what shall we get them to do now

they have resigned?'. This is indeed a time to be a fiddle player and not the fiddle. In

essence the bosses can decide to

1) cast you out the door
2) make you politely tie up all loose ends
3) give you shit to do for three months

The latter are usually reference dependent. Be clear over your period of notice as mentioned.

Then organise your work around priorities to make you look good and organise around dump,

dump, dumping. First of all dump all the assholes who are no longer important. Swap yourself

out of any dumb or vague project committees and let someone else get in. Use delaying tactics

for anything non important. Write opening instuctions or SOP style documents- print them out

so that they loose an element of tracebility down the line. These should look detailed,

inclusive and exhaustive by virtue of a professional front page and masses of detail for about

2 minutes reading thereafter. Multi-delegate. Pitch out tasks to diverse people, exploit the

weak and emphasise the risk if it isn't done to the strong. With outside parties you are

dumping off, you can choose to either 'ostritch' them or pass them on by being all 'don't give

a shit' and suggesting who may be taking over from you. Hold onto your golden globes though-

something to be remembered by and some things to lighen up your confidence.

Walk tall and proud out the office. If you hated them, don't do any leaving lunch. In fact

tell the assholes you leave monday and don't turn up at all, enjoy some drinks with pals on

the friday!


Okay but wait a god darn minute here muskie...why are you leaving?

I suppose you can break these down into categories. Conflict, motivation and performance:

First much loved of the divorce attorney, 'intolerable cruely'. My manchie jobnumber one was

under the lash of a little pitbull. The agency was running out of customers based on being

over priced and under-creative. Darren hadn't given a shit for about a year and I got really

shit creative from wasshis face witht the tasty, tasty girlfriend. My own creativity was

better and in fact there was a point at hand! more on that later. Ok, now back to you- if it

is a littel wee shitty company then do all you can to get another job and just leave. if

things are really bad then you just have to go. With bigger companies you can either move jobs

internally or play a higher risk game in discrediting your boss - just being another nail in

their coffin. The same is true with cow-orkers if they are harrassing you. But like me, maybe

you are quite a frustrating person to work with in this type of job?

P is for Performance. It's also for Penis and if you are trying to squeeze yourself into a job

you are not right for then you are a dick. Maybe the job is too demanding, too detail

oriented, too touchy-feely, too busy, in fact why am I able to get a paycheck out of anywhere?

If you are underperforming it is due to skills, application of those skills, knowledge and

confidence in the job and most of all motivation (to which we return). In a small company you

may be multitasking and have some ability to say steer from sales into more project management

and customer services. In a larger company you need to have a little trumpet to play when

thinking of moving-say sales into marketing, accounting into personnel or the like. Also there

is the last ditch for a company big enough to absorb you and that is from a pressure job to

something you can handle- and considering part time work to ween yourself out of the situace.

Motivate Me! motivation is the big deal. In most western labour markets the non-nigger jobs

in between there and the high flyer fast trackers can be filled by just about anyone with

motivation to shuvvel metaphoric shit around and be happy with their own "yess" as they slam

the phone down on a supplier. Motivation is the key to performance and usually the discouple

means a slide in results. In times of recession negative motivation turned a dollar-and-a-cent

but in these days of the educated empowered work force companies should be little board room

cheer leaders for you. There are some skew angles here as well- you may be very, very

motivated and dedicated to your own job but not at all to the individuals you work with. This

is a big fault of mine- I get nicely task oriented around one or two internal customers and

show little interest in coworkers. In fact in marketing and other areas being motivated to be

"with the in gang " is far more important than any actual performance. The marketing matrons

will keep you in their head count if they like you. If they can hide a performer they don't

like / have control over then despite effectiveness, at head count 'right sizing' they are

out! All that useless team rubbing and sniffing of arses and wagging of tails I just can't do.

This type of team work is the social disease of marketing and renders departments costly and

underproductive. In a stroke I say it- marketing and personnel for that matter are too

"female"- too groupy, touchy feely and not task oriented enough.

I also suffer from motivational problemos that I see in others. Motivation yo-yo. It's much

better to have an even motivation in a job than be up and down. Now as an older man though my

motivation up lasts just about long enough to get 'permanence' for you yanks, read benefits

and three month's notice!

Getting a new job takes higher motivation and deception levels than I usually can muster but

on two key occiasions in 1998 and 99 I did just that and had some continuation on paper at

least. For the breasted of the species it is easier- one you can suck your way, two you have

someone kissing your pussy and three people accept women into temp-office roles way over men.

Men are labelled over qualified- read under beavered, over ego-ed.

Be Brave!

Deciding to quit a stressful or otherwise unrewarding job is about "searching for the hero in

side yourself, before you find the key to your life". You need to start by untangling some of

the financial ties you have- what I am doing right now - downsizing perhaps or moving to a

better job market. The other ties like geography are just chains to be broken. The real battle

is the sub conscious fight against homo sapien as a habitual creature. Changing a habit of

even a few months duration - commuting, logging on, being with the creeps at work - provides a

pyschic entropy which the core of us resists. So long as we are fed and warm humans will

resist changing environment at a very deep level. Extra stress will manifest itself in

nervousness, distrubed sleep and appetite. It is much better to leave but in a planned way. In

fact the very process of planning - tidying up your loose ends, prioritising any small success

stories for your CV, tellign the boss his wandering hands are unacceptable can change your

actual situation in the work place to a level where by you won't want to pull the trigger!

Organising to leave a job is the type of assertiveness and objectivity boost which can catlyse

change.

Deconstructing Your Direct Marketing- Pragmatism, Planning, Execution

Direct mail campaigning is the crux of business-to-business marketing. Success should be measured in figures above 4.5% response with a sales conversion on numbers of around 1% original mailing ( >20% of respondents actually buy).

Personally I have achieved this and much better in both a professional capacity and actually job seeking activity with my own custom e-mail! An e-mail with over 80% response and about 10% fruitful interviews is pretty much amazing but was based on the fundamentals of marketing as were my successful mail campaigns.

First let’s forget the word “strategy”. Much loved of all academic MBA types, the key to successful direct marketing has little to do with strategic planning unless a business will wholeheartedly focus on this as the largest route to market. That which matters is getting down to basics and delving into data in detail.

The Key Factors for Success

1. Data That Works for You and Not You Working for the Data
a. A Target oriented /segmentable Mail List (CRM)
b. Clean Data
c. New Data or at least ageable data
d. Well Organised, well populated Record Fields
e. Quality controlled buy-in lists
f. Good Data Tracking from the Campaign
g. Known numbers of quality leads out and hits back in.


2. An Eye Catching Creative with A Sharp Value Proposition

3. A Snappy response mechanism – reply paid, SMS, web

4. A pragmatic and researched delivery schedule

5. Following Up systems for people and IT

6. Tracking of Success and input to Continuous improvement

Direct mail often goes very wrong in B2B contexts because of a lack of seriousness, professionalism and common sense. “Do unto others as you have done unto yourself” is one starting point- would you respond to your own DM material? Take it one step further, if it is warehouse managers would your own warehouse read it and respond?

The fundamentals are to target market- have a key message, related to benefit or demand, which reaches the right people, and an appropriate response mechanism. Easier said than done. Especially when this is coordinated with a follow up telesales round.

Marketing suffer from both having their heads in the sand of data mass, and wearing the emperors new clothes. At one well known Californian company, about 2 million dollars was spent on a SIEBEL database which was installed then promptly furnished with unreliable, incomplete and largely out of date contact data. Marketing had minimal budget to clean the database and did not want to admit to their earlier lack of data quality control. Using the system for sales reps and product managers became an administrative task in addition to their work rather than a tool to facilitate sales and the interaction between direct marketing, web and the front line of customer visits.

These failures in quality management and attention to detail are unfortunately value chain deep with DM suppliers- at the end of the day someone, somewhere has paid for phone calls and a resulting data list to be generated and after it’s first sale it is becoming not only obsolescent but also potentially fatigued ie over utilised. Lists are sliced and diced, sold on, sold out and even sold illegally. The key thing is of course that marketers hate detailed, repetitive work and that is right down the feeding chain to your basic little list broker.

Managing Internal Expectations

As a marketer it is most important politically to understand expectations and manage them! This is mainly in dealing with sales management, but also with IT, senior management, customer teleservices and even technical services.

Expectations can be obvious yet overlooked or devious and unconsidered !

Examples:

• Sales expect to save the quarter on your leads and want 2000 good ones
• Management gods expect higher growth and mean 2% points
• Accounts expect to save money diverting away from advertising
• Customer services don’t want to have any extra work / hassle
• Your own “marketing excellence” programme dictates an improvement from 2% to 5% response
• IT expect to get to install a new CRM system and win more power over what marketing authority has had previously
• The previous ‘free stress ball when you call’ campaign by Bert Numfunk and Doreen ‘The ass” Glamerpuss had a huge response ( people like the balls, but didn’t buy anymore product )
• The sales management don’t want to double discount- ie. existing customers getting a discounter mail which is an offer they may need to honour!
• Sales personnel expect to do no cleaning of the database or feeding you with ‘pre-leads’ for your own successful marketing.
• Your own staff expect “some intern/student/outside company” to actually clean the database.
• No one anywhere in the company expects or desires to change working practices without a damn good explanation and crucially a steer from senior management.

So expectations are diverse and some are not obvious or actually predictable. This is why women do so well in marketing because their softer, persuasive and listening abilities ie “people skills” are frankly better. If you came into marketing and didn’t want to stoop to working in sales first, then sorry- you have an even bigger, multi level sales job to do in order to get your ideas accepted and not be rolled-over by the likes of sales, IT or worse visiting management consultants on departmental raiding license.

You have to understand perceptions, change them or at least move them a little, and otherwise manage expectations around this proactively. That means selling- confronting people,getting their attention, explaining the relevance, listening to their viewpoint, charming them (yeuuch!) and persuading them to cooperate or at least take a non partisan view on a DM activity.

In this respect your biggest job will probably be to wrestle the CRM and prospects database out of the control of IT and make them your bitch, not you theirs. Sales management swing into this equation but usually don’t have the time or if appointed don’t stay long in the position once they get bored with the be-pluked IT guys body odour.

Objective Setting and Planning Pragmatically all the Way!

Mean while, back at the ranch…You have to understand what is achieveable in DM. A mass market e-mail or mail blast to a new leads list can result in a less than 1% response with only a 10% conversion within that. In other words the marketer would have been better off spending their time on other tasks! What is the expectation? Companies can only grow the top line in a few ways with respect to customers- sell more to existing customers, sell to new customers, sell different products to either or put up prices! The latter is often unpopular with sales of course. Usually they will be interested in leads to new, fat customers who are ‘hot to trot’ i.e. in the market for the company’s offering. Often they are not very keen on mail campaigns that try to sell diverse or larger quantity items to their existing contacts at customers because they like to “own” this area, but in terms of new contacts in their larger existing customers for new products they are only too happy to get the leads.

If senior management really have a serious expectation that marketing will deliver the platform for top line growth then they must put their money where their mouth is. As a marketer you have to realistically get more budget for new resources and channels. One thing to avoid is the IT director taking a big slice, as above zillion dollars, for a system to which marketing play Cinderella. Big data CRMs are often seen as panacea for the faults in data quality and sales management people-systems.





• Get the objective correct- manage the expectations and investment in resources around this:
• who you want to target, why , how many responses, how many from internal data
• Get the data cleaned*. Funnel it. Get down to a target customer and prospect group who are actually worth mailing.
• Calculate budget and have an idea that this is either going to be a really good focused and folloowe dup campaign or a mass market 1% response junket. I.e get a handle on ROI.
• Buy new lists in- quality control these before you do
• Plan the whole timetable out in advance, taking public holidays, busy periods etc into account. Find out if your competitors for example run a Q1 discount in march and run one in February! Stagger the logistics to avoid overloading your mail room or those at multi contact companies.
• Organise that responses are measurable. Make a special post box with the post office even! Set up or reserve a phone line, email address, SMS number or web form
• Organise some degree of follow ups. This can at least nurture out a few more sales meetings early after a mail to abate the sales managers. Hand pick a few good leads at big, new prospects for this treatment. Sales managers will feel good and not get bored by easily forgotten marketing stat’s.


* age the data, organise it into existing customers and non-sale prospects, buy in new prospect lists, use any product sales data, exclude people without job function, exclude syntax fucked up addresses, de-duplicate on individuals and while doing this watch out for take-overs and company name changes, exclude possible data error characters like ‘pipes | ‘ or hidden tabs, merge or demerge data field like title/firstname/initial etc.

In mailing campaigns the usual ‘head in the sand “no problem with our data” prevails in marketing because marketers are lazy and don’t like detail. That’s why they aren’t in accountancy, purchasing or R&D. They’re sales people with college degrees in marketing. So the usual approach is that marketers will either buy in or use internal telesales services to follow up a mailing to elicit more meetings with customer or a Russian doll further targeted marketing. Given the usual low quality data for new prospects this is putting the cart before the horse. If you are not sure about the quality of your list and it’s age is best measured by carbon dating, then use telesales services to clean the leads in the outset. Self cleaning mailings are a “total waste of time”. However new ‘ we listen to our customers’ market research flyers with just a few question can generate a lot of leads as can such on your big point of touch, the web site.

Getting your Hands Dirty


In order to clean your data you have to understand it’s overriding quality. You have to top and tail it so to speak. Get a feel for how hot the listing is.

The best way is to understand the basic fact that all relevant data can be reduced to ASCII and merged into one spreadsheet or table. This can then be examined ‘forensically’ in Excel or Lotus.

Excel allows you to sort data on the various columns and records with empty fields can be excluded or sent for call rounds to establish new leads.

If you are lucky you will have a date field which allows you to age your contacts and if you are even luckier a last ‘point of touch’ date may be available. This means you can at least exclude leads/contacts who are say 18months without touch or 5 years. However you may want to do the exact reverse and actually win back lost customers and reactivate prospects – this depends on knowing your market personality- do people change jobs often and do these types of companies go bust or get bought out frequently?

Other cleaning ways in excel are to exclude those with incomplete names and addresses and send them to the poor fool who has to ring around them.


Working Up Prospects From the Points of Touch

Data capture is a term which kind of defines it’s own weakness. It takes a blinkered fast fix view on placing a customer name and address onto system. IT don’t understand quality of leads, and often don’t really care about quality of data- they are more interested in the installation and running of the system and willing to blame marketing for not cleaning the data instead of fixing the ‘forms’ to exclude bad data entry.

Working up prospects means taking a little information, giving some back, getting a little more information and then getting either a sales call to them or actually just defining a good prospect for mailings. In Web terms it is sometimes called ‘permission marketing’ whereby your ‘data dialogue’with the customer begins very non committal and easy to do at their end- so just an e-post or user name. You then offer something of value back and go onto to capture their details and interest areas before eventually profiling them further.

Creep Out Your “Mailing”

The mailing in itself may be a reasonably well focused list, but this may actually reduce your actual mailing numbers. A well targeted list of say 100 is better than even 10,000 mailings to a badly screened list. However the cost of doing 100 proffessionally designed and printed items will be pretty much the same as for 5000. Excluding mail which is the one fully scaling factor.

So here comes the rub- what other points of touch do you have? The very best of all is the pack insertion of mailers. This is because they uncover a lot of actual end users who are key in the decision to buy more of that product, swap it to a newer product or buy a related product or service. Often these are ‘off sales’ that means to say no rep as ever identified them or visited them in the last couple of years so orders are either well established or just out of the blue. Most warehouses have pack insert procedures and will do it willingly. Failing that you could invest in self sticking plastic envelopes and stick these on stock items ready to go out from shelf ( frequently purchased items) . This will be a very good use of those 5000 mailers you got printed.

Also you can use mailers at exhibitions and rep stands on sites, and they find good use at distributors. Finally as a left behind calling card from reps to new potential customers or those they have just missed or “forgotten” to put on CRM.

You may need to get your hands into those catalogue requests. Customer services may have a cosey arrangement in taking the glory for these bookings or just not care to log them to CRM. An hour stuffing your latest flyer into the catalogues likely to go out in the next six weeks is good.

Also a pdf version these days seems de-rigeur and could be sent on a snow-balling or chain mail way, but this is probably just a few sprinkles on the cake.

The one last suggestion is better for the SME market is to send the mailer out with bills


Quality of Message and Creative '

This is usually top of the agenda for any marketing activity but all the time and money in agency land is wasted without being secure that at least you have tried to get the very best out your mail lists in terms of quality leads.

DM has to offer some value to the customer. Many marketers interpret this as either being headline grabbing discounts or some nice freebie either included or to be redeemed by calling in/e-mail/web etc. This is a fundamental presumption of ‘doing some marketing’ that marketing is all trinkets and no content. If the product is relevant and the creative is attention catching then the information and even entertainment value in itself is of enough value to the customer for them to atleast remember it and have more propensity to react.



• Something to avoid it going unopened.
• A creative which gets attention / interest to read the headline
• A headline or strap line which leads to curiosity for more information
• Further information in brief
• Call to Action with Response mechanism

Often the head line (and strap line) these days is based on either a benefit, a key discount or SPIN risk based approach. Often a combination of ‘don’t miss this opportunity’ ‘for a limited time only’ etc on discounts runs the spin way. A spin head line should be balanced with the solution to that ill in the strap line otherwise known as the sign off line. A double negative is probably too vague and just unappealing. It overemphasises the risk without offering cure.

You have about 8 seconds from time of opening to get to the strap line and then maybe ten to 20 more for reading any body text.

When I say earlier some reason for them NOT to just throw it in the bin this means either neutralising the envelope- a clean, quality envelope with the address in a window or making it a little personal. Any printing on the external envelop shouts spam. An alternatively shaped envelope or actually just a card which is fully visually evident is a good compromise for creativity but can end up in spam land regardless.

One campaign I sent out in brown envelopes seemed to keep up to my usual standards, people presuming they were bills and giving them some attention.

In terms of combining content and response to actually getting new data, one little campaign I did with about 10000 from our list was to go after “look warm” leads with a nicely designed “ we listen to you” mailer. This did 6% whilst normal marketing was struggling at 0.5%-2%. So sidling on up to your customer in the guise of market research can be an approach which leads me to :

Russian Doll Marketing and Mail-ReMail

Faced with a poorly segmentable yet quite ‘young and fresh’ database of prospects you may want to screen the field first. This can be done as above with a “tell us what you think of us/ tell us what is important to you in this area’ or a further questionnaire on line.

The concepts are- Russian doll- you start big and respondents get re-mailed and screened at this point before they get the gift or discount or brochure. Often the inner most doll, or layer of the onion is redeemed by a sales person actually calling to deliver the highest value item. Russian doll works very well now with the web as a second tier- capture e-post and reply opt in at least for this campaign, get them to do some more data entry on the web and then move forward by post once again.

Mail re-mail means either two general approaches- you do one cheap mass mail aimed at the *Sharon* market- who ever the hell responds to all the freebies and win a holiday shit. Then you do a second to the same list, deducted those who answered round one.- which offers something else, like a proiduct specific discount, or just with a good creative. Finally you deduct again the responses and send for instance a personally addressed letter reminding of the earlier mail and maybe including another copy. In this way you somewhat reduce production costs, but moreover find out which customers respond to which type of marketing. Products, creative or gifts. Thereafter you can segment the market a bit more for future campaigns. In many markets there are freebies and loyalty campaigns which make the difference to securing business with some customers who feel they like this and have the latitude to get away with basing their ordering around the best freebie!

The other approach to mail-remail, is simpler- just mail them periodically including a personal letter at the end of the rounds of mailing- this is better suited to pestering a well targeted list who are maybe being a little slow to respond. You will actually find that response rate goes up after the second and even subsequent mailings - if the list is ‘fresh’ i.e. not mailed too often already and quite young or at least filled with current sitting names in their positions. Only polite of course to deduct out respondees. If you deduct out those who respond within 2 weeks then you save on mailing and you save on production by just using the same item each time, with maybe a run of letters at some point. Like TV advertising, the run of how often you spike the audience is disputable but a first mailing followed by a second two weeks after is fresh enough in the mind. The majority of respondents probably do so within a couple of working days of getting the post. So if you know of strikes, holidays, geographical delays etc then stagger accordingly based around a two week minimum separation and then possibly a monthly mailing for the rest of the quarter or offer period. Pester power works because they either do get pestered into it or finally even reading it but also because sometimes secretaries and mail offices open mail and chuck out items like this. This is where the personal letter comes in infact! You get through some of the gate keepers and also you appeal to the more personal, traditional side of some people.

The first mailing can be a little cheaper in production than usual items, and offer something general to the market- like a big discount, a nice freebie. Holiday competitions outside office supplies are a waste of time unless you have like 100 to give away when people feel they have a chance. Free gifts with purchase can be good, but watch those warehouse workers sticky fingers!



The Aftermath
I use this title jokingly because armed with a new attitude to be detail oriented and hands on, charging in with heavy quality control and a healthy scepticism bears fruits of being able to objectively analyse what has worked and what has not.


If you have been so bold as to actually qualify your data and quantify how potentially good your lists are then you can at least get a metric on the top line mailing figure. Just like top line on the accounts sheet, you need to get more prospects in there and be realistic on just how many you can get. You may for example find that a particular target campaign reaches 99% of companies yet has a poor response. It’s time to find more users at those companies, new internal locations and departments and more people in the DMU chain. The top line figures for different market segments and the mass market as a whole become useful in terms of budgeting for future mailings and for aquistion of more share of “vision” on the market- ie. how many customers you hear out there! This then leads to an established share of voice in terms of DM. In a very large busy marketing department you can actually over dominate an entire market with flyers and offers and end up with the worst case- management want you to consolidate offers and promos and NPIs into a montly, worse quarterly special news letter. Hence you dilute targeting, dilute message and make measuring worse. If you like desk top publishing this may be for you though.

So now you can exclude hopefully your top line figure of propects you want to have an idea of actually how many are ‘targeted’ and how many are pretty much blind. This depends on your segmentation of the market and which data you used. But given for example job title and industry sector you should be going down one funnel which leads to more touches than using either in isolation – for example. There comes a point when the SQL build just gets too granular and you are down to handfuls of customers to mail for a three branced criteria. If so it can be tempting to work quality back up over, by reverse-profiling other candidates but at the end of the day.

Having a good idea that the lists were clean, targeted and quantifiable you can now start to consider other factors which made the campaign response either very fruitful or below average. This is creative content, message take-out, response mechanism, postal addressing, going in the waste paper basket etc.

To grab a handle on how good it is all going you need to have snappy response mechanisms which are trackable. You need to be able to tally up how many hits you are getting back to customer services, sales etc. Unfortunetly the human element creeps in and I firmly advocate removing any motivations not to note an enquiry came from a mailer by eliminating human elements outside marketing. Hence post , e-post, telephone or perhaps best for the moment SMS should be fullyu monmitored by marketing. For a really big campaign expected to run to many orders it will be hard to do this, so planning a special product number code to quote for ordering the actual item or better still a package deal ( where the new product number does not replace any of it’s components, just flings them together in a kit or bundle!) This is completely unoavoidable for the whole company and moreover the customer if they want that deal. It is also a big hit with sales because it gives them true revenue recognition when they co promote it with marketing. They get half the job done for them and just need to ice the cake, and it really works for everyone. Worth the effort and also worth the effort of putting agreed systems, awareness and training in place with the other departments.

Finally you should have historic data on mail campaigns to compare yours too, and these can be very much in the way of being % and relative until you start to run regular product # promos when it is top line which talks and not a 10% response rate.
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I hope you get an understanding, as an academically educated marketer, that you must give a shit about the small detail. You can’t want to build a gleaming machine like a new sports car when you don’t give a damn about the engine components and just hope someone else takes care of the details. Good creativity and marketing ideas are easily forgotten by endless return, addressee unknown and otherwise low response rates. It takes a great deal of planning, evaluating, going square eyed, coercing, charming, bullying and outright attention to detail to move up from being a so-so 2% marketer to being a success in this area.


Live Long and Prosper in Your Marketing Career.

The Platu 25

As built by Beneteau as their Beneteau 25.

Establishment in the EU countries and USA as the Beneteau 25 Platu

Beneteau had previously produced the first widely spread production (SMOD- single manufacturere One Design) sports boat in the EU- the First Class 8m. Actually av highly entertaining boat to sail on which has previously attracted a high level of sailors in arranged series, and indeed was part of the french national training programme for yacht racing.


However while at a Messe in Germany, I believe, Mssr Beneteau business development came upon the thai- new zealand conceived Farr designed , McDell Built, Platu 25. Platu being a fast mackrell of the tropical west pacific, and the boat developed as a budget OOD for the kings cup in Phuket amongst other racing in Thailand. By customer request farr design number #316 was born for that market, and for some reason or other brought to europe. At time of writing still produced here by Beneteau but known as the Platu 25 now

The reasons to drop off production of the FC 8m and go for the smaller (.... and slower! ), Platu are unknown to me, so leave a comment if my presumption is wrong. I presume they wanted a smaller 7m boat which took less crew and was maybe cheaper to build and easier to market being a Farr hull. The aim was probably to compete in the EU sports boat market and establish a strong OD class, probably to complement and feed into their at that time, Mumm 30 production and Figaro.

Outside the writer's native British Isles, on continental Europe they have largely achieved a good number of boats particulariuly in germany, holland, Italy and the Iberian states.

In the UK the market was somewhat cluttered with new fangled sports boats from major marks, smaller yards and pure one offs and home build ply core like the "swordfish". However both the 707 and the cork 1720 were being actively developed as OOD fleets, to the regrettable loss of international OD potential for british sailors. Both of these large fleets have their stregnths and weaknesses. The achilles heel for the cork being crew number, and for both these boats the costs of Marinas in the UK, coupled to less leisure time and higher house prices, has lead to the explosion of the trailer-sailor SB3 from Laser (Castro desinged mini Cork 1720).

In scandinavia the platu faltered in the attempts by dealers and maker to introduce the boat back in the 90s. This may have been in large due to badly presented examples being loaned to an international match racing event on Oslo Fjord. The boat got a bad reputation for deck gear failure with a lot of top Scandinavian sailors at this event, and the more expensive and demanding Melges took a place with some enthusiastic supportes. However in Finland there is now an emerging fleet of the Platu and also several examples in the other countries being bought and transported there. The writer expects this to spread into sweden, some owners being ethnic or expat Swedes, and perhaps more examples in denmark due to the profile for the worlds 2007 in Nuestadt, Germany.

That the Platu still retains a poised potential in establishing local fleets or competitive HC racing, is clear in many countries with most of the big OD fleets actually being built in the 70s and 8os, becoming worn out and hence obsolete as one designs. ( reparation or new build costs becoming restrictive for most owners, and hence the whole thing reverts to that evil predominatn in handicap, cheque book racing! Take the Sonata and Goacher, or the Albin express and the top helms there as examples). More on this in the latter sections below, but suffice to say a ready to rig exc 6hp and sails of 22,000 € plus delivery is pretty darn good at time of writing.



Design and Construction
It is basically a scale model hull of various Farr designs of the early 90s- the mumm 30, the corel 45, the Farr 40 and the Whitbread 60 OD. Indeed the brochure from beneteau refers to the keel as "Whitbread 60 design" However exotic materials are spared from most of the production and the cost of even lead in the bulb is removed by casting is steel! There is a hidden and important bit of carbon fibre construction - around the rudder bearing assembly which no doubt contributes to tight steering and safety. Mast and boom are in aluminium and deck gear is limited to two winches, cleats and jammers.

The hull is very similar is proportions to the mumm 30 and the predecessing IMS 31 and Mumm 36. In fact you can lay drawings on top of each other as tifs or gifs and see that there are only minor alterations, the Mumm 30 have the larger sail area however.

The bow is a fine entry with a rake and flare, which is both aesthically very pleasing and also allows for a good deal of reserve bouyancy in the diamond area well above the water line. Criticisms of this bow are that it just removes water line legnth, but for general sailing in all types of waves in a 25fter, and safety of crew on the foredeck it is a good design measure to not have a narrow section 'plumb bow'.

Following the hull "abaft" the beam water line is hidden from the crews' view, by the wide and flared deck/top sides. In fact the beam on water is very narrow until the last part of the reserve bouyancy, the deck sides, do their job! The narrow pear, or fish like profile is only really apparent from aerial photos, but the stern/transom is notably quite narrow.

A nice illustration of how the flare looks in motion is on youtube -Beneteau 25 ( Platu 25 ) sailing on Lake Windermere He is sailing with a little bit too much heel BTW; Hike biaaatches!

There is little 'dead rise' although the rocker (dead rise aft of keel to transom) is nicely rounded while retaining good planing characterisitics. Performance up wind is notably relatively super fast for a 6 m water line becuase the exit for the quarter wave is very smooth and the whole wetted area of beam on water quite narrow.

The top sides are not much lower than a mumm 30 and the water line flares rather beautifully up to the deck level, which are turned for crew comfort ( if not safety!- there is little to get a foot to and the life lines are quite low).

The cockpit is nicely laid out and large for the LOA of the boat. The trimming position is a bit cramped but a foot can be stuck on the lee stanchion nicely to give a bit more of a pro job if not cross winching to be truly pro'!


One thing of note is that the outboard actually operates in a starboard side well and locker set up with a plug for the hole in the hull which must be secured! Most racers hike the outboard down below aroudn the keel in light winds or under the steps frame in more breeze.

Below topsides, the cabin is spartan but spacey, you can sit in more comfort than a 707 and stand in the gangway for a relaxing view of events. Not many people know that the Platu 25 has two full legnt berths in light foam which are fine for sleeping on. I reckon you could do a quarter berth and odd cross berth set up with some chocks in balsa or the like and sleep at least four cadavres down there!

The battery can be place around the mast. A motorbike battery is a good idea, with a solar panel on a long lead to be left up topsides after racing.

Deck Gear
Many of the lines and deck gear looks a bit under specified, but it all seems to work admirably if the new owner takes some time to swap out the weak points of the kicker, jammers etc.

The traveller, main sheet block, winches and purchases on the outhaul etc are just fine for all weathers I have sailed in. The only 'pain in the butt' feature is the main halyard being lead down to the hogg, which procludes round the can slackening of the main halyard. The cunningam on my boat was underpowered in compensating for this, so was beefed up, in order to achieve an upwind luff tension with an off wind slacken out ability, but it is a compromise and I wish the main haly. went to deck level.


A really nice touch which adds interest and involvement for the experienced crew, is the inclusion of both a jib cunningham (downhaul) and jib barber haulers. This makes fine depowering and the reverse possible from the rail, given the owner has been savez enough to cross-lead the barbers.

The traveller/ block is fore of the helm and this allows the helm to do a lot of the trimming for short handed racing or to get the maintrimmer over the rail or aft of him. The main is nicely geared and can be 'foot and thigh' cleated ie friction on your own body.

Boat Set Up

The rig absolutely requires attention before sailing if conditions are varied more than say 5 knots between days or actual races. The forestay has a pin and hole system which is complemented by the Cap Shroud tension and the rear stay tension. In light fluctuating winds, a slack setting is chosen for both of these with the rear stay being used to tighten the foretay and rig. The D1s are adjusted accordingly to induce the right bend and lateral support whereas the d2s are of course less practical to adjust between races and should be set on a loos gauge to the manufacturers / sail makers llbs or kg setting which suit your seasonal conditions i.e. stiffer for more wind. Both the caps and the forestay are tightened for higher winds with d1s being taken in to mainly take lateral bend out or excessive prebend.

So as a guide, for light winds up to 6 knots you want a slack setting so as to power along in any gusts and with your own apparent wind. Flat sails are slow whatever so we don't care with a hard, flat rig for light winds because tide or thermals can be more decisive. For more wind take on another hole or two on the forestay, some turns on both caps and D1s, and be more aggressive with the use of back stay and jib cunnigham. You can have a kind of compromise setting with a slightly slacker forestay in say 7-12 knts, which will cover you in 1knt - 10 knts breeze, but remember you will feel up to 17 knots apparent wind "over the decks ". For higher winds, everything is bang hard on and if your spring and autumn series are in bigger winds, adjust the upper D2s accordingly.

Sail Control and erm, Sailing !

Upwind, the boat sails with a very narrow slot, jib being a 105% on the foot. The jib will be trimmed like a dinghy, and not like a cruiser-racer with a fixed track and a genoa dictating far more 'outward' sheeting angles for the foresail. The upwind balance of the boat is critical with the sail set between the two sails and the slot / twist must be maintained in good balance to keep flow attached over the exhaust lee- slipstream of the jib-main feed- otherwise the boat will power up and depower too much producing jerky progress. To explain further, the very short cord keel and small water line/beam area mean the boat requires more attention to the sheeting of main and jib in harmony than say a 33ft keel boat of older design.

So this is all to say that the Platu 25 sails more like a dinghy, requiring 'dynamic stability' i.e. you use the right amount of power and balance for the wind conditions. The two controls for this are twist of both sails and size of slot, both being increased as the wind does up wind. These are luckily enough, fine tunable under way with crew hiked out by using the mainsheet/traveller and the jib cunningham for twist and the barber haulers for slot adjustment, making for a very enjoyable upwind sail for the two or three crew out on the rail. The boat will actually show the very rare 'lee helm' with an under sheeted jib upwind, and an uneasy weather helm for the same mistake on the main ( or slot being too tight for conditions, powering up the main too much)

In light winds the boat should have 'keel speed' before it is pointed ie. about 2.2knts boat speed I believe. The quarter wave should remain attached and like a tasar, through winds and boat speed of 0.5 to 7 knts a quarter wake disappearing well aft means you can point higher.

In medium winds of 7 to 12 knts, the main trimmer can hike out as well and come in for rough sets or mark roundings. The boat should be crossed winch in addition to this which adds greatly, see performance sailing under.

In stronger winds the trimmer returns to position and trims hard with the main well twisted and flattened on all controls bar the outhaul, which should leave some depth in the lower quarter of the sail to help the boat power through waves. The boat is sailed low and fast at 44 to 50 degrees and not feathered- the correct size of jib and twist should be maintained. Speeds upwind of 9knts with reasonable VMG are acheivable which means if one side is favoured then you get there PDF!

It is said that reefing is not good for the main, so on big wind days, it is a choice of the owner to sail and this is only actually over about 26knts. At above 22knts true, there is a tendency to broach on the windward mark bear away or out of poor gibes and is difficult to control on a reach.

Ssiling seems to be sweetest with little if any weather helm and with the bow trimmed down slightly. About 3 or 4 inches of bow should be cutting the waves at most sheltered waters. Like a mumm 36, weight is trimmed progressively back over up hill and off wind as the wind and waves grow in stregnth, and you can actually stick the main trimmer or one crew aft of the helmsman on very "lumpy" upwind or medium fast off wind reaches. This is one very rewarding aspect of crewing the boat- you really feel your actual body mass makes a difference !!

Off wind the boat excels, and as mentioned above, weight needs to be trimmed aft with up to three crew members behind the helm. The boat can be popped on to the plane by sheeting in on a gust and 100kg plus of crew weight running back to the stern area! Contrary to comment on the web about the boat being a WindWard LeeWard only machine, it is fairly easy to reach, given you are a dinghy sailor, and will carry a well controlled kite hard onto the forestay. Indeed it will plane at this point of sail and higher on 'white sails'. In fact the boat will sail relatively controlled on white sails but the initial bear away can produce problems for broaching


Manoevres

Getting the boat moving is not an issue, but actually slowing down can be! Backing sails works well to both reverse the boat out of a situation or to go into emergency hove to, which can dammage the jib though it has to be noted.

The boat will power up and get to target speed quickly, given that the crew hike out according to the conditions asap! Cross winching is advised as soon as conditions require the three fore crew out which makes starts, hardeing up and coming out of tacks much quicker and actually less stressful. The cost of working out how to cross winch and who does what and when is worth the weight being on the right side!

As mentioned the main trimmer sits in until about 7 to 9knts breeze when fully crewed and then hops over allowing the helm to fine trim or dump ( which will be needed less often due to the now hiking gorrilla!)


As mentioned, the bear away hoist is all imporant in winds over 9knts and many places can be lost in an OD fleet. Set-Gybes are possibe and this is one reason I may find out if bow launches are do-able and street legal. The boat has a tendency to broach and it may be best to dump off the flow from the main and fling the boat into a DDW positiion if there are problems or you are not very experienced. Otherwise the jib should be trimmed through the bear away and the main released on the sheet only with the car up at least a quarter of the way. The helm can effect a moderat winds main sheet slip out.


The spinnaker is a bit of a pain to 'gangway' launch ie a bag suspended above the cabin. The kite can be trapped at the head of the foresail, on the life lines, the stanchions or the spreaders. A wire and roller between the D1s and the mast can be fitted to guide the kite out into the best height, although I would be tempted in future to opt for bow luaunching or side launching or even chuck luancing. Before the weather mark, the clew and head should be lead outside the jib at the jibs clew area where there is a little bit of space, especially if the barber haulers are on.

The trick seems to be, as in any slick operation, to get the head of the kite out while approaching the weather mark, but hold it's height so as it is low of the spreaders otherwise it will be aft of the spreader and catch under hoisting. Not far enough up and outboard, and it can easily follow up the slot and catch on the jib battens or the top of the triangle.


Sneaking the guy is really a personal choice, but for going onto a reach in lightish winds it is a must for performance. It is really easy to snag the tack and foot of the kite on the jib-lifeline area so as said, the kite should be quite far out from the boat and I reckon with the hoist and bear away being over 75% done before the tack is made to the pole.

Oh, and you can't shoot very much before the boat just stops and drifts so hold the pole until you are 100% sure. The guy can stay in the jaws anyway.


Drop, harden up: This can be done at the last second in light airs, with a windward drop being effected by a pro-like crew. Just watch out for this large, deep spinnie catching on anything as it comes into the cabin gangway bag, maybe just drop it to the deck in light.

In planing conditions your really want to come off the plane before you harden up otherwise the boat can just trip up over the bow wave it is riding, and wipe out. So that is to say you want to slow, and pick up both the bow wave and quarter wave along the hull before the mark. If DDW you can drop early to depower hugely and maybe even pole out the jib 'goosewinging' to maintain balance until you are very near the mark. In a big wave form you can drop early, centre the main and then use the wave a bit more on the beam than the quarter to esablis more hull in water and reduce speed. The boat will dance around a bit, but if you know how it responds to the rise and fall and on the peak of a wave then you can ride it out and even harden up late if the waves dictate this as a safer option than risking a broach or drive-down onto the mark itself- worse, boats ahead.

Gybing should be done under kite to maintain balance and in stronger winds the kite is made and flying on the new side, ddw, before the main is gybed.




Relative Character, Performance and Enjoyment


Compared to cruiser racers, you are likely to be mixing it on the water with 28 to 36 footers. You will go up wind at 6knts earlier than they do and achieve speed for hardeing up higher at a lower wind speed because the weoight, hull and keel allow for it!

Straight said, you will run rings around all the cruiser racers if you get clean off the line or a clean lane up wind and stay there off wind in light airs.

However once the wind is over about 9knts you need to be really slick in your racing abilities to keep up because these larger boats now start to "chonk" at 6.6knts and igh VMG. Despite the Platu, and the other Farr babies of this boom period, being a little faster than it's LWL calculation and faster again than the best VPPs tell you, a combination of bad wind and lower top speed means that you must rely on a great start in your own wind, good choice of side and tacks up wind, super slick manoevres, heavy crew out all the time, and keeping in clear wind. It is wise to either start late behind a big boy at the RHS, boat end, and tack out onto the nice clean RHS or go mid line and rely on a safe transit to come off in your own wind and play the chess moves you need to.

In a hot HC fleet of say IRC 0.930- .980 or even up to 1.000, (or in Lys with a 1.20 to 1.30 , worse 1.35,) then as with OOD, you need to be counting the boat legnths to build those seconds you need to win. And we won on Rebell often by only seconds on corrected. This means top speed on the start, super fast in and out of tacks, picking a duck over a tack, knowing the dogs to roll over and being shit hot at marks with tactics and rule know how.

Although you cannot afford to take flyers upwind you can achieve best clean wind and a good position on the tife or back eddies. Keeping the boat moving is easier, but it won't hold its way so well into those bloody awkward inshore or hole-bound windward marks like say a sigma 38 going 200m on it's owm momentum. Off wind, or with fetches developing on a big beat or distance course, you can take flyers although I find staying with the most wind, most tide and most clean air applies to the Beneteau platu 25 as much as any other boat.

Offwind now, in the light, the boat will run rings around everyone in the cruiser racers, either on distance courses or round the cans by having better acceleration, higher boat speed and better deep VMG, also doing faster gybes with a flying kite. It is worth keeping clear of bigger, slower boats at the bear away hoist because you stand the risk of running them down! Also, always nice, attach on a lift and gybe as the fatty heads up to "take you out" and you duck his stern and head off nearer the mark than his 1 minute escapade.

When the wind is up a bit, as mentioned you will struggle, espeically against IRC goodies like the X332 and corby's. Also off wind pre-planing on W-L courses the boat will not be any quicker in the 6.5-8 knts boat speed area and higher angles are just a kid on with an even wind, even tide and well set course.

However when the wind is up a bit you can now go low and fast up-hill, doing around 7 knts at about 44-46 degrees and actually tracking very well with little leeway and a good course through the wave train or chop if it is inshore a bit. Then Off wind if you can get around 7.8 knts BS, the boat can be worked onto the plane across chop or surfed on the bigger waves for longer. When I say worked, you can go high a little and follow a gust / wave combination onto the plane and bear away on a WL or jsut hang on in their on a reach. Now you will suddenly get 9knts on the clock and a feeling of rushing over the water as the boat losses it's LWL speed limit / speed bump. So in effect you will be mixing it with the very best IRC boats of 25 to 33 ft and actually any 40 footers who you happen to be around.

Compared to Other Sports Boats.

I have the fortune to have sailed the boats closest rivals and against the J80. The rivals being it's predecessor the First Class 8m, and as far as the UK goes, the ubiquitous and tremedous little hunter 707.

The 707 is a terrific little boat which obviously has been developed to be a stable planing platform and a strict one design from outset. The hull has large chined areas aft which are slow upwind and in light airs for LWL, whereas present a concrete like platform when doing double figures off wind! The hunter should need one less crew, but is often sailed with 5 anyway, I don't recall the crew kg limit.

Due to it's modest white sail area and short pole / frac' kite, and fortuity at the conception of SBR, the 707 can excel in SBR racing because it is often slowest boat while still being fast off wind. Also OD racing tends to bring out the best in any sailor so when moving from local fleet on solent or forth to BLSS or Cork Week SBR, the boat's very sturdy, unexciting up wind nature lends itself to secure position off the start and good tactics up wind, whislt more twitchy craft suffer from head in the box syndrome, concentrating on boat set up rather than position.

Given a local OD fleet with wednesday nights in OD too, then the 707, or most any other sports boat or mid twenties racer, beats owning a lonely beneteau 25.

As commented in the very first paragraph the predecessor is not necessarily it's lesser. The FC8m goes very well up wind with a full crew against the 33ft crowd and is a little less twitchy than the 25 off wind. It is capable of big susttained planing and also sleeps 4 of its' crew.

Now compared to the other boats on offer - the Melges, j80 and Cork 1720. Latter dealt with, you sail with six, it doesn't sleep anyone and it is a dog on HC. Also fleets are in a trend downwards in favour of IRC racing or the SB3 needing only two pals for a helm / owner to find. Also outside the british isles, forget it, no one has 1720s and they would need messing about with handicap applications and temporary indicitative perf' related HCs in year one. So the Cork has had it's day as a premier fleet, but will probably come back in numbers when the majority of used boats hit dinghy prices of under GBP 10,000.

The J80 is deceptive because on top it is all sports boat with a huge cockpit, a bowsrpit and a nice white rudder on the transom. However the hull shape is pretty muc run of the mill Johnsons with a lot of dead rise for an 8m boat. True it sleeps maybe 4, but all that sail area and extra LWL doesn't add up in IRC or SBR to beating the bene. On Lys here, it is a bit touch and go but the opposition we had we could beat them if we didn't make mistakes. We could go higher upwind and lower off wind for the same boat speed.

The Melges, or to be correct, the Melges 24, is a more powerful beast than the B25, although has many similarities in hull and white sails. But the big roach on the melges and the huge kite mean that it is a faster, twitchier boat which demands far more of crew and helm. As far as a usual learning curve and crew ability the melges is off the scale. Also it is far dearer a boat.


Decision to Buy a Beneteau 25 / platu 25


1) you want a higher performance day boat y/n ?
2 you want to sail with only two or three crew who are either your core from a bigger boat, or a team you can trust and develop, or a pool of dinghy or SBR sailors?

3) You are coming from medium performance keel boats or symm kite dinghies. If you are coming from HPS dinghies or fast big keel boats then the platu may be a bit slow for you.

4) you have a local fleet of B25s or alternatively, you have a mixed SBR start line at an event you like to do ( BLSS; Scottish, Cowes, Keil, Kings Week Oslo etc etc)and there are some bencmark bene 25 platus there.

5) You may have a couple of crew on a shoestring who want to sleep aboard or you may want to yourself from time to time.

6) Short handing should be an option and competitive at that.

7) you are interested in building up to compete in a big fleet in europe and trailer sailing of easy jetting to a fleet where you keep your boat for a season.

8) you want a reasonable entry cost and predictable running costs with a trailer to garden boat, whilst still enjoying performance and quality in boat and sails. You may be a couple of ex dingy sailors looking to share the boat in a two man syndicate, one being key helm or one doing x the other y.


9) last not least- you want a boat which presents enough challenge to demand a steep learning curve yet a start point on this curve which does not leave you frustrated or actually in danger !( think melges 24!) You want the taste of high performance farr one designs without the budget. You want a boat which is satisfying for the whole team.

If in the positive to the above, espeically if you have other Beneteau 25, platu 25s around your area or better yet, a fleet like in Holland, barcelona, Keil, Portugal o0r easy jet potential for these then hey presto, it beats many other SBRs and has also a good potential to suddenly take off in an area, like in Finnland. This is because the boats are a lot younger than some fleets, a builder be that Bene or not will be continued in Europe or at least delivered here.

OD fleets do indeed suddenly take off and explode because people agree on racing in OD over necessarily which boat that will be. Many OD club or regional or even national fleets are ageing- take all the older hunter boats, the albin boats, the banner 28s, the sigma variants, the FC 8ms, the J 24/27/29/30 and realise that most of the fleet are now soft, worn out and uncompetitive no matter if Dennis Connor and Russel Coutts step on board them. Also times change and the new generation are used to more exposure to speed and spills through all other areas of sport pushing out the boundaries- skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, kite boarding, paragliding and all the motorbikes and performance cars you can shake a stick at. Not the least that assymetrics have revolutionised dinghy sailing and pushed boats like the 505 to adopt bigger sail plans! THis is a key feeding area and plane at all pints down to crawl around in an old day boat fleet is not appealing to the newly affluent 40 somethings retiring from dinghies and looking to step on board at the marina or boost their egos by having a little on water militia to command. Put simply they want something faster than a soling or a star, a sonata and with less hassle, crew and costs than the likes of an aged sigma 33.