Cost plus pricing is on of the biggest evils within businesses. It appears the safe approach but fails to maximise opportunity. Also, taking this approach, sale prices tend to erode to the level of cost prices. This is unacceptable for most businesses.

There are in fact many different solutions to determining a price. Some of the ideas are: temporal/time based pricing; multidimensional pricing; risk based pricing; variable pricing. A chart showing these is available for download.

One of the concepts on the chart is the diamond-water paradox:

The diamond-water paradox is the apparent contradiction, or paradox, that although water is on the whole more useful, in terms of survival, than diamonds, diamonds command a higher price in the market.

Can you suggest any more approached to pricing that I can add to the chart?

So, have a guess what this is all about:

Since 1997 there has been much discussion of the use of focus groups, handfuls of people picked to be representative of a target demographic, then questioned in relative seclusion.

I’m thrilled to say this all about politicians. It is an extract from the BBC News Magazine.

The rather disgaceful scenes being enacted in Westminster do at least have some benefits. Finally we have some debate about our elected politicians and the need for them to be in touch with the UK public, and not just their constituency party club members.

>>> read the full article

Perhaps a few conventional marketing approaches would help them?

This is priceless…

Old Renter Says Asians Need Not Apply? – Watch more Funny Videos

In the annual shareout of awards, The Stopgap Group(Stopgap, Rightstop, Fitzroy and Courtenay) won the award for ”Best Medium-to-Large Recruitment Firm to Work For“.

They collected the award at the big recruitment industry night, hosted at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, at the annual Recruiter Awards for Excellence. 

Stopgap, one of the UK’s leading marketing recruiters, had been nominated in not two categories: Best Recruitment Firm Website and the Best Medium-to-Large Recruitment Firm to Work For.

Well done Stopgap and thank you for your work on our current projects.

I found this quote today:

I started the £1k FTSE 100 Confidence Project in January as a personal show of confidence in the UK equity market. I was fed up with the doom and gloom and was convinced that the equity market had priced in bad news. I invested £1,000 in a FTSE 100 ISA tracker from the Halifax and commited to reporting its performance on my blog.Speed Communications – Wadd’s PR Blog, May 2009

You should read the whole article. It’s good to see someone putting their money where there mouth is and keeping at it.

Amazing, now you’re not even safe when you are choosing a book. I’m very surprised that WH Smith are allowing ’selected charities’ to hassle customers, sorry, use chuggers, for donations inside their stores.

It’s a personal thing, but I do not like chuggers. I know the charities say they are an good and important part to the donation activity, but they annoy me. Coupled with that, if you want to give to a charity it is much more efficient to cut out the paid for street collectors/chuggers.

Here is part of the news article from Retail Week:

WH Smith is allowing the unpopular practice of face-to-face charity fundraising to be carried out in its stores as part of a trial that observers are calling risky.

Read the rest at Retail Week

And here is some more information courtesy of Wikipedia:

Paid street fundraisers stand in busy areas and approach passers-by to convince them to donate money to the charitable cause he/she is promoting. They will briefly explain the work of the charity and try to engage the person in a dialogue about the issues the charity focuses on. The fundraiser will then push the conversation towards asking for a financial contribution (via Direct debit or standing order), often a regular monthly or yearly pledge.

Street fundraisers often work in teams. They are normally be paid by the hour, or occasionally through commission or performance related pay, or a combination of both. The thinking behind using commission is that the more people the fundraiser convinces to donate to the charity, the better the return on investment. However, this situation can lead to the fundraiser using high pressure selling technique which may lead to a greater number of the new supporters quickly cancelling their support, thus eliminating the charity’s supposed financial gain. Commission is also unpopular with both employees and members of the public. In the United Kingdom, fundraisers are legally obliged to point out to potential donors if they are paid when they speak to them. A self-regulatory body, the PFRA, exists to ensure that this happens and that all fundraisers conduct themselves in a manner acceptable to the charity.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_fundraiser

There is an interesting article from a chugger’s perspective on the BBC website.

I would like to hear some alternate points of view on this, especially the WH Smith aspect.

At Sodexo Pass we like Andy Maslen. We’ve been using his services for copywriting and he has become a bit of a legend around the office.

This is how he describes himself:

“This is the blog of Andy Maslen. I am a corporate and marketing copywriter/trainer. Business writing has to work, but why shouldn’t there be a little poetry, too? I am FOR clarity, humanity, precision and persuasion. I am AGAINST bad writing in all its forms, from jargon to waffle, arrogance to idiocy.”

And it’s rather nice to notice that he seems to like us too. After visiting our team, here is what he said on his blog:

Thursday, April 23, 2009

“I attended a fantastic supplier briefing meeting at Sodexo yesterday. They are a huge global business yet they behave like a small company ie they look after their people (staff, customers AND suppliers) and really believe in making a difference. http://uk.sodexo.com

“It’s rare to have a director of a business that big who is genuinely funny and approachable but Kevin Harrington is one of that rare breed.

“His best line was about the way all organisations have “rules” that everyone sticks to but which turn out not to be rules at all. When you break them, you find you can make things better. Bit like the English language really.”

Guess what? We recommend Andy Maslen’s business, Sunfish. Seriously though, he has written some good copy for us. Andy also works for brands like Economist, Herald Tribune and Top Gear.