Duncan Shand is one of those rare people who is a consultant, and who actually creates stuff as well- one of the founders of Blinka.me.com, and MD of his own firm InsideOut, when he is not advising clients he is making the most of time with mates and family.
Who am I?
I am @duncanshand and help businesses grow by finding a clear way forward. I’m a strategy, marketing and online guy that wants to make a difference.
Business Interests
Involved in strategy,marketing, branding and commercialization of startups.
24/7 My obsessions
My family, design, apple, innovation, fuel economy
My biggest mistake
Giving up the agency to import Burton snowboards. I brought the first 5 snowboards into New Zealand when I was 18, but wasn’t sure it would take off. How wrong was I!
How I used the learning’s
Believe in the long term and the short term will sort itself out. It’s easy to get trapped in the short term, but usually the short term will get in the way of achieving you long term goals. Instead of worrying about the fact I had no money and was going to University, I could have had a very profitable business to fund my student lifestyle!
My source of pride
I take pride from the work I do and what I help to create. On every job I look to find something outside of the core project that I can deliver as extra value. I believe it’s critical to always look to do something unexpected.
The best thing about being a consultant?
With every business I get involved with I get to learn about a new business what works for them and what doesn’t. This newness keeps me on my toes, engaged and interested. Of course it also helps me to build a breadth of experience across different industries that I can draw on when developing new strategies.
The worst thing about being a consultant?
It would have to be walking away from projects. You get very involved in your clients businesses, you help develop a plan and the way forward and maybe help implement some of the ideas, but at some point you need to move on and let the client do things on their own.
Is balance possible?
I believe it is. I think work fills the time available. If you can focus and immerse yourself in a problem and follow the right process it’s amazing what you can get done. If you allow work to push into your personal space it will. Of course there are going to be periods when you have to burn the midnight oil, but you need take the opportunity to enjoy a quiet day when you can.
Two Myths in business
1.The Customer is always right - while it’s hard to argue with this one it’s not an absolute. Of course you need to treat your customers with respect but not all customers are equal and sometimes firing customers can be good for your business.
2. The Need for Research - I’m very cautious about customer research. Of course you need to really understand your market, your competition and what your customers what. However you need to be careful not to rely solely on research to guide your decisions. Most research is done in an artificial environment, asking people to logically think through situations. In the real world we don’t think like that. Our experience, emotions and senses automatically make 90% of our decisions for us. Probably less than 10% of the time we really think about things. I’m not saying don’t do any research but be careful about how you do it!
Three Rules I live by
Customer loyalty is king, collaborative creation, over deliver.
Don’t Ever... (do this to me)
Ask me to dance. Ever.
My first job
I was in the accounting team at NCR. I was an Accountant in an American Multinational. I quickly realised I had made a mistake. A big mistake. It took me almost three years to get out of my Dilbert cubical and into the Marketing Department at Air NZ. But I was stronger for it. Don’t get me wrong I love numbers and accountants - it just wasn’t for me, doing it everyday!
I knew I was onto something when
My phone kept ringing. I believe that if you stick at something long enough (and if you’re good at it) you can’t help but to succeed.
Business Advice I wish I was given earlier
The importance of a strong customer proposition. We all have offers that we are making to our customers everyday. Often they are more about us than what we actually do for our customers. If things are turned around and the language is focused on the outcomes the product will deliver, the offer will be a lot more compelling. When we started we talked about being good experts in our field with unique processes and IP. This just put people to sleep. But when we turned our language around and started talking about outcomes - moving forward, generating sales, growing etc, we started closing a lot more jobs.
The next big thing in my life will be
I’m really focused right now on doubling the traffic to our site and using social media tools to do it. Part of our philosophy is to give things away, our thoughts, tools and processes. We physically can’t help everyone so we’re happy if we can inspire and inform a few people along the way.
I set goals that
Challenge me to do new things, to step outside of my comfort zone. I think we all need continue to learn and grow. Do I always achieve my goals? No - but I always learn something along the way.
If I had my wish I would have unlimited …
Patience
I believe education is …
Important but attitude and ability matter more.
People are often irritated when I …
Sing out loud when listening to my iPod
People admire me for…
My passion. I like to get involved and help people. You need to love doing what you do. We spend far too much time working for it to be “just work”!
My favourite charity
World Vision, I love donating goats.
When the recession ends I will
Hope we’ve all learned a good lesson.
Parting Shot
Act first, ask permission later.