Leeds

What would Scottish Independence mean for the North?

Scot Independence

2014 could see Scotland separate from the rest of the UK. The Independence referendum takes place in September, and having been way behind in early polling, the Scottish Nationalists appear to have gained some momentum in recent months with an effective charm offensive from its leader Alex Salmond, combined with a lacklustre approach from the ‘NO’ campaign which is being led by former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling.

The resurgence of support for Independence reminds us once again of the importance of charisma and personality in modern politics. Salmond has both in abundance, and whilst Darling has a huge intellect he is hardly likely to match Scotland’s First Minister when it comes to rallying the troops.

In the end my gut instinct tells me that, despite Salmond’s best efforts, the Scots are too cautious to take a leap of faith into the unknown, and that the lack of economic clarity offered by the Nationalists, coupled with doubts over what Scotland’s relationship with the EU would be if they were to opt out of the union will see the status quo maintained.

Nonetheless, the discussion and debate in the run up to the autumn poll will be fascinating, and will continue to highlight the fact that, even without total independence, the Scots have enjoyed significant devolved powers through its own parliament for over a decade now. How long will it be before the regions of England begin to demand similar devolution that would enable the charismatic and big personality politicians to take on the Alex Salmond or Boris Johnson role in areas like the North West and Yorkshire?

That the North is still suffocated by London’s financial and political power is irrefutable. It is no good us moaning about London though. We have to take advantage of the fact that one of the most successful global cities is on our doorstep and demand the political tools that will help us do it.

Metro mayors, regional parliaments and county commissioners have all been debated and discussed. Perhaps it’s time for us to turn one or more of these ideas into reality?

2014 is going to be a good ‘un

2014

Unemployment down, inflation down, predictions of growth up and Everton riding high in the Premier League playing a brand of football not seen at Goodison Park sine the halcyon ‘school of science’ days, 2013 has ended up being quite a decent year – but I’ll predict that 2014 will be even better.

The economy has turned the corner, business confidence has returned, and during the next twelve months that confidence will deliver enterprise, jobs and growth for UK Plc and for the North of England.

In the regions where Downtown operates, there is even more reason to be optimistic.

Leeds will host the Tour de France, a tremendous coup for the city region and an event that will elevate Leeds’ international standing and generate significant interest in Yorkshire. With the new Trinity shopping mall now open, and a 13,000 seat arena, Leeds will be looking to build its visitor economy, whilst maintaining its position as a leader in the professional and advanced manufacturing sectors.

Lancashire has been working hard to put in place a business support package that is private sector friendly and can deliver for ambitious companies in the county. Its BOOST initiative is the most comprehensive project of its kind that I have seen, and Lancashire County Council and the Local Enterprise Partnership deserve huge credit for genuinely listening to business and establishing a programme that will really work for Lancashire firms.

Manchester continues to deliver major regeneration and infrastructure schemes, and its plans for Airport City will take the city to another level again. Greater Manchester continues to demonstrate the importance of good civic leadership, private-public sector partnership that work, and the ability to avoid complacency and continue to drive forward with visionary strategies that build on past successes. I expect Manchester to lead the pro HS2 campaign and lobby for the acceleration rather than cancellation of a project that will benefit the North, but arguably Manchester in particular.

Liverpool will host the biggest international business event the UK has seen since 1951. Max Steinberg and his team at Liverpool Vision are organising a six week jamboree of activities that will take place in June and July of next year, with Downtown holding a significant series of high profile events during the International Festival of Business’ ‘Cities & Enterprise’ week. Over 140 countries are already signed up to IFB, and some top speakers have been booked. Again as a showcase for what the Liverpool city region has to offer, it couldn’t get much better.

As for Downtown, well 2014 see’s us mark our tenth anniversary. As you can imagine we have a whole host of special events, parties and celebrations in store for you, so watch this space.

Have a fantastic Christmas – and look forward to an absolutely fabulous New Year.

We should all be concerned about decline of regional newspapers

The Liverpool Post

This week it was announced that a Liverpool institution, The Post, would be ceasing publication. The newspaper, which switched from a daily to a weekly in 2012, has been running for more than 158 years, and has been particularly good at business coverage, in depth reporting of some of the bigger issues that have affected the Liverpool city region and local sport, namely Everton and Liverpool.

In recent times, as with all regional papers, its quality has declined along with its circulation figures, but nonetheless it is a significant news platform that will be missed.

Its closure, though sad, was not entirely unexpected, and the city will still be served with a regional newspaper via the Echo, though this is more tabloid in its approach to reporting.

However, the Echo too has seen a significant drop in its circulation figures in recent years, and it seems that even giants like Trinity Mirror, who own a healthy chunk of the regional newspaper market, are struggling to find a way of overcoming the challenge of the World Wide Web.

Digital editions have been launched and scrapped, news teams have been cut back and dumbed down, increased amount of content is ‘scraped’ from other rival news agencies. The days of investigative reporting, considered and constructive analysis and local exclusives are, at best, hanging by a thread.

Readers of the Lancashire Evening Post, the Yorkshire Post and the MEN will be conscious of the decline in the quality of what they are reading in general news terms. As far as business news is concerned, it is pretty woeful.

Those journalists assigned to ‘do’ business often have several other roles within the paper and are increasingly reliant of PR agencies to fill their daily e bulletins or their weekly business supplements. Otherwise, it is those with the big advertising budgets that tend to enjoy lots of column inches.

Does this matter? I think it does. For a lobbying organisation like Downtown, we were highly reliant on the Post to shake things up in Liverpool when we launched nine years ago. The shambles of the management in the run up to Capital of Culture year, poor planning policy and too many QUANGOS were all issues that we were able to have debated and discussed through the pages of our local newspaper.

We have grown enough to be able to use other tools to raise such issues now, but are they as effective as print media to hit the wider community?

And in terms of the broader agenda, who will be holding to account our big Corporates regionally; speaking up for our towns and cities; highlighting the good and the bad; scrutinising what our local politicians and officials are up to? Is this an agenda that will interest the London centric press?

I think regional papers are caught in a vicious circle. To maintain economic viability in the short term, they cut overheads. In doing so they make their proposition less unique and less attractive. This leads to a fall in circulation. This leads to the next round of cost cutting. And so it goes on.

I believe there is a market for quality regional publications that have an agenda for good solid reporting, sticking up for their local area and providing good business coverage. There are few if any of the existing stable of regional newspapers that do this nowadays, and as a result I expect that the Post will not be the last one to be announcing closure.

Sell, Sell, Sell…

Sell Sell Sell

Selling more stuff is something that all businesses need to do, want to do, but seldom explore how to do.

We take on Business Development Managers, Marketers and occasionally direct Sales staff, and hope that somehow, some way these poor souls will be able to go out into the big wide world and generate income by selling our product.

We are unlikely to have any training in place for them, sales collateral will most likely be limited and within the company itself it will be seen very much as their responsibility to ‘make the sale’.

At our packed out ‘sell more stuff’ breakfast seminar in Liverpool yesterday, we set out to start to tackle some of these huge challenges. How do we embed selling into the culture of your whole business? How can we make the life of sales staff easier? How can we provide existing and potential future sales staff with the type of training and development programmes that most professions take for granted?

Salesman extraordinaire Andy Bounds, as always, had the 120 delegates buzzing with his tips and anecdotes on how he advises some of the biggest and best known brands on the planet to accept that sales starts at the top and filters down through to the rest of the business. Your company’s culture needs to embrace selling as an essential and positive part of your work rather than an unfortunate aspect of it.

The head honcho from Winning Pitch John Leach has help at hand for those desperate to improve the skills of their existing sales team, or indeed recruit better sales staff in the future. Winning Pitch is establishing a Sales Academy in Liverpool. Quality advice, support and training will be available to sales professionals, whether they are called BDM’s, Marketers or Relationship Managers.

This type of initiative is long overdue, and Downtown is delighted to be involved in promoting it. The good news is we can help you get help in paying for this staff training too. So, get in touch with Downtown now, and sort out places for your sales team so that they can sell more of your stuff in the New Year.

Is Greed Good?

Greed is good

Boris Johnson evoked memories of Gordon Gekko, the character from the iconic nineties movie ‘Wall Street’ in his address to the Centre for Policy Studies this week. Delivering the annual Margaret Thatcher lecture, the London mayor called for the Gordon Gekko’s of London to display their greed to promote economic growth.

Perhaps Boris has forgotten that in the award winning Oliver Stone film Gekko, who was superbly portrayed by Michael Douglas, ends up being prosecuted for fraud!

Nonetheless, the essence of Johnson’s assertion is that inequality is essential to fostering “the spirit of envy” and hailed greed as a “valuable spur to economic activity.”

If that is true then I’m afraid I find it more than a little depressing. If all that motivates people to work hard is personal gain and financial reward, then we as a nation are knackered.

At the Downtown Liverpool annual business conference last week, the keynote speaker was Andrew Rosenfeld.

Andrew sold his real estate business for £600m in 2004. He told delegates how he had built the business through blood, sweat and tears, and that he was immensely proud of the fact that his efforts had enabled him to provide financial wealth and security for him and his family.

Since 2004, Rosenfeld has led the most successful children’s charity appeal in the UK, working on the NSPCC’s Full Stop campaign and raising more than £200m. He has also started a telecoms business that donates a significant chunk of any profits made to not for profit organisations.

Rosenfeld is an entrepreneur through to his very finger tips. But is he greedy? I would suggest not, and having earned his fortune he has gone on to actively find ways of helping others.

It is this type of entrepreneurial spirit that we should be celebrating and encouraging. I don’t think the term ‘greed’  represents what drives most hard working business owners in this country – certainly not those who I have the privilege of knowing and working with.

Providing working opportunities and good careers for people; offering young people a chance in the workplace; contributing to the local economy; being a good role model for their peers and their children; building a business to be proud of and self esteem, all figure much higher on their agenda than ‘greed’.

Of course, we have to turn a profit. The bigger that profit the better. We all probably dream of selling a business for £600m one day. That is aspirational and ambitious rather than greedy in my opinion. But what drives you to get there should not be greed unless you are a bit of a tosser.

If he is to fulfil his ambition of being Prime Minister one day, Boris will need to tame his narrative.  Being the amusing oaf and entertaining London’s chattering classes with swipes at those with low IQ’s, whilst bigging up the unacceptable face of capitalism may win him plaudits from Right Wing Tory backwoodsmen and some in the South. But it is an approach that is likely to alienate many outside of the Southern belt, or put another way, the parts of the country that the Tories need to win over if they are to secure a parliamentary majority.

To use another famous Wall Street line, Johnson will fail to ‘bag the elephant’ if he can’t learn to temper his language and distinguish what he is saying from Thatcher’s assertion that ‘there is no such thing as society’.