Blog entry number 11 from MBA – www.mba-marketing.co.uk
Here's a great idea for a new television series. It will feature as presenter someone new to television, but who oozes charisma, wit and wisdom - that is, me. I will go into badly run businesses, large and small, tell them where they're going wrong in an extremely confrontational and aggressive manner, and swear a lot. The people in the businesses will resist me at first, before realising that I am right and they are wrong. They will then roll over, do exactly as I say and treat me as a God forever.
Those who know me will say that this is pretty much what I do already. The only differences are (a) the swearing, (b) the God-like status, and (c) the lack of cameras and a narrator as I go about my righteous duties.
My main inspiration here is of course the great Gordon Ramsey, who in his 'Kitchen Nightmares' TV series focuses only on restaurants and pubs. Goodness knows there are enough badly-run catering establishments in the UK to keep this programme going for ever, so I will leave this sector to Gordon.
For those not familiar with this series, here's how it works. Typically, Gordon arrives at an establishment which is owned and run by a pair of clueless incompetents with no discernible skill or experience, who somehow thought it a good idea to sink their life savings into a pretentious bistro called 'Cagneys' in a back street of Scunthorpe. Tumbleweed is blowing through their restaurant, the tables are covered in cobwebs, they are losing money and are close to bankruptcy. Enter Gordon, who - despite being the only person in the restaurant - receives slow service and (inevitably) revolting food.
The kitchen is usually run by a tattooed thug with no teeth, who is apparently on day release from his normal job with the Big Issue. He has no training of any sort, least of all in personal or food hygiene, and has as his signature dish frozen prawns flash fried with chocolate, tonic wine and packet soup. He and Gordon hate each other on sight. With his bosses, he and others like him are responsible for the poor food, lousy service and rip-off prices that we all experience every week in restaurants and pubs the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. They all richly deserve as much invective, profanity, spittle and halitosis as Gordon is prepared to provide them with.
So, back to me. I have much better skin tone than Gordon and I am sure I can work on the swearing. And I have extensive experience of working with businesses of all sizes which seem to have no idea why they are there, other than to do whatever they have to do to hit their next quarter's numbers, who have little interest in finding out what their customers really want or value, and no vision of where they are going long-term. This excludes current clients, of course. The rest of you - beware. Reality - in the form of me and my camera team - could strike soon.