Giving the gift of Christmas in 2017

Making a difference with Manchester

I hate knowing that children will not have a Christmas! At MID Communications and alongside Cash For Kids, work tirelessly to improve Christmas every year, with an amazing bunch of people to help reduce poverty right across Greater Manchester and the North West.

We have built this over the years to be the biggest toy appeal in the UK!

Why do we support Mission Christmas with Cash for Kids?

Because we always want to help more children every single year, as 1 in 4 children live in poverty.

Christmas is all about spending time with friends and families and sharing experiences full of laughs, smiles and enjoyment. A quarter of our children across Greater Manchester and throughout the North West do not get to enjoy the festive period like the majority. At MID Communications, we love to put smiles on the faces of these children and will continue to support this fast growing cause that is doing everything to try and remove poverty from our communities.

The Mission Christmas VR Experience

As part of Cash for Kids Mission Christmas, we visited the children’s hospice Francis House in Didsbury, Manchester along with Key 103 to surprise kids under their care and their siblings in the run up to Christmas. Francis House helps families of children with life limited conditions. Christmas is a special time for all the families to create amazing memories together however it can sometimes be interrupted by unexpected visits to the hospital. Key 103 Cash for Kids Mission Christmas asks you to buy one extra present this Christmas for a disadvantaged child living in Greater Manchester and help put a smiles on their face this Christmas.

A quick message from Key 103:

Huge THANK YOU to O2 Franshise, MID Communications for help making this possible by providing all the latest virtual reality technology. More information about Mission Christmas can be found at key103.co.uk/mission.

How do we contribute to helping this fantastic cause?

Helping to raise money and donate by hosting events across all of our communities, fundraising and working tirelessly with our partners.
We also encourage shoppers buy an extra gift and drop it off at any of any one our stores or any other drop off point.
Volunteer your time, become a drop-off point.

Make it simple and inspiring others to help. An easier way is sending a text to donate.

I tried to inspire people on the night by saying ” Helping this cause doesn’t have to cost anything, but YOUR TIME. We know time is the most expensive currency, that’s why we value you and yours…”

Please help myself and our teamsat MID Communications give a little more this Christmas and help make a difference with us and the rest of Manchester.

MID Supports Rochdale Business Awards 2017

The 7th Year of Rochdale Business Awards

This year, we supported the business awards by putting an award together to celebrate local retailers, that are independent within the Rochdale borough.

It was a great process, as we teamed up with local entrepreneur Gregory Couzens. Greg’s hair salon, Gregory Couzens, has been in operation for years in Rochdale and is possibly one of the longest trading retailers in the town.

Our second partner was with Chris who is the Regional Sales Director for Shoppers Anonymous, a customer service delivery business who are experts in helping businesses deliver excellence in sales and customer services.

Above is Rochdale Council CEO, Steve Rumbelow, kicking the event off.

We Were Overwhelmed with the Positive Response

We were blown away by the response from the Rochdale borough, and applications, for the awards first year out. From all these amazing businesses, we did manage to make the cut of applications down to three finalists based on their applications and business history plus a series of face-to-face meetings and interviews and, of course, encounters with our mystery shoppers.

Rochdale Business Awards 2017: High Street Retailer of the Year
Top Three Finalists

All three finalists were amazing but there could only be one winner! A huge congratulations to Chantilly.

Such an amazing business that’s delivered exactly what they said they did. They are a great bunch of Passionate, people that go always above and beyond at every point they do.

A shining example of not just great retailers in Rochdale but an excellent example of British retailing and what retail experiences should be. I am proud to have presented the award to them.

Furthermore doing this was amazing to allow smaller independent retailers to step up and show how great they are,and have a voice amongst the larger retailers, who in my opinion could learn so much from the smaller passionate retailers, who aspire to be the next big retailer.

Putting passion back into Retail

I am passionate about wanting to get retailers working better together in 2018. My conclusion is we have become so comfortable with online shopping and trading and that we are neglecting our best part of any business… the part that involves people.

Consequently, we must work together to improve the standard in retail to inspire people to start online and finish in store, because they get amazing experience in store, from the people in those stores!

After all, people buy people… let’s not forget or overlook this.

Watch this space next year, as I try and inspire more retailers to seek WORLD CLASS SERVICE, just like Chantilly does, and our teams do every single day.

The digital landscape claims another local business. Are you ready?

Businesses are still not fully aware of the external digital landscapes.

This week started with saddened news, that the Oldham Evening Chronicle has gone into administration. The question is were they aware of the changes in the digital media landscape?

This is a huge loss to the local town of Oldham as the news and media business has played such a big part in the growth and heritage of the local town over the past 163 years.

The Oldham Chronicle tweeted the news 6 days ago, and the town reacted to the sad news, along with local MP Jim McMahon, adding a personal saddened goodbye message.

Read the full artcile here, published by the Manchester Evening News.

The Oldham Chronicle was one of our Business customers at MID Communications and have been for several years, it is never easy to see this happen to businesses and it is even tougher when you have worked with the business.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all the staff the very best for the future and we hope we can support some of them in sourcing new employment during these difficult times.

How does this digital landscape happen?

It is always difficult to fully understand why a business has failed, however, in my opinion, a major reason to consider is that they ignored and delayed to adapt to the changes in the digital and media landscape.

We live in a fast paced life now with our mobile devices and this means that print has declined over the past several years. As we become more impatient we want the information on our devices when we want, instantly. Living this fast-paced world with access to the internet from almost anywhere has seen a huge decline both in news paper form and in many other forms, like leaflets and magazines. This is due to the fact we become more and more impatient as human beings, we want the information on our devices and we want it when we want, at an instant click or tap.

It’s a change that can affect so many businesses, not just media and news. If your business is ignoring the external landscape changes and you are not being made aware of landscape changes, you are going to struggle. Is your business adapting to it’s environment and also it’s customers and audience.

Collaborate with your audience, tell your own stories.

In today’s world of online, digital and social media, we are now empowering more people to become food critics, news reporters, and many other roles, due to mobile device’s. For example, having the ability to stream live footage from anywhere has become huge now.

Is your business adapting to the environment and to your customers and audience needs? You need to collaborate with your audience in today’s world of digital and social media.

We are now empowering more people to become a multi-expert, such as food critics, news reporters, customer service critics, and so many other roles, all due to mobile device’s linked with our ability to have an opinion with our need to want and share.

Look at the current tragedy of the Manchester Bombing, it was a cruel evening for Manchester but, we, the great British public, became reporters, and emergency services supporters, and many other roles as we shared our videos and images with the press, the police and many other sources like social media.

This plays a huge part in today’s digital world and shows how fast news can be reported, and how messages can be pushed out, whether they are good or bad messages and stories.

This is one example of how huge digital changes and evolvement play a part in today’s digital world, that demonstrates how fast news is being reported when business and people collaborate. Messages are pushed out, whether they are good or bad.

Is your business digitally ready?

A person can express themselves and showcase many parts of their own and other peoples lifes on social media or other channels.
This emphasizes the need to embrace both Digital and social media along with other sources, to ensure you are not getting left behind.

This example is one of a few, where I feel The Oldham Chronicle may not have seen the impact of digital media coming down the business influences channel. When they saw the changes it was too late to try and catch the rest.
No app, not enough social media presence and they didn’t work with the power of local reporters and news reporters, we the general public to catch the news fast enough and report it back to the massess with quick succession.

In our business, I am watching and working on how 5G has been coming down the line, for a number of years. How will it affect us but, more importantly, how will affect you, the customer?

Do you have fun with your Teams?

Business Fun – MID Comms Summer Ball 2017

Last night we held our MID annual Summer Ball. We do this every year and get all the Store teams, Call Centre, and the Head Office Team together and have a social drink and tons of business fun. This year we hosted at Hotel Football at Old Trafford, a great venue.

The team loved it. Especially as we let them plan it. I give the team a budget and they put the night together. Empowerment of your people is really important. They grow as people and as a team when given responsibility, which is always a must for me.

This year we played loads of different games like Family Fortunes, Krypton Factor, Play Your Cards Right and much more. We had a bucking bronco and a great indoor penalty shootout on the roofless top floor.

A great highlight of the night was our singing waiters. The theatrics they displayed and made the entire room think it was a real argument, and then burst into a superb Italian Opera Performance which was brilliant and comes well recommended for me, for any event.

The Team Really Love The Evening, They All Come Together As One!

As a business, we have 17 sites across the northwest, so this is one of four times a year we get together as a team of teams. Yes, it can be seen as quite a big gesture for any business to organize and fund, to why my response to many other business owners is:

“It’s all relevant based on the scale of economy and business size.”

It doesn’t matter about the scale or the investment into the event as there is always someone doing a bigger event. The point I am wanting to make is about the importance of getting your people together, to make sure they feel valued, have fun, let their hair down and you can keep a real community feel.

The Teams Share Ideas & Collaborate About Different Topics

They share ideas, challenges, goal progress, and support each other with lots of other social topics. They love to see who the rising stars and upcoming talent, they love to tell each other how well they are doing, all of these conversations give the entire business, exciting energy as we go into H2.

I can not tell you how important it is to get together and have some fun. So ask your self these questions, when did you last get your business together?

When will you next get your team together? Ask any of our team they will tell you they like the night.

So if the answer to the first question is a long time, Christmas or even never, then make sure you answer the next question with soon…

Best regards
Danny Simpson
CEO

Pride, Passion & Persistence – Are you nurturing your talent?

Pride, Passion & Persistence creates Talent

Over the last couple of months, I have been planning how we explore the talent in our business and who is ready for the next steps in their career, to become ready to help MID Communications move and grow to the next level.

After a great meeting with my leadership team, we decided that some of the current Senior leaders could play both a bigger and different role in our business. We started with a replacement of John Harvey, who is currently regional sales manager.
John applied to move to take ownership of the Operations channel, which is a very exciting opportunity that I could not say no to. This move created a new opportunity for an Area Sales Manager role.

We advertised the role, and in the applications came! This was amazing to see the confidence of our current store leaders.

We interviewed 3 amazing leaders, and what I can say from this experience is how amazing they all were. I know all 3 MID Comm’ers very well as they have all worked for the business for at least 3 years, moving into bigger stores and doing a great job in every store they have been involved in.

They have always shown great leadership skills, driving our key store leader’s, People Profit, and Proposition.

The interviews blew us away!

Each candidate was amazing. They were very creative, inspirational, well thought out, and had captured amazing new ideas, that encapsulated our core values, our culture, our direction, and our attitude.

We were expecting great but what we got was pure excellence. They were so good that we agreed to make 2 role’s for 2 of them, Jamie Houghton and Daniel Toft.

The 3rd candidate Lee Todman, I have agreed to put together a development plan, and some separate mentor sessions with myself over the next 12 months, that will help us both and the business.

I was so proud of them, to see how they have grown and developed within our business. It’s so exciting to think of the new opportunities, for our business over the next few months and for our 4 new rolled team members.

They have all been supporting and mentoring other managers and leaders over the past couple of months, this has really helped them realize how great they are, how much they actually know and how much they have grown/learnt.

My Lessons & Takeaways

How often do you temperature check your leaders in an interview format to really see how much they have grown?
How often do you get managers/leaders coaching other managers and leaders at the same level? Get them doing SWOTs on each other and creating action plans for each other – collaboration is amazing when done right!
Not all promotions have to be upwards in your business people can move sideways, and add more value in another part of your business.
Keep your business fresh and exciting to keep people engaged. My personal view that I learned a long time ago is, people in a role for 3-5 years can become frustrated, maybe even bored, uninspired, unmotivated, and some could even get complacent. I have adapted this theory over the last 18 months due to our amazing millennial generation, to 2-3 years.
Finally, always be looking at your business and ask have you got the right people, in the right roles, reaching their full potential. If not make sure you address this FAST, as this can have a damaging effect on your business. As a leader, it is vital you always ask and challenge your team on this, at any level. This has really helped me make some tougher decisions over the last 12 months as we have freshened our business up.

A great week and I cannot wait to see the team this Sunday as we celebrate as a business community at our Summer Ball, at hotel Football.

I hope this helps you and adds some value for you or your business.

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Tag Archives: Danny Simpson

Giving the gift of Christmas in 2017

Making a difference with Manchester