Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: psychology

  • Links of the day – Mind games, wine growers and the Naples mafia

    Links of the day – Mind games, wine growers and the Naples mafia

    Mind games, wine growers and the Naples mafia are among today’s links along with last person in Britain who lived under Queen Victoria passing away and a touching series of portraits showing the end of the film photography industry.

    Cutting out the middle man

    Reka Haros is a wine maker in Italy’s Venuto region. Like many small producers her winery struggles with distribution and sales in a crowded market. Reba’s solution of going direct to the customer is one that many businesses should be considering in a noisy world.

    Life in protection

    I don’t fear death, I fear being discredited. The story of Italian journalist Roberto Saviano and his eight years in protection after writing about the Naples mafia.

    Picturing the decline of film photography

    Canadian photographer Robert Burley travelled the world with his 4×5 field camera to document the end of analogue photography. It’s a poignant portrayal of how an entire industry comes to and with one technological change.

    Last of the Victorians

    Ethel Lang, the last surviving Briton to live under the reign of Queen Victoria, died last week at the age 114.

    Manufacturing false memories

    A frightening physiological experiment shows a cunning interviewer can convince most of us  we committed crimes which we are totally innocent of. This truly is a disturbing story.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Beware the business trolls

    Beware the business trolls

    “A psychopath will enter everyone’s lives at one time. When yours arrives, your job is to get them out of your life as quickly as possible.”

    That little gem was handed down to me before the internet gave everyone a global megaphone to entertain themselves with. Today it’s likely a dozen psychopaths a week could enter your life through the web or social media.

    One of the manifestations of this ability for anyone to post to the web regardless of merit or sanity has given rise to the phenomenon of “trolling”, of which there has been much recent media attention.

    At its most basic, trolling is about getting attention. The troll hopes to get a reaction from something outrageous they’ve said or done. In that respect they aren’t too different to radio talk back hosts or SmartCompany editors.

    Business has its own types of trolls: the ‘squeaky wheel’ who hopes that by making a complete pain of themselves you’ll succumb to their unreasonable demands; the perennial tyre kicker who wastes your sales staff’s time; or the late payer who enjoys toying with you and your accounts people but has no intention of ever paying the bill.

    The effects of these business trolls can be just as debilitating as an online troll, with the added bonus that they distract you and your employees from getting work done.

    Sometimes the business owner makes the mistake of taking things personally. This often happens when a bad debtor upsets us so much we make it our life mission to get what we deserve to be paid.

    Hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars later we surrender and accept we were never really going to get that relatively trivial sum.

    The worst of all the business trolls is the recreational debtor. These business psychopaths take delight in ringing up debts they have no intention of paying and then treating your attempts to get the money back as a type of game where they will thoroughly mess with your mind.

    These are the people to get out of your life as quickly as possible. It could be writing off the debt, giving them the refund or just kicking them out of the store.

    So beware of the business trolls, they are as likely to appear in your outstandings file as on your Facebook page.

    Similar posts: