A sinking ship... - werkgeversreview Marketing bij Regus

The 12 Laws of Regus; 1. There is no plan, ["who told you to do that?"] – Strategy is a word never used at Regus, as it implies long term thinking and probably investment, both of which are anathema. Tactics is what they do, and only for a few weeks, then there will inevitably be a total change of direction. Even when plans come from Dixon himself (most do), when presented with what he asked for, he will reject it saying “I never told you to do that” when everyone knows there is written evidence he did. Is it amnesia, or schizophrenia? No-one knows, least of all him. 2. This is all MY money [and you cannot spend it] – tighter than a gnat's chuff, two coats of paint and Rod Stewart combined. No-one, not even Chief Operating Officers are allowed to sanction any spend unless they have run it past Dixon, who will reject most of it on principle. Therefore no Directors control either an annual plan (see #1) or a budget they can spend to deliver it. “Investment” by the way, is a word that he doesn’t understand. 3. If I hired you, you must be stupid – “I thought you were clever when I hired you but now you are my minion I have lost all respect for you”. That is the typical arc of Dixon’s relationship with any new hires at top level and leads us to Law #4. 4. Why does everyone lie to me? – Even when presented with facts delivered by subject matter experts he has hired, he cannot accept anyone’s opinion about anything, ever. Stalin was positively trustworthy by comparison. 5. Build it quick, build it cheap – “Here is a sow’s ear, now I want you to turn it into a purse by the end of tomorrow. And by the way, I’m not giving you a sow’s ear”. Regus is littered with the burnt out relics of previous initiatives that were briefly “plan of the week” (see#1), but were built quick and cheap and never worked. Every consultancy that has ever been hired to give Regus advice has told Dixon to buy new systems, as everything in place today is late-Victorian and powered by steam. And every time that advice has been rejected. More orders for sellotape and stovepipe hats invariably follow. 6. Don't mention the "R" word – He has stopped people mid-sentence when they have said the word “Retention”. For Dixon this equates to being held to ransom, and no-one does that to a man of his tiny stature. All imprecations to do something that customers or employees will appreciate and keep them on-board is rejected on this principle. Ironically this is the one thing that would improve profitability long term, because it would save the enormous amount of money spent perpetually having to refill desks that we pretty much pushed existing customers out of. 7. Sales is everything, Marketing is nothing – as a salesman, and as most of the old guard regional CEOs are salesman, the Sales view of the world permeates the whole organisation from top to bottom. This includes the traditional sales distrust of marketing as “all smoke and mirrors” and a giant waste of money. This is why CMOs last 6-9 months, with the rubbish ones being fired and the excellent ones leaving in disgust. 8. Customers are sheep to be fleeced – other reviewers have described this better than me, having been closer to the action here, but it boils down to these three steps – 1) discount our prices for an introductory offer to get customer on board 2) customer discovers all sorts of hidden extras that jack the bill up 3) when time comes to renew or leave, the poor customer discovers the contract makes it very expensive to do so, and any failure to pay the exit fees results in the bailiffs being sent round. As a result all our ex-customers will never EVER come back. We are, in fact, generating sales leads for the rest of the market. 9. You should be paying me to work here – “Employees are lucky to be here, if they don’t like my pay, hours or commission then they can clear off and I will hire someone else from the long queue of people eager to work for me”. Tales of the huge pay cut he imposed on staff around 10 years ago are legend from the unsurprisingly few people still on board who remember this event. Pay review? Don’t make me laugh. 10. The Dixonian force field – a system that keeps non-sycophantic news away from his brain. Here how it works. “If your response does not start with “yes” then the noise coming out of your mouth will not even enter my ears, let alone my brain. It’s not so much that I disagree with what you say, it’s that if you are not clearly agreeing with me and saying you will do what I want very, very quickly indeed, then I cannot even hear you”. 11. I am an Internet Expert [How difficult can it be?] – “This internet business is made out to be ridiculously complicated by these so called “experts” I have hired, when it clearly is very simple. For god’s sake I could design a better website than you have done, in fact I will, and you have to build it and launch it. What do you mean it is performing much worse than the last one? Then fix it you fools!” Nuff said. 12. Burger stall economics – Property market spiv yes, brilliant businessman not so much. In Dixon’s mind running a business consists of no more than these simple steps learnt from his days running a burger van - hike prices, cut costs, whip staff to sell more, go to lunch. Simple.