The financial year has finished, your tax paperwork is probably more or less under control. Time to think about you. What has your business done for you in the last financial year? This is for you the individual; not you the director or employee. Has it helped you grow as a person? Has it enabled you to do something that you would not otherwise have been able to …

In a recent episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, the power of marketing to create fantasy beliefs in a product was made very clear. Customers simple believe that bottled water is somehow “better”, and are willing to shell out huge amount of dollars based on that belief. Is this a case for kudos to the power of marketing, or shame shame shame? What do you think?

“Don’t you wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There’s one marked ‘Brightness,’ but it doesn’t work.” Gallagher. Spotted on www.quotationspage.com

What is the olfactory impact of your business on your customers? I avoid candle and soap shops because I find them cloying and oppressive. I personally don’t have a shop - but I do try and wash at least once a day. Does the content of your website or brochure smell fishy? If you sell houses (ok, homes), is there a way for you to make your correspondence …

Waiting at the checkout can be a great opportunity to practice creativity. Look at your purchases: what is the weirdest and funniest “meal” you can make out of what you have? (I had bleach, kitty litter, peanut paste, eggs…) This is good practice to see different uses for everyday things. What’s in your shopping basket today?

Most of us knows flash bulbs don’t do diddly for your photos in a large venue like a stadium, right? But why do we still see flashes going off in stadiums at night? Lack of awareness? Force of habit? Blind belief? Too hard to turn off the flash? Is there something you are doing in your business right now that is akin to using flash bulbs in a …

Think of something you do in your business that you have been doing the same way for a while now. Can you do it differently today? How differently dare you do it today?

Have you noticed how many computer shops there are around the place? Have you also noticed how they all have virtually indistinguishable wares on display, or have their windows covered by faded posters of last-generation Intel CPUs? The reseller margins are low. Technology is cheap. Everything is more or less the same. More “everyday” people are buying computers. Computers remain confusing and complicated to the “everyday” person. The …

My barber charges $14 per hair cut. Some customers choose to leave a $1 tip. This is an interesting and easy way to gauge customer satisfaction – easy for the customer to round up if they want to, and easy to process. Divide the day’s takings by $14; and the remainder is likely to be the number of satisfied customers. In Excel, the formula is =MOD(takings,14). And yes, …

Two artists/photographers on a telly programme just now uses eBay to source clothing for costumes and weird objects to build props for their compositions. Forget the e-commerce potential for the moment - how can the vast range of stuff on eBay help you with your projects?