[00:00:09.08] - Gordon Drayson
Hello.

[00:00:09.19] - Taylor Drayson
Hello.

[00:00:10.04] - Gordon Drayson
My name is Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:12.01] - Taylor Drayson
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:13.27] - Gordon Drayson
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And thank you so much for joining us.

[00:00:24.11] - Taylor Drayson
Welcome back.

[00:00:25.07] - Gordon Drayson
Here we go into the 200s, episode 202. Is that right?

[00:00:30.07] - Taylor Drayson
202, 203, something like that.

[00:00:32.26] - Gordon Drayson
Yeah. Anyway, thank you for joining us. You might be able to tell I've got a little bit of a sore throat today. I don't know if I'm coming down with a cold or not, but I definitely get hay fever, so that may be affecting it. But without getting into any of my illnesses, or anyone else's illnesses, let's get straight into it. Would you like to go first today or shall I?

[00:00:57.12] - Taylor Drayson
You can go first.

[00:00:59.08] - Gordon Drayson
So, I would like to talk about frustrating things in your business. Now, I've had some really frustrating days over the last week, and one of them is, well, in fact, all of them are things that I have no control over. So one of them, for example, is I've ordered a new item. It's a battery pack charger that goes on the back of my phone, has a USB which plugs in as well, if you want to do it that way. Or it does it through the mag safe. And I've bought it from a company called EcoFlow. Now, EcoFlow are the people that I've purchased a power pack from in the past. It's quite a big power pack and I use it when I'm doing a party that needs power in the middle of a field, for example, and it manages to power all of my sound equipment without any problems at all. And it's really, really good. It comes with an app, so you can see how much charge it's got. It's got a nice display. You can see when you're charging it, how quickly it's charging and how long it will take to complete.

[00:02:13.25] - Gordon Drayson
I've also got some solar panels which I can use to charge it as well. Although this is the UK, I'm not entirely sure why I bought them, but I can do that as well. So if I go camping, ha, if I go camping. I can't remember the last time I did. I can take them with me, so that's all good. This battery pack is something that looked quite useful. I've looked for a battery pack that I really like for quite a while now, and the idea of having it connected to the back of my phone, using the Mag safe and charging at the same time really appealed to me. And the fact that it's got a USB-C means I can power things like my laptop or my iPad, which also is a nice use of a power pack. Now it's a 10,000 milliamp hours. I think that's how you measure them. And I was really looking forward to it. So I ordered it from the website with plans to use it, with enough time to order it and for it to arrive, for an event that I was going to that was outdoors and I was going to be outdoors all day.

[00:03:22.27] - Gordon Drayson
And I thought that would be a really good place to test it because I get to, you know, plug it in and charge it up before I come home. That way I can use it for satnav. And I noticed that there was a price on the website for this item and, after I'd ordered it, I thought "I just wonder how much Amazon are selling it for, if they've even got it." And I went on and it was 20% cheaper on Amazon. Which made no sense to me because it's actually coming from the exact same place, the same building and everything. So I messaged them and I said, you know, "I'm very upset that Amazon are selling it cheaper. Can you either refund me the difference or cancel the order because we're less than 24 hours since I ordered it, and I'll reorder it through Amazon." And they said, "we're gonna have to cancel it." So I said, "okay, whatever's easier for you." So they cancelled the order, they refunded me, the money arrived back, I ordered it from Amazon, and that's when my problems started. So to cut a long story short, they sent it out, it didn't get delivered.

[00:04:36.27] - Gordon Drayson
However, I got a delivery notification with a photo of someone else's door and as it turns out, someone else's parcel. And so I contacted the post office. Apparently they've got 72 hours to figure out what's going on. Well, that took over a week before anyone even contacted me. So they failed there completely. Still don't know where that package is. Contacted the original company, they said they'd send out a replacement. That replacement didn't even have a tracking number that appeared on the Royal Mail's website. It just, it didn't exist, according to Royal Mail. And again, another week went by. And so here I am, I've only now just got them to send out a replacement replacement. And they've given me another tracking number and this time on The Royal Mail website, it says that they have been alerted that there's a package to be collected and they'll let me know when it's collected. Now, this has taken much longer than it should have done. It should have been at maximum five working days and we are now over two and a half weeks into this and I still don't have the product. And the ones that went missing still haven't turned up.

[00:05:54.06] - Gordon Drayson
I had to do lots of work to make sure I got the proof to show that it hadn't been delivered to me because the tracking information said it had. And I needed to be able to prove to them that the package that they actually had pictured wasn't my package, otherwise I'd be liable. And it's just been a complete nightmare and it's been really frustrating because I've had no control over any of this, but it sucked hours out of my day. You know, I was on the phone to Royal Mail holding for half an hour before anyone even picked up, and then another half hour explaining my situation because they didn't make proper notes the previous time. I've done that several times. I've spoken to the original company that was sending things out, I've messaged Amazon, I've got emails going backwards and forwards. I've so far spent about six hours on this whole thing and I think I mentioned it last week, but, you know, we've come even further now and they're having to send a replacement replacement. And it's just so annoying. So what I think the sort of, the knowledge that I've gained from all this is: sometimes things go wrong and they're outside of your control, but that doesn't stop you from planning for things that go wrong.

[00:07:23.02] - Gordon Drayson
So have a think about anything that you are going to do and if it's something that's out of your hands, you know, like a third party supplier or you're ordering something in, just try and figure out what you're going to do, in your head, you know, don't spend too much time on it because it may be a waste of time, but just figure out in your head what are you going to do if that doesn't happen? As this, as this is, it's just a power pack. It's not hugely disruptive to my business. It's annoying, but it's not stopping me from going out and working. Whereas if I bought something that was essential for my business and it was a replacement for something that had broken. If that hadn't arrived and I'd be three weeks into the process and still not able to have the package. I mean, that could have affected me really hard. So in that case, you know, I know where I can buy these items and it's like a two hour drive each way. But that is what I would have to do. I would have to get in the car, drive to these people, make sure they've got the product first before I drive, and then drive back again.

[00:08:37.23] - Gordon Drayson
So I'd have had to make time to make sure that the item that I'm looking for is with me in the time that I need it. Because if I had to wait for something that was important, I could be losing a lot of money at this point or upsetting a lot of customers. And either is not something I want to do for my business. So that's my, that's my learning from this last week. What would you like to talk about?

[00:09:02.08] - Taylor Drayson
So this week I want to talk about first introductions and first impressions. So I have been looking at flats and going through the process and it's been really interesting talking to different types of people that I don't speak to regularly. So things like mortgage advisors, financial advisors, solicitors, estate agents. And it's really interesting to see how everyone handles and deals with first impressions and how people deal with people's enquiries and people's kind of just general business. And yeah, throughout the process it's, you can tell the people that care, the people that enjoy their job. There have been a couple of times where I find that people just aren't reading an email for example. I had a situation where I sent, I had a communication with somebody and I think I sent seven emails. All it was was to get a document and to answer a question of which I asked my original first email that I sent to them to which we had three back and forths before they actually answered the question of which I asked twice before, since that original time I asked. And it was just frustrating, which obviously, you know, it seems to be a theme this week.

[00:10:35.15] - Gordon Drayson
This week, yeah, exactly.

[00:10:36.26] - Taylor Drayson
But yeah, it's just interesting how, you know, people's lack of, I don't know, just incapability sometimes or just not caring. And then, you know, when I was looking at like things like solicitors again, calling them up and saying "I'm interested," how they deal with it the first time is that they're just trying to get it through and rush, or is it, you know, they're taking the time to actually, you know, listen to the property that I'm interested in, you know, whereabouts it is, who I am and things like that. So, yeah, it's just been really interesting and something that I want to try and start thinking about more myself is how do I come across when people first kind of meet me. And whether that's been a referral from someone, so if someone's referred some work to me, or whether I'm at a networking event, or whether I'm just meeting somebody in general, how am I coming across? Am I engaged? Something that I've been trying to do recently is remove apps that have been taking up a lot of my time. So things like social media apps I've been trying to remove and setting limits for myself, things like blocking certain apps, you know, when it gets late so that I don't have a choice but to sleep. You know, I can just sit there, twiddle my thumbs or go to sleep and I end up going to sleep. And so, yeah, just trying to see how I can be more engaged, be more active and, yeah, just hopefully be a better person overall, really.

[00:12:07.11] - Gordon Drayson
It is really frustrating, isn't it, when you send an email and you have like two questions. "Could you please let me know this and this?" And they come back and they give you information that's not relevant at all to what you've asked. I had exactly the same with the post office. I said, "this is not my package, it's not my property." And they came back and they said, "well, please have a look around your property, see if the package is, you know, been put somewhere different or have a word with your neighbours." And I replied and I said, "this is not my package. I've got the packaging that's in the picture. It's not a package for me, it's a package for the person whose door is actually pictured." Because what happened is they had the same picture on two different tracking numbers, which apparently is impossible, but there we go, it happened to me. But, yeah, it is really frustrating when you ask something and they just sort of ignore completely what you've asked and tell you what they think you want to know instead of actually reading it properly. And, you know, I have a feeling that in the past I may have done that myself.

[00:13:12.29] - Gordon Drayson
I may have answered someone's question with what I thought they asked, instead of what they actually asked. I'm sure it's something that we all do, and I think it's something we need to be a little bit more careful of. Because you're right; first impressions do count. And your first impression is what people believe and think about you from then on. And it's really difficult to change someone's mind after that impression has been made.

[00:13:37.17] - Taylor Drayson
Yeah, definitely. And I think it's one of those things where I've met people, I've had a really bad impression, and no matter how much somebody gives a glowing review of that person, because I had such a bad experience the first time, let alone they've been fine ever since, that first time kind of stuck with me really.

[00:13:59.24] - Gordon Drayson
Yeah.

[00:14:00.06] - Taylor Drayson
And, you know, I got to know the person. They're, you know, they were very nice, but at the same time, the first impression counts because that's what...

[00:14:08.18] - Gordon Drayson
You just can't shake it off, can you? You think, "well if that's what they were like when they didn't know me, you know, why would they be any different when they do know me?" Yeah, very interesting. Anything else you want to say today?

[00:14:22.08] - Taylor Drayson
I don't think so.

[00:14:23.13] - Gordon Drayson
Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please, like, share and subscribe on YouTube.

[00:14:29.22] - Taylor Drayson
You can always go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.

[00:14:34.11] - Gordon Drayson
And we're on all of the main podcast platforms. Do a search for "This Week With Taylor and Gordon." We'll be back with you next week, 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.

[00:14:47.11] - Taylor Drayson
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:14:49.27] - Gordon Drayson
Goodbye.

[00:14:50.16] - Taylor Drayson
Bye.

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