Is Your Price Right? Does It Strengthen Your Profitability or Undermine It?

For some companies, the pricing policy for goods and services is based purely on a combination of covering costs and making a reasonable profit. Smart management however, understands that pricing is one of the most obvious indicators of a brand’s competitive strategy.

 Brand Pricing

  

Pricing policies determine where your offering is positioned in the market. It is a reflection of your brand’s core values and helps shape customer quality expectations of your product or service. With this in mind, ask yourself, what is your pricing policy telling your market about your brand?

 

 

Top 3 Most Common Pricing Mistakes to Avoid

 

1. Lowest Price Does Not Always Mean Best Value

Most customers care about value for money rather than lowest price.  In tough economic times people still have to spend money and so their tendency to focus on the value of their ROI is even more pronounced. Customers are far more than one-dimensional money savers. They want brands that will serve their needs and offer value for money.

 

 Brand Price Matching

 

2. Cost Cutting

The current economic situation has come companies cost cutting and lowering prices in an effort to survive until things improve. Brands need to accept the current economy as the new normal. Look at it not as a bad economy but as the economy. Companies should implement a pricing structure that best reflects the core value of the brand, rather than clutching at the lower end of the market. 

 

 Slashing Prices

 

Companies need revenue more than ever. Cost cutting can position your brand as the low cost provider and that is a risky place to be in.  Brands that focus on being the low cost provider are left with little to offer the market if suddenly undercut by competitors.

  

3. Inconsistent Pricing Strategies

Frequently changing pricing strategies makes it difficult for customers to calculate the value received with each purchase. It can lead to consumer confusion and can trigger a lack of confidence or mistrust in what appears to be disorganized management. Identifying your most appropriate pricing strategy and keep it consistent.

 

 

Top 5 Strategies That Can Strengthen Your Brand Positioning

 

1. Emphasize Benefits

Lowest price doesn’t always win. Customers develop feelings through their brand experience that impacts on their judgment of value. Customers care about value. By remaining consistent in your pricing strategy and focusing on communicating the value proposition of your brand you will provide your customer with the confidence they need when making a purchase and help them feel more positive about the way they spend their money.

 

 Brand Value

 

2. Focus on Core Values

Core values are the foundations on which brand identity is shaped. Re-examining your brand’s core values can help refocus your pricing strategy and provide the guidelines to strengthen your relationship with your customers. If your brand’s core value was to provide greater quality at a fair price then moving to a low price strategy will damage the very nature of your brand. Customers tend to be more willing to spend a little more money for better value. 

 

3. Bundle Costs

Customers feel a loss when they spend money. Separately listing all the elements they are paying for highlights the extent of the loss in the transaction. Bundling the items into one price is easier to change the customer’s perspective, encourages purchasing and can provide a sense of increased value for money.

 

4. Stagger Price Increases

Webers Law is a strategy adopted by Starbucks in their pricing strategy. It states that customers do not register price increases until they become highly significant. By raising their prices by only a few cents at a time Starbucks did not deter their customers and managed to rise prices without consumer backlash.

  

5. Make Your Offering Incomparable

You don’t want to be forced to lower prices, but how do you deal with low price anchors set by your competition? The easiest way to make your offering incomparable to your competitors is by changing the way you present your offer. 

 

For example, if you are in the B2B software industry, rather than a generic  offering; “software solutions for business”, try “software solutions for business that maximize productivity”. That one small change can make sure that your solution is incomparable and will make it harder for customers to reference the low price anchor.

 

Do not compromise your brand integrity by slashing prices. Focus on your brand’s value proposition and articulate it clearly to your employees and customers alike. Make sure the pricing strategy you employ supports a sustainable and profitable future for your brand.

 

• Do you need to reposition your brand to increase your profitability?

 

• Are you undermining your brand with unsustainable discounting?

 

• Could re-evaluating your core brand values help you increase your profitability? 

  

  

Brand Commoditization : How Safe is Your Brand?

A question to ponder this week… What would your customer’s identify as the number one reason for buying your brand?

 

If the answer is ‘low price’ or ‘convenience’ your brand could be at major risk of becoming just another commodity brand; a very risky position for any brand to be in.

 

When it comes to commoditization, no industry is safe.  Whether you produce consumer products or supply professional services, when your customers can no longer differentiate your offering from that of your competitors it puts the company’s success and profitability in jeopardy.

 

Commoditization is a never ending reality in business today. No matter how hard a successful brand works to be different, their competitors are working equally hard to replicate it.

 

Markets are awash with ‘me too’ products. Customer choice has never been greater online and offline. Brands need to be very proactive in reinforcing their differentiating factors to their customers i.e. the reasons why their customers should choose them. But without a truly unique product or service that process is becoming more and more difficult.

 

 

Is Your Brand At Risk?

How easily can you quantify the differences between your products and services from those of your competitors? Think then about how easily your customers and prospective clients can make the same distinction? What’s your big why for your brand? What does it stand for?

 

When the tangible differences between competing brands diminish, the danger of commoditization grows. But all is not lost. Many brands enjoy a sustainable longevity in their market, despite aggressive copycatting, and do so by identifying the broader value offered by their brands.

 

Articulating the extended intangible values of your brand creates a tougher opposition for competitors. Replicating a product is easy, replicating a brand identity is not.

 

 

5 Ways To Safeguard Your Brand Against Commoditization

 

1. Brand Values

The first step for any company in safeguarding against commoditization is to use internal knowledge to identify the company’s broader value. Take time to consider the intangible benefits of your brand, the perceived benefits to customers, and the desired emotive response when someone experiences the brand. Think back to the very beginning and refocus on the brand identity. What were the core values that established the brand?   

 

 Steve Jobs Apple

 

Apple’s strength lies not just in innovation but on a dedication to producing a high quality product. Their product prices are amongst the highest on the market but their willingness to lose a portion of market on price reaffirms their dedication to their core value of quality and establishes their brand identity in the mind of the consumer.

 Customer Experience

  

2. Relationships

Tangible elements are easy to replicate. Strong brands succeed in developing strong relationships with their customers. Leverage face-to-face interactions and social media to learn more about your customer and start a dialogue that fosters a meaningful relationship that extends beyond the brand experience. 

 

3. Leverage the Corporate Brand

The corporate brand often has sustainable equity. Leveraging the corporate reputation and trust can deliver broader value to product brands and help shape a comprehensive offering to customers that extends beyond the product service attributes.

 

 O Egg White Eggs Icograda

 

4. Package Design

Innovative packaging that creates an aesthetic beyond function can help increase perceived value to the customer and enhance market share. The O’Egg brand focused on package differentiation to turn a commodity product into the pre-eminent egg brand in Ireland. 

 

5. Brand Experience

When a product or service is easily replicated, innovating brand intangibles can strengthen the position of the brand and protect it from the threat of commoditization.

 

 Apple Customers Queue Ny

 

Think differently about your business. Change how its’ perceived. A unique service area, outstanding customer support, or special loyalty rewards can set your brand apart.

 

Starbucks’ strength grew from creating a brand experience around a commodity product. What set the brand apart were the various elements that nurtured the customer’s experience of the brand; from the service setting, to the coffee ordering system, to the interactions with staff. They changed the way the world ordered coffee.

 Starbucks Commoditization

  

Global giant that it is, Starbucks is now under threat because the brand experience has become the commodity and the Starbucks focus has drifted to profit margins and market growth rather than extending customer value. The brand is currently in the process of returning their focus to their core value, putting the customer’s coffee experience at the heart of their operations again.

 

 

One of the biggest problems that lead to a weakening of brand equity is a lack of awareness in the company of the causes of commoditization. 

 

Businesses end up spending valuable resources on updating products and expanding product lines without having a real understanding as to what their customer’s really need and value.

 

 Customer Service

 

• When was the last time you surveyed your customers or researched your market properly?

 

• Do you really know what’s happening at grass roots level in your market?

  

• Do you need a brand audit?

  

In short, how safe is your brand?

Company Culture: Your Brand’s Strongest Competitive Advantage

Company culture may be the most vague aspect of brand management but carefully controlled and nurtured it can provide your brand with a sustainable competitive advantage that even your strongest competitors cannot replicate.

 

Company culture is a culmination of the behaviors, attitudes, relationships, core brand values and environment within a business. Simply put, your company culture can be viewed as “the way we do things around here”.  The manners in which these components are managed make your culture what it is.

 

 

How Does This Support Brand Development?

Many of the strongest brands have a product offering that is similar to that of competitors in the market. What gives them their greatest competitive advantage however is that while competitors can replicate the product, apply similar marketing techniques, and headhunt their staff, they can never fully duplicate their company culture. A company culture is the one truly unique sustainably competitive advantage a brand can have.

 

A winning culture can be a real point of differentiation, but it must be managed, driven, and reinforced in order to truly see results.

 

 Team Culture

  

 

What is the Culture Within Your Company?

Many companies aim to strategically shape the culture that exists within their organisation, but even companies who have never heard of company culture already have one in place.

 

The question is, is your company culture strengthening your brand or holding it back or, worse still, undermining it? A good place to start when developing and understanding your corporate culture is asking your staff and customers what they think of the company; the good, the bad and the ugly. What you need to take from that exercise is what elements of the existing company culture that you like and your customers like, and what needs to be eliminated.

 

 

What You Do, Not What You Say!

The core values you identify for your brand will shape the behaviour of your employees and provide the guidelines they need to best serve the brand. If providing the best customer service possible is a core value of the brand then employees know that they are expected to do their best to achieve this value through all customer interactions.

 

Remember, it is not enough for your brand to have strong core values that are clearly articulated to stakeholders if they are not acted upon. It is what you do, not what you say that counts. It must be a fully integrated and intuitive part of your brand’s signature way of doing things.

 

 

What Is It That Your Company Values?

In order to create a corporate brand culture that yields results you must first identify what is it you value as a company? How to you live and authentically demonstrate the importance of these brand values to your stakeholders?

 

If you want to delight your customers then what is the reward for your employees when they achieve this?  Think of it this way. If your company culture values customer service and your core value is to delight customers, then what happens if two supermarket employees each make sales of equal monetary value but one offers to carry the customer’s bags to the car. Does that employee receive a reward for going out of their way to delight the customer? Or more to the point, is the other employee penalized for not doing so?

 

 Team Hands

 

Reward your staff for embracing your company’s culture. Don’t just review employees based on measuring results, measure their behaviour and what they try to bring to the work environment.  Encourage, support and acknowledge those that not only promote but act on your core brand values.

 

If you want to create a sustainable corporate brand culture than staff recruitment should aim to find employees who fit within the existing brand culture and whose values are closely aligned with the brand.

 

Zappos famously offer potential employees $3000 to leave the company during their initial training to make sure those who choose to stay do so because they believe in the brand and not just the financial benefits of the job.

 

 

The Role of The Leader

The most critical influencer on the development of a corporate culture that supports strong brand development is the leader. Leaders understand that their brand’s identity is shaped through touch points between their customers and their organisation.

 

Leaders cannot possibly anticipate every possible touch point that could influence perceptions of the company’s brand, and advertising can only get you so far, but they can set the example as to the attitude and behavioral cues for the corporate brand culture.

 

Strong leaders understand that in a sustainable winning company culture, the behaviours of employees are intrinsically linked to relationships, informed by attitudes, built on a foundation of core brand values and suitable to their industry environment. By managing these cultural components a leader can create a company culture that supports strong brand development internally.

 

 Southwest Airline Staff 

 

Southwest Airlines embrace a company culture that nurtures staff first and customers second. This may seem counter intuitive but by giving employees the tools to make decisions, by building a culture where people feel respected and valued, Southwest Airlines understood that these values would also be reflected in interactions with customers. Their corporate culture has created an environment where employees want to deliver the best customer service in the business. 

 

 

As Zappo’s CEO Tony Hseih states; “company culture and company brand are two sides of the same coin. Your culture is your brand.”

 

 

• Does your corporate culture nurture your brand and provide a competitive advantage?

 

• How do your core brand values support your corporate culture?

 

• Do you as a company leader understand your role in the development of your company’s brand culture?

 

• Do you need to engage in a Brand Discovery Programme™ to re-evaluate your company culture and brand values so you can reinvigorate your brand’s offering to make it stronger, more relevant and more profitable?

 

7 Steps to Branding Your Way Out of Recession and Into Profitable Growth

There are few companies in existence that have not felt the affects of the current recession impacting on their business and profit margins. As many of us know, uneasiness in the market fostered by fears of job losses and reduction in wages has consumer spending at an all time low.

 

Many business leaders feeling the pressure on their profit margins often react by applying cuts to their budgets, with marketing spend often first on the chopping block.

 

Brands Busting Recession

 

However, as history has shown us, savvy business leaders can recognize that cuts to budget spend alone are not the answer and that changes in the market demand adaptation to current marketing practices.

 

Recessions create huge challenges to businesses but why try and weather the storm when the opportunity exists to capitalize on your brand equity to strengthen your market position, and even develop profitable growth.

    

Opportunity Everywhere Crop

  

 

7 Steps to Brand your Way out of Recession

 

1. Adapt Your Brand to Customer Needs and Wants

How have consumers lives been changed by the recession? How have their needs changed? Your brand needs to be managed in a way that adjusts its marketing strategy to meet these changing consumer patterns. Revamp your brand packaging to be more relevant or user friendly, develop and up-sell new service products; analyze the new needs of the market and adjust your brand accordingly.

 

 

2. Brand Your Way to Market Growth

“You can’t save your way out of a recession – you have to invest your way out. You can’t just invest in the good times and then forget about them in the bad times and hope to get any results” Craig Barrett. Chairperson Intel  

 

A reduction in branding investment will have a knock on effect on the entire business. Reduced visibility or weakened brand equity leads to a reduction in demand leading to negative effects on profitability.

 

History has shown us that brands that increased or even maintained their investment in the brand during a recession actually saw an increase in marketing share. If your competitors are making cuts to their marketing budget than by maintaining your spend you are gaining an instant competitive edge.  

  

 

3. Review and Remove

Review and analyze your current brand activity. Cuts to marketing budgets without focused brand strategy have detrimental effects on the overall profitably of a company.

 

However, removing any lower value marketing costs can actually improve efficiency and effectiveness of your brand strategy. Being more selective in where and how you market your brand can actually bolster profitability. Track the ROI of brand investment and re-allocated funds to marketing activities to monitor what results in increased revenue for your business.

 

Brand Power 

  

4. Maintain Consumer Brand Relationships

During a recession remember your current customers. Experts agree there is no better time to focus on clients who are brand advocates. It is far cheaper to keep current customers than to attract new ones. Your current customers understand your brand. They have an affinity with it.

 

 

5. Increase Consumer Confidence

Reduction in sales corresponds to increases in consumer wariness. With cuts to wages and uncertainty in their future, consumers have become increasingly cautious in their spending habits.

  

Now is the time to use the strength of your brand to reassure customers. Convince your customers that they are making the right decision by purchasing your brand. Investing in building strong brand equity can lead to increased sales with customers developing a clear understanding as to the value of your brand. This information gives them the confidence they need to make the decision to purchase.

 

  

6. Remember Your Brand Values

Focusing on brand values can refocus the business itself and reignite the passion that drove the business in its early years. In a time where the negatives of the recession weigh heavy on consumer’s minds, being faced with a brand that is driven by passion, determination, inspiration, with clear values and purpose will stand out in the market and can inspire sales.

  

 

7. Customer Added Value

Consumer needs change in a recession. Purchasing decisions are often based less on convenience and more on price and value. Adding perceived value to a customer is far easier and has less of a direct affect on profitability than changing pricing structures.

Wow your clients at the various brand touch points and they feel they are getting more for their money than competing brands. Contribute good will, service during hard times and develop customer loyalty that will be stronger than ever when recession ends.

  

Brand Growth 

   

Abraham Lincoln once said “Give me six hours to cut down a three and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”. Business leaders need to start sharpening their marketing practices, not cut them.

 

 

• Have you analyzed the changes to your market?

 

• How have you adapted your brand strategy to changing consumer needs?

 

• Can you streamline your branding to get a better return on investment?

 

What have you been doing to brand your way out of the recession? Leave a comment or drop us a line. We’d love to hear your success stories.

  

Building the Voice of Your Brand to Give You a Competitive Edge

Understanding What Makes You Different

How is Coca Cola different from Pepsi? Why would you choose to fly Virgin Atlantic over Aer Lingus? When a product or service is not completely unique in the market how do you communicate your “significant difference” to your customers in order to give them a compelling reason to choose your brand over your competitors?

 

Understanding what makes you authentically different and being able to communicate this succinctly to your customers is the key to creating strong brand equity. In fact giving your brand a distinctive, different and memorable voice is one of the most effective tools in gaining a competitive advantage in your market and building lasting customer loyalty.

  

 Pepsi Live For Now

 

Pepsi are currently in the process of re-shaping their brand identity in an effort to clearly differentiate their brand in the market. In 2011 Pepsi’s new president decided to find out what makes Pepsi different to Coca Cola. It took Pepsi 9 months to come up with an answer! Their analysis found that Coke is ‘timeless’ while Pepsi is ‘timely’ which in a nutshell means that Coke represents permanent happiness while Pepsi embraces excitement.

 

Identifying what makes Pepsi different has given the brand leverage to shape a clear position for the brand within their market. Understanding who they are and what they represent has enabled them to articulate their brand message to target consumers much more effectively because they are now armed with a brand message that communicates what makes Pepsi unique.

 

Pepsi are now shaping this revitalized brand identity through all their brand collateral including tagline, imagery and advertising campaigns etc. With a clearly defined brand strategy they are now consistently reinforcing what makes them different from their competitors throughout all their marketing campaigns.

 

 

Finding Your Brands Unique Voice

For many companies, identifying the very essence of what authentically differentiates their brand, be it product or service, from their competitors can be challenging, yet the untapped secret often lies within the heart of their business. It is the people, the corporate or brand culture, the internal core values on which the foundations of the brand has been shaped, that are often the greatest assets to a company endeavouring to build strong brand equity.

 

These elements are intrinsically unique within each business and can’t be readily replicated by competitors because the fundamental brand proposition is shaped, nurtured and developed through the internal character and strategies of the company and the people within it. The key is knowing and understanding which aspects of your brand “character” and “story” need to amplified in a way that matters to, and resonates with, your target audience.

 

If you want to develop strong brand equity to grow your business profitably then you need to start by getting a clear sense of who you are, as a brand/company, what you represent or stand for, what makes your company brand different.

 

When you can answer these questions you are in a better position to understand how to give your brand a unique and compelling voice that stands out from the crowd, resonates with your target market and ultimately builds your brand equity, giving you a competitive edge and increased profitability.

  

Virgin Urinal Ad

  

Have a Clear Sense of Who You Are

Virgin is a leading example of how to develop a brand with a voice so clear that it transcends industry and market boundaries. Their expansion through multiple channels has been very successful because Virgin has a clear sense of itself and consistently communicates their brand values to their target audience, while injecting their brand culture into everything they do.

    

Virgin Adverts 

 

From its inception Virgin embraced a ‘challenger brand’ status. Regardless of the industry, Virgin aimed to differentiate themselves from their competition by not playing by the rules. Virgin’s brand equity is founded on their brand’s ability to challenge both consumer perceptions and industry assumptions.

 

How has Virgin managed to succeed in industries as diverse as insurance and airlines, mobile phones, radio and rail? They succeed by consistently building on their brand values of delivering value price, high quality, cheeky fun, innovation and great customer service to every market they enter. They behave like the impudent, yet endearing smaller company that engenders customer affections when in fact they are a global brand power house.

  

  

Virgin has been able to consistently leverage its brand across multiple channels because it has so successfully developed it brand voice to “own a place” in the minds of its target audience.

 

Look how Virgin has been repeatedly able to enter new business arenas with a bang and shake up the existing status quo. The voice of the brand is clear and consistent throughout all the marketing strategies of the various brand/business ventures – a voice that tells the story of a brand that is fun, innovative, a maverick in its field, but equally synonymous with being consumer-centric and providing a quality service. Consequently, Virgin’s brand personality is highly visible in every market within which they operate.

   

   

What Does Your Brand Say to Your Customers?

If your product is not unique to its market, then your ability to distinguish your offering from that of your competitors lies in creating a remarkable and strong personality for your brand.

 

Your brand personality, together with its simple idea, brand story, way of doing things, the brand world it creates and the special relationships it engenders are the defining elements which will attract your target audience and compel them choose your brand over that of others in the market and consequently help you build a much more profitable and sustainable business.

 

Do you have a strong “voice” for your brand ?

 

• Do you know key strategic do’s and don’ts for your brand behaviour?

 

• Do you have a clear sense of where you stand in the market and what works best for your brand?

 

• Do you have a great product or service but are struggling to say what makes you different?

 

• Do you know the “magic ingredients” for your brand which makes it irresistible to your target audience?

Maximizing Profitability: Training Your Employees To Be Brand Champions

In Ireland, possibly more so than in any other European country, a company’s reputation is the foundation from which strong brands evolve. We may be known for our talkers but the result of all this chatter can have a significant impact on Irish businesses where a restricted market size often means that word-of-mouth endorsement, or criticism from customers can make or break the reputation of a business, particularly in the early years. 

 

I have spoken before about the impact a leader can have on shaping their company’s brand and developing the brand image from the inside out.  One of the strongest ways a leader can develop their brand is through their selection of employees and how they inspire their employees to become genuine brand champions or custodians of their brand.

 

While marketing plays a strong role in shaping the external identity of the brand, employees are a critical asset that cannot be overlooked in creating a strong brand and positive reputation for your company.

   

Employee Brand Champion

  

Your employees not only spread your brand message with your customers, but also through their friends and family, and publicly on their online networks. Your employees are involved in the core of your business so their opinions on your company/brand(s) are very important.

 

How do you make sure your employees are spreading the right brand message? What can you do to influence how your employees impact on your brand? The key is to turn their role in the company from being standard employees to becoming highly informed brand champions or brand ambassadors.

 

Whether your business offering is as tangible as selling a car or as intangible as selling insurance over the phone, the service the customer receives during those few minutes of interaction with your company employee (the human extension of your brand) will strongly shape his or her impression of your brand.

 

 Customer Brand Champions

  

Every positive experience, or negative interaction for that matter, that occurs between your frontline staff and your customer establishes trust and credibility, bolstering your company’s brand reputation or equally undermining it too if badly represented.

 

When your customer then shares this positive (or negative) experience with their friends and family they are inadvertently advertising your brand and helping shape your brand image. Never forget, referral is one of the strongest and most trusted forms of brand endorsement, and never more so then in this world of instant viral communication.

 

Developing brand champions begins with ensuring that your employee’s brand training and internal cultural experience of your brand, and the image it aspires to create, is fully aligned with your company’s brand strategy.

 

Right now, if you asked each of your employees, from those in your accounts department to your frontline staff, to stand up and give a short pitch about your business would they all be able to say the same thing?

 

Does their impression of your business brand match that which you believe or have set out to achieve? They must really live and believe your brand to authentically share your brand message with the outside world. If your own employees cannot fully articulate what your company’s brand is all about, the do’s and don’ts of how they interact and what your brand stands for, then how can they be expected to communicate your brand effectively to your customers?

  

Building Your Brand

 

Leading a company with a powerful team of brand champions is essential to the success of your brand and ultimately the profitability of your business. In short it must be incorporated into your overall brand building strategy if you want to be a market leader. Doing so will not only strengthen your brand and company reputation but it will also:

 

1. Increase Motivation: A workforce that believes in what they do and what the company is striving to accomplish will naturally be motivated to achieve their goals and therefore productivity and profitability will increase.

 

2. Increase Word-of-Mouth Promotion: An employee who truly believes in your brand is more likely to naturally share their enthusiasm with family and friends and will be an advocate for your brand even outside normal work hours.

 

3. Improve Service: an employee who really believes in your brand will embrace a sense of ownership in their work and the service they provide, which will result in a greatly improved customer experience.

 

4. Reduce Employee Turn-over: a brand champion who believes in your brand will also be less likely to leave a position in which they are motivated and satisfied with their work. In fact if employees speak highly and openly about your brand, your company has a better chance of increasing retention rates and attracting new high performing, talent.

 

If you want your employees to become brand ambassadors then get them onboard, share and educate them in your brand vision. Make sure they really understand at a fundamental level what your brand is all about. Explain to them how important they are in the process of building the company brand.

 

A positive brand image leads to loyal customers, strong referral sources and solid internal growth. Bottom line: Take care of your employees and they in turn will take care of your brand. They are your strongest brand advocates, but they can’t champion your brand effectively if they don’t understand it or buy into it.

 

• Do your employees know and understand your main brand message and what your brand’s image is?

 

• Do they know how your brand is positioned relative to similar brands on the market?

 

• Are your employee’s impressions of the brand aligned with that of the company?

 

• Most importantly, does your company have a clear brand strategy that can be articulated to and through your employees?

 

Feel free to get in touch. We’d love to hear your thoughts and would be delighted to answer any questions asked.