On several of my regular visits to my life coach/councilor we have discussed the issue of nature versus nurture. In her true psychology style she attempted to convince me that we were all a product of our upbringing, in particular the first seven years of our life. Personally i disagree with this as i believe if we are born with differing levels of  skills why can we not be born with different personalities? For example i was undoubtedly born less intelligent than my partner. However i was born with greater levels of sexual expertise than most other men. There's no doubting that, i refuse to accept i'm just this good because of practice . So surely one person can be born with greater ability to hate, or with more competitiveness. Anyway, moving on even if you believe it is all down to nurture allegedly we are all formed by the age of 13 or something and anything that goes thereafter has no affect.

What is the point i hear you asking. Well if this is the case did my stint in the corporate world affect me and has it helped or hindered my attempts to set up The Building Experience? If you are wondering what has brought this issue to my attention it is because my business partner recently asked me to tone it down a little in meetings because he thought i was being a little too aggressive with our partners. I was also recently told that i was talking to my sister as if we were in the boardroom!

Spending time in any profession is bound to have a major influence on an individual. Take Nick Knowles for example. I'm sure years in the media spotlight and on the front of glitzy magazines has affected him. Likewise many years in the corporate world has certainly influenced my management style and may even have increased my already massively competitive nature.  Perhaps on occasions this may have riled certain people and had a negative affect on the progression of The Building Experience.

But equally i hope and believe that there are many things i learnt during my previous life which have been a massive help in what we are trying to do now. Quite honestly the boardroom is not that different to a building site anyway. Wolf whistling may be prohibited and getting your shirt off and pectorals out when it's sunny is frowned upon, but many similarities remain. Plus the rules for success in both fields must be the same, hard work, ambition, good people around you and a bit of luck.

So for my business partners sake i'll try to tame the beast when it rears it's ugly head next time, but quite honestly i'm a pretty lame example of a corporate animal anyway. I'm more a pussycat really.

I'm sure all young entrepreneurs dream about creating a company that will grow to become a multinational corporation like Coca Cola, Microsoft or my favourite multinational Macdonalds (just sent the missus out to get my lunch, a large quarter pounder with cheese meal, plus six nuggets with sweet curry sauce, "what drink would you like sir?" full fat coke). Unfortunately this blog is not going to be about me telling you we've launched The Building Experience Azerbaijan office. Of course our priority is to become a recognised local brand in sunny Essex after which we want to become a recognised national brand. So obviously international expansion is some way off. However one thing many entrepreneurs have in common is they like to look at the global/big picture and we like to dream. So on my recent travels i started to wonder could The Building Experience ever become a multinational corporation?

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I was a little disappointed this Christmas when i didn't get the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 that i thought was coming my way. My disappointment was tempered somewhat when i started reading the book Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, which i received in my stocking from Santa. I have to admit i'm not much of a reader, in fact if you believe what most of my friends will tell you i can't read! Obviously this is not true, i just prefer to be visually stimulated by watching a film. However every now and then a great book comes along and gets me and Freakonomics is one of those.

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In the short time The Building Experience has been operating we have encountered a number of factors that have thrown its existence into doubt. As with any new business the possibility of failure in the first year is very high. With detailed research and planning we can do our best to eliminate these factors however there are always going to be a number of unforeseen events that may bring a business to an end before it's really got started. In this blog we will look at the major barriers to success that i think TBE and any new business venture will face.

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Two of the more influential individuals in my business education and subsequent life gave me two very conflicting theories about price. They shall both remain nameless, in an attempt to protect my identity as much as theirs, however their ideas I'm happy to share with you. Individual A a renowned professor of marketing told me "you never differentiate on price". Individual 2 a highly successful businessman told me "there are three things clients are interested in; price, price and price". I disagree with both these assertions and spent some time arguing with both individuals.

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So you have a great product or service, you've gained the financial backing you need to launch it and you've come up with an advertising campaign that is going to make your product or service the must have of the season. Job done. Sadly not. There are still many things still required and one of the most important is coming up with an employment strategy. In this blog we'll look at the particular problem that The Building Experience face regarding our employment strategy.

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Perfect Competition is an economic model that describes a hypothetical market form in which no producer or consumer has the market power to influence prices. According to the theory, perfect competition will lead to a completely efficient outcome, where no person could be made better off without another being made worse off. Unfortunately in reality we do not live in a world of perfect competition as there are a number of assumptions which are required for it to exist, such as no barriers to entry, atomicity and perfect information. In this article we will look at the problem of imperfect information which results in an inefficient market at best and in the worst case scenario may lead to the total break down of a market. This is of particular interest to us as imperfect information is a problem that is present in the building trade and thus affects the success of The Building Experience. Finally we will look at ways that we may be able to overcome the problem of imperfect information.

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In my last blog we looked at the use of a corporate colour in brand development and the reasons behind The Building Experience's choice of purple. Another marketing tool which has received a great deal of attention since forming the company is the use of slogans. Sometimes considered to be a bit of a gimmick and a topic that many intellectual marketeers spend little time investigating, slogans (or tag lines) are in my mind under rated. In the next few paragraphs I'll look at the benefits of a good slogan, the importance of getting it right and finally our, so far, fruitless attempts to come up with a slogan for The Building Experience.

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Over the coming months I'll be addressing key business issues like raising investment capital, managing market cycles and developing brand loyalty. However before we get too involved in these complex subjects, I thought it best to take a quick look at the current position of The Building Experience and a few of the business and marketing decisions that have already been made. The first of these is the decision to adopt a corporate colour.

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Thanks for reading The Building Experience blog. In here we will be writing about the issues and challenges we encounter growing the company and developing the brand. We will be asking for your thoughts and opinions on many of the topics we cover and look forward to your comments.

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