The Aussies Are Back!


No! Even though it’s Ashes time this isn’t a cricket reference! The headline refers to the three Australian ladies pictured above left to right – Judy Smetherham, Kerry Hegney and Di Rapson, appearing (with furry friends) for the second time on our weekly Sunday night radio show, The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild, which goes out live at 20.30 hours for an hour on Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm. The ladies’ first appearance was back in April 2009 on their last visit to Zambia. What brought them back? Well, when they were asked this on air, their smart reply was “we heard rumours Richard was looking much younger”! “Quite right too!” I said, while others just sniggered…

In fact the ‘girls’ were back in Livingstone for two weeks to do some of the things they hadn’t done on their last visit, including a microlight flight over the Falls, a swim in Devil’s Pool on Livingstone Island and a two night, three day visit to the Okavango Delta in Botswana, leaving from Kasane Airport the next day. They also planned to do the cheetah encounter and as usual visit Maramba Market and Zambian friends they’d made during their last stay. In a way more importantly, the ladies had come from Australia via the Copperbelt in Zambia where they’d delivered 400 school bags, and over 200 soft toys to children at Chiwawatala, Chankuta and Mishikishi Primary Schools. They had to get special permission from the airlines they used to carry all that excess luggage in such a good cause. Oh! and they brought some beanies too. “Beanies”? I hear you ask. Don’t know your Aussie slang do ya? Woollen hats in real English. I only knew the slang as the ladies kindly brought me the ‘Australian Slang Dictionary’! Allows me to be rude to the Aussie cricketers on TV in their own language.

The only tinge of sadness was the news that Mr Billy Mulonda, head of one of the families the ladies had been helping in Ndola had been struck by lightning and killed the day they were leaving the Copperbelt. We sent our deepest condolences. After the Copperbelt the ladies had spent time at Mfue Lodge in South Luangwa National Park and had had a great time, seeing loads and loads of different animals.

The music on the show was awesome and featured numbers from Aggro Santos, Bruno Mars and Cee Lo Green to get the party started. George chose Cray J with ‘Chipe’ for the first of his local tracks, and then Brothahood Crew with ‘If It’s Loving’. George himself featured on this track – as I mentioned last week he’s a locally famous singer by the name of Kafuela as well as a great DJ and technician. George was hot from a live rock show at a venue in Livingstone on Saturday afternoon organized by 107.7 fm. ‘Were you mobbed by young girls’? I wanted to know. ‘Of course’! Was the short answer. Milli Jam chose 112 with ‘Only You’ and Aliyah with ‘Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number’ for his tracks, after which we moved on to ‘Bottoms Up’ by Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj, ‘Love All Over Me’ by Monica and Jay Sean’s great ‘Break Ya Back’!

“What have you ladies been up to since the last time we saw you” Milli Jam wanted to know. Well, plenty was the answer. Judy had travelled to the UK and Paris, Kerry to Egypt, Turkey and Holland and Di to Bali. Di, who’d sadly lost her dad during this period, had also been to shows by Pink and Nickelback in Perth where these ladies live. “Noticed any changes in Livingstone and at Chanters”? The DJ’s wanted to know. “Plenty”! The girls replied – mentioning new rooms and the suite at Chanters, as well as Richard and Annastasia’s new offices. They’d seen that Livingstone boasted a new shopping mall.

As usual we gave away a dinner for 2 at Chanters Lodge with drinks to the first person this week who could tell us where these lively and funny ladies came from. Australia was the first answer we received by text from Karen. Result!

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You Can’t Please Everyone All The Time!


As you probably know by now I’m a great fan of Seth Godin’s blog. Usually short and right to the point, this is Seth’s take on not being able to please everyone all the time.

“When a popular rock group comes to town, some of their fans won’t get great tickets. Not enough room in the front row. Now they’re annoyed. 2% of them are angry enough to speak up or badmouth or write an angry letter. When Disney changes a policy and offers a great new feature or benefit to the most dedicated fans, 2% of them won’t be able to use it… timing or transport or resources or whatever. They’re angry and they let the brand know it.

Do the math. Every time Apple delights 10,000 people, they hear from 200 angry customers, people who don’t like the change or the opportunity or the risk it represents. If you have fans or followers or customers, no matter what you do, you’ll annoy or disappoint two percent of them. And you’ll probably hear a lot more from the unhappy 2% than from the delighted 98.

It seems as though there are only two ways to deal with this: Stop innovating, just stagnate. Or go ahead and delight the vast majority. Sure, you can try to minimize the cost of change, and you might even get the number to 1%. But if you try to delight everyone, all the time, you’ll just make yourself crazy. Or become boring.

Couldn’t have said it better myself! The photo? Flying Fox 120m or so above the Zambezi! Put me in the 2%!

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Andrew & Caroline Kashita


It was a first for us when Andrew and Caroline Kashita (pictured above) appeared on The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient ft George Soulchild, our regular Sunday night radio show that goes out on Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm at 20.30 hrs for an hour. Why? Well, they were the first Guests ever to be asked back for a second show! Why? Because they’re great people and huge supporters of Chanters Lodge, and Andrew Kashita is a former Minister who will not keep quiet! “You’ve been in the newspapers a lot recently concerning the ERB” said Milli Jam after the introductions and the first two tracks “what’s that all about”.

“Energy Regulation Board?” queried Andrew, “let me tell you about it”! He then went on to tell us, and the listeners, exactly what he thought of the ERB who are supposed to reconcile energy providers and consumers over tariffs, but in Andrew’s opinion and most of the country, they’re simply not doing their job! They’ve given the green light to increases in the cost of petrol and diesel of at least 30% this year, and electricity prices have just gone up by another 30% as well. Mr Kashita wished that Zesco, our monopoly electricity supplier, would look into cutting their costs as hard as they look into increasing tariffs. “Lots of blokes standing around with their hands in their pockets watching other people do the job” he observed, correctly.

“How many ministerial positions have you held?” Milli Jam wanted to know. “Three” came back Andrew as quick as flash “and I was fired from every one”! He went on to tell listeners that he was variously Minister of Mines and Industry, Minister of Communications and Transport and Minister of Works and Supply. He didn’t mention, but it’s a fact, that he was one of the first overseas qualified Zambian Engineers immediately after independence. He did go on to tell listeners that he’d enjoyed his time as a civil servant more than when he was a Minister, as he found it more rewarding in terms of achievements. He was instrumental in, or involved with Zambia Airways; Lusaka International Airport; Tazara; Ndeni Oil Refinery; Zambia’s microwave system; the introduction of cell phones in the country and the dismantling of UBZ to allow for the privatization of the coach/bus industry in Zambia.

The music on the show went down well. Ace of Base “Mr Replay” represents a return to form for that particular band, while we opened as usual with Aggro Santos “Candy”. We featured my two tracks of the moment, ‘Dynamite’ by Taio Cruz and ‘DJ Got Me Falling In Love’ by Usher. Milli Jam featured Charice – ‘Pyramid’ (special request from Monica, one of the Chanters Girls) and Kelly Rowland’s ‘Forever and A Day’. George’s local numbers were ‘If It’s Love’ by Brothahood Crew ft Kaufela and Tsoya – ‘Katwayeko Umbi’ (‘Go look for someone else’, we were told was the translation’).

Caroline enjoyed talking about her family. She and Andrew will be married 30 years soon. They have a son and a daughter, son Steven is an aero-nautical engineer in America and daughter Nonde is studying at Reading University in UK. They have a grand-daughter Aisha, just 16 months old, whom they hope will soon come and live with them in Lusaka.

We gave away the usual dinner for two at Chanters Lodge which was quickly snapped up by an alert listener in answer to our simple question, and as usual we greeted Guests, family and staff alike! We had messages while we were on air from Swithin Haangala, owner of 107.7 fm and DJ Wildfire a former 107.7 fm DJ, now making a name for himself in South Africa. Great!

Luckily and surprisingly there was no message from Zesco!

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Michelle V Hall on Zambezi Radio


Meet Michelle Hall, pictured here relaxing by the swimming pool at Chanters Lodge during her four day holiday in Livingstone, Zambia just 10 kms from Victoria Falls. Michelle was the latest Guest on our weekly Sunday night radio show, The Chanters Lodge Experience on Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm, going out live at 20.30 hrs.

“How long have you had your dreadlocks” was the first question Milli Jam, who co-hosts the programme with George Soulchild, asked Michelle. “About 12 years – everyone asks me that!” Was the quick reply. Before she came to Livingstone Michelle had been in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city for a week, involved in an international conference for trainers across Africa. She’s an educational technologist at Columbia University in New York and works out of the Center for New Media Teaching & Learning. She told listeners that her work involves training non clinician physicians, for which there is a high demand, given that most African countries don’t have enough doctors.

Michelle, a self confessed workaholic, works in New York City though she lives in New Jersey and commutes daily. She originally hails from Barbados in the West Indies. She told listeners that when she arrived in Zambia at Lusaka International Airport, immigration had two lists, one of nationalities requiring a visa to enter Zambia and another of nationalities that are visa free. Barbados didn’t appear on either list! She was allowed into Zambia twice, visa free. The second occasion was coming back into the country whilst she was staying at Chanters, when she took the one day safari to Chobe in Botswana, which she much enjoyed.

On hearing that Michelle was from Barbados, George and Milli Jam immediately wanted to know if she knew Rihanna, who also hails from there. Michelle told listeners that although she wasn’t aware of it, she had in fact taught Rihanna at high school in Barbados. They weren’t much interested however when Michelle and I started talking cricket – Sir Gary Sobers and Joel Garner both hail from Barbados. We asked our guest lots of questions about the island including food – their staple food is Kuku and Flying Fish, Kuku is a combination of yellow maize and okra, and no, George didn’t know that fish could fly! Nor did the rest of us!

Music wise it was a good show. We played Chris Brown ‘I Love You’ back to back with Toni Braxton ft Sean Paul ‘Looking At Me’. The Zambian set was Crystal Shawn ‘Chimami’ (‘Girlfriend’) and Alfa Romeo (I love that name!) singing ‘Rumour’. ‘Ride’ by Ciara ft Ludacris and ‘Unthinkable’ by Alicia Keys both went down well with our Guest who told listeners she’d been brought up on R&B. We also featured ‘Riding Solo’ by Jason Derulo and closed with ‘Love Is Wicked’ by Brick & Lace. The latter had performed in Lusaka the previous night.

As usual we gave away a dinner for two at Chanters Lodge. This week the prize was given for the first person to text us the name of the big American city in which Michelle worked – the response was fair but not as good as previous weeks. Perhaps it was a tricky question considering that we’d talked more about Barbados.

Michelle told listeners that she’d found out about Chanters Lodge from Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor on the internet and had been impressed with the good reviews about us on those sites. She’d enjoyed her stay at the lodge and had loved the Chanters Girls! Don’t we all!

Before we closed Milli Jam asked Michelle where she would like to be and what she’d like to be doing 10 years from now. “Back on Barbados teaching in the University” was Michelle’s reply. I’d put money on her achieving her goal!

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More, More, More!


Seth Godin’s title, not mine!

Seems Seth Godin doesn’t think Customers are always right! I’ve always tried to remember that the problem in not taking the Customer as always right, is that you can’t ever win an argument with a Customer – he has the last word, he can take his business elsewhere.

However I agree 100% with Seth on this:

“Some consumers are short-sighted, greedy and selfish. Extend yourself a little and they’ll want a lot.

Offer a free drink in the restaurant one night and they’re angry that it’s not there the next. The nuts in first class weren’t warm!

The challenge of winning more than your fair share of the market is that the best available strategy – providing remarkable service and an honest human connection – will be abused by a few people you work with.

You have three choices: put up with the whiners, write off everyone, or, deliberately exclude the ungrateful curs.

Firing the customers you can’t possibly please gives you the bandwidth and resources to coddle the ones that truly deserve your attention and repay you with referrals, applause and loyalty.”

Think about it!

The picture? My partner Ireen and my daughter Alexandra in January 1998 surveying the house we’d just bought to convert into a restaurant with rooms!

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Customers


Continuing some of Inc Magazines A-Z of Peter Drucker, C is for Customers.

Customers: Having trouble formulating a mission statement? Let Drucker boil it down for you: “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer,” he argued. And: “What does our customer find valuable?” is the most important question companies can ask themselves. This focus helped reorient marketing away from advertising and onto a higher plane.

Anything wrong with this? No, except when I write I always use a capital letter for the word Customer or Guest or Client. It just helps to make the point even more strongly.

Just about every valuable idea, suggestion or complaint for that matter comes from a Customer and if you’re not close to yours, you won’t hear about it! I get close to mine by meeting them on arrival at the airport, or in town if they don’t have their own transport, and by close personal contact during their stay. It works!

The picture? The Wills family from Melbourne, Australia – two times Customers and now friends as well!

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