Posted by Jules on Sandi’s behalf: If you walked into the Avo conference room last night you would have been in for a real treat. Five phenomenal women brainstorming sales strategy for Footprint SA. The “boss-chick”, the “smous”, the “marketing guru-chick”and two sizzling “sales-chicks”.

Jules has already given you a brief on her vision for Footprint. There is a lot of planning and building going on and we got together to work on our sales strategy. We planned and got excited putting together some concrete sales strategies. And are we rearing to go! Soon our website will be up and running, with information about the products and what Footprint is up to. Will let you have the details soonest. But don’t just sit there! get those heads spinning within your networks. We are looking for companies that have a need for empowering their staff or consumers in the basics of wellness in finance or health. If you are one of those companies make contact with us and we will come see you. Hold onto your hats South Africa this is the beginning of a revolution!

Check out our totally cool new banners…

(Now I must just tell you all that I risked serious injury on an unstable chair to get this picture, but it definitely doesn’t do them any justice!).

After a vote on the pictures from the Avo’s and months of making sure we were happy with  the design and checking proof’s, they’ve arrived, and damn, they’re gorgeous!

Sniff, we’re growing up so fast!

You’ll have to come on our training or to one of our talks if you want to get a first hand look though!

We’ve had another sad event in the Avo space.  Lele and her fiance were involved in a car accident on Saturday night.  Although both survived the accident, Lele’s fiance died the following day of his injuries.

Lele, we’re all so very sad for you.  Both of you are so young: it is so hard to understand why our loved ones are taken from us so very early in their lives.  We’re all sending you love and light as you bury your precious man, and heal your own body.

Oh, to have such talent! Another fab article is available for all of you to devour!

Check out Jules’ online article from today, on Marketingweb, about Brand Management.

In it she talks about how branding doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg and require an entire team (no jokes!).

It’s more about being conscious of ‘who you are’ as a business and working with it.

It’s a great article with lots of insight and practicality, so don’t miss out!

Eish, you know, these Avo’s could all have sideline careers as models!

There’s me, trying to organise (and keep under control) a photo shoot for one of our manuals.

Now, it has to be said that in general, getting newbies (repeat - newbies) to a photo shoot’s like pushing someone up a hill…

BUT - one photo shoot in and it’s fisticuffs for a space in the shoot! (Okay, thats a slight exaggeration, slight).

After half an hour of ‘fresh shots’ for the Avos, the manual shoot could finally begin!

Well, at least I’ve got some willing volunteers who love the camera and make my job easier!

But I can’t really blame them, check them out… (ahhh cute…).

P.S: If you want to book any of them you’ll have to do it through me and I charge a hefty comission!

(And Noms, apologies for making you share the limelight )

I’m sorry to have to tell you that poor Jeanette took a nasty fall off her bike while cycling the Argus yesterday.  She landed up dazed and confused in Constantia hospital and is feeling pretty dreadful!

I’m happy to say that she hasn’t broken any bones.  Her helmet was shattered, but her head is intact.  Tracy took her home today with a dislocated shoulder, some torn ligaments, and horrible bruising, so she’ll be convalescing in Cape Town (ok - don’t drop your sympathy levels just because she’s there, ok……ok…….?!) for the next week.

An update from Jules:  I’ve been keeping in touch with J over the past few days.  She’s feeling grateful that her brain is still intact, but she’s feeling absolutely shocking.  Ligament and muscle tearing can be an incredibly painful injury, and its really hard to keep your spirits up when even drinking a cup of coffee can be a painful thing!  She’s off to the specialist on Friday for more input on her ligament injury, so we’ll know more then.

 J, wishing you love and light!  All the Avos send you love!

Jules is going to be on the eTV programme “Great Expectations“, next week Tuesday the 11th March.

(And joins our two other Avo mommies who’ve been on the show too, Elaine and Hanli).

The show is on every Monday to Wednesday from 11.30 am, with repeats on Saturdays and Sundays from 6am to 7am.

(Thats because only people with kids are awake at that time on a weekend, right?!).

So tune in and enjoy!

Wedding bells are ringing loud in the ears of our precious Vanessa (or Rapunzel, as she is called of late). And she could be forgiven for letting the roses in her eyes make the working world go out of focus for a while as she leads up to this life-changing event….

But not Ness! It is a privelege to work with a woman so clearly on top of her game! Our clients from Lafarge called in last week to personally tribute her for her incredible professionalism and skill in the face of great adversity in Kenya two weeks ago. Besides negotiating the perils of travelling to a country in the chaos of violent political unrest, hectic deadlines in a huge design project, she managed to design 3 courses in 5 days based on the changing briefs she received as our clients team refined their thoughts around the programme they needed her to run.

Ness, Louis couldn’t praise you enough for the professional and skilful job you did. It’s just tribute to your years of experience, great brain, and resilient attitude that shows you to be a lady at the top of your game! Proud of you!

Eish, when it rains it pours! (But then we did say that we were famous and we had to back it up!).

Jules had another article published in the Star Workplace yesterday, called ‘Create better managers’.

In it Jules talks about current skills retention challenges and states that when employees do decide to leave an organisation, up to 60% are leaving their bosses and not the company.

She also mentions that most companies spend their money on developing talent at senior management and executive levels, and for those individuals who show promise for the future.

But she’s challenging us to think about something;

If people are leaving bosses and not companies, then isn’t it time to teach bosses how to retain their people?

She suggests that if you teach new managers to be better managers of people, those people might just stay long enough to add the value your company needs!

It’s a really thought provoking, interesting article and if you’d like a PDF version to read through, please feel free to email Carin.

Oh how hard it is to be so famous!

Jules recently had an article published in the Business Day, titled “Finger on the female pulse”.

In a nutshell, it’s about companies needing to make an effort to understand and meet the specific needs of women, as we move into an economy that embraces more feminine values.

It’s a (yet again) fantastic article, and you can read the whole thing here! (Seriously, you don’t want to miss out!)

We received this great comment from Bridget Teffo from SAVF Transform about it:

“I am very impressed by the article written by Jules Newton, MD of communications company Avocado Vision - Finger on the female pulse. I like it because she so eloquently expressed what was in my subconscious.

I think that in my working career, this is what I have been looking for and I was not aware of it until I read it. I currently work for a dominantly Afrikaans Non-profit NGO which pay me way less than my previous job, which happened to be a male dominated environment. Even if you were female, you tended to do business the male way, it was accepted that way. Until I made a decision to leave, with no definite job.

This organisation is very ideal when it comes to such issues of flexibility and as I like to say, considering a person as a holistic being, not just “another business transaction” who can bring in this, that or the other. We have quite a few women who have left and returned, some just to rear children. I guess that they are like this mainly because the organisation’s President, the two Vice Presidents and two of the three Directors are women. So I guess that I am implying that we need more women-led organisations and companies.

This is really a big reason why I am not looking for another job, they really have flexible policies, written and unwritten which are very accomodating, not just to women, but I think that it is mainly us who need flexible policies“.