Chairman’s Business Networking Blog, Tuesday 26th August 2014.
Those few……those happy few!!!!!
12 in all including the Chris Vernons; I contemplated reading out the list of people in attendance rather than apologies for absence. In fact I did neither.
Holidays accounted for some of the missing persons, failing to recover from the Bank Holiday was the rest.
All the rest was good news. All attendees were in place by 6.30am. Plenty of networking until 7 am; A leisurely breakfast which, for those present to do justice would have involved 6 rashers of bacon, 6 sausages and as much egg and beans as you can get down yourself in 15 minutes to put a dent in what was laid before us at the buffet.
We then got the meeting under way and things just continued to improve once they had got my Ed Slot out of the way which was a call to arms in relation to Synergy teams.
A 2 minute allocation for the 60 second round, rather than leaving some of us stuttering or otherwise going on and on and on…we in fact had a series of really good presentations, everyone making the most of the extra 60 seconds.
Robert Osborne kicked off with a full exposition of the finance he can produce and he even answered questions.
Chris Vernon was tempted to go on a bit longer but I could see that he was holding himself back. He told of a client who was looking to extend his property with corridors 18ins wide and a toilet that you couldn’t sit on. If you will take on customers from the Shires Chris…
Richard Willis gave us a marketing lesson and explained about making our businesses attractive, presumably even to hobbits.
Lewis Hackney started off talking about his website but finished up with people parking on the grass and ultimately exhorting to a carpet to stop the ground being churned up. It did occur to me that he was going to extol the virtues of supplying carpets to park on but he managed to get all round to hard standing in the end.
Scott Griffiths explained about 2 obvious areas for referrals, unprofessional email addresses and a FREE SEO Audit of your web site.
Adam Hotson once again wasn’t boring and was looking to review how the owners of small business draw their money so as to be most tax effective.
Brian Painter told of young lad who was invited to his girlfriends for dinner. Of course he was anxious,… of course he was fearful,… but the father of the bride was not his problem. His problem was the humble potato. He only ate mashed potato and has a fear of chips, roasties and presumably hash browns. It was apparently a fear of choking and Brian soon sorted him out by giving him a hypnotic thump on the back and everything went off swimmingly with the future in laws.
We had almost got to the end of the 60 second presentations but sure enough Stuart Sinclair, after beginning well enough by talking about his September addition of his magazine and particular that he was looking for trades in Rayleigh, used the “C” word. I still have to go on my summer holidays Stuart, please don’t mention Christmas again for at least another 2 months.
Ian Nicholson provided an excellent explanation of pension arrangements that will be available now that the government has liberalised how you draw down the pot that you have built up over the years and he took several questions.
Pride of place however and winner of the Oscar was Jim Henshaw. “Don’t trust large” was his message and he was referring of course to banks and the “billions set aside” that they are currently involved in. His message was, go to the small man and before he had time to shrink any further the Oscar was his.
There are many theories as to why the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the planet and the favourite, is probably a meteor crashing into earth and causing serious devastation and substantial climate change. Lewis Hackney’s 10 minute presentation supported a new theory that I am arriving at, namely technology.
He produced an excellent presentation using his lap top and the television. It was very assured performance and was deserving of a bigger audience. But, my point is this. The last few presentations that espoused technology have been very well presented and have very successfully sold the business in question to the audience. Surely those of us who do not use these visual aids will be wiped off the face of the earth as surely as the dinosaur. Well done Lewis.
So, notwithstanding the absent members, how did the referrals round go…very well indeed!!! 7 referrals from half the number of people that were there last week is maintaining an increase at least on a pro rata basis.
Richard Willis is back from his hols and you will, by the time you read this Blog, have seen his emails on the Golf Event he is organising.
Please note that next week there will be a training session which will fill the Education and the 10 minute slot as with previous training sessions. This will be aimed at visitors and is a prelude to a visitor open day breakfast that is being planned for the end of September. We need all members to participate in arranging this event and next Tuesday will kick things off.
May I ask you all to make a special effort next week to be present so that we can get visitors September off to a good start.
I’m sorry Aidan, but if I don’t mention the ‘C’ word for another 2 months, I will have missed my opportunity for the festive advertising completely ;o) so you’ll have to put up with it FOR the next 2 months, I’m afraid 🙂
Great meeting otherwise and great 10 minutes from Lewis. Missed a few of your lovely (and not so lovely) faces though, but looking forward to seeing everyone in attendance next week.
HAVE A SUPER WEEK!!
Well as they say size isn’t everything (well I hope they do anyway)…and what the meeting showed was that you can still have a great meeting with less members. Saying that….I think we all hope that next week we’re back up to our usual contingent! Have a great week all.
Though few in number,and humble in presentation, we still possessed the quality, charisma, and general je ne sais quoi as always. (Don’t look it up, you’ll expose the myth – it just sounds good). Doctor!
I wish I had made my 60 seconds as interesting as it appears in the blog!