Sixteen members sheltered from the fog and damp weather.  It wasn’t exactly braving the elements but an EBF Meeting can always dispel gloom and create positive thoughts and this one was no exception.
Education Presentation
David Plumley, refreshed from his sojourn in Devon, extolled the virtues of good communication.  Amongst other things, it is essential to team building which is really what we are at EBF.
He even quoted a Chinese Proverb and although I cannot repeat it word for word, effectively the message was that you should not worry if you don’t understand others; the important thing is that they understand you… Confucius would turn in his grave.
The 60 Second Round
Alan Moller normally leads the charge and arrives before 6am but he slept in this morning.  He was last in at 6.35am and was therefore first up.  Apparently, he is busy, which perhaps explains why he slept in.
Stuart Smallcombe explained how they are finishing off a job in Ipswich, a Care Home. This involved dealing with all data cabling, fibre optic, telephone and wifi connections.  This is a Care Home that is clearly looking to appeal to the computer literate wrinklies.
This week’s meeting was effectively without Whimsey.  Messrs Shaw and Painter were absent and Nick Cooke played it with a straight bat.  He does structural inspections and can also advise what can be done in relation to things such as extensions with regard to what the structure will bear.  Informative but definitely not Whimsical……. So which 60 seconds did catch the eye.
Kevin Radford in true Bard style quoted Shakespeare or rather produced a pastiche of the utterances of the three witches in Macbeth
John Freeman, our own Odd Job has been engaged in a variety of activities, from hipped timber framed roofs to cat flaps.
Dean Caldon has been posing as John Travolta to satisfy his client’s needs…don’t ask! and Paul Booth managed to introduce Halloween (it’s better than Christmas I suppose!!) and told of horror stories from clients he has acquired with problematic baggage from previous accountants.
In the end the Oscar went to Jill Willis for a well measured 60 second explaining the importance of identifying customer types and adjusting your advertising to reflect those categories.
This weeks statistics and points of note
- 22 referrals
- ÂŁ9,200.00 worth of business recorded
- Kevin Radford leads the Performance League (Smallks is 8th)
- Jill Willis won the Oscar
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0
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Business Passed Between All Members This Week
0
Referral Opportunies Passed Between Members This Week
Recruitment Drive
The new team is in place and Howard Bullock gave us a run down as to their initial strategy.  Potential members to be located from the members  “Linked in” connections.  Fortun, tely he is going to send us an email to explain things.  May I make a plea to members to fully co-operate and help the new team to make their tenure a successful one.
10 minute presentation by Paul Booth
It was the Paul Booth show and it is a shame that there were not many more of us present to appreciate an excellent presentation.
Rather bravely he filled a form in on the screen to illustrate the importance of analysing your business in order to get the right balance between man hours and returns.  This is part of the advice that he will give to his clients and it is intended to make you think about working smartly. Doing work that will maximise your profit and generally being aware of your client base and its value to you.
He did spend a fair amount of time on his knees but in reality, he didn’t have to plead with us. It was a well-presented illustration of how we should be looking to manage our businesses and gave us something to think about so far as making referrals to Paul.
An excellent presentation from Paul where he clearly evidenced the value he can bring to his clients by demonstrably making their businesses more profitable. First class!
Very interesting presentation by Paul Booth, certainly food for thought as to putting prices up for the work we do…
very entertaining 60 second round, i particularly like the cat flap in the van, the mind boggles!
Those not present missed probably one of the best we have had. For both Jill’s 60 seconds on how to categorise your client base and target each specifically for your marketing (something I have used her for since January) followed by Paul’s 10 minutes on how analysing your business in greater detail allows you to maximise the return from your efforts (I switched accountants to Paul years ago and not looked back).
Whilst other networking groups are failling all around us we have great strength within ours – come take a look one morning.
The cat flap in question is now fitted! Thanks to a very professional and speedy John Freeman. It’s only in the back door. I think the idea of having a helpful cat hopping in and out of a van, with tools in paw, is far more interesting!
Just received the LinkedIn details from Howard too for the recruitment drive. I’ll be taking a look at this next week and encourage other members to do the same too. The more we help the recruitment team, the better for us all 🙂
Good meeting and plenty of business passed. See you at HI next week.
Oh Aida (n) “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” my brilliant acting was of course lady Macbeth and not the three witches . A really interesting and informative 10 minutes from Paul showing just how he adds value to his clients. Well done and great to meet up with old friends and my secret sales team. Thanks for all the referrals .