I think we are now well and truly into autumn. It was dark when I got up in the morning and the only person wearing shorts was Blake Hammond, who to be fair is an all-weather shorts man and therefore perhaps it doesn’t count. We continue to get the flags on our sandwiches which, as explained last week, has improved my oral hygiene. Still many people away on business or holiday and we were left with 16 members to do our networking.
Performance League
A malfunctioning printer enabled Scott Griffiths only able to confirm that after the first week of a new month I was the current leader on 90 points. Next week, not only will I be overtaken but I hope to be able to give you details of the 1st 3 members.
Education Slot
This week we had a Paul Dulieu special. He is always well prepared, and this week was no exception. His theme was that as small business owners we are often guilty of telling ourselves a few lies in justifying our day-to-day working habits. He had particularly isolated 6 such fibs which were as follows:
- I’ll remember that idea… no you won’t! Get yourself a capture system whenever you have what you think is a good idea.
- Next week will be quieter….. It never is. Schedule time in your diary for doing things that you can treat like an appointment
- I’ll just quickly do this myself….. Probably not the best use of your time, delegate in whatever way is appropriate but definitely delegate.
- Nobody can do it as well as me…… maybe/maybe not, don’t spend time doing things you’re overqualified for the pursuit of perfection can become a bottleneck
- Can’t stop now I’m too busy…. If you don’t have proper breaks, then you won’t perform adequately. Build breaks into your working day
- I don’t need any new business right now….. The future you would not find this acceptable. The best time to look for your next customer is when you don’t desperately need one.
I couldn’t resist the full rundown, but what the great man had to say is worthy of our consideration in detail
Membership Matters
Terry Maylin reminded us that there were two renewals in the pipeline of which more next week and I reminded you all later in the meeting about our search for visitors and was pleased to see that some of you had made approaches two uh focused visitors for this month namely travel agents and jeweller. For those of you who have not yet made any approaches, just take out half an hour from your day to search and send out an invite to people who fall within this category and if you come across any others, back.
60-Second Presentation Round
Terry Malin stood in for the absent Stuart Smallcombe as adjudicator and Toby Acton was the first of the members to follow Terry.
The master of the metaphor did a no nonsense piece without metaphor about his motivational mapping. Where your business operates with more than one person and in particular when there is a team involved it is important for you to know what motivates your co-workers in order to enable you and your business to operate effectively.
Paul Corrigan and Solitaire Plumbing are sponsoring this weekend’s Maldon Car Show. He sent us all parking permits so if you’re that way inclined get over there!
Paul Dulieu as a celebrant was it pains to point out how everything that he produces for his clients is bespoke. Effectively he approaches his business in the same way as he approached the Ed slot earlier. Attention to detail and care in presenting.
Sylvia Neveda was back after a long break and whilst on holiday experienced the importance of cleaning, when she occupied a flat that would have benefited from the proper sort of clean that she produces for her customers.
Linguistic feat of the day was demonstrated by Catherine Foley in reading out a testimonial an Italian, whose English was his second language but who presented his praise in a way that those whose first language it was would have found difficult.
David Rose was looking for developers who have ‘show homes’ that need to be removed from time to time.
Blake Hammond brought us back to reality with a reference to the fact that we were in the back half of the year with Halloween and Christmas approaching……. Aaaaaaaaah! He wants to find a way to help members celebrate said festivals with the use of AI. It’s worth checking out his ideas even if you have a phobia about either of them.
Jane Malyon hat for the occasion end without in any way detracting from what David Rose had to say she was into the business of delivery. Delivering her English Cream Teas and delivering words of wisdom as a public speaker, she could not have been more forceful if she had been a midwife!
Paul Booth is an accountant and rarely causes a gasp from members in his 60 second presentations. However, he is looking for high interest earners at the moment and his examples of the sort of earnings that they should be looking to mitigate for taxation purposes did indeed bring forth such a gasp. It did not however provide a sufficient gasp from Terry Malin to get him the Oscar. It was Steve Chilton whose message won the day. emphasising the importance of maintaining our relationships in order to drive our businesses forward. It is certainly a recipe for success that is worth having in our minds as we move forward towards the back of the year.
10-Minute Presentation by Stephen Chilton
Fresh from his Oscar triumph Steve Chilton produced an interesting presentation. Not only did he warn that the market is currently soft but turning hard but having got the warning out of the way he gave us a very interesting rundown of the development of the insurance market from its first days at Lloyds coffee shop and the development of the insurance industry, once again emphasising the importance of personal relationships with particular relevance to the insurance. At EBF this year he has increasingly become involved with members insurance and he is demonstrably the ‘safe pair of hands’ for all of our commercial insurance needs.
Excellent ed slot Paul D, really enjoyed that.
Well done Steve on your 10 minutes- fascinating history of Lloyds- who knew!
Great meeting and, as usual, a highly entertaining blog!
Loved today, thanks all.
Great ed slot by Paul and Steve’s 10 mins… Love a bit of history!
A thoroughly enjoyable meeting folks and a history lesson on insurance to boot! See y’all next week!
Excellent Ed Slot and equally excellent 10 mins. Enjoyed the meeting
Great meeting, and very insightful from Steve. Great ed slot from Paul