With a weather forecast promising scorching hot weather from the weekend onwards, it had the audacity to rain as I left the house to drive to the meeting. When I arrived It remained dull, Boris Johnson was still leader of the conservative party and PM. Members arrived in dribs and drabs and when the final drab arrived we numbered eighteen. When the meeting finally started we had a depleted leadership team through holidays and sickness but I was able to assure the membership that there had been no resignations either yesterday or overnight.
The Performance League
The performance league for the month of June was decisively won by Terry Maylin followed by Howard Bullock and Scott Griffiths.
Education Presentation
Scott Griffiths did the honours this week as he confronted us with two themes. By far and away the most useful and most interesting was the demonstration as to how, once your box of cornflakes has been opened, you can make sure it is secure and virtually airtight going forward. It was all a bit Blue Peter but it was useful and practical advice.
On a more esoteric level, his second topic was guidance as to how to best use Google alerts. Designating keywords can give very relevant warnings to your business. Your own name will warn you of who is talking about you and what they’re saying and putting competitors names forward can also give you an insight into what the opposition are doing. Not quite as useful as how to deal with an open cornflakes box but nonetheless useful.
The 60 Second Round
With the Mayor of Gants Hill Village brandishing his bell and James Humphries prepared to judge this week’s Oscar winning presentation things got under way.
A lot of members declared themselves to be excited! Always a good idea when it’s dull outside. Emma Taylor has taken on a new property in Billericay from other agents who had not distinguished themselves since they had had the property on their books since January. She was excited! Mike Skinner explained how owners and staff appearing on video to promote their product highlighted their passion for their business. he found this exciting and although Matt Barry was excited in anticipation of taking on work experience students, Kieran Peaty was almost over the moon. He demonstrated that what overrides anything in business exciting us is the prospect of being away from it. Yes, you’ve got it, He’s going on his hols and so doesn’t want referrals until he’s back. By contrast, Toby Acton always exhibits enthusiasm, if not excitement, when talking about motivational maps. They apparently have a very wide application for other fields of endeavour than business. Counsellors of various sorts find them useful and although these areas are of no specific interest to him, he is in the business counselling field and an introduction to other areas of endeavour would be appreciated.
Stuart Smallcombe can get the Internet for anyone anywhere. He made reference to a rather shadowy character called Mr Farmer. This slightly anonymous but enterprising individual wanted to create a business park out of farmland. Such a character, if introduced to Stuart, would have no problem with establishing Internet connections to this hypothetical site. Planning Permission would probably be more problematic.
Best use of props for the round came from Vincent Goode who produced the testimonial board from which he read nice things about himself as compiled by others. That’s the trick, by others!
Terry Maylin got close to getting everyone excited by explaining that commercial debts attract compensation per invoice. So they should because at an interest rate an excessive 8% over base rate it is an attractive if not entirely risk free savings option.
Tina Walker saw Kieran Peaty’s excitement over holidays as an opportunity to remind us of her services covering ‘phones et cetera whilst we’re away on them.
Neil Bellham had earlier been the absent Brian Painter’s appointee as ‘Greeter’ for the day, to which task he brought his usual enthusiasm. Hands had been shaken, greetings made, almost to excess dare I say! His presentation was similarly enthusiastic until he got onto the Google reviews that he had received or not as the case may be. Whilst sarcasm is oft regarded as a lower form of wit, it can be a very effective method of cajoling. By the end of the meeting Paul Booth had left him a review and others indicated that they were going to do likewise.
Scott Griffiths produced a poem that could have been titled, ‘ode to a website’. James Humphries preferred this presentation to all others and awarded him the Oscar. He likes a bit of poetry does James.
This weeks statistics and points of note
He delivered the ed slot, he won the Oscar and now as meeting secretary, Scott Griffiths gave us the good news statistically regarding this week’s business written at £23,000 which was more than for the whole of the foreshortened month of June.
Interesting Facts and Statistics
- 18 members present
- 11 referrals made
- £23,000 worth of business recorded
- Oscar winner was Scott Griffiths
Synergy Team
Paul Booth confirmed the business to business/Finance team meeting will take place next Tuesday whilst offering the inducement that forecasted extremely hot weather will mean we can all sit outside in the shade quaffing thirst quenching beverages and chewing the fat.
10-minute presentation replaced by a Q&A Session
In the absence of this week’s 10 minutes presenter there was an extremely lively and informative Q&A session.
Referrals & Testimonials Round
A round that reflected the good numbers for business recorded.
As I drove home Boris resigned from the leadership of the Conservative Party.
low on numbers but high in entertainment and quality opportunuties. thanks all for a good meeting
Fantastic meeting. Really liked the Q&A session. Already started playing with google alerts as per Scotts Ed slot.
Great meeting, and I like the new blog layout/additions
So sorry to miss the meeting (sounds great) and looking forward to the group fun and buzz on Thursday xx
Another great EBF meeting great education slot and really enjoyable Q&A
high-quality meeting well done everyone!
Despite the impact of holidays/sickness/workload on numbers, it was a great meeting, as always.