This week’s Essex Business Forum meeting may well have been all about the stand-ins; but that did not diminish its success.
Brain Painter of Pilgrim Hypnotherapy (doing his best impersonation of Aidan Squire of Quality HR) chaired confidently, and guided us all through the proceedings.
Headlines to take away and savour include;
1. Paul Booth of Booth & Co Accountants (standing in for Scott Griffiths of Eseyo Web Design) unveiled March figures…and they’re smoking hot! 98 referrals, with an average value of £700. Not to forget the 9 visitors we welcomed, and new members who have joined.
2. £14,000 of business referred between members at today’s meeting.
3. Paul Booth scooped March Monthly Contribution competition for his stellar work (Should we start calling him the ‘Referral Machine’?) – With Steve Roach of Phoenix FM in 2nd slot and Jill Willis of Jill Willis Copywriting &PR in 3rd.
4. Jolly Good Egg award goes to Howard Bullock of Clear Financial Advice. Helpful, informative, knowledgeable, as well as an outstanding fundraiser for EBF charity Snap. What more can we say. He’s just great.
5. Carmel Jane, of Carmel Jane Photography joined us at her first official meeting. Great to have such an enthusiastic, energetic new member, welcome from us all!
We were all reminded of the value of ‘slow-time’ by David Plumley of Brentwood Computers, in a very thought provoking education slot. With advice focusing on the importance of maintaining high standards during busy periods, and making the most of the slow periods. “Catch up with administration, revisit your business plan, review your approach to marketing, and streamline systems and processes”, stressed a plain speaking David.
In a nutshell – Make the most of it folks, ‘wiggle room’ is vital if you’re to run your business successfully.
Howard Bullock lived up to his company name, with a business presentation applauded for its clarity. Having just celebrated its ten year anniversary, Howard’s Billericay based business currently looks after a client investment portfolio of over £40million.
After taking a flurry of questions from the floor, Howard’s parting advice was clear; “This is the golden age of pensions, with legislative improvements bringing greater financial freedoms. However, this golden age is not predicted to last, with changes expected imminently. For that reason we’re advising our clients to invest as much as they can into a pension fund now.”
For more advice relating to pensions, investments and protection contact Howard via http://www.clearifa.com/
A warm welcome was extended to Danielle Wilshire of Excel Contracts and Paul Durrant of PDT Sales Consultancy, great as always to see new faces and learn more about fellow businesses around Essex.
I’m sure you’ll all agree, once again we have a solid demonstration of the value EBF brings to each of our businesses.
See you next week!
Jill (in for Aidan)
Another good meeting, and well done Jill for volunteering to do the blog….or were you volunteered!
Very nicely done Jill.
Good meeting and a pretty good turnout. We need to push for more visitors over the next couple of months now it’s brighter and warmer.
Brilliant blog Jill, and a good meeting all round. Howard, you smashed it with your 10 minutes, nice job. See you all next week, have a good one!
Jill, your really good at this – you should do this for a living 🙂
Well done Howard for CLEAR Financial Advice in your 10mt slot today and on your deserved winning of the first quarters Jolly Good Egg award.
Good meeting folks with visitors and plenty of business done, that’s what networking is all about.
Superb blog,Jill, and many thanks for volunteering! Excellent 10 mins from “Legs Bullock” and well done, Jill, for your Oscar award. I will be with you in “spirit” (pina colada) next week. Just make sure that you behave!
Good job Jill- be careful you may end up with the job permanently! Great 10 mins as usual Howard, always good quality stuff I have a hard act to follow next week!
Thank you for a great Blog Jill, I missed the scrambled eggs and scrambled thoughts of the 60 second round.
I’LL BE BACK !!!!!
Aidan