Japanese Knotweed Chat, plus Howard Bullock presented his IFA business

It was warm, it was bright and 23 including one second time visitor were all assembled by 7.30 am…or thereabouts.

A new format was given an airing aimed at slightly shortening the length of the meeting,  The 60 second round was combined with the referrals round.  The theory was that 60 second plus say a further 30 seconds should mean that as we only have to visit each member once there must time saving!  This might have been successful had everybody had not averaged 3 minutes when it came to their turn.  We will try it again next week and try to do better!  Any way …what of the meeting itself.

The Performance League

Howard Bullock is well in the lead with 262 points.  With only this week to go he is a clear favourite.

Education Presentation

This piece was delivered by our education officer himself, Ben Golding. “ Do we know how to listen?” was the question he posed.  Like one of the major religions of the world, there are several levels, Well,  three in fact

Level 1-self focused/your not really listening properly, you are thinking to yourself things like, can I get business out of this?

Level 2-dialogue/you are listening empathetically, not only aware of the words but the needs.

Level 3-global- your senses are heightened, you are totally attuned to the speaker (I told you it was like a religion) this guru-like state might be beyond you but at least try for level 2

Not just food for thought; a veritable feast.

Membership Matters

Hooray! Mike Rogers has renewed his membership; where would we be without the master of cynicism and spontaneity.

The 60 Second Round

Nick Cooke was awarding the Oscar this week as well as inspecting houses. “Build like a brick outhouse” is the expression of a true gentleman who takes no s..t from anyone.

Talking of brick outhouses, Mason Edwards has just won a cleaning contract in Stoke on Trent.  This will take a lot of cleaning, it’s not called the black country for nothing.

On matters sartorial, not only was the ever dapper Brian Painter and the dressed for Court, Terry Maylin wearing a tie, Stuart Smallcombe joined them. He scrubs up quite well! I stifled the urge to ask if he was going to a funeral when low and behold, he announced he was involved in linking 14 funeral homes through VOIP.  I intend to resist any bad puns but that does not stop you guys from making them in your comments in this Blog.

Some of us are breaking out from Lockdown in various ways.  Matt Barry is back in his office, Richard Reed has received his first enquiry since Lockdown for a holiday abroad.  He exhibited a definite air of exuberance.  Brian Painter is also slowly getting back to normal.  He produced the startling revelation that rather than using hypnosis to beat smoking, in Latvia they give electric shock treatment.  Using his clients remaining brain cells he has so far brought him down from 40 fags a day to 6.  Let’s see if he can get him down to zero without the use of a cattle prod.

Colin O’Connor was out of the meeting from time to time with IT problems but still managed the memory tag of the day “safety is no accident”.

All of these and many others sat side by side with referrals and mentions of attendance at synergy team meetings/1’2’1s

So what of the Oscar?  Dean Caldon’s use of the screen to illustrate his virtual inspection and the description of a chain of recommendation in one street brought him this week’s accolade.

This weeks statistics and points of note

An upbeat Scott Griffiths confirmed £35,000 worth of business recorded with our being well on our way to emulating last month’s £52,000.

58 Referrals this month is well up on last month

I can’t help but think that the availability of the excellent recording system on our Web Site positively encourages us all. Thanks Scott

10-minute presentation by Howard Bullock

Spared the referrals round following the 10 Minute Presentation he was deprived of the hearty congratulations from all members that normally follows. It probably served him right by describing himself as a “lovely” in his biography sheet. However, an impressive and professional slide show left us in no doubt (if every we had been) that he is as an accomplished IFA as he is a 10-minute presenter.

I look forward to seeing you all next week.