Arrived in the dark and the pouring rain and departed dry and beautiful sunshine. All seasons in one two and half hours.
Nineteen Members and two visitors sat down to breakfast and then commenced the meeting.
The Performance League
Kevin Radford after one week is way out ahead on 130 points. This month looks like it is going to be “chase the Bard” month.
Education Presentation
Naughty Corner’s Paul Booth produced a topic based upon the extent which we have control of our business and the extent to which we have to manage our expectations. Similes abounded. “It’s like an Engine”. You don’t understand it or you do. You can study it and learn how it works. In effect you can take control. In your business there are many processes but you either know or don’t know but can learn to understand.
Your business is also, by contrast, like traffic. The roads can carry all sorts of cars in all sorts of conditions. These could be cheap cars or expensive cars, new cars or old cars, good cars or bad cars. You have no control over this. Like a user of the highway. Your business can produce the same challenges, there are some things you will never be able to control or more importantly there are things that you have to learn to manage in particular your own expectations. For example the behaviour and demands of your clients.
For those who were not concentrating fully, this presentation might have provided difficulties of understanding, but those who were on it at the beginning would have found it usefully illustrative of how we manage our business and lives.
The 60 Second Round
Our adjudicator for the Oscar this week was Vincent Goode who dressed the Oscar up in a rather disturbing way and renamed it Oscarina. His 60 Seconds was much more business driven. He was lording the pleasures if self-adhesive stickers, how useful they are at advertising our businesses and challenging in working out where we can stick them. Its always good to get practical tips and the soapy water trick coupled with the use of the Speed Print Super Squeegee is something we should all consider acquiring, even if we are not going to buy self-adhesive stickers from him.
Kieran Peaty by his recital of current projects shows how busy he is and yet he appears to be thriving under the additional pressure of having a new born child to come to terms with. Fresh faced and bushy tailed is the only adequate description.
Toby Acton informed us of “Lovely Light Bulb” moments, if you want some of these go and see him. Group flashes are probably better than group hugs.
Terry Maylin, mindful of the Ed Slot indicated how his success in chasing debts is very much linked to the performance of the client in getting the correct information about his creditor right from the start.
Bad client; bad outcome. Good client; success.
Ben Golding produced his luminous and noisy piggy to celebrate how he turned reluctant potential customers into Utility Warehouse fanatics.
The Bard of Hadleigh is back!!! Another poem was produced extolling the virtues of RMK that bore up an uncanny likeness to last week’s presentation, but the words were different….
Nick Cooke has attended a Grade 2 listed church which suffered subsidence. The question, was this was due to a nearby Oak tree or the drains. Nick sniffed it out and declared it to be the Oak Tree…or was it the drains?
The newly joined Paul Dulieu declared that he had lost his EBF virginity to Tina Walker. Very much a metaphor for his first referral received ands delivered.
LG Networks provide excellent customer services, result, a valuable contract to bring the UK’s largest truck dealership’s communications into the modern age through VOIP based hosting. Definitely the success story of the week.
To bring us all into focus, Saj Sreedharan pointed out that this was the busiest time of the year for him because tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Sort yourselves out fellows and get down to Saj for some flowers. Lustful Lobelia’s, sexy sweet peas and of course the ultimate, romantic red roses.
John Freeman gets a mention in this Blog because he used his 60 seconds to praise the recent assistance he has received both from Stuart Smallcombe and Nick Cooke. Appreciating each other is at the core of our networking group.
Apparently Brian Painter’s smoking guarantee covers people who positively force themselves to start smoking again.
Paul Booth was revelatory as far as banks were concerned. Apparently the recently formed Starling Bank was voted the best British something Bank. It wasn’t clear to me whether this was at the BAFTAs or somewhere else but if Starling Banks are all over the place now, then collectively they must be regarded as a Murmuration.
Scott Griffiths described exactly what he does. He indeed expressed it as “…what I do do… which is what you will be in if you don’t engage his services in relation to your Web Sites. Vincent made the award accordingly to the handsome face of live chat.
What a great 60 second round
This weeks statistics and points of note
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19 Members Present
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2 Visitors
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20 Referrals
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£13,500 worth of business recorded
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Scott Griffiths won the Oscar
10-minute Question and Answers session by “The Trades”
Answered by the Trades Synergy Team was, as with most of our Q & As, very useful and informative and not without its humour.
Remember, it’s our Birthday next week…..so be there!
Now I’m first I don’t know what to say! Good poem from the Bard.
Great meeting, enjoyed the trades Q&A, rather disappointed I didn’t get to ask Alan Moller where I could get a 13 amp fuse. The new EBF business cards holders look very smart. Check out EBay for used versions 🤦🏻♂️
Great meeting as always! Really loved Paul’s education slot too! Always gives us something to think about that will help our businesses grow!
Great Q & A too!!
See you all next week 😀🐷
The next time i sit next that piggy….💥 Great atmosphere and ed slot from Paul highlighting whats within our control and whats not. Cheers Saj for the flowers, have a great weekend all and see you all next week. Ps, congratulations Keiron on your recent contracts.
A thoroughly enjoyable meeting, as always, and great to have a 1-2-1 (or perhaps a 1-2-3) with John, Brian and Saj. I’m slightly concerned that there’s a small child in Gants Hill village that is currently mourning the loss of a dolly though, Vincent…
Someone has to suffer for the art Paul
I didn’t realise that Paul lost his EBF virginity to me ?? I will be back next week guys.
Love was definitely in the air this morning. Excellent educational slot from Paul Booth, very informative. I thought Kevin Radford wrote a wonderful poem and was a worthy winner of the Oscar but well done Scott on winning the Oscarina!
A great Q&A session, well done to all those that participated, I did have a question but I’ll save it for the next one.
Have a great week and I’ll hopefully see you next week 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
Thanks Saj , blood sweat and tears went into that with hours of composing
Numbers a little light this week folks for which I am also to blame, apologies, and it looks like I missed yet another great meeting.From reading the excellent blog I have this to say…
– We mustn’t award Mason the Oscarina because we’ll never get her back – Def. prefer group hugs to flashes (ugh) – Can you be guilty of plagiarism if you performed the original? – Great result with the contract Stuart – Bet Saj described his flowers by colour again (it surely wasn’t he who came up with Lobelia 🙂
I’ll be there next week.
That was ten minutes of my life i’ll never get back 🙂
Excellent meeting well done to the trade team for a very useful question and answer session it is something I think we should repeat.
Good lively session and 2interesting guests!
Enjoyed the meeting. Hope the trades gave a clear insight to our varies jobs .Have a good week.
A great meeting as always and I thoroughly enjoyed being back in the thick of things with the Q&A after missing you all last week.
Already looking forward to celebrating EBF’s birthday next week! Have a good one.
Despite the low numbers this was a typically enjoyable session with some good business passed . I am sorry to announce that I am hanging up my bardship and from now on its boring old insurance all the way. I cant take the bitter disappointment .
I am probably like one of the old masters. My fortune from all the wonderful poetry will not be made until long after I am away with the fairies. PS The Austin Powers outfit wasn’t as groovy baby as I had hoped.
Hey Kevin, you can’t give up the Bardship, I’m in heaven when I hear a poem from Kevin! Be bold, give us another ode! I feel okay when I hear rhyme from FMK. I’ll stop here ‘cos they get worserer!.
Sorry I’m a bit late to the game. Good meeting – sorry I missed the end.
Kevin – are you just feeling bitter cos “you was robbed” 2 weeks in a row?