Brentwood Business Networking meeting – 5th September

Chairman’s Business Networking Blog Thursday 5th September 2013

22 present including Dean Caldon of Redstones Sales and Lettings. A previous visitor, he has submitted an application which I confirm has been approved at the committee meeting that followed. We hope to welcome and induct him next week.

Brian Painter was standing in for David Plumley as Education and Development Officer and with the assistance of Tina delivered the Ed Slot, an interesting little “pretend” telephone call by Brian (playing himself) to Tina playing the wife of Frank the electrician. Apparently she has 3 children who were making a noise in the background and generally dealt with a telephone enquiry that ensued. Poor old Frank the electrician did not get the job. David Plumley’s excuse for non- attendance was that he was at a conference somewhere. Did he have some inside information? Anyway the short dialogue left everybody amused and was great intro to the meeting.

And so we entered the 60 seconds round, which this week was slightly longer than 60 seconds as Mike Rogers had a new watch and was keen to observe the second hand moving round. I think the average duration was more like 70 or 80! As always I try and highlight themes that might run through the presentations and this week had several.

Marcelle Saad had been to an International Jewellery Fair and was clearly enthused by it. Ed Crocker had attended a trade fair namely the UK Warehouse Trade Fair. Apparently he finished up stood in a warehouse with 6 other people and had not been enthused.

Mike Rogers offered top tips which were as follows:-

a. Don’t go to Bournemouth
b. He was very impressed with the new mark 7 Golf and
c. The mortgage market is currently ok.

He was followed fairly promptly by Adrian Crossdale and Howard Bullock. Howard Bullock’s top tip was to look for alternative investments with the current low interest rates and Adrian’s was something to do with his car being better than Mike Rogers car…I think!!

John Probert’s top tips were to check the readings on your energy meters and then check them against bills. Where there have been estimates you might be caught with a large bill pay when the meter is finally read and it is discovered that you have been underpaying on your budget plan.

Adrian was also looking for introductions to schools to supply lighting, Dawn Ribnell was looking for schools who are looking to recruit for next year and Ian Buckley has been working in a school and generally was looking for commercial work.

So much for connections between members in their presentation.

On a slightly bizarre note Kevin Brooks also takes down and rebuilds extensions as well just doing them. Richard Reed was tantalising us with the Greek Islands and Chris Sadler has just finished his last festival, he has got three next year with a press pass, he is also taking bookings for next year for weddings. Everyone seemed to be looking to the distant future but Peter Hood is looking for some instant jobs over the next couple of weeks.

Finally it was left to Brian Painter to delight us with the various poisons that we are taking in if we smoke cigarettes. CO2, some sort of Tar, acetone, this is apparently paint stripper, arsenic and cyanide, all of which will ensure that one in two people who smoke die a painful death, he was ironically followed by Dawn (one of our committed smokers) who undaunted, nipped outside for a quick fag immediately after the close the meeting.

It’s not often that my 60 seconds regarding leases, landlords and tenants, can be regarded as uplifting but I just got a sense…

The star of the show this week was undoubtedly Mike Rogers, that is Rogers without a d. He produced his iPad 6 being be a pad of paper on a tripod which he then used very ably to illustrate in the most graphic of terms both how mortgagees deal with loyalty, their interest rates to those existing customers when their existing mortgage deal runs out. He illustrated how he can make vast savings, and indeed vast they were. Sitting next to me Scott Griffiths, a veteran of many years, claimed it to be in the top ten of 10 minute presentations that he had witnessed (from a total of over 750). Despite his rather garish shorts and the revelation of his knees to the meeting this week, very few of us would disagree with him and most of us would have to think hard to remember a better 10 minutes. It presented to us exactly what Mike did, how he went about doing it and the benefits of using him. A copy book lesson as to how the 10 minute slot should be presented and how to use content well. The fact that he used high technology and spent the whole 10 minutes on his subject did not detract. Questions frankly were unnecessary, great performance Mike.

So now from the lyrical to the uplifting, there were in excess of 20 referrals passed and recorded business was in excess of £33,000.00. A great start the month, following a month where we recorded £130,000.00 worth of business.

The committee meeting that followed what was really a very successful meeting, apart from approving our new member Dean Caldon addressed the issue of attendance. The holiday period is now over and I look forward to much better attendances in the weeks to come. The committee also in conjunction with attendance looked at the importance of inviting visitors. For those of you who answered my blog last week, thank you for your list of suggestions. A future Ed Slot will inform you further about proposed initiatives. In the meantime I would like members to look at the list of suggestions supplied in the comments to last week’s Blog and see if between now and next week you can send out an invitation to one of those of the list. I also invite Scott to indicate the extra points you will gain if you do this between now and the next meeting.

I look forward to seeing you all then.