Is it too good to be true?

A few days back I received an email inviting me to attend a seminar, although I am usually extremely skeptical of such invites from people I have not met. This invite has intrigued me slightly, is this the seminar I have been looking for the tips and skills offered could be just what I need to move my business on to the next stage.

So I decided to do a bit of research and find out a bit more about the speaker, yes his website appears on google page one, but not much is given away.

I post a tweet, nothing, I mention an associate of his and this gets one favorable response but only for the associate. What next I post a thread on the 4N Networking forum after some 8 hours and stacks of viewings one comment is left, and they doubt his credibility as a leader in his field although they have never heard of him.

What to do as I still feel tempted to attend the one day seminar.

A bit more research through Face Book I follow some of his friends and discover that I start noticing mutual friends, the emails have been sent and I await the response, but I’m thinking one day £65 what have I to lose you never know what you are going to learn do you?

I will keep you posted on the Peter Thompson Seminar......

Too much to blog

When I started my blog back in June I vividly remember thinking that i would struggle thinking of things to write, how wrong could I have been it seems to be almost the complete opposite, I have so much to say I do not get enough time to blog it if you catch my drift.

So many inspiring things have happened to me this week, firstly it started off on Monday with a 4N networking seminar, as the marketing assistant for the Aylesbury group we were whizzed of to a marquee in the very wet country side of Northampton. We were motivate by the 4 networking team, swapped ideas on how to grow our groups and shared in some good old fashioned networking (welcome to my blog for those of you I met on Monday...enjoy).

Last week a client so pleased with the result I had secured for him with HMRC dropped in a small gift to show his appreciation , firstly it was indeed my only ever gift from a client and secondly it was not a bottle of cheap wine.
In fact it was a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, what an eye opening and inspiring book, which has certainly made me think about my financial position and future.

The book has influenced me to such a degree that I decided to use it as a basis for my Berkhamsted Speakers club speech on Tuesday evening.

Working from my “communicating on television” manual project 2 – the talk show, I asked Roger Leffare, to interview me. The idea behind the interview was that I had just entered The Times 100 Rich List. I was absolutely amazed at the end when the attendees asked me if I was actually rich and if I was on the list, the entire room had bought into what i was saying and the presentation was a fantastic success, so much so that I won the speech of the evening my first ever.

Like I said at the start so much stuff happens I cannot keep up with blogging it all, I am on such a high this week I just know that something truly amazing and fantastic is about to happen to me.

Watch out for the video of the speech on YouTube, as soon as I set up the account and work it all out I will let you know so that you can make up your own mind.

The Week that Was................................

Can you believe it as we looked out of our upstairs window on Monday afternoon the BT van was parked on the other side of the road and the engineer (word to be used loosely) was busy at work in his green box.

The van disappeared and if by magic so did our telephone line and broadband.

A quick question have you tried living without the internet?

Well we did for five days I continually reported the fault to BT, who told me it was a major fault at the exchange, I started twittering about the service now BT follow me (Big Brother).

Friday evening they came to fix the major fault, or the two wires the engineer cut on Monday afternoon.

Thank you BT, I look forward to my compensation....

PRESS CONFERENCE

That got your attention, and so it should as tomorrow night at the advanced speaking club Cornerstone Communicators, I will be hosting the evening as Toast Master of the Evening (TME).

In this role it is for me to choose a theme for the evening, and I have decided that three or four speakers will have to present a press conference. I have chosen some themes such as “a breaking news story” “a celebrity” “Royalty”. I had thought that everything was well arranged until this morning I opened my email to find out I was a speaker less, thank the internet for Facebook (I never thought I would say that) a speaker was online Trevor Jones, and he has accepted the challenge.

If you fancy coming along to see how it goes please get in touch all are very welcome.

BLOG FOR SALE!

Blog for Sale, I have just read that Amazon are selling Iain Dale`blog and rightly so he is a bit miffed about it. This has got me thinking though do you think any would want to pay cash to read mine, don’t worry reader I have no plans to start charging to read my ramblings in the near future.

A Taxing Week

For those of you hoping to see my debut on You Tube the wait continues, even though afters hours of practice for my Toast Masters speech on Tuesday evening things did not quite go the way I wanted.

So for the time being the video will not be out there to view, although those there and my wife Beckie who has seen the video were all very encouraging and that is certainly appreciated, you just know when you fall short.

This leaves me focusing on something I have heard said “learn from your mistakes”. I will be.

As always life is very busy, new clients, Cornerstone Communicators and Aylesbury 4N next week and somehow I have my own VAT Return to do.

I don’t like networking I LOVE IT!

Yes it Thursday and more importunately it’s a fortnight since the last Aylesbury 4N breakfast meeting, which can only mean it’s time once again to make my way to The Holiday Inn Aston Clinton Road Aylesbury.

As the marketing assistant for the group I have spent the last few days plugging the meeting on twitter and the 4N forum, as well as ringing round all in an attempt to ensure that we have a well attended meeting well its August you now.
And I was not disappointed a fairly decent turn out for the holiday season and as always there were some great people there.

Steve Baker opened the meeting as Group Leader www.sbfinancial.co.uk and we quickly made our way on to the 40 second round (or the elevator pitch).
As always I was trying to think of something to say and it went something like this;
I don`t like tax .... I LOVE IT (now that got a laugh) Then I said repeat after me “I don`t like tax “and surely they did at which point I said great then I can look after you tax affairs.

Not a bad 40 seconds sure it got me noticed as I had a few positive comments on it throughout the meeting.

Today we were in for a real treat as Heather Salter of Jigsaw HR www.jigsawhr.com spoke to us about communicating with new clients, she discussed some NLP tips including mirroring which was a bit bizarre as earlier in the meeting during a conversation with Heather we started mirroring each other. Heather mentioned that some people are more open to hearing things others seeing things and others like to hear stories, a lot to take in and this is certainly something I will be looking in to a bit more.

Then we moved on to our 121 appointments this is a ten minute appointment with three other people in the room. Today I spoke with Roy Virjee of Direct Route; we talked about the launching of his new website and social media. I know Roy took this on board as he has already started researching and emailing links to me. Unfortunately Roy has not yet emailed me the URL of his new site, but rest assured I will let you all know about it as soon as I do.

Then I spoke with Margaret Keane of HRdept, who I have never had the pleasure of speaking with before, the appointment flew by and felt like just a couple of minutes and not ten, we enjoyed our self so much we never even got around to talking about our business, looks like we will have to have another 121 next time.

For my third appointment of the day was Roger Whitaker of Pink Connect roger@thestanigallery.co.uk Roger is a busy man, and he was telling me about his new project in which he is putting artists paintings into pubs to sell, sounds like an interesting idea as the artwork he is displaying is amazing.

After the meeting closed I just had time to catch up with my great friend Sue Rutson of Inspiration Coaching www.inspiration-coaching.com we as always had a fantastic chat in which she told me about the book she is writing, stick with it Sue I always wanted to know a famous author.

It was also good to see the return of my friend Lucy AWESOME Squires freshly made cakes not provided never mind Lucy it was still great to see you I look forward to seeing your 4 Sight.

If you have not been to a 4 Networking meeting give it a go it works, have a look at their web site http://www.4networking.biz/.

I am certainly looking forward to the next meeting

Clients Poem

Its good to be in the sunshine,
to feel the stroke of the sun,
It makes me feel so sublime
and you want to spoil my fun!

I know I have to do it
I know it must be done
I know its a business remit
but for me its just not fun!

And so dear Jonathan
I hear your wails from here,
And just for you I'll get it done
so please put away your fear!

Just tell me what I have to do
before we sit and meet
and I will do what the good ones do
- won't that be quite a treat?

Raise Your Profile?

Has the penny just dropped, what am I talking about you ask?

Raising your profile for my Tax & Accountancy practice Tax Matters

It’s simple I need to work on a speech that I can deliver to a wide ranging audience; I therefore need to find an angle that makes tax interesting.

So how do I make such a subject interesting, the word itself makes many switch off immediately do you talk about how to avoid paying, do you explain how it works, do you explain where it goes or do you explain the history?

Did I miss anything, surely the answer has to be a combination doesn`t it?
And that is the easy part, once I have crafted my speech and practiced and practiced I then need to find an audience.

Maybe that’s were all the social networking comes in Twitter Face Book and 4 Networking.

I am always open to suggestions please feel free to let me know what you think.

Tax Matters

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