Herts Connections – Syed Ahmed

As the 10th candidate to be fired from the second series of The Apprentice, Syed Ahmed soon became a household name. His determination and enthusiasm made him a real contender for the coveted role as Sir Alan Sugar’s Apprentice.

Well Syed Ahmed will be talking at Herts Connections event on Thursday 11th September at 6.30pm. The event is sponsored by Business Scene, Porsche and Ecademy which means that it is FREE to people who want to attend and build their network of contacts and help to create more business for everyone.

Click here for more details.

If you are in the area, check it out. These kind of events are great for local businesses, and if you tie in the Andy Lopata event, then you will really know how to make the most of such opportunities.

Are you a Top Networker?

If like me you spend a lot of time networking with people, you would probably want to know how to make the most of this time.

Andy Lopata, one of the UK’s leading business networking strategists, is hosting a seminar that will give you an insight about how you can develop a strategy for your networking; one designed to achieve tangible results and a return on your investment.

I managed to spend some time with Andy over a couple of evenings last week, and he really does know his stuff. Andy was Managing Director of Business Referral Exchange, one of the UK’s leading referral-focused networking groups with over 2,000 member companies, for over 8 years. Andy now works with companies from one-man bands to global names such as NatWest Bank, Merrill Lynch and Capita to help them realise the full potential from their networking.

If networking is important to you and your business, then Andy Lopata is holding a seminar in Harpenden, near St Albans, on Tuesday 16^th September (click here for more details). He will be talking about strategies and tactics to make your current networking more successful, especially if you use networking groups such as BNI or BRE.

This is just another one of the events being promoted by Triumphant Events, who are really starting to raise the bar in terms of business related and personal development seminars. With the economy as it is, it is vital that we are all looking to improve our effectiveness at closing business and getting even more from ourselves.

Remember, all of these events are listed on my events page, so be sure to visit regularly to keep yourself posted. I also email these out with my newsletter, so make sure you are signed up to that too!

Have a great week!

Phew… what a day!

Woah… what a day! I think I experienced every emotion possible today, right across the spectrum. It has definitely taught me a lot, although I think I will have to allow things to settle down in my mind before I realise the full extent of my new distinctions. Let me give you the highlights!

 

My first moment was writing a complaint letter regarding a recent insurance claim for one of my properties which went horribly… I have never experienced such poor service. I will not name the parties involved, but lets just say there was enough ammunition to fill 6 pages! I might publish it as an ebook as it is quite amusing… no work of fiction could be fabricated so incredulously! Simply remembering the events involved got me a little riled, and I had to resort to more than a little sarcasm in the letter in order to keep my spirits high. I am not a massive fan of complaining, but the way I see it is that I have provided some much-needed feedback for their organisation. I wonder what kind of response I will get back.

 

After that, I had a great phone call from an organisation who said they could help fund some of my corporate trainings for SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises), in particular, the work I do around NLP for Leadership and Management teams. If you know anyone who is interested and falls within this bracket, please do put us in contact.

 

So from a challenging and frustrating situation with the letter to an exciting moment with the funding phone call; a few other incidents in between added to both sides of the equation.

 

Finally, this evening, I attended a seminar by the guys at Triumphant Events, where Glen Carlson was giving a talk on Sales and Marketing for Entrepreneurs. Click here to find out more, as he is doing the same presentation on Thursday and Friday nights also.

 

Now you might wonder why someone who teaches sales strategies would go to a talk on sales. Well I am a firm believer in that you can never know too much on any given subject, and that if you attend an event and just take one small thing then it has been worth the investment of your time. In fact, you don’t even need to learn anything new: even just being reminded of something that you haven’t been practising that causes you to take action on it will also be of value.

 

As it happens, I got both this evening. As I am setting up a new company as well (will let you know more as that develops!) it was really valuable to be able to spend some time thinking about the approach I am going to take when promoting that service, and how I am going to be able to distinguish myself from the competition. Of course there was a lot of overlap between what I teach and what Glen covered, but there were a lot of new and interesting viewpoints that were offered, particularly when looking at the marketing and promotion of any entrepreneurial business. If you are free for either of the nights, it will certainly be worth a visit. You will also get to here more about Wealth Dynamics profiling, another extremely useful tool for anybody in business.

To book a ticket or to find out more, click here.

To learn more about Wealth Dynamics, click here.

 

Don’t forget, lots of other events coming up and listed on the Events page so check those out too!

10,000 Challenge!

Don’t be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small steps.  

David Lloyd George

What a great quote! I cannot believe that I only heard this yesterday for the first time! I guess that I wasn’t ready to hear it before then, but I definitely am now!

It reinforces that frequently MASSIVE ACTION is the ONLY way to achieve success! All you need to do is summon up the inner strength required to make that leap and to have faith in yourself, others and the universe that your will shale find the way! It’s probably not a good idea to tip-toe up to the edge and take note of how far down it is; that will definitely crank up the fear!

Following on for the last post, massive action for today is to create a Facebook group with over 10,000 members by 1^st February 2008. Having only started this morning, we are already up to over 40 members in 2 hours… incredible!

To be involved in this massive challenge, join the DanStorey.com group in Facebook and then invite all of your friends to join. There will be exclusive content and downloads available only to Facebook group members, so it really is worth the time to register!

I am excited to see what the combined power of people’s focus can truly accomplish in such a short time! I truly believe that 10,000 is also a conservative goal to aim for given the networking potential that Facebook possesses! Success!

How dare you NOT pick up that phone!

Zig Ziglar puts it like this:

You can have anything you want if you help enough other people get everything they want!

I guess that is why I enjoy networking so much. It’s a great opportunity to find out other people’s needs and requirements and see if you can help them accelerate their successes. Often, it’s just the different perspective of your own points of view that can unlock something in another person, allowing them to see the way more clearly. Other times, you just happen to have access to the very resource that person has been incessantly hunting for months, and a simple phone call can help create yet more drive for that individual.

Whilst some people may not do it for whatever reason they choose, my standpoint on networking has changed a little recently.

In fact, as a result of looking back over the last year, I came to the realisation that we are all given something unique; a gift, talent or skill, something that can help many other people. No it may be forgivable for you not to use that talent for yourself (why you would ever want to do that is beyond me but it is so often the case!), what is completely inexcusable is when you stop other people from being able to access it!

I was recently coaching a salesperson who wasn’t particularly enjoying cold calling (do any of us?) and who told me that he would really rather not do it. Now this guy provides a service that literally has the potential to save people’s lives economically, but because he got his fair share of rejection, his desire to pick up the phone was understandably diminished. When he started to realise the massive negative impact of his potential lack of action, he (albeit begrudgingly) picked up the phone!

The point I want you to realise is that you do not have the right to withhold your talents, abilities, contacts, passion, energy etc from those around you. You should take every opportunity to find out how you can add value to the lives of others around you, and thus by assisting in their success, you are almost guaranteeing your very own!

Don’t take my word for it; check the Bible! Jesus himself said that “the path to greatness is through service to the many” and the parable of the talents clearly says that if you do not use what you are given, it shall be taken from you!

What can you offer? Your challenge is to find out the needs and requirements of those around you and offer to help them before you ask for help yourself. This is not to say that you should refuse assistance, but your focus should be on the success of others. Once this is truly your focus, you will notice wonderful things starting to happen inadvertently in your own circumstances.