BRX Bond Street

Mab Ayyub of Olive Communications opens the 60 seconds with news of software that can be downloaded onto a mobile that will reduce the cost of international calls from say, 45p a minute to around 3p a minute – details awaited. Worryingly, Maurice Press of Disability Resource Team gets someone else’s Barclaycard statement in braille and while his turn-around time for customers is 48 hours, nothing has been heard from Barclays for 72 hours. In this connection, Maurice might like to research the Treating Customers Fairly initiative from the Financial Services Authority which is supposed to avoid this sort of thing.

After a superb dinner at the Travellers’ Club last night, master coach George Metcalfe brandishes a full corona Bolivar cigar (image of Ché Guevera flashes in to my mind here) but the smoke in question is for the purposes of a pneumonic, rather than for consumption: Context or Current reality, their Ideal, Gaps, Action & Review or reinforcement.

Alexis G-M of The Happiness Centre like other health gurus it seems, is actually rather busy while Martin Dunne of Sayers Butterworth suggests that clients get an accountant involved before cutting costs as there is nothing worse than getting it wrong and having to make a second round of redundancies for example, 6 months later.

Paul Marmor of Sherrards is on form with an entertaining telephone conversation 60 seconds, where company winding-up proceedings are one of the weapons in his armoury. Chocolatier Kirsty Joly of Perfectly Tempered is busy with Christmas but asks for and gets intros to boutique hotels.

Lewis Malka of Joseph Sterling Jewellers again gives a superb 60 seconds with examples of how he can save clients money but for a change, talks about watches. On the one hand, he can get discounts of 20 per cent on TAG watches for example – list price say, £1,250 while if you want a Rolex Daytona with a list price of £4,500 he can get you one now for £6,500 if you do not fancy waiting up to 10 years on the waiting list for one.

Emma Ross of PhotoWonder shows a new photo caricature service avilable on-line via ASDA & Tesco which surprise, surprise, works better with photos where people are smiling. Christian Ingerslev of Danesoft manages to keep his eyes open after telling us about Hilary Clinton and crashing a 747 jet into Mexico City. This turns out to be from a dream rather than some new computer game as I first thought.

Yours truly of in2 Consulting Ltd asks for referrals to members’ solicitors as a new report by Dick Clementi formerly of the Bank of England MPC ought to give smaller firms cause for concern. In my years in financial services, I have always felt that a 3-way partnership with an accountant and a solicitor would be beneficial to clients and the professionals concerned.

Mortgage Broker Mike Chan of Shadow Finance will shortly be publishing a Best Buys Table as lots of his clients ask for this. Karelia of Manse and Garrett manages to get 32 per cent off a client’s property, buying at the same price it was in 2002! Her property development background is very useful here.

Mike Jennings of procurement people Avenue is busy as businesses look for ways of saving money. 10 minutes is by our new IT man Des Sutton of Man Bites Dog who offer an impressive range of services and are Microsoft Gold Certificated reminding me that I need to book a 1:1 with him.

Watch this space for details of BRX Bond Street’s Christmas bash.

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*Great News* – To coincide with Remembrance Day 2008, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are launching a competition for under 18s to win a PSP Slim. Recommend the site to your friends and enter the competition with a chance to win a Sony PSP Slim with Football Manager Handheld 2009. Three runners-up will also win a copy of the PSP game.

Log on to the site via the link below to enter:

http://www.cwgc.org/glorydays/

They have also added a series of video clips which can be downloaded direct to your handset.

Text GLORYDAYS 1 to 81707 or visit this link:

http://www.cwgc.org/glorydays/mobile.html

Or join the Facebook group here:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=7672067465

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Des Sutton of Man Bites Dog our IT people, is sick to death of hearing about the recession. He informs us that there are many people out there doing quite nicely thank you and has picked up two new clients from the Middle East. Mike Segall fresh from the ecademy Black Star 4th birthday bash last night, is wearing another hat at Central Debt Collection where he can sometimes get people’s debt settled at 30p in the £ and surprise, surprise, is very busy. And last week, another lunch companion who had earned himself US$100 million in 10 years, gave him an excellent referral. Christian Ingerslev of Danesoft does surveys for between 10 and 180,000 people finding out what customers really think while resident copywriter Caroline Hampstead has been dumbing down a client’s copy which they felt was too intellectual.

Litigator Paul Marmor of Sherrards reminds us that a Compromise Agreement before redundancy can often result in better terms for the employee while Richard Houldsworth of Splatt Print picks up an old BRE strapline “If it moves, we will print it”. He will be away for a couple of weeks at http://www.skillslondon2008.co.uk/site/1/ which might be of interest to 14 – 19 year olds looking for employment

Maurice Press of Disability Resource Team had one of those weeks where someone tried to steal his mobile phone while waiting outside his office, but hopefully inflicted enough pain to deter the villain in future. On a nicer note, a kind person conducted him across the road but since he was already on the proper roadside, asked to be conducted back again!

Jamie Denham of Sliced Bread Animation completed his move to Shoreditch but did not get much holiday as he is too busy and again working with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission where they did a Glory Days piece last year. Emma Ross of Photowonder reminds us that their services are available on-line and via retailers such as Jessops, Snappy Snaps and that Gavin Hirst is due to become a dad again next Monday.

Mike Jennings of Avenue the smart procurement people, subs for Justin Beavis whose job is to impove the core services of businesses and next him is a visitor from BRX Southend, Alan Hopgood of Kendlebell providing telephone answering and virtual office services. New visitor and former flatmate of Gavin M-H is Claire Garabedian of Inwater Flowers.

Yours truly at in2 Consulting is happy to give a testimonial for mortgage broker Mike Chan of www.bizcash.co.uk when a chum wanted to find out a lender who would lend on woodland and quickly provided a website link to specialists in just this kind of lending. As a change from my bread and butter life and pensions business, my own two meetings yesterday at the Institute of Directors went well with two entrepreneurs looking for investors and non-executive directors so that they can retire in 5 years.

After 3 weeks, Mab of Opus Telecom finally brings in the promised Blackbery Storm for us to see but it is a dummy and makes you wonder what Blackbery’s marketing department does to fill the day. Sanjeev Shah’s HSBC 10 minutes generates a lot of interest with their BizDirect Account and Secure e-payments product giving him the most referrals ever and they are now back lovely new offices at 196 Oxford Street.

Most uplifting moment of the meeting is from master-coach George Metcalfe, who made it to the meeting after getting to bed at 5am and telling us about Schubert’s impromptus – perhaps they do them on iTunes??

Have a good weekend

George Emsden

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Our litigator Paul Marmor of Sherrards solicitors kicks off the 60 seconds with details of debt recovery seminars in February in St Albans while 4 days into his new job, Gavin Morton-Holmes is following his destiny as a pen salesman which also happens to be the name of his new employer Destiny plc. His 10 minutes shows the incredible amount of computing power available in what is basically a smart chubby fountain pen. Writing on special paper allows the pen to pick up pen strokes and get the signature or writing back to the office in 30 seconds using the mobile handset as a relay. Images can be taken too and this should be a boon for companies with people out in the field as it will enable invoices for example, to be sent out more quickly.

Hiten of Revolution Creative brings two brochures and needs someone who can do copywriting in Welsh. Karelia of Manse & Garret is the first of 3 people looking for intros to private banks and seems to have good standing with Hollywood producers wishing to find nice accomodation for stars when filming in London. In a nice touch, she mentions that negotiating on the rent can sometimes cover their fee. Fiona of Only Connect Solutions is following up lunch with 40 private banks at the Reform Club – the banks know what to do where charity is concerned but CR seems new territory for them.

James of HSBC informs us with a grin that he still has a job. This is probably safer than some of his professional colleagues in other banks as currently, his employer is the largest bank in the world in terms of market capitalisation. Mike Nightingale of Green Park Insurance Services explains the 3 stage process used in arranging insurance for his HNW clients: inventory, check existing insurance and then talking to underwriters. Ideal referral would be, you’ve guessed it….private banks!

These interesting times encourage yours truly at in2 Consulting to have friendly fireside chats with clients while keeping a beady eye on our portfolios. One of these is giving cause for concern so we are taking modest profits and moving out of there and into cash. People having with-profits investments have cause to worry.

Mike Chan of Shadow Finance has no trackers as many of these mortgage products have been pulled after the Old Lady’s (Bank of England if you have not done “O” level economics) panic interest rate reduction yesterday. Des Sutton of Man Bites Dog is a new member filling the IT slot while Mab of Olive Communications shows his creativity in solving a communication problem where his client’s offices were in the basement and out of reach of signals from the ether.

Lewis of Joseph Sterling Jewellers is back from his Big Apple marathon with a time of 4h 30m 20s and has a gong to prove it. We all learn what a blossom necklace looks like at first hand – this one, made from platinum with 5 and half carats of diamonds – to you??? £12,500.

Master coach George Metcalfe has become a brand after taking guidance from copywriter Caroline Hampstead picking up a referral out of the blue and giving us the headine above – listen carefully, as people are not always actually saying what you think they are saying. Red Talidi of serviced-office company Abbey Business Centres subs for Lousie Hassett of Delfont Mackintosh where the Prince of Wales theatre now has a wedding licence.

Maurice Press of Disability Resource Team does his 60 seconds in rhyme giving Alexis of The Happiness Centre a tough act to follow which she manages very well asking for good massage therapists as referrals.

Mike Jennings of Avenue UK the intelligent procurement people is working with property developer Berkeley Homes who are looking at ways of saving money, pointing out that his remuneration is taken over the life of the contract rather than upfront as a lump-sum. Quote of the meeting has to be from Alexis who noticed a catching slogan on the side of a glazier’s van, Your pane is our pleasure!

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