The Cost Detectives

What can you expect to see in a BNI meeting?

The Cost Detective — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:05:20 +0000

If you’ve never been to a BNI meeting before, then you are in for a treat. Here is a step by step guide to what you can expect when you come along to one of the meetings at our Acorn group.
You should aim to arrive no later than 11.45am (other BNI groups are available mostly at the crack of dawn). On arrival in the room, you will be met by one of the team to help you with signing in and choosing your lunch. To cover the cost of each meeting and the lunch there is a nominal charge of £10. After signing in and getting your receipt and a visitor’s name badge you will be introduced to the other members of the team especially those who would be a great connection for your business. You will not be left to fend for yourself.
Grab yourself a coffee and you’ll discover all the members to be a friendly and welcoming bunch and you will get an opportunity to start getting to know everyone. Most of the team is there by 11.30am so if you want to meet us then, please join us.
At 12 everyone sits down for the meeting to commence, Lunch is served during the meeting. The Chapter Director welcomes the group, introduces BNI and specifically welcomes visitors to the meeting. The Management Committee will stand and introduce themselves then the Education Co-Coordinator will stand and introduce the education speaker for the day.
At this point the 60 second round will begin. This is each attendee’s opportunity to tell the group who they are, what they do and how they can help clients. In this Chapter the order of presentations is generally determined by the order of arrival of members.
All the members take their turns first followed by visitors. You’ll have plenty of time to decide what to say as you listen to the others speak as your turn will be after all the others.. It’s worth giving some thought to this before you arrive but don’t, just read something out. You can also inform the group as to what kind of referrals you would prefer to receive. If there is a particular type of client you would like to be introduced to, this is your chance to say It’s perfectly ok if you want to read it off a piece of paper. Most of our team do.
The next section is the ten minute member’s slot where one member will give a talk on a subject relating to their business, and outline how we can best find them business.
The business card box will go around to each member. A full pack of everyones cards will be given to you at the end so no need to worry about going through the box. This is the opportunity for you to hand around your cards to the members.
The next section is the referrals round. Each member in turn will stand and talk briefly about one of the referrals they have found for another member of the team, a referral is an opportunity to do business for one of the team members. You may also hear one or two testimonials from one member to another. You maybe be asked for any brief feedback on the meeting just say how handsome the Chapter Director is!
There will also be a quick referral reality check where a couple of referrals from a previous meeting are chosen just to make sure the opportunities are real.
The final sections are reports from members of the Management Committee on Membership, Referrals and how the group is performing as a whole. Also from the referrals passed earlier in the meeting one is selected randomly and the member making the referral wins a small door prize. There will then be some announcements about training and the all important next social event and finally the Chapter Director will close the meeting at about 1.30pm.
Immediately following the meeting a member of the team will conduct an orientation session for visitors to answer any questions that they may have and outline what is involved in becoming a member of our BNI Chapter. Then you are free to network with the other members and visitors.
So that is it. Meetings often have a bit of banter and are quite a relaxed environment with the Director engaging enough control to ensure, what is after all a business meeting, finishes on time each week.
Don’t forget to bring along loads of business cards, and be ready to have a relaxed time.
If you want to visit our group or any other just let me know and I can point you in the right direction. Remember if you have not been to a meeting yet then you have no idea if it is for you or not, that’s why we encourage you to come along and visit.
Marcus King
The Cost Detective
BNI Acorn North London

MarcusKing@TheCostDetectives.co.uk

BNI Acorn Meeting 16 February 2011

The Cost Detective — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 13:46:30 +0000

Acorn BNI 2011 02 16

Have a look at our new weekly report see if you can help any of our team or if you see contacts that you would like just let me know

Charities in Trouble?

The Cost Detective — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:35:57 +0000

With all the cut backs here in the UK especially on the government side it looks like a lot of the charities are going to be under tremendous pressure over the next few years.

Not quite sure how that fits in with the “Big Society” idea from our Prime Minister but maybe a little early to pass judgement.

I wonder if businesses will come to the fore and help out the charities or are they too busy looking inwards at there own problems.

I thought I would try and do my bit by offering my services free to charities, as it looks like they can do with all the help they can get!

Anyone like to follow suit ?

Watch Out for those utility Companies!

The Cost Detective — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:09:36 +0000

Once again I have had a client who thought they were way over their yearly electricity contract ,so were free to move.

Unbeknown or hidden in the very small print was a roll over term, this company was rolled over for two years! The rate they are locked into is about 30% too high!

Check your contracts and make sure you give notice at the appropriate time.

The better news is that the authorities have stepped in for small and medium users and new rules are in place which should avoid this happening. But this is only for new contracts from now so all the old contracts and roll overs will be around for years yet.

If you need any help with this or do not know where your contract is just drop me a line and I can find out for you.

The Cost Detectives Free Cost Saving Tip 125

The Cost Detective — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:09:42 +0000

For the new year its time to make a few business resolutions and of course top of the list will be to get a Cost Detective in to check over your costs on a no win no fee basis of course!
The tip this week concerns a great package for communicating with your potential clients and tracking them all through the sales cycle and beyond using ACT! the number 1 selling Contact and Customer Manager software.

FREE TIP: Click here, The Cost Detectives , to get a free trial of ACT! 2010 then you can see if it is as good as everyone says it is and if its useful for your business, .

Don’t forget our blog to see all the Free Tips we have sent out so far and leave some of your own Cost Detectives Blog

The Cost Detectives Free Cost Saving Tip 124

The Cost Detective — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:07:32 +0000

The Government is still giving away money, but this time to businesses who are trying to reduce their costs.
If you wish you could afford to buy that piece of energy saving kit so you could cut down on your power costs, now you can!
If you do not know how to save on your huge electricty costs we will have the answer with a clever piece of kit that reduces power consumption by up to 20%, just drop me a line and I will send you some details.

FREE TIP: The Carbon Trust is offering free money to most SMEs who are buying energy saving kit, you pay back the interest free loan from the savings you make on the power costs, click here Cost Detectives for the eligibility criteria which almost all of you will fall into. If you are looking for some clever kit to reduce your costs just drop me a line.

Don’t forget our blog to see all the Free Tips we have sent out so far and leave some of your own Cost Detectives Blog

Regards
Marcus King
www.thecostdetectives.co.uk

PS. Remember we not only save costs but we challenge the existence of costs!

The Cost Detectives Cost Saving Tip 123

The Cost Detective — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:02:13 +0000

A tip for all those who have to do meetings away from base! For a poultry 55pence per day!

FREE TIP: For those of you who do meetings away from home and need a smart place to meet why not try www.regus.co.uk for 55 pence per day you get free walk in access to more than 1,000 business lounges and cafes throughout the world. You also get free tea coffee and free internet access. No more perching on tables at coffee bars for me.

Don’t forget our blog to see all the Free Tips we have sent out so far and leave some of your own Cost Detectives Blog

Regards
Marcus King
www.thecostdetectives.co.uk

The Cost Detectives Free Cost Saving Tip 122

The Cost Detective — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:36 +0000

Winter is coming does that mean your cash receipts have to freeze? Not at all , this weeks tip is a very simple one that everyone thinks is a great idea but they just have not done it.

FREE TIP: If you have an overdue debt chaser in your team make sure they spend most of the time not chasing overdue debts. Get them to call before the debt is due, “have you had our invoice?”, “any issues with it that I can help with?”, “still OK for the 6th for a payment?” A call before the debt is actually due can pay huge dividends in terms of collection days. Give it a go for a few months you will be presently surprised.

Extra Tip :Nov’s Will Aid month: Over 1,100 solicitors UK-wide are part of the Will Aid charity scheme, where they’ll draft you a free will, hoping you’ll donate a non-compulsory £75 (less than it’d usually cost privately), which goes to the NSPCC, Action Aid, Red Cross & others, just go to www.willaid.org.uk to find your nearest solicitor, not having a will is madness for anyone and creates havoc for those left behind!

Don’t forget our blog to see all the Free Tips we have sent out so far and leave some of your own Cost Detectives Blog

Regards
Marcus King
www.thecostdetectives.co.uk

PS. My last 5 clients saved an average of 20% off their electricity bills why not send me yours and we will see what we can do!

The Cost Detectives Free Cost Saving Tip 121

The Cost Detective — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:58:20 +0000

For you UK readers half term is almost over so hang in there and the kids will soon be back to school. A special extra tip for you this week, (and the kids). One of the biggest measures Google uses to push your website up the page list are how many people connect to you, so how many people are connected to you? This weeks free tip tells you how many and who, fantastic free tool

FREE TIP: Its important to manage your connections, increase them as much as you can.How do you know who is connected to you now? Go to www.Addme.com type in your full URL where requested a list of other sites that are connecting to you will then appear. You can also keep an eye on your competitors to see who they are connected to in case you have missed anything obvious when trying to make connections.

Extra Tip :Both Vue and Cineworld offer some great deals for kids and parents on Saturday and Sunday mornings either £1 or 95p per ticket both adults and children. Try either link depending on who is closer to , paying those prices makes the popcorn taste sweeter! Vue or Cineworld.

If you think your business is ready for a cost health check then just let me know and we can start saving you money straight away. Don’t forget our blog to see all the Free Tips we have sent out so far and leave some of your own Cost Detectives Blog Regards Marcus King

www.thecostdetectives.co.uk PS. Saved 1/3 off two clients BT Telephony bills this week why not send me yours and we will see what we can do!

The Cost Detectives Free Cost Saving Tip 120

The Cost Detective — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:42:00 +0000

A great service I came across recently is a site where you can post a project or a job that needs doing , and we are talking Financial Accounts, websites, IT , Property, Safety the list goes on and on, it has been described as “Like Ebay , but for business” You simply describe the project that you need to get done and rated experts will quote you a figure they will do it for.

FREE TIP: The website is www.peopleperhour.com The best part is they are so confident of success that they will give you a free project listing to start you off and then 100% guarantee after that. Certainly worth a look, and for you smaller companies register on the supply side again costs nothing to start.

I try and keep these Tips as short as possible, but if you ever need anymore information about how they will save you real money then just drop me an email.

Do not forget our Cost Detectives Blog , leave your own tips or just read all ours we have sent out so far.

Also remember our new service the Cost Checker where you can email us a copy of any invoice and we will check to see if you are getting a good deal or not, for free!

Regards
Marcus King BCA MIoD
marcusking@thecostdetectives.co.uk
For more information have a look at the Cost Detectives website.
If you would like to link with me on LinkedIn just use my email address above