Travelling and thinking

Thursday morning, waiting at the airport for a flight to Bristol, the a long drive to Leeds for a dental speaking gig tonight.

Last night I spoke in Dublin “fair city” and enjoyed a couple of pints of the black stuff afterwards.

Good session last night. Invited by a dental laboratory who have opened up in Ireland, with technicians based in Hong Kong. They are shipping the work to and from HK to Ireland and claim a 40% reduction in prices and superior quality. Southern Cross Dental Laboratory. I shared the speaking platform with the co-author of Profitable Dental Practice, Prof Phil Newsome. That’s the second time we have ever met!

As always, I enter a speaking gig with no idea of “how it will go” and have to take the rough with the smooth.

Last night (fittingly) it was the smooth that won out – just under 50 in attendance, mainly dental business owners and CB on form in spite of jet-lag. I presented a 45-minute version of Strategy 3 “Control your finances” and they loved it.

Then the God of opportunity stepped in and I was approached by an Irish dentist who runs training programmes for other dentists. He asked me to come back and do a 1-day special, which could lead on to opening a coaching group here later in 2005. That’s how the marketing funnel works.

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A client (dentist) wrote to me yesterday and (in a very courteous way) mentioned that receiving pictures of me sat on Lake Como or looking out from my Vancouver hotel room, didn’t really help when she is struggling to make her business better.

This made me stop and think. I recall a coaching client complaining last year that a photo of me grinning as I sat on the bonnet of my new Pontiac GTO had really p****ed her off.

I responded that the majority seem to find the “ups and downs of CB” an inspiration and, in fairness, I do write about the bad days as well as the good. Maybe I should start sending photographs of myself when I’m depressed or when it all goes wrong?

It’s not a big point, I’m glad she raised it – but if you have any views I would welcome them.