The Black Country Chamber Event at the Copthorne Hotel Merry Hill

Today saw the start of us getting back out into the marketplace after spending weeks stuck behind the desk doing the recent upgrade to the Connect WM site.

The Black Country Chamber exhibition event which was being held at the Copthorne Hotel at Merry Hill is where we headed off towards.

It was held this morning between 10.00 am – 12.00 pm – unfortunately, due to parking difficulties we had to park a fair way from the event so we were unable to maximise the time spent there, but the event was well attended and we saw some old faces and some new.

Like any event it’s not wise to run around and talk to absolutely everyone – depending on who is there the best thing is to be selective as to whom you speak to, obviously if you see some local companies you haven’t spoken to before then speak to those before speaking to those local companies that you already know.

Many businesses when they go to such events always end up talking to people whom they already know and before they know what’s happened - time has gone by so quickly that the event is finished and opportunities are lost.

Today at the Black Country event we spoke to Helen Burton-Pye who was representing the Village Hotel in Dudley, Helen and her colleague were giving out muffins and cookies shouting about the fact they have just opened up a Starbucks coffee shop facility at the hotel.

We also spoke with Gail Owen from ‘Smartphone Media’ who are based in Halesowen where we spoke about what we did and Gail spoke about what they did, during which there was a mad rush to stick our business cards in the bowl for a prize draw – neither of us won we hasten to add.

Paul Wynn at Tellit Marketing and Communication Ltd was someone who we’d also never spoken to before and with him, we had quite an in-depth conversation regarding their services, in particular, their photography services.

Funnily enough only last week we’d spoken to a client who asked if we knew of any good photographers, and although we know a fair few we don’t know cost-effective ones who undertake work in the field our client works in.

We said we’d keep an eye out – as they work within the children’s sector so of course, you have to be mindful and satisfy yourself that everything is and will be all above board.

So during our conversation, perhaps it was the barrage of questions, perhaps he didn’t believe the ‘only last week our client asked us thing’, or maybe it was because they just didn’t fancy it - but Paul said that he didn’t feel that this would be a project that they’d be willing to work in – and thankfully we respect Paul for being honest and saying that upfront, as that as we wouldn’t want to be connecting businesses only for them to fail within a working relationship, so soon after the connection is made.

As we were leaving the exhibition we bumped into Debra Lawrence from Lawrence Cleaning Limited based in Willenhall. We had met Debra before but we struggled to remember where - until we established it was an event held in conjunction with Business Link West Midlands and Angela Agnew.

We had a brief conversation as to how things are, and although we’re all working hard it’s nice to know that honesty speaks when saying that things are not bad but could be better. There’s no real point in papering over the cracks, as we all know that things are tough.

Saying things are tough, doesn’t mean sinking, failing, or having your business at risk of being flushed down the pan – it simply means that things are tough and the sad reality is...... things are....!

So it was quite refreshing to hear the realistic reality from Debra, as we say to everyone we help to connect where we can, so we’re now on the lookout for introductions for everyone we have spoken to today.

After the event, we had a pre-arranged meeting with Matthew Chuck from Executive Training and Consultancy Ltd based in Malvern and Dudley.

We know Matthew from old as we first met several years back in the days of BRE networking, where we attended the Birmingham group and Matthew attended the Worcester group.

It was a chance for us to bring Mathew up to speed with both of the Prequire trading styles, namely ‘Connect WM’ and ‘Need to Sort’ and for Mathew to tell us about ETC.

Like with any catch-up meeting, there is always a lot to take in, so no doubt neither of us still has a clear understanding of what each of us does but if we stay connected there’s a chance that we just might.