So the rain continued to pour until I left Reading – and then the skies cleared but, as predicted, I spent some of the afternoon making some new friends as we all sat on the M25, waiting for an accident to clear.

The benefit of leaving early and giving myself some reserves of travel time was that I arrived in Gatwick in plenty of time to prepare for the second evening presentation – this time in a much larger and better room.
Sadly, my customer service experience with the hotels continues to be very poor. I stayed 5 miles from our conference venue last night – on the way to the venue, I asked the receptionist at my hotel for directions.
Q: “Could you give me directions to the Gatwick Europa please?”
A: “I don’t have a car so I haven’t a clue.”
That was the end of the conversation as far as Erica was concerned – a lady who looked as if a smile would break her face.
Ah well – in my next life maybe I should coach hotel staff.
Starting with:
A: “No problem Mr. Barrow, I don’t know that myself but I’ll find out for you.”
It’s not that complicated is it?
Over 70 people arrived for the evening and, this time, there were plenty of team members along for the session – my perfect environment, a large room, loads of guests and an opportunity to poke some gentle fun at principals and make the teams giggle.
As a result, Chris Barrow was live and uncut last night – we had a blast and even queueing for food at the 8.00pm break was acceptable.
I also believe in giving them work to do during the presentation, so last night I had the delegates complete their own Clean Sweep 100 and also a Dedicated Dentist 100.

Loads of enquiries at the end of the session – I focused my “close” after a poor finish in Reading – and I’m now sitting with a pile (30) of enquiry forms from principals who want to

• susbscribe to the ezine
• access the free downloads from our web site and
• receive a free 60-minute audio CD on the Dental Business School

Of course, we now have to transform that into clients – so that’s where Team CB will mobilise in the days ahead.
My evening is topped off with a text from Paul to say that he has signed a new DBS client today – great stuff.
And I should pay tribute to Hugo, the young guy who helped organise the room last night. In spite of his imperfect command of English, nothing was too much trouble – moving tables, bringing extra chairs in, timing the food a little later – and so I gave him a £10 tip at 10.30pm last night and he looked shocked and then smiled and said “thank you” – I’ve probably doubled his wages for the day – but he was worth it – an unrecognised ambassador for his hotel.
I’ve spent the morning on-line and I’m just about to drive down to Southampton for gig 3.