Maria Franzoni Ltd

This month we have been inundated with enquiries – it looks like everyone has clicked into gear after the New Year celebrations! A very positive start to 2012.

Some highlights - David Holland spoke at the CCE event this month giving a business after dinner focusing on Sales and Marketing.

Also this month, Anna and I attended the ABPCO (Association of British Professional Conference Organisers) 2012 Conference. Here we held an exhibition stand and had four speakers in attendance. Graeme Codrington and Peter Cochrane were fantastic keynotes talking about the changes on the horizon in technology, the economy, demography and the environment for companies and how this would affect conferences in future. Adrian Furnham ran two workshops on generational differences in the workplace and how to attract, train and motivate different ages of staff, very enlightening with some really useful and applicable insights for us too. And Tim Oliver brought his David Brent impression to St Paul's Cathedral at the ABPCO evening dinner – he fought off the terrible acoustics in the crypt and got 3 members of the audience to do the David Brent dance with him and then started off the Rockaoke session singing "Free Love on the Free Love Freeway" - super fun!

December was a very positive month for us with several strong bookings including a booking for Jonas Ridderstrale in Shanghai; a 3rd booking for Christopher Pissarides; bookings for Jeremy Paxman and Hamish McRae and a cheeky last minute event in January for Hamish, the most enthusiastic man in the world, Taylor. Events taking place: the highlight was a last minute booking, facilitated by Bindu in the Indian office for Viren Rasquinha, renowned Indian Hockey player, followed closely by yet another booking for Kevin Bridges.

On a social and celebratory front, we launched the latest Christmas video starring Neil Mullarkey which I hope you all enjoyed:

Christmas Video

On December 6th I was lucky enough to go to Manchester to see the Royal Variety show and personally experienced the great atmosphere and fabulous acts, the best of which we intend to get on our books! – For me they were Il Divo and David Garrett, not only the most talented, but most handsome too!!

December 8th and 9th saw us all getting together for our company meeting, what a fantastic meeting that was – personal highlights were hearing from David Miliband, Jo Malone and the ever enthusiastic Hamish Taylor. And then 10 days of rest!!

We've had a productive and good November with new bookings, enquiries and events taking place. All was going so well and then my computer died, fortunately it has been revived but ladies and gents out there – make sure you do your back ups!

Back to November, the highlight of the month was the Save the Rhino Dinner at London Zoo on 13th November where Ken Livingstone and I hosted a table of clients, staff, friends and family. Ken was on fine form – his brief was to speak for 6.5 minutes using 20 slides, of the 7 speakers that night, Ken was the only one to break the rules and not use slides but he delivered an incredible, relevant and thought provoking speech about sustaining the planet and the creatures that live on it. Clive Anderson, at the dinner was an awesome host.

Speaking of great hosts, Alexander Armstrong, Jack Dee and Graham Gooch all did great work for us this month . On the business front, Fons Trompenaars, named no 42 in the Thinkers Top 50, engaged and inspired at a Financial Services internal meeting.

Oh, yes and we recorded our Xmas 2011 video!!

This month I am delighted to have booked Professor Christopher Pissarides for a US client, Christopher is a Professor of Economics at the London of Economics and he won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics (jointly with Peter Diamond of MIT and Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University). He will be talking about the global economy.

I also had the great pleasure of meeting 2 very different but equally successful retail experts, Mary Portas, known as "Mary Queen of Shops" and Nicky Clarke – celebrity hairdresser.

I spent a morning with Mary and her business partner Peter Cross at their offices where I also met Walter the dog and the rest of the Mary Portas' Team. Mary and Peter are inspirational, they focus completely on really understanding the customer and what the customer wants and then how to deliver it. Mary also advocates that the customer experience is the vital part of growing your business and so it has set me thinking about the customer experience we deliver - I will definitely be asking my clients about it!

Nicky Clarke approached me via a client of his, who is also a client of mine, and after an initial chat I went to meet him at his home in St. John's Wood – I have to say it was Fabulous Darlings! Nicky's story is interesting, he began as a celebrity and session stylist and made his name that way – his wife (now ex wife) Lesley Clarke saw his potential and together they built the Nicky Clarke brand into a national and now international brand. Nicky has 4 salons in the UK, a very successful hair care range and an electrical range. As a speaker he tells his story, with some references to his celebrity life style including the challenges he has faced. Nicky has been running a successful business for 35 years in a very competitive field.