I’ve just been to the Southampton Business Expo, held at the Ageas Bowl. Meant to go along for an hour to help with the 4Networking stand which was never going to happen – me? Not talk to everyone in sight? – and finally get back to the office over four hours later…

Dead giveaway was having someone I’d talked to at least an hour early and having said I was heading towards the door catch up with me having just finished a conversation with yet another person without having reached said door! Bizarrely (or maybe not) much more success in promoting my daughter’s business than my own. Four conversations I need to follow up and pass in her direction. ‘Spose that’s what dads are for.

So what makes a good conversation?

Note I said conversation and not anything sales orientated like pitch. The art of good business is not to sell but get prospective customers to buy. A conversation is also exactly that – two (or more) persons discussing matters – and if said discussions find a potential common ground well and good.

Do you buy from websites?

What makes you happy to buy without having seen the product (normally)?

You part with hard-earned money. Do you do so without some idea that the site has been endorsed by either someone in your peer group or without some endorsement that appears to be genuine?

Do you buy holiday products without looking at TripAdvisor?

Not quite the same with small ticket “stuff” – it’s probably okay to risk a few quid on consumables and the like. Computer cabling – almost certainly buy it on price unless it’s particularly specialist. Batteries, stationery, that sort of thing. But big ticket stuff – and what I am doing is definitely big ticket stuff – I cannot imagine anyone buying without due diligence, without getting to know me first. So talk we do and once you get comfortable in yourself the passion starts to come through in those conversations.

Does in mine anyway!

And people will respect that and come to respect your ability. We could get into the conversation whether you do actually need to be competent before saying you are or whether you take the Richard Branson approach of agreeing to what takes your fancy first and working out how to deliver afterwards but that’s maybe not what I want to talk about just now. Maybe a topic for another day?

I did promise Shaun Farrell of Tillison Consulting I’d give him a name check and mention the December Curry Business networking event that Nigel Prior will be hosting on 6th. Unfortunately double-booked but I would be there if I could!

I am slightly amazed that this post hasn’t got quite so rant-y as a lot but no one’s wound me up too much so far this week.

Oh! I do lie. The Pensions Regulator.

I have an involvement in a pension scheme that may or may not have any members where the pension company will insist on sending paperwork to an address I’ve not been associated with for at least five years which I cannot seem to correct with a trustee who used to be a partner in a business that ceased to exist prior to 2010. There must be hundreds of these tiny moribund schemes and some sort of pragmatic approach is needed because the regulator cannot continue harassing someone to complete a return they do not understand years after they retired! I have a sneaky suspicion the scheme has no assets at all. If I am right, this will be a problem as the online return will not let me complete a value of £Nil… We live in interesting times.

Small aside – Phillip Hammond’s Autumn Statement was singularly uninspiring. Despite anything Theresa May might say, I can’t imagine this is going to help those no so well off people who are probably worse off than they were in 2007/08 and may be about to become significantly worse off as a consequence of measures already in place.