The Fleming Story

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND - This is not a true story but it has been used many times for inspirational thought.
His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to eke out a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog.
He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.
The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.
"I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life."
"No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the Scottish farmer replied, waving off the offer.
At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel.
"Is that your son?" the nobleman asked.
"Yes," the farmer replied proudly.
"I'll make you a deal. Let me take him and give him a good education. If the lad is anything like his father, he'll grow to a man you can be proud of."
And that he did. In time, Farmer Fleming's son graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.
Years afterward, the nobleman's son was stricken with pneumonia. What saved him? Penicillin.
The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son's name? Sir Winston Churchill.

Social Business, Branding & Blogging Workshop

A Social Business is a relational business that is engaged, transparent and can rapidly change. It engages with it's customers, partners and employees in new and exciting ways. It is transparent  in that it opens up and gives direct access to subject matter experts. And its nimble because it can react really quickly when you get the right people together getting the job done.

Arguably every business is a social business because every business has people in it; and people presumably are intrinsically social.  So I don’t think it’s a question of bringing it into the business, I think it’s a question of unlocking it, but just how do we unlock the intrinsically social within us?

Branding and personal branding in particular is about raising your influence and becoming a key person within your industry, thus becoming a 'Brand within the Brand'. These brands are influential; their names come up in conversation, they attract the right type of opportunities, they earn more and it isn't a struggle - these brands also have more fun. They get invited on trips away, people buy them dinner, they are treated with respect and others listen when they speak.

The interactive workshop will cover these and other interesting questions:

• Social Business - what makes some business more social than others?
• What is effective networking in the new world of Social Media?
• How do we build effective relationships with our customers?
• How effective is building your personal brand within the larger brand of companies?
• What difference will my Blog make amongst the millions already out there?
• How do I manage my time to be socially relevant in business and build my brand at the same time?

Join Richard Simmonds - Social Business Consultant as he workshops through the questions and the challenges that face business and the brands within them in 2013.

These workshops are now available as in-house courses for businesses and organizations.

Social Business #SocBus Are we looking for all possibilities to engage with our clients as opposed to only doing what is expected of us?

Social Media revolves around platforms that are actually tools that we use to interact and engage with others. So what then is social business?

Social business is the new reality of the way we do business and probably the only way we should be doing business.

Are you thinking this is all about online and what about connecting with real customers? Never social business is all those and more it is the way we think and the way we look for new opportunities to engage existing and prospective clients.

It is about relationships and how to strengthen existing relationships and forge new meaningful relationships.

I am suggesting we have a conversation around various topics that make our business more social and that we use the hashtag #SocBus.

Are we looking for all possibilities to engage with our clients as opposed to only doing what is expected of us?