Sci-Tech Daresbury

When you're growing a business, you have - unless you are very lucky - a lot of concerns, and principle amongst those, usually, is where am I going to get new business from? If you're selling products to the public, then advertising is usually the answer to that question. A friend of mine used to be able to generate fifty new enquiries from an advert on the front page of the Westmorland Gazette. I was so envious.

If you're selling services rather than products it can be a lot more complicated and you will rely to some extent on word of mouth (which is, by the accepted wisdom, the best way to get a sale). And so you find yourself susceptible to invitations to networking events, breakfast networking clubs, and the like. You might not want to go to that Chamber of Commerce meeting but what if you end up sat next to somebody who does need what you're selling? It can become almost superstitious. 

After a while, of course, you realise where the opportunities are likely to come from and, for the most part, you stop worrying about attending every single event. (Which is a great place to get to if, like me, you hate the indignity of networking.)

Recently, though, a chap from NHS Innovations let me know that he was going to a conference where he anticipated meeting some influential people and asked if I could send him some of our brochures to take along. It sounds good, doesn't it? These things always do. But as I have been busy recently, not least with last week's presentation, I didn't get 'round to sending them.

The conference is tomorrow and so I've missed the boat on posting the brochures to get them to this chap, David, in time, but this morning it was bugging me. I don't know why - I don't think David taking twenty of our brochures is really likely to lead to anything - but in the end I popped them in the car along with some branded pens and post-it note pads, and drove down to David's office in Daresbury. 

It was a nice day for a drive and it was only an hour or so each way and maybe that opportunity for a trip out was at the back of my mind, too, but whatever, around half-one I arrived at the 'Sci-Tech Daresbury' technology park and dropped everything off. I took a few minutes to stretch my legs before getting back in the car and took this photo while I was at it. I like the juxtaposition of the modern technology park with the old school power station in the background.

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Reading: David McCourt's 'Total Rethink'