What a great meeting we had yesterday at BNI Casterbridge in Dorchester, Dorset. It was helped along enormously by two fantastic presentations by Dominic Brittain and Nick Stubbs who too the education and ten minute slots respectively.

According to Dominic who works with leaders across the globe, helping them to improve their leadership abilities, the key to both happiness and great business lies in two truths:

The first is to use your gifts and the second is to be altruistic (which is the true meaning behind the BNI philosophy of Givers Gain) that is doing things without hope or expectation of reward or gain.

However, to truly use both of these you have to listen and really hear what people are saying to you and listening in this sense is not just about hearing what they are saying, it’s about understanding the emotional content of what they are saying and the support they are looking for.

As Dominic pointed out, when both of these truths combine they create enormous value in terms of both trust for you and your services and your reputation grows which as we all know creates huge advantages for both referrals and negotiation.

Nick’s presentation gave us a great insight into how his business, FreeFly Multimedia has developed over the years and he gave us a fantastic slideshow and commentary of just a tiny sample of the award winning photography he can provide for both weddings and commercial organisations.

Being just a photographer however wasn’t quite enough and he was able to show how he has used the advice that Dominic gave in the education slot to great effect as he teaches people how to use their DSLR cameras through his own teaching and learning website. If you are interested in learning how to make the most of a new digital SLR camera then you really should take a look at his site http://www.atpmembers.com