Girls! Make Your Mark ambassador and entrepreneur extraordinaire Clare Molyneux tells us about her festive season:
It has been a brilliant year. I have made some absolutely brilliant connections; leading to me not only being featured as one of twenty entrepreneurs in the book ‘Score’ but also winning Cosmopolitan magazine’s “Ultimate Business Woman of the Year”.
So how did the year round up? Were any useful connections made in December?… Of course they were, making connections is a bit like Martini - any time, any place, anywhere.
I was invited by Steve Stuart of ‘The Steve Stuart Partnership’ (not a coincidence) to a dinner held at the Racquets club in Liverpool. The partnership had been on of the co-sponsors of ‘Score’ along with the Royal Bank of Scotland. One of our dance facilitators, Bobbie, works part time at the Racquets Club, so I consoled myself that if the dinner was too dull I would slope off and find him.
The scenario of the meal was totally unexpected in that I thought we would firstly be free to mill about and chat to people and then sit down to eat whilst making small talk with the people sitting next to us. How wrong could I have been?
There was a ‘Score’ of us in attendance (how clever!?!), we were seated on the dot with an elaborate seating plan. I found myself next to a pipe salesman (that’s quite unfair of me, he does own the factory that makes the pipes) and… Steve Stuart.
The first course was served and I was just about to ask Steve how he came up with the name of his company, when the representative from the Royal Bank of Scotland told us that we were to introduce ourselves and tell the rest of the group what we did for a living. During that first course I would have had a better night out at the morgue.
During the second course, the gentleman from RBS picked on a few people around the table to tell us; “What keeps you awake at night?” In my naivety, I thought these people had been “planted”. I was deeply engrossed in my vegetable tart when it became apparent that I would have to share my nocturnal habits with the rest of the group. I find being told what to do quite difficult, my lips twitched to reply; “Caffeine”, though I resisted.
During the last course (sorbet, if you were wondering), the conversation became less like the Spanish Inquisition, and the book’s author, Arrabella McIntyer-Brown, prompted me to share with the group the story of how my business began…after all that talk of OEIOs and ISAs and several other abbreviations that very few people understand but every one seems to nod at when mentioned, I probably could have read them the phone book and they would have though it was funny… I got a good few laughs during my tale.
It was quickly approaching chucking out time and I remember thinking; “Well the food was okay and I’ve been the funniest person here so it hasn’t been all bad, but it has been a bit of a waste of time.”
As I was putting my coat on a woman who had been sitting at the end of the table came over to me. I could remember her name, Angela, from our introductions but what she did for a living escaped me. She was charming, funny and self deprecating – my kinda gal; she told me all about her ten year old daughters’ aspirations to be a playwrite. I told her that she should e-mail me some of the plays over, she passed me her card. Which informed me that she was an investment manager at ‘Rensburg Sheppards’.
Now, for those of you who don’t know (and that can only be a cast of about ten as I haven’t stopped moaning about the fact) - I can’t find a decent investment banker (don’t make your own jokes up please!?!) because everyone that I have had a meeting with has been a gibberish- speaking hybrid descendant of Gordon Geco. Suffice to say and Angela and I are meeting up after Christmas.
Connection made!
Recent Comments