11/14 Recap

Hi all --

A good meeting with fourteen members in attendance, seven excused absences and one guest, Daniel Jones of the Spokane Chiefs, brought by John Sutherland. Should you want to see it, the attendance sheet is posted here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pC3IuhtGzGDN4XkuAfah9CA.... let me know if you can't view it (make sure that you are looking at the 11/14 sheet). Everyone was accounted for with the exception of John Gilchrist, Tami Sevier and Trina Olson. If anyone heard from these folks or if they mentioned at some point that they weren't going to be able to make it, do let me know.

Also, if you had any leads to pass along please send them on to me so that I can record them.

There was no presentation at the meeting but Jason and Genia handed out the new B2B rules and regs for 2008. In addition to new rules/regs, Jason is looking for nominations for group officers for 2008. Something to be thinking of for the next meeting...

There was a discussion about rewarding the most prolific leads producer in our group and how best to do that. One suggestion was to have group members toss $1 into a commonly held pool each time they showed up to a meeting without a lead. At the end of each 6 month period, the top lead producer would be awarded the pool. While there was some enthusiasm for the competitive edge that comes with such an arrangement, there was a concern that such a system may feel, on the balance, more punitive rather than rewarding and might take the group in a direction we would not like for it to go.

An alternate suggestion was to raise the yearly cost of B2B membership (to $60?) and the extra funds would be cared for by the group's treasurer. At six month intervals, the top leads producer would get half of the pool. In effect, each member would be contributing $5 every six months for the prize. Want to increase the size of the pot? Bring in new members and watch it grow.

On a related topic, one other suggestion was to provide rewards to (or acknowledgement of) group members who meet one-on-one outside our normal meeting time. The more knowledgeable we are of each other's specialties can only lead to two things: more leads and more productive leads.

But back to the rewards system... If I understood correctly, Jason would like to have group members email him and vote their preference for providing a semi-annual reward to the top lead producer. The two options right now are "Don't Have a Lead? Toss in $1" vs. "Add $10 to the yearly membership cost." Send Jason your vote right now (jason@americanvanservice.com) as we will be instituting this new system at the beginning of the year but we only have two more meetings (11/28/07 and 12/12/07) left in 2007.

Bookkeeping notes: if y'all would be so kind as to change Troy Watson's email address to troy@printelements.net, then our group's messages will go directly to him instead of the general contact email for the business. On the good news front, Genia shared that Jay Anderson is making a fabulous recovery and plans on rejoining the group in December.

And to wrap up, there are two thing to pass I'd like to pass along: this message will be posted online (http://downtownb2b.blogspot.com/) where comments/suggestions can be made. Secondly, I promised to send along the link to the streaming audio music databases that I mentioned during my 30 second plug, so here it is: http://www.spokanelibrary.org/research/electronicresources.asp#Music To get into the databases, you'll need a Spokane Public Library card issued to either a city resident or to a business located within Spokane city limits.

And that's the wrap.

Cheers,
Mark