As I was driving home in a horrible snowstorm, I had the idea for a new feature for my blog. I’m a networking coach right? Introductions are my stock in trade. Maybe, just maybe, I should introduce my readers to people and organizations I find worthy of knowing. During the drive, I came up with lots of people I could write about, and I knew I had a good one. Look for a new feature person/organization every other Friday.

Some of the people will be ones I’ve known a long time. Some only a short, but all of them will have a reason I think you should know them. And if I have an existing or previous business relationship, I’ll disclose that. The only thing I won’t disclose is whether or not they have been clients because that’s a violation of my professional ethics.

I thought I should start with the person who spawned the idea (though he didn’t know it at the time.)

Meet Simon Turner of Strategic Practical Thinking

The first thing inquiring minds want to know is “Simon, is your middle initial ‘P’, and you were trying to turn your initials into your company name?”

Now that I’ve embarrassed Simon, let me discuss why I think you should know him.

I haven’t known him long. We met last November at an event where I was speaking. We chatted, and he said he was a marketing and business consultant. I’ve known lots of them in my time in business, and mostly they don’t impress me. But something about Simon sparked my interest, and we agreed to hook up later.

He actually called me the next day, which always makes a favorable impression on me.

Our first meeting was great. Simon looks at all of a business, not just a few parts, and I know how important that is. His stories about how he has turned around other businesses resonated with me. It’s obvious we have a similar approach to doing business, and he knows a lot more than I do about how to grow medium to large companies. I need that knowledge base to refer, and I’m glad I’ve found it.

We agreed to a follow up meeting, and that meeting was Wednesday. In fact, he’s the reason I left McLean late and took 3 1/2 hours to get home. But it’s okay. We had a great meeting.

Simon knows how to take a complex topic and break it down to make it simple. He demonstrated that in our meeting when we were brainstorming about a future co-branded presentation. He scribbled out a tree of related businesses, and within minutes, we had three to target for upcoming presentations. I’ve seen committees take hours to get to the same conclusions, and I think we did it in about 5 minutes.

I’ve made introductions on his behalf, and he’s working on some for me. I see a great future strategic partnership in the works, and I’m delighted. I’ve been looking for a Simon Turner for a couple of years now, and I think I’ve found him.

Did I mention that he sent me a cool checklist to make it easy for me to find referrals for him? Let’s see if I got it right.

If you or a business you know is struggling with a website, sales, marketing communications or a business plan, Simon can help. What might be some specific things you could listen for?

1. I think I need to hire some staff, but I’m not sure exactly when or how I’m going to ramp up to that point.

2. The focus of my business has changed in the last couple of years, but my business plan hasn’t. Do you know anyone who can help?

3. I’ve got a good stream of prospects, but none of them are closing. What should I do?

If any of those sound familiar, contact Simon. Or if you’d rather, touch base with me, and I’ll introduce you directly.

What do you think? Like the Feature Friday idea? If you do, stop by in two weeks and meet the company that saved my ass when the IRS audited a company I used to own.

Tags: Feature Friday

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 9:39 am and is filed under Feature Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.