The night before my operation in London, I managed to orchestrate a meeting that someone had requested to have with me in Mayfair.
I had to be in London on the Monday night because I had to be at the Cleveland Clinic early on Tuesday morning, so I had to stay somewhere in London and might as well have had this meeting.
I was contacted by someone pretty well-known in dentistry asking if I would be interested in accessing their help (for money).
I was intrigued, but I would never have gone to the meeting if I'd not been in London in any event, it just fitted and suited.
It was a sales meeting, though, I guess I kind of knew that's what it was, but I wasn't entirely sure how it would play out.
I'd already decided that I would let the individual in question buy the dinner, because it was them that was requesting the meeting and so all I would be in for would be the hotel and the train to London, which I was in for anyway, coming for my operation.
The environment was staggering. We went to the May Fair Kitchen, check it out. It's the Radisson Hotel on Stratton Street, called the May Fair. It's in Mayfair, and it's priced accordingly. The surroundings are as you would expect. The cars outside were dazzling, the guys at the door, professional as anything, the stairs looking me up and down as I arrived with my Nike sweatshirt and cargo pants on as they always are, as I like it; quite demeaning.
I checked into my prepaid room and then went and met this individual (for politeness and dignity, I'm not telling you who it is), and then we had dinner.
It was kind of like a very, very posh tapas-style menu from all around the world.
I asked the individual I was having dinner with just to order for both of us, which is my favourite approach to these things. The surroundings and the food were utterly sensational, but it was a sales meeting, and I was being sold.
The environment paves the way, though, and then the sharing of personal information, although I was on my guard to begin with, I was disarmed in the best possible way and had one of the most interesting and extraordinary meetings I've had for a long time.
The ability to share personal information with people that you've only ever met for the first time, and therefore to trust what you're seeing, knowing that what you say doesn't really need to go any further than the table that you're at with the two of you, but the ability to start to build some sort of trust environment, it felt very much like a consultation in the Clinic.
In the end, we finished up, it was clear that then there was a parting of ways there was a, this is what I could offer you if you were interested, there was the necessity to save face and to make space and in the end, I'm not interested, not yet, maybe later, who knows?
No bridges burned, relationships made, I paid half the bill because it was worth it.
We're all selling all the time, and we're all being sold to all the time. It's best that you notice that before you give your time away.
Blog Post Number - 4162
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