Maria Franzoni Ltd

A very hectic March with some great highlights. Biggest one being a trip to Rome accompanying Paul McKenna. Paul delivered a full day of content covering techniques to increase confidence, business strategy advice, how to deal with trauma, changing your attitude to wealth and ending on Zen relaxation. He left a 900 plus audience very happy and even got me up on stage to help out with translating. I also appeared on Italian TV when Paul gave an interview and again I translated for him. Fame at last!

We also had two big comedy bookings this month that were very last minute to finalise but both comedians, Patrick Kielty and Lenny Henry delivered great shows for two large retail customers. 

Another very busy start to the month, with plenty of enquiries and bookings.

Bob Pritchard, marketing speaker, contacted us about guests for his radio show, which deals with starting up and successfully running your own business. We introduced him to various speakers and he chose and interviewed Caspar Berry; risk speaker and former international poker player. You can hear the interview here: www.voiceamericabusiness.com. We hope to provide him with others.

Anna attended a comedy showcase at Hackney Empire hosted by Avalon. Alex Horne's Section were comperes for the evening and very entertaining and interactive with the audience. They would be a great choice for entertainment at an event. The bill was topped by Jimmy Carr.

Events taking place this month focused very much on consumer behaviour and how the technology has impacted on how consumers buy – 2 speakers who delivered great content on this very subject were Merlin Stone and Peter Cross.

This month we have been inundated with enquiries – it looks like everyone has clicked into gear after the New Year celebrations! A very positive start to 2012.

Some highlights - David Holland spoke at the CCE event this month giving a business after dinner focusing on Sales and Marketing.

Also this month, Anna and I attended the ABPCO (Association of British Professional Conference Organisers) 2012 Conference. Here we held an exhibition stand and had four speakers in attendance. Graeme Codrington and Peter Cochrane were fantastic keynotes talking about the changes on the horizon in technology, the economy, demography and the environment for companies and how this would affect conferences in future. Adrian Furnham ran two workshops on generational differences in the workplace and how to attract, train and motivate different ages of staff, very enlightening with some really useful and applicable insights for us too. And Tim Oliver brought his David Brent impression to St Paul's Cathedral at the ABPCO evening dinner – he fought off the terrible acoustics in the crypt and got 3 members of the audience to do the David Brent dance with him and then started off the Rockaoke session singing "Free Love on the Free Love Freeway" - super fun!

December was a very positive month for us with several strong bookings including a booking for Jonas Ridderstrale in Shanghai; a 3rd booking for Christopher Pissarides; bookings for Jeremy Paxman and Hamish McRae and a cheeky last minute event in January for Hamish, the most enthusiastic man in the world, Taylor. Events taking place: the highlight was a last minute booking, facilitated by Bindu in the Indian office for Viren Rasquinha, renowned Indian Hockey player, followed closely by yet another booking for Kevin Bridges.

On a social and celebratory front, we launched the latest Christmas video starring Neil Mullarkey which I hope you all enjoyed:

Christmas Video

On December 6th I was lucky enough to go to Manchester to see the Royal Variety show and personally experienced the great atmosphere and fabulous acts, the best of which we intend to get on our books! – For me they were Il Divo and David Garrett, not only the most talented, but most handsome too!!

December 8th and 9th saw us all getting together for our company meeting, what a fantastic meeting that was – personal highlights were hearing from David Miliband, Jo Malone and the ever enthusiastic Hamish Taylor. And then 10 days of rest!!