Helen Williams, the wordsmith

Helen Williams, the wordsmith and copywriter, was out guest speaker last week.

Helen is running a wordsmith business in Langley, BC, helping business owners provide content for the websites, prepare newsletters and doing research. Helen has many years of experience of writing for tourism industry of British Columbia and is well known member of our Langley community.

It was great to hear Helen's tips of how to write best to the web and all those subtle nuances about formatting and color selection. Multiple questions and comments from the audience generated a very interesting dialog about the content of the web for business in general.

We would like to thank Helen for visiting us and hope to see her again.

Those who would like to learn more about Helen's business can visit her website http://williamscopywriting.ca/

The Pitchman

Great meeting today! Thanks you so much guys for listening so carefully my presentation, I appreciate it. Regarding that book of Malcolm Gladwell, which was mentioned please see it here:


What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures


The chapter about salesman is called "The Pitchman". It is quite interesting reading indeed. Those of us who has to persuade people a lot while making a sale might find it useful and even somewhat inspiring.

Golf as tax deductible entertainment

As all business owners know, certain types of entertainment can be tax deductible for business. For example, if you take a client to a hockey game to seal the deal, half of it can be written off. Well, that is not the case for golf at the moment although there is a chance it might change in the nearest future. In this article it is explained what would be rationale behind it:

Canadians debate tax and golf

I am not sure if our group has any golfers but if this tax project comes through OK, some might consider to become one for Walnut Grove has several great golf courses. It may not happen at all - I have double checked with an experienced accountant about the topic and was told that actually chances for passing that tax bill are fairly slim.

But the most shocking news is that golf in Canada is more popular than ice hockey. Who knew? Bizarre facts come out from shadow once you start digging into Canadian taxation.

Christmas Celebration at John's house

It was great Christmas celebration at John's house!

Almost all group could make it and get together in John Horchik home in Surrey. Friendly talks and fantastic Thai food delivered by Scott and Fanta created good holiday environment. To observe John's way of making coffee was especially exciting - scientific almost alchemy process with vessels more suitable for chemical experimentation rather than drink preparation.

Thank you John and Emma for opening your house for BBN members. Thank you Scott and Fanta for delicious food. Thank you all for participating.

Merry Christmas!

Passwords and laptops

It was interesting discussion initiated by Ray about password protection and computer safety. Thank you Ray for bringing it up and for the informative printouts.
Just want to get you a link to that data on most common passwords used for ATMs and online banking. Sorry Don I misinformed you about the "mustang" - it is not fifth but tenth, which I believe is still remarkable enough. 
See it here: The ten most common
Also regarding laptop and their safety. Here is an interesting article on software that can mitigate the risk in unpleasant event when laptop is stolen: Retrieving stolen digital devices
Hope none of BNNers would face laptop loss and if you see your password in that list make sure you change it to something less predictable.

BBN Guest: Captured Assets Inventory Services Inc.

Thursday morning was wet and gloomy but our BBN meeting was as usually sunny and bright. Magic touch of Sun Life expert Bob Fletcher some might say and it is hard to imagine anyone who would disagree.
We had guest that morning, Lynn Rimmer of Captured Assets Inventory Services Inc. Lynn has highly specialized business in the niche many of us never heard of - Lynn helps businesses and individuals with detailed cataloging of material assets. It was very interesting to hear Lynn about her business and how it can help people to organize stuff so everything would be taken into consideration. It makes sense since many of us hardly keep track of all our belongings. Lynn just started to build up networking for her business and we really hope she would consider joining BBN as a member.
Matt the Mortgage Man shared with us a very interesting nuance regarding renewal of mortgage.  Too bad banks do not always disclose that clause. Thank you Matt for keeping us up to date.

BBN guest - educational consultant Ira Alexandra

It was a great meeting last Thursday at our new temporary meeting location Classic Bagel Cafe. Lots of people attended and many interesting ideas were expressed and duscussed. Three key events took place.

We had a guest speaker an educational consultant Ira Alexandra, owner of Loadstar Consulting. Ira provided us with detailed description of her business and how she helps enterpreners to detect hidden opportunities and realize business potential. We thank Ira for visiting us and hope to see her again in future. We also were pleased by the fact that Ira found our group via Google search, which means that SEO optimization of our Fraser Valley Business Building Network website kicks in.

Our BBN member Parinya Loptson, owner of Langley Thai Cuisine Restaurant, had a feature presentation of how to make famous Thai rolls. Every BBNer had a chance to prepare that roll. It was easy and delicious. We thank our host Classic Bagel Cafe for assistance in preparation and running of that small cooking class.

Finally our member Chuck Vanderbyl brought up an idea of expansion of BBN operations to international level. Many members might benefit from such expansion for their businesses are scalable in that regard. Idea received warm reception and debate followed of how to implement it. We are currently in the process of development of that idea so more discussion will follow.