Manchester Consultancy Day – second helpings a real room filler

The second of RIBA Enterprises' free Consultancy Days attracted a full house at Manchester's Palace Hotel. Its format of a panel discussion and presentations, followed by one-to-one consultancy sessions, is set to be repeated next year.

Over 70 attendees, mainly marketing professionals working within the construction industry, packed the meeting room at Manchester's Palace Hotel on 29 September.

The format and subject matter covered replicated that of the first Consultancy Day, held in London in June, namely presentations from a panel of specialists followed by the opportunity to sit down in a one-to-one consultancy session with the expert of one's choice. The Manchester date, like its London counterpart before it, triggered an avalanche of interest as soon as it was announced. In the interests of fairness therefore, anyone who attended the first event was excluded from registering for the second.

Drawing on their considerable technical experience John Henderson (NBS), Robert Easson (RIBA Enterprises) and Matthew Williams (Quba) outlined ways in which to exploit online marketing opportunities, before Andy Jobling (Levitt Bernstein Associates) and John Murray (NBS Plus) offered an insight into how understanding the specification process provides a key to winning contracts. Finally, Minesh Patel (RIBA) and Peter Roberts (Kemper System) joined Andy Jobling once more to run through some best practice 'do's' and 'don'ts' when presenting CPD to specifiers. To accommodate the extra numbers two additional experts – Simon Morton of Eyeful Presentations and Chris Douglas of NBS – were drafted in for the consultancy sessions.

Feedback from attendees has made it perfectly clear that there is a demand for similar events around the country, and so to that end plans are afoot to organise this. Keep an eye on future issues of Monthly Briefing and our regular printed newsletter Bulletin for details.

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