My oh my, did we have a treat for our diners this week. Those of you who had the pleasure of joining us at NatWest‘s private dining room at Drummond, Charing Cross, had a truly exceptional evening filled with food, history, networking and business know-how. Before we venture any further into this dinner roundup, we must inform you our speaker invoked Chatham House Rule.

Which means:

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

So, whilst we can fill you in on what happened – we can’t reveal who provided the information or quotes that lie herein. But we hope you enjoy the roundup anyway!

The evening began with a lovely mini tour of Drummond led by the Head Waiter, Guy, before everyone sat down for dinner, regaling the history of the bank, including a lot of anecdotes about famous clients and various artworks on the walls. With a stunning trio of starters, mains and desserts, diners were presented with a cheese course during which Eric started his speech.

With a background that includes being born in Alabama, North Carolina, attending Harvard Law School, working for AOL, Mobile Posse and now SwiftKey, Eric has a wealth of experience in securing distribution and monetising businesses. After his speech, the group discussion moved on to topics such as, how do you get engagement, and how do you get distribution? The succinct response was:

Viral. Good luck. Have fun – I praise you if you can do it!

When the group talked about mistakes, and what were the biggest people had made, the insightful answer was to identify what your assets are and work to your strengths. Too many people spend too much time trying to do things that they’re either not equipped to do, or simply not good at!

It was established that the success of a product, in the eyes of one diner, had nothing to do with “making a small tweak”. What it ultimately boiled down to was: Distribution.

And remember:

Time is not your friend.

Diners that joined Eric included: Purple Stone Rooms, LawBite, Airdates.co, Script Boutique, CaterClub, Eleks, My Vocal Therapy amongst others.

A massive thanks goes to our partner NatWest for providing their phenomenal private dining venue and Eric Collins for a fantastic talk and Q&A session.

Click here for a full list of our latest TableCrowd dinners.

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. – See more at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/about/chatham-house-rule#sthash.xqUkH7B1.dpuf

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. – See more at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/about/chatham-house-rule#sthash.xqUkH7B1.dpuf