I had the honor of speaking at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Global Leadership Conference (GLC) in Manila this past week.  The GLC is a 3 day event that takes place twice a year.  It is an event that brings together the leaders of every chapter of EO from all over the world, this year, Panama City and Manila were the chosen locations.

The topic I spoke on was “Online Tools To Cut Costs And Grow Your Business“.  The 90 minute presentation is a quick run through of many tools that we use within our business to not only operate the company but grow the business.  My business partner and PayrollHero’s CEO Michael Stephenson is the driving force behind many of these tools we use to operate the business.  His constant focus on kaizen (read: improvement) drives our team to continue moving forward.  The second portion of the presentation is about promotion and includes parts from my book Sociable! as well as some of the tools that we use within the company to grow the business.  Many of these tools we have been using for quite some time and some we are testing in Southeast Asia.

I have spoken to quite a few EO Chapters all over the world as well as the 2009 GLCs in Hong Kong and New Orleans and EO always does it right.  The events are top notch, designed to “wow” the EO members and show them the local area. This one in Manila was no exception.

The first night there was an opening cocktail party in the Makati Shangri-la Hotel followed by the choice of 3 dinners put on by EO Philippine members.  I choose the “Taste of Bordeaux”  dinner.  It was a fantastic dinner put on by EO Philippine member Edouard Miailhe who splits his time between Manila and Bordeaux where his family owns Chateau Siran Margaux winery.  The dinner was at the ‘Old Manila’ restaurant in The Peninsula Hotel which was kindly opened up for the event.  Edouard had paired 6 of his wineries wines with a fantastic dinner and explained how they came to be.  It was a truly once in a life time event.

The next day, after the sessions for the leaders of each chapter were complete, EO organized a dinner at the Shangri-la Hotel. It was quite a spectacle   They presented dinner in a way I had never seen before.  About 6 roasted pigs were dressed in clothes and carried into the ballroom with quite a fanfare, followed by a talk from the creator of the very successful “Its More Fun In The Philippines” worldwide marketing campaign.

The last night was a big surprise as no one knew what was in store.  Everyone (over 400 people) was told to be in the lobby of the Shangri-la to meet our transportation to dinner.  EO had organized a whole bunch of air-conditioned jeepneys to take us to the National Museum of the Philippines.  It was a great ride as all of the jeepneys had karaoke in them.  Upon arrival to the museum, waiting to welcome us outside was a great band, multiple spot lights shooting into the air and the whole outside of the building lit up.  One foot in the door and there were many servers standing by with wine.  It was a great way to arrive at dinner.  After dinner we were transported by bus to a new nightclub called Hyve that has not officially opened yet.  Overall it was another amazing EO event and the EO Philippine team as well as EO Global should be very proud.