OK Helen Rosamond is not the first dodgy event manager to surface in Sydney (I reckon that would have been a member of the rum corps) but she is the first I know of to be handed a 15 year stretch for her efforts.

I was going to do a piece on this but Ian Whitworth beat me to it – and he had first-hand experience with the Human Group.

In his blog Whitworth talks about cash deals.

I know someone who, in an account manager role, had to deliver a suitcase containing $200,000 in cash to the event managers of an international multilevel marketing group. He dropped it off at their hotel like a caricature movie bagman.

The client came from a country where the cash briefcase is a standard term of business, no more remarkable than paying sales tax here. 

I have a pretty good idea which country he is referring to – we were doing a job through a reputable local event management company who was working for an overseas group who were producing an event in Sydney for an international multilevel marketing group (sound familiar?). The event manager told me to not deliver any files until he had been paid (he needed some surety after the event).  And then sure enough the payment came in cash.

But it’s not only dodgy foreigners. Remember how the introduction of GST was going to wipe out the black economy? What the GST ushered in was the phrase “how much discount for cash?”  I still get it in my photography business (but not very often). 

But back to Whitworth. Do yourself a favour – have a read…

$70K outfits and pallets of Bollinger: inside Human Group’s $19M NAB events fraud

By the way Human Group Linked page might be still live but the website domain is for sale – anyone up for it?

And speaking of kickbacks this article by Ian also strikes a chord with anyone working in events.

Dealing with people who want you to work for free

It’s amazing how many salaried people will straight-up ask suppliers to work for their company for free. Would they do their job for free? Do they report to a CEO who works for free?

I have sometimes asked this of particularly shameless scavengers. They seem quite mystified by the question, like us doing free work vs them doing it personally are completely different things.

Because, in their mind, they are so great that any association with their brand is something everyone would want.

“We don’t have the budget for it,” they will say.

I’m sorry, that’s your problem, not mine.

Well said!