“Greetings, everyone,” she opened. “We thank you all for coming out this evening to the first annual IDPromotions.com CEO Birthday Network Celebration of executives and entrepreneurs. And for those of you who have never met me before, I am Lucina Gallo, cohost and promotional partner of the birthday man, Ivan David, who has brought us all together here this evening at the luxurious Manchester Grand Hyatt.”

She said, “But our purpose this evening is not only to celebrate, but to discuss a million ways, I’m sure, to make San Diego an even greater place to live and do business than it already is.”

The crowd was impressed with Lucina. They began to clap, nod, and toast her accented opening speech.

Ivan watched and admired her delivery himself, wondering if she had practiced it all.

Now what the hell am I gonna say? he asked himself. He had gone over a few things, but since he had not practiced or prepared with Lucina’s address in mind, he had to rethink it all.

Lucina went on to talk about all of the networking opportunities and a chance to share business ideas and knowledge, before she prepared to introduce Ivan.

“And without further ado, I give you the man who we all came here to see tonight, Mr. Ivan David.”

The crowd began to clap, nod, and toast again as Ivan stepped forward to secure the microphone from Lucina.

He smiled and decided to address everyone with humor. “Well, I don’t know if we all feel comfortable enough to share our business ideas and knowledge—a solid advantage is everything—but I think that we can at least meet and identify our business competitors who showed up tonight.”

The crowd promptly loosened up and began to smile and chuckle at Ivan’s timely candor. Lucina even spotted Randy Sterling and his partner, Ralph Collins, in attendance. They had decided to use the free tickets she had sent to their office.

Ivan added, “However, I would love for all of you to feel open enough to tell me everything that you would like, and I promise to keep all of our secrets between you, me, and my banker.”

The crowd laughed harder. Even Lucina smiled.

Ivan said, “But seriously, I’m not going to spend too much of my time in front of this microphone, because I would like to meet…” He stopped and looked around the room at the large crowd and continued, “…at least half of you one on one, to discuss how we, at IDPromotions.com, may be able to help bridge the gaps between your company’s ideas, products, and services and the San Diego community. So just look at us as the tall bridge that connects the companies to the customers and clients, while also connecting the customers and the clients to your companies.”