Its a great way to give business, get business & build relationships with local businesses.
We're quite fortunate in Liverpool as there are a lot of networking events every week... Practically one a day!
About 80% of my new business comes from networking & I don't actually see it as "work" because all it is really... Is being nosey & finding out what other people do, what clients they are looking for, what their interests are & networking also involves a lot of eating and drinking (especially when you go to Joel Jelen's Fish! events!).
A few weeks ago I went to three events in one day (yes, I'll go to the opening of an envelope), this week I am going to four events in two days. I try to go to at least three a week but this month, I've been working eighty hour weeks randomly all over the country including driving eighteen ton trucks so it hasn't been possible.
I'm planning a lot of one to ones also with people I meet at events as this helps, for example; I met James from Link Direct (a company that specialises in leaflet distribution) at one of the Nugent Care events and I also met Robert Piper from Poppies (a company that specialises in residential & commercial cleaning) at one of the Simply Networking events. I arranged a one to one with each of these & then realised Robert could use James' services (as he currently uses Royal Mail) so put them in touch with each other & they are going to be doing business in the near future!
Playing business cupid is fab! Anna from Utility Warehouse
