The 10th December saw our Business Confident Ladies Network meeting and from the feedback I have had everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and met some new contacts and friends.
For anyone who missed out in attending our December networking meeting; I know a fair few of you had Christmas plays and parties to go to so couldn’t make it. I thought it would be a good idea to put together a little blog about what you missed.
It’s important to us that all our Business members feel involved and I know what busy lives you lead so if you don’t make a meeting please always check here as I will endeavour to keep you up to date this way.
The meeting kicked off at 6.30 pm and I introduced a few new members to the group. The new members will add massive value to our group, we really are now building a group that have such exciting diverse skills and knowledge that together we can all benefit from.
I did a little talk about my amazing trip to Downing Street, I told how I had even spoken to Gordon Brown and managed to tell him about Confident Ladies, there is a full blog about this so I won’t go on here!
Julie Harrison from TopMatch York was our Guest presenter and she did a fabulous job. Julie runs an introduction agency and told us what this involved. She got us all hooked in by the offer of a £50 referral fee for any members that she gains through us as individuals. We were all thinking about people we knew who were single and could indeed benefit from Julies’ expertise. There was a prize at the end for the person who could, most quickly match someone to an anonymous profile which Julie described. The prize was some delicious chocolate bars that Julie had purchased from Amy Russell of It’s Your Choc .They hand been superbly branded with the Top Match logo and proved big hit. Amy provides branded chocolate bars for business or personal purposes.
Here is a link to Julies presentation TopMatch Presentation Confident Ladies Dec 09 *remember Julie provides a 20% discount for our members.
As it’s close to the New Year I asked everyone who wanted to be involved in the ‘Who am I?’ session to also tell the group what it was they needed from the group; in terms of advice, support, guidance……
This proved to be insightful and I believe the key issue that kept coming up was ‘Marketing’. This seemed to cover around three areas of Marketing.
- Marketing in terms of others becoming supporters of other members businesses in order to create more referrals.
- Social media skill; ie Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook
- General marketing; ie getting your message across in a clear concise manor so that no one is left wondering what your business does.
The decision was made that on the 13th January 2010 (our next meeting) the Guest Speaker slot would be hosted by Tracy Sheldon of Brug Consultancy and she will endeavour to cover some of the points raised with a view to doing a more indepth workshop or workshops, covering this huge subject, in the New Year.
I believe this is an invaluable opportunity and a key area to success, so lets take advantage of the knowledge and experience Tracy can gives us, so get the next date in your diary!
I am also on the look out for a new venue for our Networking meetings, we need it for room and also a better layout. I have a few places to do a reckie on next week and will keep you informed.
I’m also really keen to hear from you about ‘What you would like to get out of these Networking meeting , so please let me know!’
Please feel free to add your comments to the blog, I always appreciate your thoughts.
What would I like to get out of the Business Networking meetings?
In general terms I’d like to raise the profile of TopMatch and obviously gather new clients. More specifically, the group are so friendly and helpful that I’d like to make the ‘ Who Do You Know Who Fits This Profile?’ a regular thing at the meetings – I think it will be a really successful way of finding a partner for those clients who are waiting for an introduction (and helping someone else find a partner in the process!). It certainly worked well at the last meeting and I hope everyone will find it interesting and fun!