Clarihon blog

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Well, it’s official, we’re out of recession.

I know that because I heard it from a local Lloyds TSB Manager at an event yesterday.

This event was just one of 11 networking opportunities or events I’ll have attended this month (April).

As a member of 2 Business League clubs, in Saltash and Liskeard, I’ll have attended 7 breakfast meetings. As a member of the Plymouth Chamber of Commerce, The Federation of Small Business (FSB) and Callington Business Connections, I’ll have attended three more. With my connections to a couple of Lloyds TSB managers I’ve attended one more.

Mainly by attending these kind of events I’ve built up a network of over 550 business contacts, many of whom will be reading our bi-monthly newsletter.

I don’t expect to get business as a direct result of attending these events (sometimes it happens) but work is steadily building because of requests and referrals from people I meet at them.

Many Web (and IT) people don’t feel comfortable meeting lots of people in a semi-social context. That’s great because it gives people like us an advantage!

Get out there and meet people. You can only gain by meeting more people and the increased exposure for your ‘brand’ it will bring.

The third of three business networking events in just over a week was held in Callington, at Langman’s Restaurant.

The Callington Business network was started by Gail Buttery, the owner of Langman’s. Her husband Anton is the chef. If you want to combine friendly, relaxed networking with great food, this is the place!

The format is simple. Arrival and drinks with general mingling. Then we move through to the restaurant and do a 1-2 min round of introductions. This is followed by a presentation from a member or invited speaker and then finally (it seems sometimes!) we eat. To be fair, we don’t normally eat after about 8:30 and it’s worth waiting for.

The speaker at the last meeting was Deborah Morris. She gave an overview of the NLP technique and presented 3 very good examples of how it helps people work and communicate with others.

Again, another nice set of people and more good contacts made.

I’ve been doing a bit more general networking lately.

Regular readers (you know who you are….) will know that I’m a member of the Saltash Club of the Business League. I attend breakfast meetings virtually every Friday.

The Communication Station network events are quite informal and usually fairly free-format. After arrival the attendees are free to wander around and chat with each other. At some point there might or might not be a brief spell of public introductions and then food is served.

After more general networking the event slowly winds down and people leave.

The latest event was held at Trethorne Golf Club just outside Launceston. It’s a nice venue and around 15 people turned up. I already knew half of them but it’s nice to catch up with people you’ve met before so it was a good mix. Funnily enough though, there were 3 Web Designers and 3 print companies. Still a good event and some nice people too. More importantly, some useful contacts made.

I went to an excellent marketing seminar recently. It was hosted by Barclays in the Novotel in Plymouth.

Apart from being  a great marketing content, it was an excellent networking opportunity – especially if you were looking for an Accountant! I’m used to seeing several Web Designers and Design people at these events but to see somewhere between 10 and 20 accounts out of about 1000 attendees was a bit surreal.

The seminar was presented by Rob Craven, an excellent guy from Bright Marketing.

Apart from plenty of opportunities to network and good food, there was plenty of great material and ideas. Some of the bits I picked up and am already using or plan to implement were:

• Polishing my 1-minute ‘elevator’ pitch. As a regular attendee at breakfast and lunch networking events, I get plenty of opportunities. Until now I’ve not focused on the content and structure Rob suggested. This started with “We work with…”, and included “who have a problem with…”, “what we do is…”, “so that….” and “Which means…..”. Basically you outline the problem your potential clients have and describe how you solve it. Simple really!
• Conducting surveys amongst clients and prospects. For the former it gets you good feedback about your performance and can be used to gain valuable insight into what else they want. For the latter it’s a good way of assessing the demand for your services (and telling you what you need to add or change in your service/product set) and appearing as an expert. If you publish the data in a useful format as well, your standing can go up even further
• Look at how you got your last 20 clients – and what you spent to do that. Divide that into the amount you spent doing it and you have the cost of acquiring each new client
• When surveyed, most business people said that face to face (43%) or referral/recommendation (29%) were the best ways to get new business. Email, web, advertising, letters, exhibitions etc were all under 5% each

There was more but hey, there might be other Web Designers from Cornwall or Plymouth reading this and I wouldn’t want them to get too successful……