Structured networking meetings

BNI, The Athena Network, B4B, 4N, Federation of Small Businesses, Chamber of Commerce, and countless others.  You may already be familiar with these organisations, or you may never have come across them.  They are all groups that you pay to join.  Once you are a member they give you access to a formal structure that encourages all the members to do business together, or to find business opportunities for each other.  They tend to attract service industries and professionals the most – banks, accountants, commercial cleaning companies, IT companies – but they can work just as well for your local florist.  The groups meet weekly and often outside of normal business hours.  The group I belonged to for several years started at 7.00 in the morning – which sounds ridiculous at first but it worked well.  It meant everything was wrapped up by 8.45am and didn’t take any time out of my working day.  Again, view things like this as a barrier to entry.  How many of your competitors are going to get up at 5.45 in the morning to go to a meeting every week?  I can tell you that none of mine did which is why I did so well and did it for so long.

With some groups you need to pay upfront for a full year and commit to attend the meeting every week, whereas others allow you to pay individually for each meeting you want to attend.  Usually they follow a similar format: a stand-up networking session before the meeting (so get there early to talk to people) and then a longer meeting where everyone in the room gets a short amount of time, usually 60 seconds, to present their business and say what kind of customers they are looking for.  And they work – if you have the time to make them work that is, and if your company is the right kind of business.  You won’t find many regular vegan business networking opportunities which is why we launched our own at Vegan Business Tribe, so these groups are usually made up of generic businesses with little restrictions on who can attend.  But if your vegan company is selling to everyone, not just vegans, and especially if you are selling to other businesses, then I would recommend you check out what networking groups are in your area.  All allow you to visit them at least once before committing to join.  All will try and sell to you after the meeting if they are a membership organisation, so be prepared to tell them you’re interested in joining (to avoid the real hard sell) but you’re also booked in to visit some other local groups first (to stop them immediately following you up with a call later!).  Try them all, find the one that has the best people in the room for you and the least competitors.  Many have recently embraced online Zoom networking also to allow you not just to meet with the businesses in your local area but with members across the country, or even across the world.  Take advantage of this and find the member companies you really want to have a chat to.