One of the best things, I’ve done for the business is to join a couple of local networking groups. The first one that I joined was from our local SBDC Small Business Development Center. I received an invitation within 6 months of going out on my own. The group centered on women business owners and I thought to myself it couldn’t hurt. So I got my business cards and headed out to the first meeting of WIN (Women in Networking) and can now say that I was one of the first members.
After about five years, I still do my best to go to the monthly meetings. Through the years I’ve made great introductions to the local business women who are the local movers and shakers in Chautauqua County. I remember the first meeting and the first person I talked to- Pat Smith from Management Strategies. We shook hands and she said I do need a new website and with that I got my first job from a networking meeting. I’ve also connected with Myriam Mayshark who owns Imagine! in Bemus Point, another great women owned business who is so fun to work with. A number of the women in the group I have the pleasure of calling my clients.
Never under estimate the power of networking and meeting new people. Some people go sporadically and I think they lose the key component. If you’re faithful in going to the meetings you start to build a trust with members. Plus you learn more about their business and how you can help them. It’s not all about you either. Having a great pool of people to refer your own clients and of course myself to is so refreshing. I always know someone who may just be the right person.
This month I helped out another member, Roberta P. Thompson from Real Estate Advantage. Roberta is the mediator for our WIN group. She recently moved to a new agency and was in the market for a website. We streamlined all her domain names she had registered here and there and got all her hosting and domain names into one account. After we sorted out all that we started to concentrate on a site that she could grow with. I used a content management system that will let her in time add more pages if she needs to and make quick changes on her own. Then we set up a facebook page for her that tied into her site. When she has a new listing or an open house she can type it into facebook and it updates automatically onto her web page.
