I have just started my business. Where can I find and meet useful contacts?
When starting in business, you need to have a broad range of marketing activities. This should include a website, other
forms of marketing to suit your industry and of course some form of networking. Networking is a slow process where you are looking to
develop long term advocates and relationships rather than immediate sales. There are a multitude of groups that you can attend, each one
offering slightly different things in terms of format, time of meeting, cost, people that typically attend, and the frequency of your required attendance.
In my view the important thing is that you find a group/groups that you feel comfortable with. There is no right or wrong group. A list of places to start would be as follows. I would then suggest that you go along to meetings, talk to people and discover for yourself which group, or groups feel right to you. Some of these groups are purely on line networking, whilst others offer offline networking.
1 – Ecademy
2 – Business Scene
3 – Mixing Business
4 - BRE
5 - BNI
6 - FSB
7 - NRG