Chamber of Commerce Networking

I recently joined the chamber of commerce a few months ago and have been planning on networking with local businesses in my area. I have put it off and put it off, but I finally went to my first networking meeting last week. It was an early morning 7:30am meeting, so it was hard for me to get up and get motivated, but I did it anyway (plus I was very nervous too). I figured if I don’t give it a try at least once, not only did I waste money for my chamber membership, I would also never find out if joining the chamber was even worth it.

With that said, the meeting was quite fun and beneficial and the first 5 minutes I was there, I landed a blog design prospect. Then throughout the meeting, we introduced our businesses and got an opportunity to chat with one another. Surprisingly, it went really well and I landed 5 leads just that morning. Now with that said, I have not landed any work, but the entire purpose of going to these network meetings is to get to know local business leaders and get your face out there. Leads should always be followed up on, you never know which one will decide to hire you.

What is really strange about all this to me, is for the last 10 years of my business, I really never networked like this or at all. Basically, 70% of my business came from online searches while the remainder came from referrals. So, I was not really used to getting back in the game of networking, but being stuck in my home office, this has given me an opportunity to get out of the box and go see some new faces. Even if I don’t land business right away, I am at least getting out of the office, making new friends and working on the prospect of getting new business.

Even if you don’t want to join your local chamber or don’t have the budget, many times, you can still attend these network meetings for a small fee. For now, it seems like a good way for me to get in touch with local business in my area. I hope it works out the same for your business.