Or what a Meet Up group can do for you.
Did you know that there are 889 Meet up groups for Small Business Marketing worldwide? 50 of them are in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. For Women Entrepreneurs – there are 2,072 Meet Ups worldwide. I could go on…
The message here is that Meet Ups are the networking way to go these days and if you are not taking advantage of them, then you’re missing the boat.
What is a Meet Up group? It’s a group of individuals who share a common interest. And, as the name suggests, Meet Up groups usually meet face-to-face. The members may share an interest in a leisure activity, a sport, a type of business, or the desire to network in a particular geographic area.
When I decided to become a Virtual Assistant, one of the first pieces of advice given to me was to find a group of like-minded individuals and start networking. And I’m passing it along to you.
Here’s what a Meet Up group can do for solo-preneurs:
- Find Your Sounding Board: When you join a Meet Up group, you gain a think-tank where you can bounce ideas around and get a gut reaction. An idea may seem great when you were alone in your office and might not seem so great when you say it out loud.
- Grow Your Business: You meet people from all over with different perspectives and backgrounds. There are different types of Meet Up groups. One type is networking with other businesses in your area to which you can provide a product or service. It’s a non-threatening environment to share what you do and how you can help. Another type is networking with folks in the same industry as you. This lets you get to know people who are in your same boat. Why is that important? Because you can learn from them: Share your successes and failure, Learn from the failure of others, Share your challenges and learn from the successes of others, and Learn from the guest speakers chosen by your peers to join a meeting.
One of my Meet Up groups, Virtual Assistants of DFW, meets monthly and we always have an interesting guest speaker. Recently, we had the privilege of visiting with Tracey Clarke and Jamie MacLeod, owners of Virtual Administration in the UK. Tracey and Jamie shared their recipe for growing their virtual assistant business into a huge success. Now, insight and ideas like that are worth the price of lunch.
…from Left to Right: Julia Lilly, Lissa Duty, Cindy Flood, Tracy Smith (that’s me!), Charity Van Vleet, Tracey Clarke, Kay Wright, Sharon Tousley
