Community networking
Lynne Franks on building networks within your community to help your business grow.
If the type of enterprise you have chosen to create really is a one-woman or one-man show but you still crave being part of a local community in which people help each other, why not create your own network?
Think of ten people you know, or know of, living in your area who are all involved in different, but synergetic, fields of work. Once could be in the media, one in retail, one an academic, one an economist, one in technology, and so on.
Invite them all to a meal, and explain that each of you could share knowledge of what is happening in your own specific field, which would benefit you all.
Try it once, see if it works, and suggest you meet every month or so at each others homes to exchange information that will help all of your work.
Alternatively, you may appreciate being part of a group of other small start-ups in your area, who can share experiences and problems, and even do joint purchasing.
Either way, when you set up your own local business network where members can exchange information, goods, and services with each other, you create a mutually beneficial SEED community. For example, why not agree to write marketing material for the local printers in return for them printing yours for free or at discount? Find out where youre in a position to give local businesses the benefit of your products or services, in return for them helping you.
Link your various contacts together, so they can work with each other in the same way. Give your partnership network a name and expand it, if appropriate. Hold meetings at which you have speakers and exchange information.
You could even take the idea of community networking further and consider sharing space. Ive been developing the idea for some time of SEED Centres, where a group of enterprising women and men, committed to the same principles, share a building and overheads with each other. An old school, empty warehouse, or even a large house would be ideal, where there is room to breathe and even have a garden.
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