Surrey Business Club

SBC SEPTEMBER 2009 MEETING

A select group of Members gathered at the St Johns Centre in Merrow for our September meeting.  There was no formal pre-buffet networking, since the topic and format for the evening meant that networking formed a central part of the exercise.

RAISING YOUR PROFILE
The theme for the workshop was ‘Raising Your Business Profile’, led by Club Chair and professional copywriter Keith Grover. Nowadays there are many situations where we need to present an effective profile of our business in a few words – whether it’s as an ‘elevator pitch’ at a networking event, a background profile for use on press releases, or an online profile in a business directory or social media site such as Ecademy, LinkedIn or Twitter.

LEARNING BY EXAMPLE
Keith handed out of over 40 examples of profiles gathered from various websites (including those of some SBC Members not present!) and the group was asked to read a few and see which ones they remembered.  We identified the good, the bad and the downright ugly amongst them, before having a go at producing our own, based on a template provided by Keith. (Hint: You need more than one profile.)

Additional topics covered during the session included:
•    Is Twitter a waste of time? Well, no, it has real business advantages and is being successfully used by multinational corporations and SMEs alike to grow their business and service customer needs.
•    Why having just one website will soon be woefully inadequate for most businesses wishing to stay competitive in their market.
•    How to get as many powerful, professional looking websites as you need which are super Google-friendly – totally free of charge (including free hosting).
•    Why you need to ‘productise’ your service offering to overcome the price objection of customers and be able to charge more than your competitors.

ENTHUSIASTIC PARTICIPANTS
“Thanks Keith, I have to say I can’t remember a more worthwhile meeting and presentation in terms of value for my business.”  Andrew Wasilewski, Harvest Financial Management, www.harvestfinancial.co.uk

“I would like to say how much I enjoyed and valued the session, which you ran on Tuesday. I will take advantage of your kind offer to critique my profile which I hope to finish this weekend.”  Guy Fraser, European Marketing & Technical Limited, www.eumartec.com

FOOD & DRINK
We had organised our own catering using the Centre’s excellent kitchen facilities, based around deep-filled Waitrose sandwiches, dips, baguettes and cheese, pate and sticky cakes – all very acceptable, and enthusiastically dispatched as usual!

After the meeting we adjourned to the Horse & Groom next door but one, and sat outside under the patio heaters, where despite his best efforts, self-styled ‘Dog Whisperer’ Deryck Svensson  was unable to pacify and befriend an over-enthusiastic cocker spaniel, much to everybody’s amusement!  



All photographs by Club Photographer Peter Searight of The Remarkable Studio.