At the end of last month, Clear Books hosted it’s first Speed Networking event. It may have been the hottest day of the year so far but there was still a roomful of lovely Clear Books customers ready to make connections and find new clients.

This event was the second in what we envisage to be a long line of fresh, fun and exciting networking events and the feedback was extremely positive.

100% of respondents  said that they would attend another Clear Books networking event and the reason it was so popular was the relaxed atmosphere of the event making it easy to strike up meaningful but also fun conversation with attendees.

We have tried our hardest to make these events about you guys rather than Clear Books, but it turns out you’re interested in finding out how we’re getting on and what new features/technical developments the team has in the pipeline as well. With this in mind, next time we will give everyone in attendance a sneak peek into what has been happening here at Clear Books HQ.

There have also been suggestions of a business challenges forum session where everyone has the opportunity to share the challenges they are facing running a business and get advice from people who may well have experienced these issues before. We all want to succeed and, hopefully, all want to help each other do the same, so hearing about how others have overcome the challenges they have faced will be extremely helpful.

What we want to know now is what you would like from the next Clear Books networking event? Like the idea of a business challenges forum? Or are you more interested in coffee and a chat? Let us know – these events are yours after all.

Posted by David Eaton

David is a Chartered Accountant and Director of SME Strategies (smestrategies.co.uk) which offers tailored support to ambitious SMEs and gives mentoring to owner managers.

One Comment

  1. Paul Jennings 12th May 2013 at 1:01 pm

    Hi, Have you considered running any around the country, or in other words nearer to me in Hertfordshire?
    What I look for in an networking event is pretty much what BNI do, I’ve been networking since Mid 2005 and been in and out of BNI, I’ve always had the best ROI from it in terms of time spent as well as money invested. It’s not for everyone and some people just don’t get it, that’s life but the fact that you’re expected to bring a referral, visitor or testimonial to each meeting is what makes it work along with the regular weekly attendance.

    There are other things that make BNI work such as the training and having 121s, and the chapter becomes a sales team for you!. I find meetings that meet monthly you just don’t build up a relationships as well,not as much business gets passed because people don’t think about you or helping others and that’s a core problem with other networks.

    I’d lay money on it that BNI as an organisation brings in more money for it’s members than any other, but then BNI I believe is the only one that tracks these figures!

    I’ve been around a lot of networking groups over the years and run some too, I’ve tracked my figures and BNI wins hands down, you just need to put the time and effort in.

    Glad your event went well and I do hope you move out to having an event in the sticks! 🙂

    To your success
    Paul

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