New workshop focuses on business improvement
August 29, 2007
 Coach Pat Morgan of Smooth Sailing, left, who will be leading the Business Skills Workhop at Chamber South with Ed Gorin, spoke recently at the Pinecrest Business Association. With her are Manny Gonzalez of Citibank, PBA President Kevin Charlton of Strictly Trailers and Elena Suarez of Math Monkey. |
Some of us are going to meet for lunch and talk about networking. What works. What doesn’t. Mistakes that people make. Sharing tips about doing it right.
Is that something that interests you? Would you like to join us?
Meetings like this are hard to find in our networking community. I’ve attended hundreds of networking meetings over the years, and programs that help us do better at business are rare. Each week I scan the Events page, looking to write about something that provides useful information for the business community, and usually there is nothing like that.
In the five years I’ve been writing this Business Buzz column I’ve gone to meetings of about 40 different networking groups, and each time I visit a new one I always find people I know from elsewhere.
You have to wonder: why are there so many groups, and why do people belong to multiple organizations? I think it’s because we hunger for that missing ingredient – education and information. We get plenty of opportunity to network, but nobody is offering us help in being more successful at business. It’s sure something that most of us need.
The concept for the weekly lunch meeting, which we’ve named the Business Skills Workshop, grew out of that. We are starting this on Friday, Sept. 7, at the Chamber South Conference Center in South Miami, and will continue every Friday (well, almost) at noon for as long as there is an interest. The chamber has priced this to be inexpensive, at $15 for members and $20 for others, including lunch, so people can afford to return week after week.
I will be leading the group along with executive and life coach Pat Morgan of Smooth Sailing. Not that we are so smart, but hopefully the participants will share information and we will all learn from each other. It’s the format that’s important – a weekly meeting specifically devoted to improving our business skills. The hope is that participants will leave each week having learned something new that will help in their business.
I am looking forward to working with Pat. She spoke recently at the Pinecrest Business Association and got a standing ovation. In all the hundreds of networking meetings I’ve attended, this is the first time the speaker ever got a standing ovation. She will make me look good!
Our first session will focus on networking, the second on what makes a good business card, and the third on marketing without breaking the bank. We’ll see where it goes from there. We expect that future subjects will come from the participants. Where can you use help in improving your business? Put it before the group.
It’s an experiment, and there is interest. By the time you read this, the first session may already be sold out. Last I heard there were about 25 reservations, and the room holds about 35. If you want to see if there are still seats available, call Nicole at 305-661-1621.
Thanks to Chamber South for sharing the vision and hosting this new venture. Maybe this will be the start of something new and important in our networking community. If you can’t join us, I’ll let you know how it goes.
