PEOPLE do business with people – it’s been said many times before but is the fundamental thinking behind successful networking.
It’s certainly at the heart of The Business Club Northants, which launched 10 years ago and has given hundreds of people the opportunity to meet, make deals, give and receive advice and enjoy the company of others in the same business circles.
The Business Club Northants was established by Mike Willis, who takes networking seriously but also understands that there’s room for fun and laughter amid the business deals.
“I’m very proud of what The Business Club Northants has achieved,” said Mike. “We aim to have a bit of a laugh and the meetings are relatively relaxed, but we’ve never lost sight of the fact that the most important thing is that people get the chance to form strategic business alliances and work with one another.
“There’s no way of quantifying the amount of business that has been done between members, but it gives me so much satisfaction to see two people shaking hands at a meeting, having realised they can work together.”
Mike founded The Business Club Northants after being a member of another Business Club group. He liked the set up and the way things were done and was keen to bring the concept to Northamptonshire.
Such was the interest in the first meeting that around 160 people turned up, with others having to be turned away as the room simply wasn’t big enough to cope. Of those, around 35 joined on the night and membership was soon over 100.
In 2012, The Business Club Northants became independent, allowing Mike to continue developing the club in his own way.
The Business Club Northants holds three evening meetings each month, at venues across the county, so that there’s a meeting within easy reach no matter where members are based, although members can attend all three should they choose to do so.
Most meetings have a guest speaker, or follow a Business Club format such as Expanding Your Horizons, where guests are divided into small groups and brainstorm one another’s businesses – bringing helpful advice and clear thinking to any issues a guest wants to raise.
In addition, monthly induction training sessions are held at Kettering Park Hotel where Mike covers the basics of networking and how to get the most from membership, passing on some of his knowledge of sales and growing a business.
Social events are also a regular feature of The Business Club Northants – the annual golf day has been running successfully for some years now, while the anniversary dinner has become a regular feature of the calendar and features entertainment – inevitably including Mike’s famed Tommy Cooper impression – and a charity auction.
“There are so many networking groups in the county that I knew we had to do something a little bit different,” said Mike. “We hold meetings in the evening, which leads to a more relaxed atmosphere because guests know they’re pretty much done for the day and aren’t dashing off to the office or meetings afterwards.
“My philosophy is that you can have fun and do business at the same time and I think people like that. I look round the room and see people laughing and having a good time and that’s a nice feeling.”
Looking to the future, Mike is keen to see The Business Club Northants continue to grow and develop. The current aim is to increase the local membership to 150 during 2017/18 and plans are currently being made to expand The Business Club into the surrounding counties and these should become public later this year.
Mike added: “It gives me a lot of pleasure and satisfaction to see companies progress and we’ve seen that so much over the years. People really do deal with people and some of the alliances formed at our meetings have made a real difference to some companies.”
Estimates suggest the amount of business created within The Business Club Northants in the past 10 years is well over £2million.