Low in cost but high in personal time and energy, business networking when it is a focused and regular activity, can give a high return on investment.

For June's highly interactive NAME workshop, Lucy Marks, Development Director for the Norfolk Network, will be exploring business face to face and online networking and community models and the tools and techniques that can be used to successfully market your business.

The workshop will offer practical and strategic help to owners and directors of SMEs, as well as marketing and business development professionals who may or may not, find networking a natural marketing activity.

For full details and to register, click here

Added: 16th May 2011

Our workshop series has continued to be a great success with May's workshop attracting more than 20 businesses.

Local marketer Andrew Cook, founder of Breathe Media and Managing Director of Ethicomm,  took delegates through the world of sales and explored its importance in creating a successful business.

Andrew helped delegates better understand areas such as prospecting, cold calling, face-to-face meetings and prompted discussion around various techniques such as solution-based sales. The morning also included an overview and conversation around the importance of sales action plans.

We were pleased to see so many businesses engaging with the subject and contributing so much to the discussions during the morning.

Feedback for the morning was great with delegates appreciating a common sense, real world approach to sales. Comments included:

"The speaker clearly had lots of experience, contagious confidence!"

"Feeling much more confident in being more structured in our sales techniques."

"Lots of great ideas!"

"Very good, couldn't be better."

Added: 16th May 2011

We saw another capacity crowd for March’s workshop with local PR company Tribe leading the morning. Donna Chessum and Lou Mains led the morning with plenty of discussion and interaction between course leaders and delegates.

The morning included an introduction to the different types of social media e.g. networking, blogs, file sharing and their effectiveness in your business as well as identifying ways of using social media more effectively through a considered strategic approach. The workshop also included an introduction to the use of online and social media monitoring and analytics tools such as Tweetdeck, Addictomatic; Radian6 and Google Analytics.

Donna comments,

"Businesses often have common fears and apprehensions about using Social Media, typically because of a lack in understanding or fears of damaging reputations and yet through considered and effective use, Social Media presents numerous new opportunities for businesses to join their customer's conversations, build and enhance their brand perceptions and manage their reputations."

Yet again, we’re pleased to see great feedback from delegates with comments including:

"Unbelievable amount of information packed into a half day presentation"

"Edge of the seat stuff!"

"Clearly drawn from indepth knowledge and experience, they know what they are talking about"

"Really Relevant, it was a refresher as well as insightful"

Added: 4th March 2011