Given all of the things business owners need to get done in a day, it is a wonder businesses exist at all. But, as I am learning (albeit slowly) business owners (and their businesses) survive by making judicious decisions about how to spend their time. When we first started CubeSpace, that meant that I was at networking events all the time. But unsurprisingly, I burnt out on that approach fairly early on. Then we tried a systematic approach of looking at which networking efforts were successful and which were less so. That turned out to be harder than we expected because the time delay between an intiial connection and someone coming in to check out CubeSpace was fairly long. That left us fairly stumped.
David and I have always maintained that successful networking is about quality, not quantity. So I limited my networking to places where I was able to make connections with people, rather than a one-off business card exchange. And that strategy worked fairly well. I have made some really great friends through networking, and that has, and will continue to lead to business for us.
But, sometimes networking is not enough. Sometimes we need to connect with our business peers and get their thoughts on ideas that are bouncing around in our heads. Or, sometimes we need to learn from how other people have handled some of the challenges that are common to all business owners. Diana Platika is a financial advisor who kept hearing the same issues time and time again from the women business owners she worked with and finally decided to create a safe place for women to share their questions, concerns and triumphs with the goal of helping the whole group succeed. The result is called EWOP (Entrepeneurial Women of Portland).
In fact, her first group was so successful, that two more groups have formed to extend the concept further.
Intrigued? Want to know more? Well, there are a couple of ways to learn more. The first is by attending the annual EWOP networking event on June 4 from 6-8:30pm at Aura Restaurant and lounge at 1022 W. Burnside.
The second is to meet with Diana and some EWOP group members as part of CubeSpace's Entrepeneurial Series.
