Don?t Build A Business In Pendle Lancashire Without Networking

Don?t Build A Business In Pendle Lancashire Without Networking
The M65 motorway meanders through the valley crossing swords with the canal as if in competition with the transport medium of a bygone age. The motorway is busy every morning and evening with traffic leaving and returning to the area, Pendle Lancahire being an employment blackspot and an entrepreneurial vacuum.

The area known as Pendle Lancashire includes the towns of Accrington, Burnley Nelson and Colne, once bustling mill towns but now left to despair. Even in the heady days of full employment, Pendle Lancashire wasn?t short on poverty given the industrial heritage of the cotton mills but today it has to be worse.

High unemployment, poor infrastructure and lack of hope fill the air. Less than 10 miles to the North over Pendle hill lies the affluent Ribble Valley so what is it that confines this area to a downtrodden destiny?

It was the late Tony Wilson of Factory records fame (Joy Division, New Order and The Hacienda) that christened the area Pendle Lancashire in an attempt to give it a second chance and had it not been for his untimely death maybe we?d be further on the way?

I paint a less than rosy picture but my intention is not to spread doom, gloom and despair throughout the epicentre of East Lancashire because there is hope and there are people out there trying to make a difference.

One such person is Eric Henshaw who has initiated a number of Business For Breakfast (B4B) groups across the M65 corridor. These business networking groups offer budding entrepreneurs in the area a chance to meet, learn about each other?s businesses and chew over the issues of the day.

Members sign up for the year and attend fortnightly breakfast meetings with a structured agenda however you need to do more than simply turn up in order to succeed.

There?s lots of business networking tips available in many books but these first few will set you on your way:

Firstly, don?t expect things to happen overnight. Networking is all about building relationships so getting to know like and trust people is an essential part of the process.

In order to receive, it?s better to give first. This will again help the relationship building process but there?s more to it than that. Business networking is not about recruiting your fellow networkers as your private army of sales people, it?s deeper than that. Your fellow networkers will recommend your goods or services as and when the opportunity arises (this is when you get the referrals) and this may take months before you feel as though you are getting a positive response. You can accelerate the process by making it easy for your new acquaintances to get to know like and trust you ? do it my giving them referrals first.

If you are running a business in Pendle Lancashire and can follow business networking advice then you could do a lot worse than contact Eric Henshaw. It may not happen overnight but in the long run your business can only benefit through business networking.


eric henshaw, bforb, business for breakfast, business networking, tony wilson, pendle lancashire,
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