Ilana Eberson
My name is Ilana Eberson and I'm the President of The NYC Business Networking Group. According to Meetup statistics we are one of the largest Business & Entrepreneur Networking Groups on Meetup worldwide. Woohoo! That in great part, is thanks to our members who are so involved and committed to helping make our group the best business group possible.
We'd love for you to join us and be part of our vibrant and growing membership. I started this group with 700 members and now we have grown this group 1000% to over 9000 members. Why? Because we provide excellent services to our members and help them connect with business professionals in all industries.
We provide members with:
1) small business services to help them grow and build their own businesses
2) lead generation to acquire new leads and contacts to buy their products and services
3) a place to nurture business relationships for long term benefit and not only short term gain
4) cross promote members' businesses to our 25,000 professional contacts (fee based service)
I look forward to meeting you and doing business together.
Cheers, Ilana
MONTHLY MEETINGS
The best way to get involved in this group is to attend our monthly meetings. We normally host two live business networking events per month and we've just launched virtual speed networking for professionals. We're here to build a strong and powerful small business and entrepreneur community in New York City. If you're looking to meet, interact and network with leading business professionals, including owners, managers and executives of established businesses and entrepreneurs, this is the place for you.
We host different types of networking events:
1) "Free NYC Business Networking Event & Small Business Expo".
This free monthly event allows non members or new members to attend our events for free (as long as you RSVP through our website). The vendor program enables us to showcase the businesses of 10-15 of our members each month at our Small Biz Expos. All our vendors have products or services that are targeted to businesses, entrepreneurs, consumers, etc. The event encourages general mingling and networking, to connect with as many of our other members as you can over the course of the evening. The vendors provide the newest business ideas and business technology to keep you informed and ahead of the curve in your industry. This event hosts 150-200 attendees each month.
2) "NYC Pitch Party: Our Best & Most Effective Business Networking Event".
The Pitch isn't a spectator sport. It's a fun and relaxed ice-breaker activity which encourages everyone to promote their own businesses in an open pitch to our group. We provide you a monthly opportunity to practice making your verbal business commercial concise, to the point and presented with high impact. The shorter and more concise your pitch, the more it will be remembered and the more you'll be noticed. Having a short and concise pitch helps you make an excellent first impression to encourage new business clients and contacts to approach you at our events.
How Does It Work? The evening starts with check-in while members arrive, enjoy some refreshments and relax after their day. After that, each attendee spends 30 seconds pitching their businesses to the whole group. After the pitch is the formal networking part of the event. Having heard what each person's business is, it's easy to target who you'd like to follow up with and exchange business cards. We host up to 80 people each month. We started the concept in early 2007 and it's become our most successful and effective monthly event.
3) High Speed Networking for Business Professionals: Maximize Your Time for Maximum Results.
Speed Networking is similar to the concept of speed dating, except it's for making business connections. It's like a regular networking event at an accelerated speed. It involves matching networkers 1-on-1 with many new contacts in a short time. It's a fun, effective, low pressure way to add contacts to your business network. Conversation takes on a natural flow because the format of the event acts as an ice breaker to help everyone feel relaxed while they network. This type of networking format also allows you to practice keeping your pitch short and sweet. Compared to a regular networking event, you'll meet more people and make more contacts quickly. We host 60-80 attendees at this monthly event.
How Does It Work? The evening starts with check-in while members arrive, enjoy some refreshments and relax after their day. All participants are seated in pairs. During this fast paced session each pair will network together before rotating to another seat to meet the next person. During each 3-minute session, each pair will introduce themselves, pitch their businesses and see how they can help each other. At the end of each session, the bell rings and you move seats to meet the next person. This process continues till all participants have met each other.
NYCBizNet also hosts business development and successful business building seminars and workshops with speakers and presentations on different aspects of small business ownership and learn ways to make your business more well connected and more profitable.
