We have been asked many times why Creative Networking in Peterborough is membership free, there are many pros and cons on either side of charging a membership fee for networking events, but we chose for Creative Networking to be membership free and for the events to be not for profit and in this article we will tell you why;
When Hazel first started Creative Content Company funds were low so networking and marketing costs had to be kept to a minimum; joining groups like BNI, Business4Breakfast and 4N were out of the question even though Hazel understood the benefits of networking events like this.
Hazel started by going along to Link 4 Growth with Nikki Pepper, this networking group offered coffee mornings and drinks evenings that were free to attend so meant Hazel could get back into networking without paying out huge amounts of money.
Link 4 Growth events are brilliant, but they’re informal – what Peterborough was really was a breakfast event that was run similarly to Business4Breakfast, BNI and 4N without the membership fees and expensive breakfast – so she started Creative Networking breakfasts.
The breakfast events are just £12 and this includes unlimited cooked and continental breakfast, one to one networking, informal networking, table networking and a presentation from a guest speaker. The breakfast actually costs £9.75 so the extra £2.25 goes towards the MeetUp fees so the event can go out to more people so we can have more attendees, it goes towards the guest speakers breakfast so they don’t pay for their own breakfast and it goes towards marketing materials such as flyers and banners as well as admin time to set up event and advertise online.
Having no membership fees means people can come and go as they please, they don’t have to come along to every single event, instead they can come when it suits them. We don’t do industry lock-outs either which encourages collaboration between similar businesses.
Due to the fact that Creative Networking was set up as membership free, it has meant that have a really lovely bunch of people that come along to our different events when they want – and it means they can bring friends along too, without the fear of pushy sales tactics to get them to sign up, or not being allowed to come due to industry lock outs.
Why not come along and join us soon?
