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Mine Your Business

This New Event Puts Its Participants in Good Company

Mine Your Business

Mine Your Business

Kate Campiti says that one of the most important things for business owners and managers to do — and also one of the most difficult — is to get the time and attention of decision makers as they work to grow sales — and their company.
To simplify that process, at least for a few hours, Campiti, associate publisher and advertising director of BusinessWest, working in collaboration with other area business leaders and chamber officials, has put together a unique new event called Mine Your Business. That name is a play on words, but those behind this sales-building program, slated for Nov. 4, are, well, all business.
More to the point, they’re focused on providing a forum in which companies can not only make introductions, but also tell their story to the people they want to tell it to.
“That’s what separates this event from a typical trade show or business networking event,” said Campiti, noting that BusinessWest is presenting the event, to be staged at the Kittredge Center at Holyoke Community College. “Business owners and sales representatives are always striving to get in front of people who make decisions. At this event, with its unique format, they can get in front of a few dozen and make meaningful connections.
“People do business with those they know, like, and trust,” she added. “This networking event lends itself to building the relationship phase. Without that fundamental part of the equation, knowing your vendor, success is limited, and sales aren’t made or sustained.”
Here’s how Mine Your Business — which takes the main concept from an event called Speed Sales, staged in previous years, to a new, higher plane — will work:
Participating companies will send two representatives to the event — a decision maker and top sales executive. This team will then meet a series of other teams for eight-minute encounters, during which introductions can be made, products and services can be introduced or re-introduced, and possible relationships can be forged.
“Time is the perhaps the most precious commodity that business owners and managers have,” said Campiti. “This program will enable participants to use their time in a highly effective and potentially quite productive way.”
The two-on-two format effectively doubles the value of the experience provided by Speed Sales, an event conceptualized and staged the past two years by the Chicopee and Greater Holyoke chambers of commerce, said Doris Ransford, president of the Holyoke Chamber.
“It’s a very dynamic format, one in which a lot can be accomplished in eight minutes,” she said. “Companies can make a strong pitch in that time and perhaps generate solid leads that can generate sales.”
Gail Sherman, president of the Chicopee Chamber, agreed, and said that Mine Your Business will be an effective vehicle for helping area companies still trying to climb back from the effects of a deep recession that is in many ways still ongoing.
“These are still challenging times, and in this environment, companies need to remain visible,” she said. “But more than that, they need to be diligent and aggressive in the pusuit of new business. This program and its intriguing format allows them to meet all those goals.”
In addition to the two chambers of commerce, Mine Your Business is being sponsored by First American Insurance, Holyoke Community College, the Log Cabin-Delaney House, Marcotte Ford, and Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. Each sponsor has seen direct business spring from their participation in the past.
For more information or to reserve space, call the Greater Holyoke Chamber at (413) 534-3376, or the Chicopee Chamber at (413) 594-2101.