This month our lunch will be at the Yeoldon House Hotel, Northam on Friday 25 February at 12 midday.

The meeting format will be as usual with a relaxed atmosphere aimed at generating networking through conversation.

As usual, the price is £20, although meals need to be pre-ordered. No-shows will have to pay £20.

For details of Yeoldon House Hotel, please visit yeoldonhousehotel.co.uk.

We're hoping to see existing members and new faces.

Please contact Kevin Woodward on 0333 044 2038 or James Hellyer.

Kevin Woodward advises against trying too hard to impress online

The North Devon Business Alliance promotes the use of internet based networking as a way of maintaining contact with our members in between monthly face-to-face lunches.

It is important to maintain contact, because that is how we get to know one another, and why we start to recommend each other's services.

Networking online
I have been using the internet to make contact with new people, to maintain contact with both old and new friends and network with business colleagues.

I have been using twitter for two years now, changing my allegiance from another business networking web site. Yes, I have it linked to facebook and to LinkedIn among others, and enjoy the interaction and banter that those web sites provide, but spend most of my online networking time on twitter.

Interacting with the outside world from a home business
Like many businesses in North Devon, I work from home and often alone, and need the interaction with the outside world as a break from the intensity of what I do. I find that break is similar to the meeting at the coffee machine or photocopier that used to happen when I worked in the big corporate world on the Slough Trading Estate, nearly eight years ago now.

I have gradually built up a following of well over 2,500 and follow some 1,700 back. Not everyone who follows me is followed back, and I have my reasons as to why not, but they're welcome to follow my tweets.

This brings me to Stephen Fry - a well-known 'British Actor, Writer, Lord of Dance, Prince of Swimwear and Blogger' - he's followed by over 1.8 million and follows back just over 50,000 people, and I'm honoured to say that I am one of those that he follows back, but doubt very much whether he sees any of my tweets.

However, a local blogger and writer wrote a very interesting blog back in August entitled The Day I Dumped @StephenFry and Kept @LlamaKevin.

Yes, @llamakevin is my twitter name and I find myself the subject of a blog along with the said Stephen Fry. It's well worth a read, but it made me think why I had made that headline and not anyone else. I believe it's because I remember to be myself.

A sociable business
I am on twitter to engage socially, to spread the word about myself and my business, what I do and to increase my business income. Yes, I have done that. I have had several QuickBooks training sessions booked, I have let out my holiday cottage at least three times through the use of twitter, I have had people come look at my llamas and goats, but in the main I am myself. I talk business, I talk politics (nothing contentious), I talk sport, I talk gardening, I talk North Devon, I talk about the weather and, obviously, I talk llamas, but throughout I remember to be me.

There are many people around who try to be something they are not. Some try to be the product that they try to sell, some are full of wonderful quotes, others are constantly telling you where their web site is, but the people who get it the most are those who are just being themselves.

Just be yourself

So, if you are about to embark on twitter, facebook, LinkedIn or any of the other 100s of networking sites, remember to be yourself, because in the end that is important.

BUSINESS ACTION
> Be sociable.
> Don’t try to be something you are not.
> Don’t try to sell too hard.
> Just be yourself.

Kevin Woodward
t: 01237 451848
e: kevin@kvassociates.co.uk
w: kvassociates.co.uk
twitter: @llamakevin

Issue 2 of the North Devon Business Alliance's magazine, Business Action, is now available in print and online.

View the magazine or contact us for a print copy.

NDBA's monthly meeting for August will be an informal barbecue at the Pig on the Hill Westward Ho! from 2.30pm on Friday 27 August.

The cost is £10 per adult (£5 per child) with a pay bar.

While our monthly lunches usually focus on a serious business topic, this is a chance for more informal networking.

View Larger Map

To book a place, please call 0333 044 2038

July is rushing past and we're approaching our monthly lunch at midday on Friday 30 July at the Chichester Arms, Bishop's Tawton.

After discussing the optimum numbers for these events, we decided 20 was probably the largest number to make them practical – you can't get many more people round a table and hope to be heard.

We're happy that 17 people have already booked for this month, leaving just three places available. 

This month we are also pleased that Barbara Fryer (@BarbaraFPhotos) has offered to take professional portrait photos for anyone needing a good photo for use on their social media profile, web site or for PR. Barbara is charging £10 for one photo with additional photos £5 each. If you would like your photo taken after the meal, please dress accordingly, bring a comb and a USB memory stick so Barbara can copy the JPEG file on to it for you to use.

We look forward to seeing you for lunch, stimulating discussion, photographs and networking!

Call 0333 044 2038 or email info@ndba.org.uk to reserve your place. Lunch costs £20 and includes main course, drinks and coffee.

Directions to Chichester Arms:

 
View Larger Map.

If you're free this evening between 6pm and 8pm, please drop into Lilicos in Barnstaple where we've organised a Tweetup for North Devon.

What's a TweetUp?

A TweetUp is an impromptu gathering of twitter users in a public place.

There's no meeting, no agenda, just the opportunity to meet people.

You don't have to stay the whole time, but can pop in when you want.

It's not limited to business people, but any twitter user or, in fact, anyone is welcome.

What use is this to businesses?

All businesses operate in the community so perhaps, as well as enjoying ourselves, we'll meet prospective clients, suppliers, employees or associates.

It's social networking and a chance to put a face to an email or avatar.

A number of North Devon Business Alliance Business members will be there to talk business, leisure or whatever.

Hope to see you there . . .

Follow the #tweetupnd hashtag on twitter for news of this and other events and follow @northdevon.

Business adviser and founder member of NDBA Kevin Woodward supports collaboration

Most businesses see competition everywhere – on every street corner there appears to be a competitor and, of course, we don’t want to give our trade secrets away, so we never talk to them, so we never know whether they really are a competitor or not.

Why exclude competitors?

With most business networking groups there is a restriction on the number of businesses that are in the same trade category, and normally that number is restricted to one. This is another way to ensure that the culture of competition is maintained: we don’t want to network with businesses from the same trade as they are unlikely to want to buy from us. But, hang on a minute, isn’t networking all about building relationships and getting to know people? Is it really all about wanting to get people to buy from us?

Relationships count for more

We all know that people buy from people. It’s not always the product alone that makes people buy that product, it is often the person selling it who makes the difference to the buyer. And if you can build up a good relationship that buyer will come back to you time after time.

So, once we have built up that relationship with buyers or potential buyers, why are we afraid of the competition coming in and talking to the same potential buyers?  If you look at it from a business point of view, any business should go out and get more than one quote, so you will never be able to ensure that the potential client will use you.

Regardless of the situation, the potential client may well go to other networking groups, they may not like the fact that you support a particular football team, they may actually not like you, so you may not get the business anyway. So be brave, let the competition in. It could actually help you.

Working with the competition

Take a very simple example: you network with someone from the same trade as you. They are a competitor, but you start talking and discover that they buy their supplies from someone different to you, and those goods are better quality than your suppliers, but he gets them cheaper.

Wow, a lightbulb moment! 

You can change suppliers and save yourself, and/or your clients, money.

Or what if you are working on a client project and don’t have the required expertise and have to subcontract out part of the job to someone else? If you don’t talk to your competitor, you won’t find suppliers with the skills you need that you don’t have yourself. After further discussion, you find he’s got a small job that he can’t do, but you can – oh, happy days, you’re doing business with each other. But hang on a minute – he’s a competitor!

Don’t fear the competition

So, don’t be afraid to talk to the competition. He or she is never going to be exactly the same as you, and so there may well be areas of collaboration that can benefit you both, but you’ll never know, unless you talk to them.

Getting North Devon businesses working together

This is a big issue in North Devon, because it’s not only business people themselves who see competition on every corner, it’s also the towns. Bideford sees Ilfracombe as competition, Torrington sees South Molton as competition, everyone else sees Barnstaple as competition. But actually we are all in North Devon and we should be celebrating that we are in North Devon. If Ilfracombe can encourage people to come to North Devon and they pop over to Holsworthy for a day out, isn’t that good for everyone? We need to talk together, we need to encourage one another, we need to help one another, because as with the above traders we might surprise ourselves and find that we can actually do business with one another. And that can only improve North Devon.

Kevin Woodward

t: 01237 451848
e: kevin@kvassociates.co.uk
w: kvassociates.co.uk
twitter: @llamakevin

If you're coming to the North Devon Business Alliance buffet tomorrow at the Chichester Arms, Bishop's Tawton, you'll receive a copy of Business Action . . . 

or you can read Business Action online.