After
over three year run (2003 to 2006) and seven
total groups in the Louisville market I have
decided to shut down ChristianB2BNetwork.
The reasons are many but I'll offer some here
for consideration:
1)
The groups never seemed to grow bigger then 7 or
8 attendees.
2)
The groups would falter unless I could make the
meetings. With rare exceptions a group
would cease to exist if I stopped attending it
to focus on other groups.
3)
We never really got to the point of generating
good leads for the members. We had great
social time and developed what I feel are long
term relationships but without leads many
members just couldn't commit any longer to the
meeting time and expense of the meals. As
there are many other leads groups out their I
don't blame them.
4)
Possibly one of our attendance problems was the
result of lack of commitment by attendees but I
don't fault them as the groups weren't producing
for them. It's the old chicken and the egg
concept. You have to attend to grow the
group and generate leads but it's not very
rewarding if that is not happening.
5)
The time commitment and expenses for me
personally were tremendous. After spending
over $5000 of my own money and generating less
then $800 in fees it became too much of a
financial drain for me. I did however
break even due to some good referrals I got so
I'm not complaining.
We did a
lot of good over three years. We got the
word our that Christians and business do mix by
having our group listed in Business First and
the local newspapers. It had to give some
people a chance to pause and consider that it is
ok to talk about business AND being a Christian.
My clients developed a new respect for me
knowing that I was placing the banner Christian
out front on all of my business dealings.
It sets a standard that I want to live up to.
I think
the concept of a Christian networking group is good but I'm missing the mark
on making it work. If you feel inspired to help fund
and lead this please contact me and lets discuss
it.
Due to the tremendous amount of spam I
receive due to listing my email on this site I'm
shutting down email for ChristianB2BNetwork.
To reach me call my office and get my email address. Please call me at
812/948-1194 ext 210.
Thanks
for the support and God Bless!
Don Edds
BELOW is
the outline of how we approached the forming and
managing the groups if you would like to
brainstorm any ideas. The links no longer
are active as I don't want to support the pages
they linked to.
