Become a NABO Networking Group Director

…and become a leader in your local business community.

NABO Networking, the UK’s fastest growing business network, exclusively for business owners, is currently looking for Group Directors to start up new business networking groups.

If you are a motivated, ambitious business owner looking to expand your contacts and your profile, then this position would be perfect for you.

Forget your past experiences with networking…

For many business owners, the phrase ‘networking meetings’ conjures up images of early morning starts, followed by lots of aggressive sales pitches and business cards shoved into your hand while you struggle to hang on to your cup of coffee.

As a result of this, many business owners are put off networking and fail to benefit from the advantages of having a group of like-minded people to meet with on a regular basis.

Whatever your past experiences with networking, we would like to introduce you to a different way of building your business – NABO Networking, the new business networking group from the Nationwide Alliance of Business Owners.

The opportunities that come from starting up your own local group and serving as its Group Director are huge – for the right person.

NABO Networking is the UK’s fastest growing business networking organisation and the only one with the full support of a national business association and the backing of renowned entrepreneur Jonathan Jay.

It is also the only one where you have access to the knowledge and experience of 21 expert business authors, speakers and mentors.

Why is NABO Networking different?

NABO works with 21 expert authors, speakers and business mentors and NABO Networking members can benefit from their expertise via specially commissioned videos.

Each member receives a fortnightly video in which the NABO experts offer instruction on a huge variety of sales and marketing topics which you can incorporate directly into your meetings. Part of each meeting is devoted to a discussion about what everyone has learnt and how each member can apply it to their own business.

This is the key difference between NABO Networking and other business networking groups: while many networking groups focus on the gathering of referrals, NABO Networking’s goal is to help its members build their businesses through sharing best practice, as well as expanding their contacts list.

Our members are there to unearth new business opportunities, solve the problems facing their businesses and share their own expertise and experience with their peers. It is for those who are serious about growing their businesses, not those who only think of networking as a sales opportunity.

The investment to join is just £149 + vat per year if you join at your first meeting – (£250 + vat at all other times) which grants you access to any NABO Networking group around the country. This is vastly different from other networking groups, who generally charge £500-600 + vat per year.

What is the role of the Group Director?

As a Group Director, you will organise fortnightly networking events for all the members of your group, including booking the venue, promoting the group and signing up new members.

You will be responsible for making sure each meeting runs smoothly and on time and that it is enjoyable and productive for all your members.

Once your group is established, the organisation of each meeting will typically take two to three hours of your time each fortnight. However, don’t forget this is also time spent on your business as it’s promoting you at the same time as the group, as you shall see.

Why should you become a Group Director?

The Group Director position lets you enjoy the same networking opportunities as other NABO Networking members, allowing you to expand your contacts list and seek out new business opportunities. But the position carries other benefits…

As Group Director, you are at the forefront of each meeting, leading the discussion and ensuring the meeting is productive and enjoyable. You will also be the first point of contact for any visitors to your group. This automatically puts you in the spotlight, giving you a new platform to promote yourself and your business, allowing you to boost your personal profile and that of your business.

You will also find that through hosting the fortnightly meetings and regularly speaking in front of your group, your public speaking and presentation skills naturally improve. As you become more experienced, your confidence and rapport-building skills will also improve. These are all qualities that will have a positive effect on your own business.

Finally, although it is not intended to be your main source of income, the proceeds from each meeting will still form a good secondary income stream for you, with opportunities to earn more as your group becomes more established.

The training we provide allows you to run your meetings with complete confidence. Even if you’ve never run meetings like this before, we will transform you into a confident and inspiring leader of the group.

During your training, you will receive:

• A hard copy of the Group Director manual
• A NABO Networking banner
• Pre-prepared membership recruitment literature
• Mastermind Group recruitment literature

The Group Director manual is your comprehensive guide to running a networking group. It will teach you everything you need to know to run a group smoothly and professionally. It contains the following:

• An introduction to the role
• Information about setting up and promoting your group
• A plan for the week leading up to your launch day and what to do afterwards
• Choosing your group hosts
• A detailed launch meeting script to help your first day go smoothly

In addition, for every meeting you will receive supporting notes, covering the theme of the fortnightly video, so you can lead the discussion with confidence, given that we don’t expect you to already be an expert in every single facet of sales and marketing.

Before your first meeting, you will undertake an initial training day in London, where you will participate in a NABO Networking meeting followed by working through the Group Director manual and discussing the following topics in detail…

• Venues: how to choose and book them
• The meeting scripts
• The role of the group host: whom to choose and how they can support you
• Marketing your new group
• Preparation during the week building up to your group launch.

Throughout the year, there are four National Business Training Days, exclusively for Group Directors, where you will receive further training and get a chance to meet some of our business experts. At these events, the morning will be devoted to teaching you business growth strategies that have consistently proven to help businesses. The afternoon will be devoted to networking strategies that will help you build your group membership.

What does each meeting involve?

Each NABO Networking meeting is run to a finely-honed script, which will form a big part of your initial training.
Once you and your group host have welcomed everyone, you begin each meeting with a 45-second round, where each member has 45 seconds to tell the whole group about themselves and their business.

After this, there is a Q&A session about the fortnightly NABO video, allowing the members to discuss what they have learnt and how to apply it to their own businesses.

The 1-to-1 sessions follow, where members take turns pairing up and getting to know each other, giving them a chance to find out first-hand whether they have something to offer each other.

The final stage is the Hot Seat, where one member takes centre stage and shares a challenge their business is facing. In these sessions, the whole group’s collective knowledge is focused on one member’s business issues; the perfect way to help solve business challenges!

This meeting plan came as a result of the extensive market research we did when setting up NABO Networking. By investigating the successful practices of other networking groups and asking their members what they liked most about them, we realised that networkers enjoy structure in their meetings, but not inflexible rules and regulations.
This plan organises each meeting in a way that helps each member get the most out of the training and networking opportunities, while simultaneously promoting a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.

Leading a Mastermind Group

Each group that you run will be full of dedicated business owners, but you may find 10 or so particularly motivated business people with whom you want to share ideas and discuss in greater detail the topics of networking meetings. As Group Director, you can start a Mastermind Group that meets once a month for three hours to brainstorm business ideas. The monthly investment for a member to join is £99 + vat per month.

If you do want to set up a Mastermind Group, we will fully support you, even providing high-quality, professional promotional materials to help promote the group to your members. We run this with you on a 50/50 profit share.

Referral commissions

Once members have been to a few NABO networking meetings and enjoyed the benefits, they often become interested in our other services and programmes. If a member of your group is inspired enough by their experiences with NABO Networking to sign up for one of our paid Private Client Programmes, you will receive a 10% referral commission from us to say thank you.

Your income potential as a NABO Networking Group Director

The role of Group Director is not meant to be your main source of income but it will offer a supplement to your regular earnings.

Based on conservative estimates, we have calculated what you can typically expect to earn in a year from running a group. After your initial three months, when your group is firmly established, you can sensibly expect to have 30 members, whilst Mastermind Groups will generally consist of 10 members, which means…

With all the advantages that a position as one of our Group Directors can bring to you and your business, these roles are currently in high demand and filling rapidly as more groups are started around the country.