Earlier this month I flew the roost sans Lani to meet up with 40 of NH’s finest small business owners…and fellow members of the stellar microenterprise advocate, MicroCredit-NH. With dozens of mastermind-type groups all over this great state, MicroCredit-NH represents 80% of all businesses in NH: That is to say, businesses with five employees or fewer.

Here, we have featured speaker Betsy Black. She led the group through two networking exercises, and judging by the volume level in the room, everyone put her advice into action…with gusto! (The exercise? Ask a short set of introductory questions, then a follow-up question based on each response, then play six-degrees-of-separation games as you figure out each other’s mutual friends and business contacts.)

After the guided exercises, we were turned loose to keep workin’ it with as many other biz owners in the room as we could. It worked out so well, we actually closed the Meredith Community Center down! (That’s how life goes. Ten years ago, I closed down a bar or two. Now, I close down community centers.)

Of course, I’m more than a little proud of our own MicroCredit-NH group, “Lakes Region Business Works.” (Left to right is me, Mike Lemire, Darcie Shedd, Lucie Villeneuve, Regional Manager Extraordinaire Claudia Needham, Heather Phelps, Stephanie Demme, and Glenn Madon.) We hosted the event for the other groups in the area, and the feedback has been so positive, other groups want to host their own networking events in 2007.

As entrepreneurs, we (meaning you and me) often say things like we’re “striking out on our own” into the small biz realm, as though we’re exchanging corporate “civilization” for a comparative wilderness.

Truth is, we don’t have to go it alone. And in fact, it’s probably a bad idea. Stir crazy happens. We can lose perspective when we’re holed up in our home offices for days, weeks, months at a time.

Mind a bit of advice? Meet up with some fellow travelers on the small biz path, and walk a while with them. It’ll boost your spirits AND your survival skills. (And you may even score a few yummy snacks, too!)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 12:08 am and is filed under Masterminding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.