Welcome to

Eastbourne Business Development Group

You run your own business or are a decision maker for a sizeable part of one – great, but that freedom comes with many challenges. It’s nice to know you can make your own decisions without the need to consult anyone else. BUT . . .

. . . it would be nice to have a sounding board sometimes

What if you had a small group of experienced advisers who:

. . . willingly got involved in brain-storming your individual business challenges?
. . . expected no payment for this level of input, but simply pooled their collective experience to help you make those key decisions
. . . were utterly discreet, so your business secrets remain safe

And what do you have to do in return? Simply add your own experience freely when brain-storming the business plans and aspirations of your co-members.

Eastbourne Business Development Group

We are the Eastbourne Business Development Group – a brand new networking organisation which as its name implies, has been established to help local members develop their businesses.

Like BNI, NWB2B and so on, we are a closed group – so if you are say, a social media specialist, and that slot is unoccupied, you can join knowing that you will not meet any direct competitors. But there the resemblance ends. Our focus is on applying collective experience to each other’s business issues.

Usual Time on Referrals

EBDG Time on Referals

EBDG Business Issues

So, our first objective is to get to know each other, understand our respective skills and knowledge, and apply those to help each other.

Of course, if we do know someone outside the group, that is seeking some specialist help, and we have a member with the requisite skills and experience, we will make a referral. But such referrals are based on real needs and passed on only to people we truly know and trust. We don’t have a formal referral round, where at every meeting, you have to stand up and be counted. That often leads to ‘referral deflation’ – if one is obliged or pressured into making referrals every time, the quality of referrals will inevitably fall.

Members can deliver short talks from time to time but as we get to know each other well, this is not likely to happen every week. New members will of course be expected to tell us what we need to know about their own businesses. We will additionally invite external speakers to talk to us from time to time.

Check it out

Firstly, a reminder that this is a specialist group, and there are three aspects to that:

As mentioned earlier, we are a closed group, so if you are say, a Web Designer, and we already have one in the group, then you will not be asked to join us, and . . .
We do mean specialist – i.e. we expect you to have proven skills at a professional level so we can rely on your input – and that means . . .
Membership is by invitation only – we are not aiming to have 40 or 50 members, where specialisms are sub-divided into multiple segments.

Secondly, as said earlier, our members are utterly discreet.

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