Chamber offers new focused networking program… for members only

The strongest referrals you can get are from someone who knows you personally.  These people have the confidence to refer you to their friends, to their family, and to their closest associates.  Needless to say, you don’t get this kind of referral with just a business card and a 30-second elevator speech.  You get these referrals from someone with whom you have a personal connection. 

These are the kind of referrals the Chamber wants you to be able to get on a regular basis.  That’s why the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce is partnering with Connect 4 Lunch to provide “our members only” with a new and exciting, focused networking program. 

Through the Bakersfield Chamber’s association with Connect For Lunch, each week, Chamber members can spend over an hour with three different Chamber members at a variety of local Chamber member restaurants.  Over lunch, you’ll make personal connections with these members, build trust, swap referrals, and learn about each other’s businesses.    Over time, you’ll become known to more and more members in the Chamber community on a personal, as well as business level.  During the course of a year, with Connect For Lunch you can make personal business connections with up to 150 different Chamber members.

Here’s how the Connect For Lunch program works: 
On Wednesday of each week, you’ll get an email asking if you’d like to go to lunch on a specific day next week.  If you click “yes” in the email, the following Monday you’ll get another email with the name of the restaurant (with a link to a map), and the names of the three Chamber members you’ll be having lunch with. 

When you click on the names of the each of your lunch partners, you’ll get to read all about them and about their businesses.  (They’ll be reading about you as well, since you will have created a brief introduction about yourself and your business beforehand in your own private Connect For Lunch account.)  Thus, when you all sit down at the table together, you’ll be able to get right down to business making the powerful personal connections that make this program so valuable. 

On the day of your lunch, all you have to do is show up at the restaurant.  The reservation will have already been made for you, and your three lunch partners will be waiting to meet you.  It’s as easy as that.  Each Connect For Lunch participant just pays for their lunch and to make it even easier, the restaurant will provide separate checks.

No more writing on the backs of business cards.
When you return to the office after lunch, you can log in to your online Connect For Lunch account and type in whatever you want to remember from lunch in your contact manager.  Your contact manager will preserve for you your entire lunch history, with the names of all your lunch partners, the restaurants, the dates of your lunches, etc.  This is available to you 24/7 from anywhere you have an internet connection.

At the end of the trial period – or after you’ve gone to lunch four times – you can continue for the nominal fee of only $9.95 for twice a month or $17.95 for four times a month – just a little more than what you’d leave for a tip. 

Watch your inbox for more information. Bon Appétit!