The Growth Community are celebrating being voted Business Growth and Networking Experts of the Year (2023) – North Midlands – in the Northern Enterprise Awards!
The judges loved our focus on supporting the growth of our members and our original ideas when it comes to the networking format. They were also impressed with our extraordinary levels of growth in our first three years of trading.
Turning Ideas Into Action
The Growth Community was founded in the early days of the pandemic as a place where business people could come together to support each other during unprecedented times.
Like many other companies, Founder, Nicky Thomas, had experienced her own financial challenges during covid and had little resources to start a business. But, she was able to bring The Growth Community to life utilising just her well nurtured network who all offered their skills and experience to make it happen.
“Your Network really is your Net-Worth,” explains Nicky. “My valuable network of business friends helped turn my vision into reality. We are now a community of around 130 people who are genuinely interested in helping others to be successful and more importantly take action to make it happen!”
Focusing on the Member Experience
When Nicky started The Growth Community she wanted to bring something new and innovative to the networking space and offer a member experience that delivered reliable and productive results.
“We don’t just offer fortnightly networking meetings. We want our members to genuinely and proactively support each other’s growth, so it’s imperative that we all know what that looks like for the people we are working with.”
“Our six weekly Member Only meetings turn networking into a marketing team meeting where we discuss goals and take actions. We also share knowledge and ideas for members who need support with their business.”
No Hard Sell
Nicky also wanted to distance The Growth Community from the aggressive ‘membership sales’ model that is often engaged at networking groups.
“Joining a networking community is not always the right thing for everybody. It requires commitment and reliability and it’s important that people come to it in their own time. That’s why we invite guests to our meetings purely to network with us and they can do that up to 6 times a year. We don’t put pressure on anyone and we just encourage them to enjoy our friendly, productive meetings and most importantly have 121s with other guests and members to identify ways to help each other.”
You can read more about our rise to success and award win in the January edition of SME News.
More Award Recognition
Nicky’s vision and success was also recognised at the Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce Awards, where she was a finalist in the Business Person of the Year category In October 2023.
Experience our Award Winning Networking Format
Remember you can visit us as a guest up to SIX times a year. Find a meeting near you (or online) on our Locations page.
More Resources
Need help choosing the right networking for you or brushing up on your 121 meeting skills. We have lots of useful blogs in the library section of our website.
