Networking for Penangites…Women Only

Jo and I had been toying with the idea for a few months now. In fact, I had the idea last year and she had the idea even before her daughter was born (her daughter is now 2 plus!). When she brought it up in a conversation, I’d agreed heartily knowing that it was truly godsend.
Yesterday, we managed to group together about 7 women all together in Jo’s shop for our first ever networking meet for women business owners in Penang. We felt it was the right time because we were both longing for something to happen in Penang. Instead of sitting around and hoping something would fall into our laps, we’d decided we would just do it, to borrow a phrase from Nike.
We had both lamented that all good business events for women were somehow held in KL and that alienated a number of us from joining. Penang had its fair share of strong business women but everyone was joining BNI.
As Jo puts it, women with children did have problems getting to the weekly BNI meets at 7am. For me, I am just as prickly about the early morning meets. You don’t want to see me in the morning. Not because I am a grouch (I definitely am not) but I think at 7am my brain cells have yet to start their engines and I might slur and you might think I wasn’t sober at all. Certainly not a good impression to make when you’re introducing yourself and giving out name cards!
We decided that our meets would start off informally with an emphasis on creating camaraderie and sharing our experiences to help each other’s businesses grow. We didn’t want any hard and fast rules for the moment although we did stress that we did not wish to have any MLMers or direct-sellers in our midst. I am sure many people would attest to their aversion for MLMers, insurance agents, etc.
Everyone had 10 minutes to introduce their business and let us know their background if they so wished. It was more of a get-to-know you session instead of hard sell. In fact, hard selling is not encouraged (hence, the reluctance to admit certain pushy people). We ended up having a good chat, peppering each other with questions we never dared ask otherwise.
In the midst of it all, dear friend Erina brought a lovely cake (she is after all in the cooking supplies business) and Lillian brought her signature kuih talam. Someone contributed a spicy tomyam beehoon and wonderful banana cake. So we enjoyed the food with cups of Nescafe 3-in-1, the conversation and the fact that we were all women, talking about women things, and plain enjoying the moments we had with each other, sans husbands and children. The rainy weather helped us warm up to each other I believe!
A website will be in the works (ahem, courtesy of yours truly) and it will be a contact point for future announcements, mailings and other interesting stuff considering that we may not be able to meet all the time. (Yes, we understand that moms have to be drivers and caregivers and that’s why we want this to be informal at first. We don’t want to kick anyone out for not attending!)
So what’s next? We’ll be having our next networking session in July. If you want to join us, email me and briefly introduce yourself and your business. You should be a business owner or have a major say in the day-to-day running of the business and the most important criterion, you have to be a woman. Of course. 😉