It's business 'not' as usual. Women and minority entrepreneurs play matchmaker with organizations looking to do business with them at the second annual conference sponsored by the Regional Chamber and YSU.
"This opportunity is really facilitating and speeding up the process of making deals, and making money," says Dorothy Boggio, Director of Business Services with the Regional Chamber.
From "Small Business Boot Camp", to workshops on minority business certification, men and women from all over northeast Ohio network on different diversity goals and strategies.
"This year, Key Bank has committed to a 14% minority women owned business spend goal, which shatters the national corporate average which is 2.9%", says Marlon Walker, Assistant Vice President of Supplier Diversity for Key Bank.
In the "Procurement Cafe", women and minority business owners can sit down and meet face-to-face with a wide variety of companies, organizations, and potential purchasers. "And these are buyers that are ready, willing, and able to do business with them and that's why it's so valuable," says Boggio.
Mother-daughter team Lenny and Lena Willoughby know how important good contacts are to keep business booming in today's economy. "We can talk to each other and find out, become sales people for each other. Essentially, that's the whole point of networking, is to recommend friends and recommend business associates, so that we can all move forward together as a group," says Lena Willoughby of Infinity Design Advertising in Warren.
Organizers say around 100 people on both sides of the table participate in the event; everything from schools, to utility companies, to local municipalities. Boggio says, "These are hot prospects, so it's not a cold-call kind of situation."
Sometimes it's not what you know, but who you know.
