Over the last while we have been very busy here at the GPAEDC’s Business Advisory Centre! We hosted two major Bridges to Better Business events in the County of Peterborough. This year Bridges to Better Business aimed to bring business owners together to network and provided them an opportunity to learn from each other.
We invited Tony Grady of Grady’s Feet Essentials and Grady Coaching and Marketing Services to speak to local business owners about his seven secrets to business success. Tony is an excellent speaker who is easy to listen to and offers valuable business strategy suggestions. Participants appreciated the easily implementable ‘secrets’ that Tony offered.
Following Tony’s presentation we facilitated a panel discussion of local business owners discussing their own experiences utilizing the following business strategies: Diversification, Customer Loyalty, Social Media, and Partnering with other business to achieve success. The peer to peer discussion created an interesting dynamic with both groups. It was so exciting to see small businesses sharing their success stories with other businesses!
We had our first Bridges event in Millbrook on the 5th of October at the Legion where there were approximately thirty participants. The second Bridges was in Bridgenorth on the 12th where we had nearly forty participants together in the Bridgenorth Community Hall. After each event I had chats with some participants who were excited to get back to the office and start working on some of the things they had learned! One participant even commented that this was the best seminar put on by the Business Advisory Centre yet!
It was such a pleasure to bring these events to Peterborough County! A big thanks goes out to our community partners who helped us pull it all together: Millbrook BIA, Millbrook & District Chamber of Commerce, East Kawartha Chamber of Commerce and the Township of Smith-Ennismore-Lakefield.
