Storage facility becomes networking hub

[attach]662[/attach]In mid-August, many professionals pack up the car and head out of town for a little fun in the sun.

Not Jennifer Beale.

The proprietor of [url=http://www.biznetworknews.com]www.biznetworknews.com[/url] holds her signature business networking event in the otherwise-lazy summer month.

“Lo and behold, there actually is a lot of people in Toronto who want to network in the summer,” said Beale, a publicist. “It’s really built on the premise of benefiting everyone involved.

“As a small business owner, we have to work all the time, we have to keep bringing money into our company, we have to keep selling our services to people so it doesn’t stop.”

This year, All Canadian Self-Storage at 1 Laird Dr. in Leaside took on hosting duties.

Beale admitted a self-storage facility doesn’t immediately scream event space, but she said the location was perfect.

“On first glance, you’d think, ‘A storage facility, what a weird place to have a business networking event’,” she said. “Most storage facilities would not be conducive to something like this.”

But the 8-metre wide, 244-metre drive-thru corridor was decorated to look like a streetscape, complete with lampposts and wandering musicians.

“It’s always ideal to find a location like what we used in Leaside because it’s so close to downtown Toronto,” Beale said. “We’ll get a lot of people who wouldn’t normally go to the suburbs to network yet we can still get a lot of people from the suburbs coming to town.”

And the numbers don’t lie. This year’s attendance was almost 500 people, including 21 exhibitors and nine networking groups: it was Beale’s most successful event thus far.

And she’s been getting positive feedback ever since. One healthy foods proprietor in attendance told her he’s received 14 inquiries for franchises of his business, “and it’s not even launched”.

Beale, who authored the e-book Business Networking Essentials, said it’s not so much about trying to make a sale at a networking event as finding leads and making meaningful connections.

“The leads become valuable because they’re qualified,” she said. “Now the person needs to take those leads and talk to those people to see if they’re going to do business together.”

Hal Spradling, managing partner at All Canadian Self-Storage, said hosting the event was a no-brainer.

“We’re looking to be a part of the community we live and work in here,” he said. “And also to promote ourselves and associate ourselves with reputable, quality people.”

Meanwhile, Spradling said he’s already agreed to host the event again next year.