We had another awesome meeting on Wednesday and saw a few new faces! Welcome! Welcome! I hope you were able to get your networking on!

On Wednesday Rebecca Vaughan-King presented and told us a little about ImagineDesign and taught us a lot about branding. Rebecca brought up 6 important rules of branding: staying consistent, being genuine, staying passionate (and communicating your love for your business), helping others, effectively communicating your point of difference, and remaining visible. I learned a lot about branding and how to improve my skills with branding but also that it doesn’t have to be an extra full-time job to effectively brand your business. Many of her points are practices we should be exercising everyday anyway! I mean – how can you not be passionate about the business you created from nothing? We’re all awesome. Rebecca also offers social media training to help you use tools like Facebook and LinkedIn to better brand your business.

We also talked briefly about the exciting Cross Chapter Happy Hour occurring on August 23rd from 5:30-7:30pm at the Old Towne Sports Pub located at 8971 Center Street, Manassas, VA 20110. We’ve gotten a ton of positive feedback on this event and many people are excited for it. If you haven’t heard about it yet the Cross Chapter Happy Hour is to help bring networking groups together – the focus is on the smaller more isolated groups but all networking groups are invited to this FREE event. What makes this event so great is that you get to network with people you might not get a chance to see otherwise and learn about other networking groups in the area that might be a good fit for you – all in one location. If you haven’t already try to RSVP on the evite and the Facebook event.

Evite: http://new.evite.com/services/events/037EAAQZXGL24EFCIEPB3QCBM5LG4A/export/facebook (Let me know if that link doesn’t work)
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/396341497093960/

Here’s a list of everybody who was present today:
Robert McGlothlin – McGlothlin Properties
Jason Shriner – The Aubergine Chef
Cynthia Cypress – Invado International
Rebecca Vaughan-King – ImagineDesign
Patrick King – ImagineDesign
Jose Guasca – Spectrum Work Services
Staci Webber – Haymarket Physical Therapy and Chiropractic
Joshua Cole – Haymarket Physical Therapy and Chiropractic
Cheryl Lucas – Prospect Mortgage
Johnathan Escueta – Signs & Banners (Gainesville, VA)
Johanna Goossens – Simplicity Events by Johanna

Here is the upcoming meeting and presentation schedule – Things have changed around a little so make sure you look!
August 15th – Jan Sutton
August 29th – NO MEETING
September 5th – Nancy Lindgren
September 19th – TBA

If you’re interested in doing a presentation or joining as a member be sure to e-mail me directly at GNetWestPWC@gmail.com because replies to this e-mail are stored on a separate server and I don’t always see them right away! Membership is restricted by industry (just so it’s easier to manage the presentations and website) but we invite everybody and anybody to our meetings to come as regular “visitors” because it’s important to us to have that openness and non-exclusivity aspect. Remember: membership is totally FREE.

Have a great couple of weeks everyone and we look forward to seeing you on August 15th!