Northeast Ohio B2B Referral Organization Expands Reach to Generate Lucrative Sales Leads for Members Nationwide

CLEVELAND (Business Wire EON) November 29, 2007 -- BtoB Connect, the fastest growing business-to-business networking group in northeast Ohio, announced today its intention to expand its organization by offering BtoB Connect franchises to qualified individuals. The announcement marks the beginning of its expansion from a northeast Ohio-based company to a national franchise operation.

When people purchase a franchise, what they are really investing in is a proven, turnkey system. You must be able to show that your business formula can be duplicated, and that novices who invest in it are set up for success so they can replicate the same or similar results.

Announcing details of the new franchise, Jim Hornyak, Co-Founder and Vice President said, “The exploding demand for the services of a B2B group vs. B2C group is what inspired us to create BtoB Connect, and has now prompted us to introduce BtoB Connect as a franchise nationwide.”

“Most referral groups promote both business and consumer-type businesses, making them only marginally productive for professionals who call exclusively on companies. We’ve structured BtoB Connect meetings to be like going through the business-to-business phone book, while other groups are like the consumer yellow pages.”

Laura Leggett, Co-Founder and President, notes that, “When people purchase a franchise, what they are really investing in is a proven, turnkey system. You must be able to show that your business formula can be duplicated, and that novices who invest in it are set up for success so they can replicate the same or similar results.”

“We’ve done our homework, starting with the prototype chapter begun in January of 2003, testing formats and implementing improvements based upon feedback from members. We’ve had members compress their sales cycle down to two weeks from six months, and one member was able to position himself for a $1 million dollar project just by finally getting personally referred to the decision-maker he had been chasing for the past year using traditional prospecting tactics. The BtoB Connect format has now been implemented and refined with 14 chapters since BtoB Connect was incorporated in May of 2005.”

Ms. Leggett is quick to point out that a BtoB Connect franchise is truly unique because ownership doesn’t require abandoning other business or career interests. Instead, the power of this franchise is that it can feed a continuous stream of qualified business referrals to the franchisee’s core business, making it a key component of their business development activities. While doing so, the franchise owner can be developing an additional residual income stream and building equity in BtoB Connect.

The BtoB Connect franchise offering will be managed by Franchising Unlimited, a 29-year-old company that has worked with over 555 companies (including several among the Fortune 500) and sold over 3400 franchises.

The BtoB Connect structure is different from other business networking groups. For instance,

• Membership is restricted to business owners and sales professionals who do business exclusively within a B2B environment.
• Chapter meetings are every other week (vs. weekly), attendance is not mandatory, lead dispersal is not mandatory and members are encouraged to join other organizations as well.
• Each member is given a full 3-5 minutes to present their business at each meeting versus the traditional 30-seconds, and the agenda focuses exclusively on generating business referrals.
• To increase the quality and not merely quantity of referrals, referrals are not tracked
• A proven system for personal introductions is used that immediately transfers trust and provides instant credibility with a prospect for qualified leads.
• Membership is limited to 20 members per chapter from non-competing businesses.

Enhanced Services:

BtoB Connect will now be positioned as a world-class franchise program that offers franchisees comprehensive back office support, initial and ongoing training programs, lead generation and marketing assistance, proprietary web-based applications and solid online/virtual networking processes.

Most notable of these tools is the implementation of the new “BtoB Connections” B2B social networking system, powered by Visible Path, which facilitates making online connections to reach individuals within a targeted business. This customized system allows BtoB Connect members to systematically manage and apply the power of their network. By mapping out who can introduce you to the right business contact, the system helps members easily take advantage of the powerful relationship capital contained within the BtoB Connect organization. This is powerful, considering that sales meetings are 16 times more likely to occur when brokered by a contact the two parties have in common, based upon research conducted by the University of Chicago.

The new application is integrated into some popular business intelligence and customer relationship management tools, such as Hoover’s, LexisNexis, Salesforce.com and Oracle OnDemand. Free to members, it can be used to:

• Map and manage relationships
• Access extended social networks to sell, market and recruit more effectively, while controlling privacy and security settings
• Find the strongest path or recommendation to targeted individuals
• Request introductions and referrals through the network, and
• Integrate member’s networks into their CRM and business information tools.

About BtoB Connect:

BtoB Connect is a business-to-business networking group with the mission to dramatically condense the sales cycle and eliminate the high cost of cold-market business development by providing high quality personal referrals to business owners and sales professionals calling exclusively on other companies. BtoB Connect is specifically designed to generate highly qualified business referrals for business people.

Contact Info

For more information about BtoB Connect, LLC, visit www.BtoBconnect.com, e-mail membership@BtoBConnect.com, or call 440-954-7428.

Individuals interested in visiting a BtoB Connect meeting as a guest, becoming a member or chapter group leader, or to request a franchise offering circular to secure a new franchise of their own may contact:

Laura T. Leggett, Co-Founder and President

440-477-3309

lleggett@btobconnect.com

Keywords: business-to-business, B2B, b-to-b, referral, sales leads, business development, business networking group, networking groups, social networking, visible path, relationship capital, franchise, franchising unlimited.

Post Comment:
Trackback URL: http://eon.businesswire.com/pingpr.php/Q3Jhcy1QaWdnLUNyYXMtSG9yci1UaGlyLVplcm8=

visible path social networking sales leads referral networking groups business-to-business business networking group business development b-to-b b2b

Bookmark -  Del.icio.us | Digg | Furl It | Spurl | RawSugar | Simpy | Shadows | Blink It | My Web