I was asked my opinion the other day by a loan officer in regards to the Chamber of Commerce. Everyone has their own opinions and thoughts, but my experience with our local Chamber of Commerce has been average. Don't get me wrong, any networking group can be beneficial in so many ways.

Let's start with one that I am familiar with. Le Tip International. http://www.letip.com/  They are in 22 states now and Canada. The basic foundation behind this group is that you have 1 person from each type of business. Meaning that you would have only have 1 realtor, 1 loan officer, 1 CPA, 1 lawn care person (landscaper), 1 lawyer (many specialty lawyers are allowed), 1 Florist, so on and so on. Many of the people in these groups are owners of their own business. You basically meet once a week for an hour, get to know each other's type of business, and network amongst each other. I was in this type of group for about 1 1/2 years and it works very well. You might ask why I got out of it? Let's just say that there was some poiltics involed and that it came down to a certain individual. (long story) But I am here to say that it does work. You actually give each other what are called tips. The tip would be some type of contact that is looking for that person's help in their expertise of business. Example. My tip would be John Smith who is looking for a house to purchase. I then write this down on a piece of paper and give it to the realtor in the group. In my particular group at that time, we had 34 people representing 34 different types of businesses.

Other groups out there would be BNI, http://www.bni.com/, which works in the same capacity as Le Tip. I have not experienced this type of networking group before, but I have heard positive things about it in the past. Then you have the Chamber of Commerce. They are usually located in many of your local towns or cities. Like I said, it's my opinion, but in this group, you can have many of the same people from one type of business. And they get together and pass each other's business cards around. Another group would be your local Rotary group. I have also experienced this group before, but I left because I ended up moving over 20 miles away and it was too much traveling time. Typically this type of group are of business individuals from the local area. And the concept of this group is like Le Tip and BNI. For the most part, you are only allowed one person from each type of business. But this group is more than about business contacts. They also get involved in the community to help out, may it be fund raisers or cleaning up their community. And Knights of Columbus is another group that can be used for networking. The Knights of Columbus is an international fraternal and service organization for Catholic men.

Overall, I think these are types of networking that so many of us overlook. It can be very beneficial to each of our businesses. And with many of these groups, it takes about an hour out of your day, once a week. The actual costs can be a lot cheaper than your basic advertising. Such a small price to pay that could end up adding so much to your business. And please don't be offended if I left any groups out. There are also many types of business networking groups for women only. I would love any comments on what groups have been left out or any suggestions.

Here are several networking sites online that can help you with information on networking.

http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/networking          http://www.rileyguide.com/support.html