News

3 May 2012	Cog visitors day a great success Our first visitors day on the 27th April at the Inn Lodge in Portsmouth was well attended, with nearly 40 local business people at the breakfast event. Our photographer, Paul Burrows of RobPaul Studios, was on hand to record the event which included our presentation of a cheque for £550 to Rowans Hospice, our supported charity this year. Hope to have the photos shorty to share with you.
3 April 2012	COG VISITORS DAY - 27th April 2012 Cog Business Networking group are pleased to announce that we are holding our first Visitors Day meeting on Friday 27th April 2012. Meeting: Friday 27th April 2012 from 07:00 to 09:00 - breakfast served at 07:15 Venue: The Inn Lodge Burrfields Road, Portsmouth, PO3 5HH Cost: £10.00 More details about our visitors day here
3 January 2012	Happy New Year 2011 was quite a tough year for many businesses and it looks like 2012 is not going to be an easy one either so being able to share your thoughts and getting some support from other local business contacts can be a great help. We have had a great start with Cog Business Networking since we established in August 2011 and we hope to continue to develop and help all of our members to grow their businesses as well in 2012. We wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year.
23 December 2011	Seasons Greetings All of us at Cog Business Networking would like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and properous 2012. We look forward to seeing you soon. (click on image for larger version)
23 December 2011	Next meeting We are having a couple of weeks off over the Christmas and New Year so our next meeting will be on Friday 6th January. Have a great holiday and we wish you well for 2012 !
12 December 2011	Cog Networking - Christmas Special On Friday 16th December, our meeting format will be a little bit different, the emphasis as it is Christmas, will be on having even more fun than usual ! The theme of the meeting will be a Christmas radio show so instead of your elevator pitch, you can turn it into a radio ad - how you do it is entirely up to you.
12 November 2011	Cog networking events on LinkedIn Did you know that you can check for the details of our networking events on LinkedIn Events and you can also register there that you are attending. Why not give it a try for our next meeting at http://linkd.in/ufPWiX We also have our own Cog Networking Group on LinkedIn so please feel free to join it so you can keep up to date with what we are doing. Take a look at http://linkd.in/u1mVvp So next time you are looking for a networking event in Portsmouth to attend, you know where to go !
11 November 2011	Google Places at last At long last I managed to get the verification through Google and the hotel so our Google Places account for Cog Business Networking is now live. Having your business listed works really well in local search and it is important to make the most of it (that goes for everyone so if you don't have your business on there yet - you should do it, after all it is free - ask me how if you have a problem). Anyway, it would be great if as many as possible could add a review or comments please. You can use the link below to get to our listing. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
11 November 2011	Presentation x 2 Thanks to Jasmine Blofield of SBA Financial for a really great presentation this morning. She managed to make the World of IFAs really interesting and she is clearly very passionate about what she does. To finish, she recommended her favourite book to the members and visitors and then went one step further and presented them each a copy. How's that for exceeding expectations !
26 October 2011	It just keeps getting better ... Another great meeting last week, well attended and really lively as usual and, as Laura Swetman put it, "there was a great dynamic in the room". Two more new members inducted as well ! Keep up the good work and lets get some more new visitors for this week.
21 Sep 2011	QR Codes We were talking about QR Codes during our meeting last week. To some members these were new so as one of our members asked me to add a QR Code to his member profile page this week, I thought it would be a great opportunity for you to take a look and try it out if you have a suitable app on your smartphone. A typical QR Codes looks like the examples below and these are being seen in more and more places recently. They really work best on printed material but they are also featuring more on TV these days too (I understand you need to freeze the screen for them to work best from the TV screen so as to give the reader time register the image). They come in various sizes and can contain different information e.g. website address, phone numbers, text. Did you get them all ? Steve Wood 21-9-2011
13 Sep 2011	Google is using your Disc Directory listing data Feedback from the Disc Directory guys this week indicates that Google is now taking data directly from the Disc Directory site and including the star ratings and extracting descriptions from the reviews. There are a couple of examples below, both of which feature on page 1 of the Google results. If you have a Disc Directory listing, type your business name into Google and look for the relevent Disc directory listing and see what it says. If you don't have a listing you should at least sign up for a free one. If you have not come across the Disc Directory yet, I liken it to Checkatrade but for other businesses (i.e other than "tradesmen"). It is a really easy way to prompt your customers to give you feedback / reviews. All you have to do is to give them one of the pre-printed postcards to fill in and post back to the Disc Directory who will then add it to your listing on their directory for all to see. Each new entry is also automatically broadcast on Twitter and Facebook so it gets you great visibility across the Internet. You can also enter reviews on-line if you prefer so if you feel the urge, why not write one now for Cog Business Networking or any of our members ? Every little mention helps your inbound marketing and to grow your business and your network ! Steve Wood 13-9-2011
21 Aug 2011	Another great meeting With the holiday season in full swing in August, we were short of a few members this week but we still had a full room thanks to all our visitors that attended this week. Visitors are a very important part of our group and we welcome you to come along and meet us see how the group works. Just have a look at our visit us page or contact any member and we can arrange for you to visit. Don't forget our introductory special offer - if you join during August 2011, you don't have to pay the £99 membership fee for the first year.
12 Aug 2011	2nd Cog meeting goes well As with anything new, it takes a bit of time to get settled down and into a routine but our second meeting went very well with a good attendance and 5 more of our visitors taking advantage of our opening offer and submitting applications for membership.
10 Aug 2011	Cog Website goes live We are pleased to announce that our first website went live today. This will gradually evolve with time and grow as the group grows.
5 Aug 2011	Cog Business Networking group launch Our first meeting of the group went off really well with a great turnout of 25 local business people.