Wife has just escaped asimilation into a Business Networking Group

Shiraz 4.99

My wife started her own business during the downturn & thankfully things are starting to grow exponentially.

A business adviser recently invited her to some business startup networking group where she'd meet similar professionals like herself with the aim of finding local service suppliers suitable for her needs.
She had attended few of these in the past which had been organised through state bodies & found them to be mainly fluff with a few contacts added to her address book, this one was far more cultish & worrying.

It started normally enough with attendees giving a speel on their respective businesses.
Then during the mingling process cheers would be encouraged by the staffers once contacts were exchanged, this kept building to higher crescendos encouraging a frenzy of activity with an award for the largest collector of names.
Not wishing to loose this momentum the leader of the group spoke about affordable memberships & continuing the dynamic at future events with newer & fresher attendees.
Next the staffers split the group apart often working one to one on prospective candidates looking for them to sign up to the group, at this point my wife noted it was €150 membership plus €50 per month DD.
There was no saying no to their sales tactics so she only allowed leave after loudly & publicly criticising the event & causing a few others to speak out.
She compared the whole event to The Simpsons episode where Homer followed The Leader promising Blisstonia.



I can only compare the event to something I remember back in the early 90's, there was a Ponzi Selling outfit called Amway I think it was that would put on a free booze information night in one of the disciples houses.
They'd catch a few fish every night for their £139 startup seliing packs.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if any contributors on here had heard of or attended anything similar recently ?.

Thanks.

aristotle25

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

There was no saying no to their sales tactics so she only allowed leave after loudly & publicly criticising the event & causing a few others to speak out.

Its not really that difficult to stand up and walk out the exit door?

Buttercake

When i worked in London, there were 2 types of people banned from Networking events.

Life Coaches and Digital marketeers. Digital marketeers tend to be the ones who sign you up for anything.

a few years ago attending networking events in Dublin there were scams like MyShoppingenie doing the rounds, stock syndicates etc

steer clear no matter how good it sounds.