Sage Blog

Although our head office is in the UK, Sage ERP X3 (as a global product) is part of an international community that collaborates on product development, with an international team to aid global product deployment and after sales support through shared knowledge, skills and resources.

Our global conference

This month the Sage France team played host the Sage ERP X3 Global Sales conference, inviting over 500 Sage ERP X3 staff and business partners from 17 countries around the world over to Paris, making it the largest Sage ERP X3 event held to date. This event is billed as a conference, but the underlying raison d’être (picking up the lingo already!) is networking.

A networking natural?

Now, some people thrive in a ‘networking environment’ – effortlessly floating between colleagues old and new, picking up business cards and drinks like this event is their single purpose in life. Managing to juggle nibbles, a glass of champagne and picking their next victim in one easy swoop.

Other people find networking awkward and unnatural, struggling with the notion of polite ‘chit-chat’ and are just not comfortable working a room. Networking takes a lot of effort and a certain degree of practice, and we have all been guilty of standing in the corner with our colleagues rather than meeting new people.

But does networking, really work?

Business networking is an effective low-cost marketing method for developing sales opportunities and contacts, based on referrals and introductions – either face-to-face at meetings and gatherings, or by other contact methods such as phone, email, and increasingly social and business networking websites.

Social media has, in part, taken away the personal aspect of day-to-day networking, and enables us to meet contacts at a distance, but surely online networking can’t replace the value that face to face contact brings? And one would assume that the quality of relationships would be diminished through the lack of the human contact and rapport building.

Social networking can bring us closer to people and communities that we would never have the opportunity to meet in the ‘real world’ but in actuality it  doesn’t replace a face-to-face conversation, but more acts as a soft introduction.

Working for a larger business, with a wider social ecosystem the need to network face to face becomes more necessary. The key here is identifying the reason, or a goal for being at the networking event and stick to it – do you want to meet your counterpart from a similar organisation? Track down the supplier that messed up your order? Or perhaps find new job opportunities?

Networking can bring us better deals, higher value service, invites to more social events and new Linkedin contacts, but in my opinion the most important thing it brings us is trust. Trust that our colleagues, suppliers, partners are on the same path as us and are looking to achieve a common goal.

Julia Commons, Sage ERP X3 team

Our guest blogger Kat is from Manchester based web design company, WildFire Digital Media. Having attended last year’s free business event, Sage World, she’s already booked her tickets for Sage World 2011 and here she explains why.

Last year, we at WildFire Digital Media attended the very first Sage World.  It promised to be a very enlightening event, held over two days, focused on aiding SME’s with their marketing, networking, helping them get financing and much more. Alongside this it provided their customers the opportunity to meet their support staff face to face and ask any questions they may have. And this October they are doing all again in Manchester.

We are a web design company in Manchester, with a lot of competitors, so we needed advice on how to reach our customers and stand out from the crowd. We got that, and more!

Networking, speakers, inspiration and a free lunch!

Sage made use of SpotMe devices, which was a great tool given to each attendee at the event to allow them to see who was in the vicinity, send messages to people whose business was of interest and provided a map, event schedule and a nudge when a talk was due to begin so that you didn’t miss anything.

Each of the days was filled with very interesting speakers, plenty of time for networking with a coffee and a free packed lunch which went down a treat.

It was such a valuable event to attend, both from a business and a personal perspective.  We were able to meet up with like minded people who were also looking to inject some inspiration into their business, and the speakers were able to offer sound business advice gleaned from their own personal experience.

Among the speakers last year were notably Will King, the founder of King of Shaves and Karren Brady formerly the managing director of Birmingham City FC, and more recently Alan Sugar’s aide in The Apprentice. They both spoke about their experiences and the challenges they had faced along the way, and their delivery was both charismatic and informative.

I will also mention Geoff Ramm and Andy Lopata, who really stood out to us as experts in their field. Geoff Ramm is a marketing expert who gave a very energetic talk and was full of ideas on how businesses can reach their potential customers. He spoke about businesses who were struggling against competitors and couldn’t reach their customers, and then showed us some of his ingenious marketing ideas that had then put that business on the map. We were even lucky enough to have a one to one chat with him, which was obviously an invaluable opportunity for our business.

Putting it all into practice

Andy Lopata is a business networking strategist who offered sound advice on how to network successfully and gain not just leads, but referrals, to help your business grow. We were able to make practical use of this advice and our business has improved as a result of it. We have held competitions, had referrals, and used networking to our advantage and as a result of being able to get our name out a little more, we were able to have an interview on Business Talk FM.

And guess what? They are both back this year! We’re looking forward to hearing what they have both been up to in the past year, and what information and advice they have in store for us.

Sage World 2011

Sage World 2011 is being held at EventCity in Manchester in October and looks to have another incredible line up of speakers. We are looking forward to seeing how Simon Calver, the CEO of LOVEFiLM got to where he is today. Among the diverse speakers are Jo Malone the entrepreneur and Benedict Allen, the explorer. The diversity really enables you to see business, and life, from many perspectives and inspiration isn’t far behind.

To anyone who is thinking of attending Sage World 2011, reserve your place now. The conference really helped to steer our business in the right direction, and made us realise that although setting up a business is hard work, we are not alone! We were able to see, first hand, that you don’t necessarily need money to build up your business, just a good idea.

Who said, there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

Kat Durrant, WildFire Digital Media

Sage World is back again in 2011. This year we’ll be in Manchester’s EventCity  on the 12^th and 13^th of October. To register for your free ticket visit www.sageworld2011.co.uk

We’re working hard to get everything ready for our free small business event, Sage World 2010. So, we thought we’d ask one of our speakers, Chris Hunter - writer, businessman and former bomb disposal specialist – to tell us why he’s taking part in our event.

As somebody used to taking risks and dealing with pressure, the chance to become immersed in a forum of this kind, is an opportunity I simply couldn’t miss.  Sage World’s ‘Immerse Yourself’ event not only offers an amazing number of networking opportunities but  also an impressive line up of inspirational speakers all of whom promise to offer business beating techniques that attendees can implement immediately.

Chris Hunter, speaker at Sage World 2010

Personally, I’m going to be drawing some parallels between my life now – as a businessman – and the lessons I learned in my former life where I frequently operated in high pressure environments in which disabling terrorist bombs and dealing with the continual threat of insurgent ambushes were everyday occurrences.

Stay focused

I’m going to be covering a lot of topics, but I’m especially looking forward to discussing the importance of staying focused: Four days into my tour in Iraq, a tabloid published fake photographs that led to a local cleric putting a price on our heads. That night, my driver and I were shot in a terrifying ambush. Staying focused was all that kept us alive.

Pursuing your goals

I’m also going to be sharing my thoughts on importance of pursuing a goal relentlessly – but not over-complicating a situation. In Iraq, as we became more skilled at disabling terrorist bombs, the bombers also became more skilled and determined.  My team only stayed alive because we didn’t cut corners and were relentless in seeing the task through to the end. But the bombers weren’t our only enemy.  Because of the intense heat and the harsh terrain, our kit and equipment often broke down right at the critical moment.  Our ability to improvise and think on our feet was the difference between instant failure and total success, and we quickly learned that it often pays to keep it simple. NASA spent $12m designing a pen that could write in space. The Russians took pencils!

Overcoming fear

And finally, for those of you who get nervous at the thought of networking…I’m also going to be offering a few techniques on overcoming fear: ‘You’re going to do the world’s most dangerous job in the world’s most dangerous place.’ That’s how my bomb disposal tour in Iraq was sold to me, and I wasn’t overly enamored at the prospect…but I knew that fear can be your friend; and if you take nothing else away with you, this event will teach you to embrace and nurture fear – and how to gain strength from it to give yourself a competitive edge.

Life is a daring adventure…or nothing at all.  See you there!

Chris Hunter

Register free for Sage World at www.sageworld2010.co.uk