"I've heard about 'nwGrapeVine', but what is it and how does it work?"

nwGrapeVine is a Virtual Business Network. The UK version (The-Grapevine) was established in February 2004 to deliver a virtual networking facility across Western Europe. nwGrapeVine continues this goal with a focus on the Pacific Northwest. Its purpose is to produce real business results for like-minded professionals and networkers across Cascadia... Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. Membership is free, so please sign up here.

The-Grapevine UK began with only 350 members. As of August 2007, the membership number exceeded 11,000! Since its formation, The-Grapevine UK has been hugely successful - thousands of business people are using it on a regular basis to make the connections they need to succeed in their business. Of course, the beauty is... you don't have to leave your desk to do so!

Now, nwGrapeVine has launched in the U.S., offering the same virtual networking opportunites The-Grapevine UK has enjoyed for several years. With a range of additional community features, high quality content, and "guided" blogs from industry experts, nwGrapeVine is poised to grow even larger than its predecessor.

How does virtual business networking work?

The potential market for business networking is enormous. Over 20 million businesses worldwide are members of local chambers of commerce. Add to that all the marketing, business development, and non-retail sales professionals, human resource managers, recruiters, job seekers... and the number becomes very large.

Supporting other businesses via close networking relationships are as compelling reasons to connect online as finding old schoolmates or potential dating partners. The big drivers for virtual or electronic networking are mobility and shortness of time. It is obvious that only the electronic world enables you to overcome both to generate new contacts.

From Jennie Hamilton, founder of www.the-grapevine.co.uk:

I happened across this strap-line: "Collecting data is the first step to wisdom. Sharing data is the first step to community". This sums up perfectly my thinking when I first set up The-Grapevine. Through the power of networking jobs are found, deals are made, goodwill is generated and money is raised because of the connections people have.

As its popularity begins to grow, nwGrapeVine will be hard to beat when it comes to developing and maintaining these networking relationships, specifically in terms of providing relevant information in a timely and economical way.

Many business people (especially new business owners) seem to have an inbuilt misconception that networking means a joyless evening of hard-selling and being hard-sold to. nwGrapeVine corrects that misconception. Virtual networking on nwGrapeVine is a powerful and effective way to spread the word about your business, bringing you not only new customers and clients, but also press opportunities, practical support and possibilities you may not have considered.

Please take a moment to sign up for our free email newsletter, "From The Vine". You will find a link here.

Business Referral Networking, Pacific Northwest Business Networking