The Why?
Julie Sawyer, Marketing Manager & Voice raiser for Essex based Farleigh Hospice cornered BWN Founder Mandie Holgate at a BWN networking event and said the following…..”here’s £50 can you come up with an inventive way to a) raise some much needed funds for our charity, b) spread the word about the hospice and how fabulous Farleigh is c) ensure you get lots of BWN business women involved so that their businesses benefit from lots of lovely free publicity and come back in 3 months time to tell us how much you raise.
The What?
June 8th 2011 at another BWN event, Mandie asked the business women audience what they thought of her ideas a) A Pamper evening, Quiz night/multi event attitude b) Skills swap to raise money and awareness of the business women’s skills and businesses or c) A BWN Business Women Naked Calendar…….they chose the naked calendar……!!!
The How?
Email goes out immediately asking for photographers, MUA’s, Hairdressers, printers, sponsors for each page of the calendar and ….er hem willing volun- teers to get naked to all donate their time, energy, services and products FOC. Instant assistance from across the entire network (a real testimony to the way those business women really give a damn about each others success and go out of their way to connect and create results for each other!) with offers for everything we needed without a single phone call—all done via a couple of emails and social media!
The When?
June 8th — Set the challenge, June 14th – announced the idea at a BWN
networking event, June 21st – Photoshoot with 26 business women, 5 MUA, 3
Hairdressers and 2 Photographers….and a rather busy Mandie Holgate running around in her silk dressing gown! 22nd June – Photographers get photos to graphics team, 30th June – Photos to Printers, 8th July – Launch Night raises over £2300, 8th September – Return to Farleigh’s Award night to tell them how much The BWN raised.
The Result?
26 business women appeared in over 10 different publications, spoke on BBC Suffolk and BBC Essex Radio, Spoke at events to over 100 business owners, gained masses levels of exposure for their businesses which led to numerous opportunities, contacts and new contracts and most importantly to date over £5000 raised for charity, Lots of Free publicity for Farleigh’s Hospice, One Very Happy Julie Sawyer and another opportunity for Mandie Holgate to show why business women are her passion and why as founder of The Business Womans Network and Business Woman’s Coach she can truly make great things happen with fabulous business women……
So……..what could The BWN do for you?