Saltaire-based digital marketing agency, Xpand, is celebrating 12 months of successfully running its 80x20 networking events, bringing together the local business community to network and learn.
The events, held every 6 to 8 weeks, consist of 40 minutes of informal networking, a 20 minute learning slot on a marketing subject from one of the Xpand team, followed by a further 40 minutes of networking.
To date, Xpand has hosted 7 successful events at their office in Saltaire with regular attendance from business owners from West and North Yorkshire, coming from a broad variety of sectors.
80x20 was the brainchild of Xpand’s head of digital marketing, Danni Johnson.
‘We’d talked about hosting events at our office for quite some time. The lockdown rules prevented us from doing this in 2020 and part of 2021. When the world came back to some kind of normality, we put the plan in action and hosted our first event in November 2022, which was a raving success!’ commented Danni.
She continued ‘We have so much expertise and knowledge between us, we wanted to make this information more accessible to the business community so providing a 20 minute learning slot at each event was a great way of doing this. The positive feedback and regular attendance of numerous guests is testament to this.’
Subjects covered in learning slots have included ‘How to establish LinkedIn as a sales generation tool’, ‘5 ways to understand your website data and gain more enquiries’, ‘How to digitally connect your personal brand to your business brand’ and ‘Six steps to creating a successful social media strategy’.
Director, Jag Panesar commented ‘We love the idea of bringing people together, and networking is a huge part of success for many businesses - not just building relationships and winning new business, but bringing people together to be able to support and learn from each other. Running a business isn’t easy, especially under the current economic circumstances, so the events help us fulfil part of our belief in positively impacting our local economy.’
The one year celebration event will be held at a different location, as Xpand takes 80x20 ‘on tour’ on Wednesday 29th November.
‘We’ve always liked the idea of holding occasional 80x20 events in different locations. We found the perfect venue in Leeds - DexaStrong Clinic on Wellington Street - which will allow people in Leeds city centre to attend, that may not have been able to attend previous events in Saltaire’
