During the years that I owned BrandNew Industries, I was occasionally approached to join the local chamber of commerce. I went to a few of their mixers at which people mingled, made small talk, exchanged business cards and, frankly, tried to promote their own business. The real advantage of mixers like that is to develop a network of business contacts.

I soon realized that although it was an enjoyable, and perhaps valuable, experience to meet and get to know other local business people, it would do little to promote my own business. Why not? Because my business sold a unique line of products to individuals and companies across the country and around the world, and few people in the Santa Barbara area had a need for branding irons, which is what we made. I couldn’t see the advantage of networking with these people.

So I never joined the chamber. You might say this was selfish or shortsighted on my part, but remember, when you’re running a small business, you must prioritize your time and money and use it as wisely as possible to promote it and grow it.


“And now,” as Paul Harvey used to say, “for the rest of the story.”

One day I noticed an ad in the local paper about a business-plan seminar being held at SBCC. It would last for a full semester and cost about $300. I wondered whether to sign up for it. Having extensive experience in starting and/or managing many small businesses, I wondered whether I would really learn anything in the class. (It was not an issue of being smug and self-important. It was an issue of how I prioritized my time.)

After some thought, I decided that perhaps I could learn something and that it would be worth trying, so I registered for the class.

Did I learn anything? Yes. Did I learn a lot? Not really.

But something very surprising came out of the class experience. Each class night we would have a guest expert lecture us on his or her specialty. Most of them were excellent, and after each of those presentations, I would go up to the person, hand him my business card and ask for his. Then a few days later, I would send him an email inviting him to lunch.

Before long I had developed a network of experts who had become friends and on whom I could call at almost any time for their expert advice.

Now, whenever I have any kind of a problem that I can’t figure out on my own, my very next thought is, “Who do I know who might know about this particular issue?” Then I would have lunch with one of my experts. And later on, many of these same people became members of my board of directors.

— Paul Burri is an entrepreneur, inventor, columnist, engineer and iconoclast. He is not in the advertising business, but he is a small-business counselor with the Santa Barbara chapter of Counselors to America’s Small Business-SCORE. The opinions and comments in this column are his alone and do not represent the opinions or policies of any outside organization. He can be reached at pburri@west.net.