Finding Community

About a month or so ago, I was talking to a vendor friend about a local group that met once a month with the goal to help one another with their businesses. As usual, I was skeptical. Right now in the wedding industry, there are vendors who will actually go through high lengths to bring their competition down. For example, some vendors type terrible reviews on their competitor's review page on event review sites to ruin their chances at booking couples. Sounds like it's straight out of a movie right?! But this is happening every where and unfortunately small, flourishing businesses end up taking major hits because of these shenanigans. Small businesses also take a hit because "big box or big name" companies within the industry have a monopoly on certain venues and locations throughout the USA.

Needless to say, I was interested to see what it was all about. The group's name is called Tuesday's Together and it is part of a national group called The Rising Tide Society. Their belief is that instead of competing against one another, we should all help each other and grow as a community. 

After our first Tuesday's Together meeting and interacting with the community online through Facebook, I couldn't be any more positive that this was one of the best decisions we have ever made as a business and as people. As Stationary vendors, we don't really get to interact with other event or wedding vendors for a specific client. We may reach out to the photographer of a client's event to hopefully get some shots of our product or even a wedding planner to make connections. Otherwise, we are all by ourselves. 

(Come on...tell me you didn't sing the lyric!! You forced me to do this.)

Now that you get the picture, let's get back to the point of my post. We all desperately need community. Whether it is with people from work, home, school, you name it. We are not meant to live alone. Like it says in Proverbs 27:17, "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." We are meant to live in community and I'm glad we found one that we can turn to when we have happy, sad or challenging moments in our business. Even if it means using Periscope to include us at a meeting because we can't make it.

Tuesday's Together Group for August! 

Until next time!