MEMBERS’ ZONE MY CHAMBER
HOW BUSINESS WEST IS WORKING FOR ME
Chamber member CHRIS WILSON of blu inc, a graphic design company in Brunswick Square, has been a member of Business West for 15 years. He reveals some of the ways he makes the most of his Chamber membership, and how he has used it to benefit his company.
A
t blu inc we’ve benefitted massively from being Chamber members. We joined in 1996 and have had some excellent advice and support. We’ve used the legal advice service, which has been fantastic. Beachcroft solicitors, a fellow Chamber member in Bristol, helped me out enormously when I was buying my business partner out. We’re on level 3 of the Chamber’s
Westfield Health plan and that’s got pretty comprehensive coverage.
Chris Wilson
‘Networking with other Chamber members has been fantastic for us – we’ve got two of our biggest clients through networking’
They call it the ‘keep you at work scheme’ which covers day-to-day costs such as dentistry, optician, chiropractic and physiotherapy. There’s a whole list of things that myself and the employees at blu inc have used. So if you have a back tweak or some kind of sporting injury, you can refer yourself to a specialist. It just means that, rather than leaving a problem to get worse, which eventually leads to time off, you can keep yourself ‘MOT’d’ and as healthy as possible – and that’s great for business. It means we have employees that turn up to work happy and healthy and keep things going at blu inc. The Chamber’s data is great for marketing purposes. For instance we can target the top
100 companies in Avon and contact the people we need to speak to and hopefully convert some of those mailshots into business. The Chamber also keeps its lists updated so we know we’re getting good data. People need to be proactive when they’re Chamber members so it’s worth networking. This has been brilliant for us and it’s not always the people you meet face to face at the networking meetings, sometimes they’ll recommend you to someone else and so on.
Networking with other Chamber members has been fantastic for us – we’ve got two of our biggest clients through networking, one of which has been with us for nearly 10 years and they’re still supplying us with a big chunk of our work. The Chamber has been like having another member of the team supporting and helping us through business. They’re always at the end of the phone for advice. They’re incredibly helpful and if they haven’t got the answers right away they’ll go away, do the research and come back and help us as much as they can.
To hear Chris Wilson talk about membership visit
www.youtube.com/businesswesttv
Business West Update SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
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