How to run a monthly business networking group on a budget

Most business networking groups are run by volunteers: a committee of three, a small business owner who started it, a chamber officer with a dozen other jobs. There is rarely a budget beyond what the tickets bring in, and nobody wants to spend their Sunday on spreadsheets. The good news is that a monthly group needs very little to run well. This guide covers where the money goes, what you can stop paying for, and how to keep the admin to an hour or two a month.

Where the money goes

Over a year, a monthly group spends on a few things, in roughly this order:

1. Food and drink. Usually the biggest line, and it grows with every person.
2. The room. Hire, a minimum spend, or nothing if a venue or member hosts.
3. Badges and printing. Small, but every month.
4. Speakers. A gift, parking, sometimes a fee.
5. Software. Ticketing, email, a website, sometimes a membership tool.

The first two are where saving matters. The last one is where groups most often pay for things they do not need.

Save on the room and the food

Rotate the venue. Members with a boardroom, a showroom or a café are often glad to host, because it puts thirty prospects in their space. A rotating venue costs nothing and gives the group variety.

Negotiate a regular booking. A venue that knows you will fill a room on the first Thursday of every month for a year will often waive room hire or agree a set price per head. Ask for it in writing.

Cater to the number who come, not the number who booked. This is where most groups lose money. Give the venue a final number the day before, from your bookings, and keep no-shows down with reminders and a small price. See stopping no-shows at a free networking event.

Let a sponsor pay for one night a quarter. A sponsored night is free to attend and costs the group nothing. See running a sponsored networking event with free entry.

Stop paying for software you do not need

A monthly group does not need a monthly software bill. Here is what each job needs:

That is how it works on One Ticket’s Free plan: no monthly cost, no setup fee and no payout fee. On a paid ticket the buyer pays a booking fee on top, so the group receives the whole ticket price, and a free ticket costs nobody anything. Our Pro and Team plans add more, such as a morning-after summary of each event. Pro and Team are open now: upgrade any time in Settings › Plan. Limited-time offer: A$1 for your first year (first 100 organisers), then A$29/month for Pro or A$79/month for Team. Cancel anytime. You do not need them to run a group.

Set the year up once

The biggest saving is your own time. Set the year up in one sitting rather than building an event every month.

Make the event repeat. Create the first event, set it to repeat monthly on the same week and day, and choose when it ends. Every date becomes a session with its own tickets and cap, and the series has one page that always lists the next one. Put that link in your email footer and your LinkedIn profile and never update it again. The steps are in repeating events.

Add member and guest tickets. A member price and a guest price on each event, with the members' price kept as a secret ticket that only shows with an access code. See member and non-member pricing.

Offer a subscription to regulars. Members who come every month can subscribe to the series, billed monthly at your price, and their ticket for each event is issued before it runs. They manage their own card and cancellation, so the committee does not chase payments. Each payment carries a booking fee for the subscriber, like a ticket. See subscriptions for a series, or for a yearly arrangement, selling an annual membership to a networking group.

Ask the badge questions at checkout. Add required questions for company and job title. The afternoon before, export the list and print the badges. See collecting company and title for name badges.

Let the tools do the monthly work

Once the year is set up, most of the monthly jobs happen without you.

• Reminders go automatically. Everyone with a ticket is emailed the day before and on the morning of, with their QR code. See sending event reminders.
• Followers hear about new events. Anyone can follow your organiser, on any plan, and followers are emailed when you put a new event on sale, no more than once a week. See followers.
• A full room fills itself. With the waitlist on, a sold-out ticket offers freed places to the next person in line, each held for six hours. See the waitlist.
• The final number is on the event. The count you give the venue is the count on the event page in the app.

Run the door with what you have

You do not need scanners, a laptop or a paid app. Check-in works in a phone’s browser: scan the QR code on each ticket, or search by name for the person who cannot find their email. A volunteer can check people in from a door link, without an account and without seeing your orders or money. Two phones on one list clear a queue faster than one. See door links for volunteers and checking in a hundred people at a networking event.

If someone turns up without a booking, they can book on their phone from the event page, or you can record their cash or bank transfer at the box office. Sales recorded there carry no booking fee, because we did not process the payment.

Keep the committee’s paperwork light

• One export a month. The orders and attendee export is a CSV file. Keep each month’s file in a shared folder, and the treasurer has a record of every sale.
• Track who came back. Put the last three months' attendee lists side by side to see who is new and who has stopped coming. See knowing who came back to a networking event.
• Know when the money arrives. Ticket money goes into the group’s own Stripe account. Until your first paid event has gone cleanly it is paid out two days after each event; after that, as it sells. Plan venue deposits around that. See payouts.

A budget you can stick to

Price each event at roughly the cost of the food plus a share of the room, and let the guest price carry a little more than the member price. If the group needs a small surplus for speakers or an end-of-year event, say so on the page. People are happy to pay for a group that is clearly run with care, and less happy when they cannot see where the money goes.

For the arithmetic, use the break-even calculator. For the fees on each ticket, see the pricing page and the cheapest way to sell tickets to a networking event.