the it's better together meet up method

We hope that you are excited for our future meet ups. In preparation, we thought we'd explain a bit about the method we use at our events and why we think you'll love it. 

If you've ever been to one of our events in the past, you know the system: you arrive, check in, and then hand over any and all marketing materials you brought with you. That's right, we rob you of your networking paraphernalia right at the door. Why? Because that's not what this is primarily about. Let us explain...

At It's Better Together, we put a lot of time into building a community of likeminded young artists and business owners. We aim to be an oasis in a sea of boring networking gigs. We want your authentic self. The you that you are when you aren't trying to make a killer first impression for your business. We want you to form relationships based on common interests and personality instead of on who can help you with your career the most. That way, no one feels taken advantage of or pressured. Feel free to talk about your business, your passions, what you do and why. We want you to truly CONNECT.

When you leave, we will have little "goodie bags" put together with everyone's business cards in them. So don't worry, you'll get everyone's info and they will get yours. Aim to bring about 30 copies of your card or marketing piece just to be safe and if you're really ambitious about it, check the eventbrite page the day before the event to see how many people are singed up so you know how many cards to bring. 

That is the It's Better Together method of networking. We love it and it has worked so amazingly well for all our past events that we plan on carrying this happy little tradition on to future events as well! 

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looking back | how it's better together started

So much has happened since that first fateful get together of just a few Central Florida creatives. It's crazy to look back at these old photos and remember how we all met and how this group started. In case you're curious, here's a history lesson...

There was a business seminar held in town. It was about blogging and it was led by the ever-amazing Liene Stevens of Think Splendid. There were all kinds of people there with one thing in common, they wanted to learn how to leverage social media in a new way. And as luck would have it, a bunch of us were there. Friendships were formed over coffee and soon we were all chatting about how we should "do this again". 

We decided to meet up again and to invite some friends. Anna Bond, of Rifle Paper Company had just opened up shop in a small studio in Winter Park next store to a print shop called Mama's Sauce and together they hosted a tiny group of young professionals over snacks and letterpress. 

Anna designed the gorgeous logo as a surprise at that first meeting not thinking it would ever become the cornerstone belief of an entire group of young artists and business owners but over frozen yogurt shortly after the idea was formed... this group needed to exist because running your own business is hard, but it is better together. 

Since then the core group has grown and changed. Founding "members" have started on new endeavors, launched dreams bigger than they'd ever have imagined, had babies, moved into bigger studios, opened shops, and more. It's been an amazing ride, one we hope to continue as we move forward into a new generation of It's Better Together. 

We hope you will help us write the next chapter!

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