During the evening of May 17, Amanda Pagon sat in the South Riding home of Jenny Manning, talking to another woman about why she had hired a particular photographer for a job. Pagon, the owner of Apple Pie Photography, was not simply seeking advice from a new friend. Instead she was picking the brain of a fellow business owner during the monthly meeting of South Riding Women in Business.
"It’s really helpful for me to be able to find out what were the things that attracted a business owner to that photographer," Pagon, a former professional triathlete and mother of three who started her photography business in June 2006, said.
SOUTH RIDING Women in Business began in April 2003 following a Networking Club Breakfast. At the breakfast, several South Riding business owners created a strategy to promote and grow eachother’s businesses.
"We’re a networking group of women in South Riding," Mary Kay Khattak, newly elected president of the group and a Big Yellow Box craft consultant, said. "South Riding is amazing. All the moms are so entrepreneurial."
Women involved in the group have the benefit of connecting with a large number of other women who also own their own business, allowing them to increase their business and get advice from people who have faced the same challenges.
"A lot of these women have had previous careers where they bring those skills to the group," Pagon said. "People will have a skill set that you don’t have, like accounting, business, marketing, graphic design."
For Lisa Alonso, a Keller Williams real estate agent, and her partner Sue Russell, joining SRWB, as it is known, gave her an opportunity to expand their business into the Dulles South area.
"Real estate is all about referrals," Alonso said. "Both of us live in South Riding and we are very much trying to make this our main base of operation."
IN ADDITION TO providing a source for referrals and business advice, SRWB also provides its members with opportunities they may not have had before, Pagon said.
"Some of the women are forming business partners," she said. "They find a way for their businesses to overlap in some way."
For Alonso, SRWB has allowed her and Russell to provide their clients with personal touches.
"A lot of the women have businesses that give us the opportunity to give great and different closing gifts," she said.
Ashburn resident Debbie Eggleston joined SRWB because she wanted to expand her business as a Party Lite Gifts consultant.
"I don’t look at my business as having geographic boundaries," she said. "I know my friends have talked about how we needed a networking organization like this in Ashburn, but I don’t know anything here or in Leesburg that is as well-structured and organized as SRWB."
THE WOMEN of SRWB meet the third Thursday of every month at the home of one of the almost 30 members. It is a requirement that each member attend every meeting.
"It is a very well-run professional organization," Eggleston said. "You can see direct results and there is an affordable cost."
To be a part of SRWB there is an annual fee of $210, which goes toward the monthly membership fee and an advertisement the group runs in the South Riding Homeowner’s Association magazine with each participant’s name, business and contact information.
"We try to keep in affordable," Khattak said.
The group also has a noncompete clause that says there can only be one representative from each type of business as a member of SRWB. Any women interested in joining with a business already represented, is placed on a waiting list, Khattak said.
"We don’t want women in the same business competing for referrals," she said.
Khattak said women who leave the group have often moved out of the area or have garnered enough business that they do not need the benefits of the group any longer.
"We end up with a good mix," she said. "Some women, like me, are new to their business. Some people have been doing their businesses for years."
AS MOST OF the women in SRWB are stay-at-home moms working out of their homes, the organization gives them the opportunity to get out of the house and relate with other women just like them.
"In talking to them, you can ask, ‘How is it that you find that balance,’" Pagon said. "You are talking to another woman about making a business work, the day-to-day struggles."
And for most of the women, the groups gives them a chance to get out and spend time with other adult women on a personal basis.
"As a busy mom, you are limited in the number of people you meet," Eggleston said. "It’s always fun to make a personal relationship."