If you happen to have a free lunch hour next week, let Joshua Eike know. The president of Bluejay Lawn & Landscape, Omaha, Neb., thrives on networking with his peers and has a great deal of business advice to offer.
“Some people wouldn’t want to talk to their competitors at all, but I’d love to sit down and have lunch with any of my competitors,” Eike says. “We can be a lot stronger together learning from each other than fighting against each other in the same industry.”
As a member of no fewer than five trade associations, as well as his local chamber of commerce and the international group Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO), Eike has reaped networking benefits that have helped him guide his business through more than one operational challenge.
“Some of the things I’ve learned from other small-business people who aren’t even in this industry have really helped me,” Eike says. “Everybody’s got a different way of looking at things and all small business people have the same challenges, so if I’m having a problem – an employee problem, let’s say – somebody else has probably encountered that and I can ask them what they do in that situation.”
Eike was introduced to his local YEO branch two years ago by a vendor he worked with. “It’s a formal group that meets once a month and we hold a forum of about 10 people where someone brings an issue to the table and the other nine people share their experiences in handling that situation,” Eike explains. “We’re all small-business owners under 40 years old. We’ve got printers, people involved in cellular technology, retail sales, computer services, human resources, a graphic design studio and a couple of temp agencies. I’ve made a lot of connections in a short period of time.”
In addition to sharing knowledge, Eike notes that he and the other YEO members forge professional relationships and take advantage of each other’s services. “The printer does my printing and the screen printer does my screen printing,” he says. “I’ve done landscaping for almost everyone – it’s a small world and a great way to form partnerships.”
The author is assistant editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@lawnandlandscape.com.