A new network of allies in Oceanside

Long Island’s newest networking group, “Let’s Meet and Network on Long Island,” held its second meeting on July 30. The event occurred at the local IHOP just off Long Beach road, and had 35 business owners from around Long Island looking to make connections in attendance.

Oceanside resident Mark Greenberg, the organizer of the now monthly event hopes that it will rise in popularity as time goes on. “If you’re in business, we’re here to help,” Greenberg said.

The networking organization is open to all business owners across Long Island and appropriately, its slogan is “Do a good deed by helping another business owner succeed.” Based on the group’s community reception and imminent rise in popularity, Greenberg says that meetings could eventually be a twice a month event. Those interested in joining can find more information at the groups website: lmnoli.com.

Greenberg is a member of several other networking organizations and the idea to start “Let’s Meet and Network on Long Island” came from a desire to see more people get together to grow their businesses. Greenberg, a member of the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, builds websites for local businesses and through his work meets many different kinds of people. With his connections and involvement in other networking circles, he decided to begin reaching out to his contacts and form a new organization.

“In order to grow and reach out to more people, I thought it’d be a great idea that we could put all these networking groups together,” Greenberg said. “Make an invitation to all the local networking groups and we could all just meet together.”

County Legislator Patrick Mullaney attended the most recent meeting and said that networking groups like these are a positive thing for local business owners. A former business owner himself, Mullaney knows first hand how valuable connections with other businesses are.

“You lose a lot without having personal connections,” Mullaney said. “So when you sit down with somebody it becomes a lot less scripted. It makes it that much more personal. And in small business, personal relationships are critical.”

Many other networking groups are hyper-localized for specific towns or professions, but what Greenberg is hoping to achieve is an island-wide network of business owners dedicated to providing the best advice possible to their colleagues so that all of their businesses can thrive.

The attendees’ jobs include insurance, sales, law, music, website design, advertising, entertainment and many more. Each attendee brought a stack of business cards to hand out, and just days after the meet up each business card had been scanned and uploaded to the “Let’s Meet and Network on Long Island” website.

One business owner, Cynthia Bentsen, was attending as a new member and had not been to the first meeting. Bentsen is the owner of Five Star Events, which covers waitstaff, bartending, decor, catering, photography and entertainment at the gatherings they are booked for. The website for Five Star Events was put together by Mark Greenberg, who reached out to Cynthia to tell her about this new opportunity.

“I think this could really help. Just looking at the list of attendees tonight, I see people that could really help me. There’s a woman here who plays the viola, that’s a benefit for me,” Bentsen said. “The beauty of this group is not only that business owners can share advice and “the tricks of the trade, but that many of the businesses themselves offer services that can be of use to the other members.”