FranNet of Virginia and BENG

Your Meeting Facilitator Heather Rosen Heather is the President of FranNet of Virginia, part of a leading franchise advisory and development services firm with over 50 offices worldwide. She is also an attorney who previously advised small and medium sized businesses including sole proprietors on contractual matters, mergers and acquisitions, litigation strategy, corporate structure, bankruptcy matters, and real estate acquisitions and refinancings. In 2001, Heather became an in-house consultant to large, international law firms based in Washington, DC, advising partners and firm management on strategic planning, client targeting, marketing budget allocation, and proposal writing. Heather left the legal services industry in 2009 to open FranNet of Virginia, extending FranNet’s reach and expanding her family’s 15 year old franchise consulting business. As a franchise consultant for FranNet, Heather works with clients in Northern, Central and Western Virginia and Washington, DC. She also conducts franchise educational seminars throughout the region. Seminars are conducted in partnership with career transition agencies, Small Business Development Centers, SCORE offices, the US military, and federal, state and county government agencies. Heather is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and the Temple University Beasley School of Law.   About Business Executive Networking Group (BENG) The BENG is a multidiscipline, independent group of job seekers, those currently employed and business networkers, who are willing to help others. Current membership includes mid to senior level executives from financial management, information technology, legal, manufacturing, engineering, transportation, logistics, distribution and general management, to name a few of the disciplines. We actively seek new members from all disciplines as we have found that such diversity benefits all members. We are an all volunteer group with an annual membership fee of $35, and there is an expectation that you will help other members. Current membership is over 600, of whom approximately 50% are employed, 10% are self-employed and 40% are unemployed.We hold monthly meetings the second Wednesday of each month from 1:30 - 3:30 pm. The meeting’s objective is to give each member an opportunity to continually hone their networking skills, meet their peers from various disciplines, share business opportunities and job leads and develop networking opportunities.Each attendee gets a chance to deliver their two-minute elevator speech, share recent successes and failures, present their networking requests, discuss their job search questions and any concerns they may be struggling with, and apprise the group of any new searches, requests, etc. that they have become aware of. The essential document that members bring to any meeting is the “one pager”. This provides the members’ contact information at the top, followed by a brief overview of their background, and finally their target company list. This is handed out to the attendees just before the member makes their presentation, thus helping the attendees to provide the member with targeted assistance and advice.