West Sussex business brings more than 15,000 business owners together and bags national accolade

A pair of entrepreneurial mums have built a national business based in Horsham throughout lockdown and have bagged a national accolade.
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Nicky Chisholm and Sara Guiel began their joint venture, Mumpreneurs Networking Club in 2009 and since March 2020 have gone from strength to strength with expansions and accolades.

Now called My Networking Club, the multi-award-winning business runs online virtual networking events for business owners of all genders to help them promote their business and expand their networks.

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The business’ most recent feat is being featured in the Small Biz 100 list.

Nicky Chisholm, from Brighton and Sara Guiel, from Arundel, founders of MNC.Nicky Chisholm, from Brighton and Sara Guiel, from Arundel, founders of MNC.
Nicky Chisholm, from Brighton and Sara Guiel, from Arundel, founders of MNC.

The list is made up of 100 small businesses, which are chosen by a panel of business leaders and are promoted and praised across the Small Business Saturday social media platforms in the 100 days running up to Small Business Saturday on December 4.

My Networking Club, which is commonly known as MNC, was one of the first three businesses to be featured at the start of the campaign.

It adds to a list of achievements the two have made over the last 18 months, having taken the business networking company from physical to online-only, with a few face-to-face meetings making a return as the pandemic stabilises.

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Sara, 53 from Arundel and Nicky, 50 from Brighton went from hosting face-to-face networking events across the south coast, including in Horsham, to now running virtual events, which connect people online from further afield and even across the UK.

Nicky Chisholm, from Brighton and Sara Guiel, from Arundel, founders of MNC.Nicky Chisholm, from Brighton and Sara Guiel, from Arundel, founders of MNC.
Nicky Chisholm, from Brighton and Sara Guiel, from Arundel, founders of MNC.

Since they switched to virtual in Spring last year, they have had 15,000 visitors to the meetings, which are held on Zoom.

Sara said: “We launched the business because we found that everything that was available at the time was either cocktail hour networking or breakfast meetings – both of which weren’t practical to business mums like ourselves. So to have now built a business over lockdown that is even more accessible than we could have ever hoped is wonderful and it’s even more rewarding to know that we’re enabling so many peoples’ businesses to grow. The award is like the cherry on top for us.”

Nicky had similar feelings and added: “The last 18 months have made online services much more easy and welcomed, meaning we’ve been able to provide a service for people across the country and even sometimes from other countries. We’re so please to have been listed on the top 100 list and can’t thank our supporters and members enough.”

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MNC has monthly online national meetings and weekly regional meetings in Worthing, Eastbourne, Brighton, Romsey, Arundel and Littlehampton, Horsham, Southampton, Portsmouth, Enfield Town, Shoreham, Chichester and more.

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