SILO | Socials for Influencers, Leaders & Owners

Established May 2019

SILO was created to help busy business owners, business developers and influencers build valuable and productive relationships with their peers. 

“It’s always a matter of who you know”

We’ve all heard that phrase repeatedly… because it rings so true. Whether your looking for your next business challenge or trying to plan an overseas vacation for the family, the quality of the outcome is usually equal to the quality of the company you keep.

SILO is an ongoing series of invite-only social events

In May of 2019, Barry Edwards and Hal Stata discussed their desire to bring together key business developers during this new era of virtual relationships. An era where connecting with a stranger on LinkedIn is viewed as “networking”.

Barry Edwards: “Hal and I talked about the giant gap in today’s networking events. Structured networking groups today typically consist of mostly bankers and insurance reps – people looking for direct sales. The open networking socials are chaotic, crowded versions of this with a lot of local sales people added to the mix. But, we’ve always found more value in our relationships with other business owners and entrepreneurial people where we bounce ideas and success stories off each other, so we first discussed starting an exclusive MasterMind group.”

Hal Stata: “But we want something more fun, yet productive… more agile and different. So, we decided to create a small ‘Board of Directors’ consisting of us and a few of our peers. We only meet once per month, and we have two focuses:

One, share sales and marketing challenges/successes, and two, create fun, light social events about every other month specifically for business owners, leaders and influencers.

These social events are to be fun, a little educational (tours of places. Maybe a light presentation), not time-intensive and allow for informal conversations amongst ourselves. We’ll move the events to different parts of Cleveland – interesting areas. And hopefully, we’ll see some important business relationships develop… and friendships. Maybe down the road we’ll find some ways to benefit the community.” 

SILO criteria

Starting out, we are qualifying invitees from our own individual networks. Our initial goal is to host groups big enough for extensive engagement, but small enough to not be loud and overwhelming – about 15 to 20 guests.

As our network grows, we’ll take on destinations and activities appropriate to our membership and goals.

There are currently no membership or event fees. Simply express your desire to be on our mailing list and we’ll keep you informed of upcoming socials. There are no other requirements.

Referring SILO-ettes (potential guests)

We’ll happily accept guest referrals from our vetted guests to help grow our valuable network. If you have a colleague or two in mind, please send me their name, business name, title and email address.