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September 14, 2006

CMBC Business Expo hits its stride

By Christina Oneill
Gay Pride and business cards do mix

It’s all about networking. That was true for the 54 participants in the second annual Central Massachusetts Business Council Business Expo, held in the middle of the block-long Worcester Gay Pride celebration on Sept. 10. This year’s Expo, which offered three times the booth space of last year, had a lot of Boston-area vendors as well as well-known local ones - a demonstration of the networking capabilities of CMBC.

John Lawrence of Pepper∀ˆ™s Fine Foods Catering says gay and lesbian clientele are loyal customers.
CMBC is a two-year-old business association of gay-owned and gay-friendly businesses with 175 members. Its larger sister organization, the Greater Boston Business Council, with about 500-plus members, covers the Metro area. According to CMBC President Paul Leone, CMBC covers the territory from Worcester to Framingham, and GBBC covers all territory east of Framingham. The two organizations have reciprocity - CMBC members get member-discounts from GBBC, and vice versa. They also share and share alike "We’ll show up at their events, and they’ll show up to ours," says Joseph Sandgato III, of Maplecliff Real Estate Services of Northboro.

Some of the vendors who participated in the Expo through the auspices of GBBC say that the CMBC members are far more networked than their Boston counterparts. Jennifer Dettmann, senior account executive for Spirit Boston, a glossy magazine targeting gays and lesbians, says she thinks that’s because Central Mass. gays and lesbians need to make more of an effort to connect than their eastern counterparts, because Central Massachusetts has less gay-friendly venues - or at least, less perceived ones. She likens the situation to her home city of St. Louis, MO, which she characterizes as "a blue city in a red state."

Jeanine Beratta and Peter Bacchiocchi of MetLife at their booth at the CMBC Business Expo on Sept. 10. MetLife has taken mainstream financial products and repackaged them to take into account the needs of gay and lesbian clients.
At MetLife’s booth, Jeanine Beratta and Peter Bacchiocci from the insurer’s Marlboro office, said the needs and goals of the gay and lesbian market are the same as everyone else’s. Those goals are: how to stay financially secure, reduce taxes, retain control over life decisions in the case of incapacity, and how to pay for medical needs should they arise.

Then, there are the esthetics. Jewelry vendors, gift-basket designers, clothiers and promotional memorabilia sellers handed out their business cards alongside caterers, an art supply store, and skin-care specialists. Caterer John Lawrence of Pepper’s Fine Foods Catering spooned out morsels of salmon cheesecake as he recounted the increasing number of gay and lesbian weddings he’s done since the same-sex marriage law passed in Massachusetts in 2004. And those customers stay on, he indicates. "When you take care of someone, they’re loyal," he says, characterizing his gay and lesbian clients as having a decisive vision of what they want from an event. By the time they contact him, "They’ve thought about it for a while," he says.

Christina P. O’Neill can be reached at coneill@wbjournal.com

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