Our story
The UK's original referral breakfast
For twenty-five years, Business for Breakfast has put business owners around the same table, on the same morning, to pass each other real work. The format has barely needed to change, and this page is the story of why.
Where it started
A breakfast table, twenty-five years ago
Business for Breakfast was co-founded by Mel Fisher twenty-five years ago on an observation that still holds: people do not refer work to a company they have heard of. They refer it to a person they have watched turn up, explain themselves clearly, and look after the last person they sent.
So the format was built to make that happen on a timetable instead of by luck. A fixed group of business owners, one seat per profession, meeting every fortnight to a 90-minute agenda, with every introduction named out loud in the room and logged afterwards. That first table set the shape, and the shape has outlasted every trend in networking since.
What every Business for Breakfast group guarantees
- 25 yearsRunning referral groupsThe UK's original referral breakfast
- One seatPer profession, per groupEvery referral for your trade comes to you
- FreeYour first visitFood included, no card needed
- 90 minEvery meetingSame agenda, start to finish
Come and see one
Join us at a BforB meeting
Visiting a group is the only way to know if the room is right for you. Pick the one nearest you and we'll get you on the guest list. Your first visit is free.
Opens the group's booking page. No charge to visit.
Where it is now
Still breakfast. Also brunch. Also twilight.
Today BforB groups meet across Greater Manchester, Warrington and the North West, as breakfasts from early, brunches mid-morning, and twilight groups in the evening, all running the same 90-minute agenda. The name stayed, because the idea it carries did.
Around the meetings sits the Referral Academy: short, practical courses on asking a room for work, built from twenty-five years of referral meetings and written for every stage of a business's life, starting up, growing, and preparing to hand it on.
The person behind the table
Hi, I'm Mel.
Together with my husband John, we created Business for Breakfast after wasting years trying to get cashflow to our business. We realised that relationships are key therefore created an environment that welcomes business people and allows them to thrive.
See it for yourself
The story is better told in a room
Twenty-five years of history is an argument; a Tuesday morning with referrals going round the table is proof. Your first visit is free, food included. Come and watch the format do what it was built to do.