New members, longtime entrepreneurs and local business owners gathered in Savannah for an evening built around something simple but powerful: getting to know the people behind the businesses.

Business cards moved from hand to hand. Small groups formed around cocktail tables. Conversations started, ended and started again with someone new.

Across the room, people were eating, laughing, exchanging information and discovering businesses they may not have known about before walking through the door.

That was the scene at the Greater Savannah Black Chamber of Commerce’s August Mixer at the Element Midtown Savannah Hotel.

And for an organization built around helping businesses connect, grow and support one another, much of the evening’s purpose could be seen before anyone stepped forward to speak.

The Greater Savannah Black Chamber of Commerce describes its mission as advocating for and empowering Black and small businesses through economic development, education and community partnerships. Networking and community building are part of that work, with monthly mixers designed to create opportunities for entrepreneurs to meet potential partners, clients and mentors.

On this particular evening, that mission became something tangible.

Putting a Business Behind the Name

President and CEO Moncello Stewart welcomed the crowd by acknowledging August as Black Business Month and encouraging those gathered to support Black-owned businesses beyond the month’s observance.

But he also raised a larger point.

Savannah is seeing businesses open. The challenge is helping them remain open.

“We’ve probably seen more business openings this year than we’ve seen in the last few years,” Stewart told the gathering. “That’s a good thing. But that’s not a great thing if you can’t sustain those openings.”

Then he turned the question toward the people standing in the room: How do they support those businesses so the openings become sustainable businesses?

The mixer offered one answer.

Throughout the evening, business owners and professionals moved between conversations, made introductions and learned what others in the room were building. Food was set along one side of the gathering space while the Greater Savannah Black Chamber had its own display nearby. The atmosphere was casual enough for conversations to unfold naturally, but the business purpose never disappeared.

New Chamber members were also given a moment to introduce themselves. Each had approximately a minute to tell the room who they were and what they did before being recognized with a membership certificate and photograph.

The Coastal Buzz was among those new members.

It provided an interesting perspective from our side of the room. We weren’t simply covering people networking. We were participating in the same process — introducing what we do, learning about other businesses and beginning relationships that may lead to stories and connections well beyond this particular evening.

Two Brothers and a New Chapter in Local Media

Then the mixer produced another story.

Stewart invited brothers Tuba and Somi Benson-Jaja forward to talk about a new business chapter they are beginning together.

The brothers have acquired J. DelSUR Marketing Group, whose portfolio includes three community magazines: Pooler Magazine, Effingham Magazine and Bryan County Magazine. Founder Dr. Jan Southern is transitioning ownership to the brothers while remaining involved as a consultant and senior strategist, according to background information provided to The Coastal Buzz.

For the brothers, the acquisition combines years of separate entrepreneurial experience in their first business acquisition together.

One of the most revealing parts of their remarks wasn’t about the acquisition itself. It was about what it took to reach a point where buying companies was even imaginable.

Tuba spoke candidly about the difficult early years of entrepreneurship — the uncertainty, loneliness and stretches when success seemed far away.

“You just have to keep going,” he told the business owners gathered around him.

Eventually, he said, a business can stabilize. Profitability changes what an entrepreneur is able to imagine.

“Once I got to a certain place, my vantage point changed and I started to realize how much I could really do.”

That perspective now includes helping other businesses think beyond simply surviving.

The brothers talked about helping businesses market properly, become profitable, grow and potentially reach a point where they, too, could someday become companies someone wants to acquire.

Somi brought another perspective from his own decade in business, including the significance of eventually purchasing property rather than continuing to lease.

His advice was straightforward: set goals before you necessarily know how you will reach them.

“As you grow your business, have goals,” he said.

Their acquisition also puts the brothers in an interesting position within Coastal Georgia’s local media landscape.

With Pooler, Effingham and Bryan County magazines now under their ownership, Somi said they have an opportunity to tell stories that haven’t always been told and bring them to larger audiences.

“We’re able to share more stories, stories that sometimes haven’t been shared,” he said.

For The Coastal Buzz, that part of the conversation particularly stood out.

Different local publications can have different audiences, approaches and missions while still sharing something important: the belief that there are people and stories throughout Coastal Georgia worth finding.

When Networking Becomes Something Real

The formal remarks eventually returned to Stewart, who encouraged members to become involved in the Chamber’s work and to communicate the challenges they are facing as business owners.

That includes advocacy.

Stewart told members that the Chamber plans to survey them about issues affecting their businesses and use that input to help shape its legislative priorities. He encouraged business owners to participate even if they weren’t certain their particular challenge involved government.

“One of the things that the Black Chamber does is advocate for you,” Stewart said.

That advocacy is one piece of a broader structure the Chamber says includes business education and development, visibility and promotion, networking, community building and efforts to help entrepreneurs build long-term wealth.

But on a Thursday evening in Savannah, those big ideas looked much smaller.

They looked like two people standing at a table comparing business cards.

They looked like a new member getting one minute to explain an idea to a room that hadn’t heard it before.

They looked like someone walking across the room because another person had just said something that made them curious.

And they looked like two brothers telling other entrepreneurs that there were years when business was hard for them, too — before reaching a point where they could stand in front of that room and announce they had acquired another company.

Those are the possibilities that are difficult to measure when everyone goes home.

A customer may have discovered a business. A collaboration may have started. Someone may follow up with a person they met. An entrepreneur struggling through an early year may have heard something they needed from someone who has already survived it.

And, from our perspective at The Coastal Buzz, there was another possibility.

Somewhere among all those introductions were stories we hadn’t heard yet.

That’s another reason being in the room matters.

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WHY THIS MATTERS:

A networking event can look like people exchanging business cards. What interested us was what those conversations could become.

At the Greater Savannah Black Chamber’s August Mixer, new members introduced what they’re building, established entrepreneurs shared what they’ve learned, and local business owners had the chance to discover each other.

The Coastal Buzz was one of those new members, and we’re excited about that for another reason too: rooms like this are where we’re going to find some of the local stories nobody else is telling.

Sometimes the next great Savannah story starts with a simple introduction.