Welcome to the Website of the SNG (Sunrise NETWORKING Group).  If you will click on the "About Us" tab, you will find out about one of Metro Detroit's hottest new business NETWORKING groups.  However, before you click on the "About Us" tab, let me tell you why we got started, and our philosophy. 

Let me start off by quoting Jackie Robinson, a well-known baseball player, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”  I don’t think it was by accident that the SNG got started.  My prayer has always been to make my life have meaning, to make the world better because of the brief time that I spent in it.  The SNG is allowing me . . . and the other members . . . to do just that!

It started in 2002 when I had a young mortgage broker pleading with me to start a networking group.  He told me that I knew everyone, and that he didn’t so I should start the group.  I emphatically refused telling him that I knew I would be the one stuck running it.   He was very persistent!  The fifth time he called me, I was drawing a big breath to tell him, “NO,” and to quit calling me, when I felt something telling me to say . . . YES!

I told him I would invite some people to breakfast, but I was going to run the group, if it formed, my way.  We would meet only a couple of times a month, and there would be NO REQUIREMENTS for people to do anything except show up.  I thought about myself, I wouldn’t want anyone to tell me what I had to do, that is why I am independent, and I think most business owners and sales reps feel the same way.

The first breakfast on Thursday, June 13, 2002, had five people in attendance.  Nothing happened until we got up to leave.  One person reached across the table and gave one of the others a lead.  Then one of the other people in attendance mentioned it would be good for another person at the breakfast to call on his friend who could use his services.  I pointed out that we had just had a successful breakfast that resulted in two people getting leads.  With the suggestion of getting together twice a month, and inviting others, we have grown to over 300 members in five years.

But, life is not just about business.  We adopted a struggling charity, JustUs Families (JUF), and have used our talents to put together charity events to help them raise money.  JUF is a non-profit organization that helps single mothers whose children have become wards of the state, to regain custody of their children.  The mothers lost the children, not due to drugs or abuse, but because they could not financially take care of their children.  These women spend years getting their children out of foster homes, just as you would if the State took your children.  Last year, JUF helped reunite five mothers with seventeen children.  We work with the mothers to get their lives together, and provide tutors for the children . . . thus, breaking the cycle of poverty.

Did I mention . . . we have FUN!  We have a SNG Golf League, SNG Bocce Ball League, Mark Ridley Comedy Castle nights, Detroit Tiger Club nights, all designed to introduce our membership to each other.  All of our charity events . . . SNG Annual Golf Outing, Chase Your Blues Away (we bring in the original Blues Brothers), SNG Rocks the River at Currents, and SNG Dinner Cruise on the Infinity . . . raise money for JUF, allow our members to meet each other, and . . . we have FUN!

If you think about most “networking” groups, they have a lot of rules (i.e., you HAVE to bring leads, you get “fined” for not showing up on time, you get booted for missed meetings even for good reasons), and are pretty dry.

At the SNG, we would rather have a warm introduction rather than get a lead because you were forced to give one.  We realize that people get stuck in traffic, have kids to get off to school, etc. so we are just happy when you get to the breakfast safely (why be stressed out the rest of the day)!  Of course, if you don’t have a good reason for missing breakfasts, we will eventually find a replacement for you . . . but, we make the breakfasts a FUN time instead of a prison sentence.  If you know you will start the day with a good breakfast and a few laughs, why wouldn’t you want to show up twice a month?

Notice I haven’t mentioned much about getting business.  Generating leads is a byproduct of people getting along . . . that is the easy part!  There are literally, millions of dollars of business being conducted by our members in Michigan around the Detroit metro area.  Don’t take my word for it, come to a breakfast and ask!

A person only gets one chance to go through life.  If you want to do business in a meaningful way, and to have FUN while doing it, then you are the type of person we would want in the SNG.  In that case, proceed to "About Us", and then fill out and submit the short Invitation Request found in the “SNG Membership” tab.

Here are a couple of thoughts we like to live by:
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”- Robert Louis Stevenson
“It’s not what you take when you leave; it’s what you leave behind when you go.”

I hope to see you at a SNG Breakfast . . . SOON!

Wayne A. Curto
SNG Founder

Michigan Business Networking designed to move your business!
Great people, great companies, great breakfasts . . . the SNG!