At Carthy Accountants networking has always been a massive marketing tool for us. In the past we have been members of networking groups in the B4B network and the FSB network, and we even had our own Carthy Club networking events. We are currently members of a BNI group in Stafford and two NetworkIN groups across Staffordshire.

Below are some of the key benefits I and my network of contacts have found since we have had to change to virtual meetings.

Networking has not only bought us new business opportunities, but has also given us a huge pool of contacts to be able to refer our clients to for services we do not provide.  For example, over the past few years we have been able to refer clients to:

• solicitors for legal advice;
• landlords to mortgage advisors and estate agents;
• businesses to web developers for website design;
• call handling/message services for support with telephone answering.

The principle of networking is centred around building relationships with the people in a business and in a face to face environment, whether that’s at networking meetings, events or during 1-2-1 meetings. Therefore, you may be wondering how networking could be beneficial to you in the virtual landscape in which we are currently operating.

Below are some of the key benefits I and my network of contacts have found since we have had to change to virtual meetings.  I hope it will inspire you to dip your toes in the virtual networking pool (as an advocate of NetworkIN, many of the points are based around the NetworkIN processes in place for the virtual meetings but are likely to apply to other networking groups).

• Meeting fees have been temporarily suspended so there is no cost involved in attending a meeting as a guest. There is usually a limit on how many meetings you can attend before you need to decide whether to take up a membership but for those first few meetings (number dependant on the networking group) there is no financial cost involved.

• Membership fees may reduce. At NetworkIN there is an offer for new advocates to sign up for a 50% reduction in monthly membership fees whilst meetings are virtual, and this will secure your ‘sector’ seat or when the meetings return to face to face. This represents a cost of £25 plus VAT per month to secure your seat during the virtual meetings.

• Geography is not a factor temporarily. With all meetings being virtual there is no added time  or cost of travel to the venues for face to face meetings. This means you could attend a meeting at a neighbouring location as a guest and expand your network of contacts.
• One of the benefits of being an advocate of NetworkIN is that you can visit one of the other teams in Staffordshire and Cheshire (as long as your ‘sector’ seat is not taken) as a guest on one membership. The only cost would therefore be the meeting fee, which as I’ve mentioned is temporarily suspended. This means on my membership to the Stafford Brunch Team, I have been able to guest at Stoke, Cheadle and Newcastle–under–Lyme for free.

• You have more time for 1-2-1 meetings – one of the most important follow up actions when Networking is having 1-2-1s with the people you meet. 1-2-1s give you the opportunity to find out more in depth information about the business and the people behind it. For a lot of people, the lockdown has caused a drop in work and has given business owners more time on their hands. There would be no better use of this time than to have 1-2-1s with as many people as you can, which should give you a bigger and better network for when things start to get back to some sort of normality.

• Collaborative work is massively on the up – One of the aspects of networking I really like is the encouragement of collaboration rather than competition. Recently in my team alone we have seen the introduction of the Creative Marketing Hub, which is made up of four marketeers looking to help businesses with visual communication. I have also seen multiple connections of business coaches who are looking to work together to help businesses who need support through the lockdown. Finally, I have seen two film making businesses join forces to offer virtual leavers videos for schools. In each case, the businesses in question would normally be in competition, but through networking and building relationships, the offer of a collaborative service is a lot stronger than the multiple businesses competing for the business.

There are many groups out there, NetworkIN, BNI, B4B and more, so hopefully what you’ve read has made you want to test out the virtual networking world.