Will the real ‘Collaborative Networking Event’ please open its doors! (Part 2)

I, so often hear from organisers of networking events, or read in their promotional materials, that their events are all about encouraging ‘collaborations’ between their delegates. When you really want to go and listen to their delegates others seem more concerned about their sales pitches and exchanging business cards.

So often, their role (and authority) is about getting sales, rather than building meaningful relationships or links. Although, they will talk about the importance of relationship management, they seek only to sell their first order......and repeat the process again and again.

I feel this point is best illustrated by an auld associate of mine: who was a Business Advisor from one of the Greater Manchester Authorities. Once we got into a rather heated discussion when he declared his ‘met the buyers’ event’ was a collaborative event as “you sought to collaborate with the buyer and then sell your product”. Clearly, he only saw collaboration as a process between the buyers focusing on selling their goods.

So often, I am tempted to reach for the dictionary and find the ‘academic’ definition on the subject. Sorry, my desk’s Collins English Dictionary defines it nicely as “to work with another or others on a joint project”.

I see collaborating, as meeting with others delegates to share and exchange new developments which might be beneficial to your combined businesses. They are about developing the opportunity to offer a ‘joint’ or an ‘extended range of services’ to your ‘joint client’, based on both of you working collaborating towards a business offer.

In doing so, there would be the prospect for the partners to have additional or new and dynamic services added to their original business’s offer. This would be a seamless and cost-effective manner of increasing your offer and therefore avoiding the need of turning down work when a client asks for services beyond your businesses offer. Why increase your business risks by adding additional staffing costs to provide an additional service to your client offer? You can just work with a partner, which will incur no additional costs.

For example, why should a web agency take on a mobile developer or a SEO specialist when they can work collaboratively with a partner who offers that specialist service? Why should a freelance designer try to learn and develop their own software skills, when they can work with a compatible freelancer, who can do the back-end tasks in half the time and half the cost in half the time? Similarly, why should the designer and content developer, who both have clients with the food / hospitality sector, not collaborate and offer joint services to their joint clients within the food / hospitality businesses. These are all examples of collaborations which have happened, for delegates who have participated in our recent projects.

More importantly, these practices require ‘mature’ thinking business people to work together; where they avoid the agreements about who the client belongs to? The maturity, is reflected in their understanding that it is a “two-way street”, that they are travelling down together and a road where both businesses win from this partnership. Sometimes, the ‘less confident’ business owners require contracts to help them through, whereby instead, a lighter touch might be a have a ‘memorandum of understanding’. However, for many, it is just trust and working things through, thus ending up in rewarding ‘marriages of convenience’......some are just ‘friends with benefits’.... whereas some are sadly ‘painful heart aches.

Therefore, collaborative network events should be aimed to encouraging mature businesses, who wish to move away from the traditional sales oriented B2B network, by exploring opportunities to meet and listen to like-minded businesses; that can develop business opportunities for themselves and their clients. The emphasis would be on listening and exploring possible links between the businesses services and to offer a broader range of services.....rather than try to make the quick single sale.

The whole atmosphere of our event is one of a relaxed, informal and light manner. It is hoped, that people come along, enjoy an evening for talking and listening without having to deal with the heavy sales pitches. Importantly, the emphasis is on ‘breaking the bread’ – enjoying a drink, some food and peer to peer conversations about joint ventures and working together.

We have been trying to develop this spirit of collaborations through our #WiredCurry events; where the emphasis is upon business owners and freelancers meeting, talking and exchanging opportunities over a drink and good food.  We have been successful in the past year in North Lincolnshire to attract 26 -28 delegates to regular #WiredCurry events to do exactly that. We are able to spread our wings to include events on the North Bank of the Humber in 2020….where North meets South in the digital, creative and ICT world.

However, we also are working with partners to see if the above event / spirit of networking can be transferred to the business and professional service sector?

We are looking to organise our first #wiredbusinesscurry event in Grimsby and Scunthorpe in the New Year – by inviting small business owners who work in Facilities Management, Professional Advisory Services (including: environmental and health & safety consultancies, inspection, patent / copywriter, testing and certification providers, property and infrastructure consultants, industrial consultancies, engineering consultancies, accountancy /finance practices which support business, legal practices working with SME's) and Financial & Resource Management. We are trying to avoid the sales or account managers by inviting the business decision makers from smaller business to explore “collaborative networking and working practices”.

Will we be able to transfer this networking culture to a new sector?……….is the interesting challenge we are facing possibly going to work?. We are hoping by inviting delegate that they might assist in ensuring the move away from “sales pitched” networking?

We would welcome your comments and thoughts……

And if interested please keen an eye out for either a #wiredcurry or #wiredbusinesscurry event near you…or just drop us a note below and we see if your business fits the remit of the target audience….