Business Networking in the Modern Age

Networking between businesses has never been easier than it is today.

Time was once when representatives of local businesses had to drag themselves away from their concerns to attend meetings of the Chamber of Commerce or the local business forum and, whilst that method of personal interaction is still vitally important for the purpose of knowing who's who in your local business community, there are now so many different ways of keeping in touch with others within either your neighbourhood or your niche.

The latter is so very important. It has always been fairly easy to interact with business people operating a few yards along your own street. Traditionally it has been more difficult to get in touch with others operating in the same line of business as yourself who might be based in some other part of the country, or indeed in another country.

Social media like Facebook and Twitter, along with business focused resources such as LinkedIn, have proved to be valuable. They have almost literally brought the world home to your computer screen. Today it is so easy to communicate with anyone anywhere else in the world that we very much take it for granted.

But why would we wish to be in contact with other business people anyway? Particularly those with whom we are competing in the same finite and frequently scarce market?

This question needs to be looked at from different scenarios. If you were the manager of a public house, for instance, and another similar enterprise was located next door to your own (unlikely though that may be in this day and age) then your neighbour and yourself would clearly be in competition with each other. If however the other premises were situated a few streets away you would in all likelihood share many of the same customers, those who move around from place to place. You would have a shared interest in maintaining the popularity and the standard of the neighbourhood for incoming visitors, and in identifying troublemakers and sharing intelligence on such things as drug taking and other anti-social behaviour.

Of course most neighbourhoods will be host to a wide range of completely different and varying business interests. Once again these will have a mutual interest in raising the appeal of the area in which they operate so as to encourage more visitors from outside who will, it is hoped, use all the services and patronise all the shops and retail outlets. They will have a mutual interest in eradicating crime such as robbery, vandalism and anti-social behaviour that invariably has the effect of deterring custom.