Face-to-face networking vital

EVEN in an age of emails and the internet, it seems that there may still a place for the traditional business network, with entrepreneurs meeting weekly to swap contacts and help one another to grow their companies.

Business leaders in Dundee think that networking can still pay dividends and are today officially launching a new lunchtime meeting.

The Verdant Chapter of Business Network International (BNI) is the first Scottish group to meet at lunchtime, instead of using the organisation’s traditional 7am gathering time.

BNI, which styles itself as the world’s largest networking organisation, already holds a morning chapter meeting in Dundee, along with dozens of others throughout Scotland and around the world.

The network estimates that its Scottish chapters generate an average of £200,000 of business for every 20 members over six months.

The new timing is designed to attract business people who cannot attend morning meetings, due to problems finding childcare or through irregular working hours.

The Verdant Chapter will be launched at midday today in Dundee’s Hilton Hotel, during which local businesses have been invited to try a free BNI networking event.

Jeni McCabe, senior consultant at Simple Corporate Resource Solutions, which advises small and mediumsized businesses on human resources, believes networks still have an important role to play.

She said: "It is getting back to basics and doing business as it was done 20 or 30 years ago before emails and the internet.

"It definitely works – people buy from people. It’s all about building up that relationship and that trust. Emails and the internet just don’t do that."

McCabe, who is director of the Verdant Chapter, found she could not attend Dundee’s 7am meeting because she could not organise childcare at that time of the morning, so she helped to setup the lunchtime session instead.

The chapter has been running trial sessions for the past four months and now has about 20 members.

McCabe said: "I don’t think there’s any business that’s there already that hasn’t made money from it.

"It’s quite a structured meeting so there’s an agenda that we stick to every week. We pass referrals to each other – that’s the main objective of the meeting and to bring new visitors to the group, who can help us grow our businesses.

"It’s basically a ’you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back’ concept or ’givers gain’. We all work together to build each others’ businesses as well as building our own."

The new chapter is named after the Verdant Works, a museum to Dundee’s spinning and weaving industries.

While general business networks appear to be flourishing, there also seems to be growth among more specialised meetings.

In 2006, law firm Tods Murray commissioned Professor Gillian Hogg, head of management at Strathclyde University’s business school, to investigate the impact of business women’s professional networks in Scotland.

Hogg found that 40 per cent of the 200 women surveyed thought that female business networks had helped to advance their careers.

Tods used the research last year to launch its Women In Business Network, which now has nearly 400 members.

The network invites women to sector or topicspecific lunches, networking events, dinners and briefings.

Debbie Atkins, director of client relations management and business development at Tods Murray, who runs its women’s business network, said: "In my opinion, ’fun’ or perhaps ’an energy’ is the essence of a good network.

"It needs to be a place where people feel at ease and find it easy to meet new contacts and reacquaint themselves with others, it needs to be interesting and enjoyable and provide benefit, otherwise members may come along once but may not come back."

She added: "I am a huge fan of the internet, emails, mobile phones and BlackBerries, and love the fact that communication is so much easier and instant nowadays.

"However, there is absolutely no substitute, in my opinion, for face to face communication. One really gets to know someone when time can be shared together with the opportunity to chat things through. That’s when connections are made and ideas are born."

Tods Murray also runs a network called "Premier Crew" for its younger lawyers. The network to encourage them to build up their own networks, for the future.

Flora Macdonald, an associate director of Adam & Co, the private bank, said: "I personally have made some great contacts from Debbie’s Tods Murray network and find it a really valuable experience.

"All the topics are presented in a way that is useful and easily understood and it is always very slick with a real fun element. There is a momentum to this network that makes me want to go back and to introduce other people to it too."