Refer-On, Turn-Off – Mistakes made by Networking Groups

Business Let’s Talk (BLT) is a networking group which grew out of the demise of Refer-On, a franchise with a number of local hubs across the Home Counties.

Why did such an established franchise go so wrong, and what does that tell us about networking in general?

Networking issues

We all need to network for business, informally or formally, whether we work for a large company or are self-employed.

Networking groups have traditionally focused upon the self-employed, SME market, and usually possess the following characteristics:

1. Monthly fee
   • However, the more money paid = the higher the expectations
2. Membership controls – limited to 1 member per profession
   • Pros – it provides you with exclusivity in the group (BNI works this way, to ‘lock out’ the competition in their words)
   • Cons – different people from the same profession can have different specialisms and target different markets
3. Structured agenda
   • Presentation – somebody from the group (or an external party) will give a short presentation on their business
   • Business topic of interest – discussed in the meeting, facilitated by the chairperson

Where Refer-On went wrong

I attended the infamous Refer-On meeting in Henley in which they launched their ambitious expansion plan, to firstly combine the local groups and then to go one step further and theme each group by industry category.

i) Combine groups – so, the High Wycombe group would merge with Windsor and rotate locations on a weekly basis (anybody who has tackled the M4 first thing in the morning can imagine how well this was received!)

ii) Theme groups – the ‘combined groups’ would then be split into 2 categories – Digital and Physical (at least I think those were the 2 categories, it was over 2 years ago!) and these would meet on alternate weeks.

So, you now had a networking group which was:

1. Expensive – you paid a monthly fee of £50 (roughly) and £10 per session attended (£15 if you were a non-member)
2. Inconvenient – every other week, you would have to travel outside of your local area
3. Complicated – a bit like putting the dustbins out nowadays, where would you have to be this week, which group would you be in?
4. Unproven – the same people generally attended each week (presumably the reason for combining groups and widening the talent pool)

Where BLT differs

• Free – it’s run like a mutual,
  with a group of core members taking turns to chair the meeting and arrange the speakers/topics (the £10 you pay is for your cooked breakfast!)
• Fortnightly – once a week is too much, once a month is too little
• Right size – numbers are limited to around 16 to promote discussion, with no ‘lock out’. On occasions that numbers have topped 20, we have split up into smaller groups during the meeting, so it’s a flexible system….room size is the main inhibitor.

What this all adds up to is a lack of pressure – there is no commitment to attend, or to refer – in short, the networking is relaxed and yes, it has worked for me.

This quote I came across on a forum on networking sums up for me what networking should be about:

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