Most businesses spend a lot of time trying to build an audience. More followers. More leads. More website traffic. More brand awareness.
But some of the best business relationships I have seen have not started with advertising or a sales pitch, instead they have started because someone brought the right people together in the same room with a simple shared purpose.
Over the last year, I have spent a lot of time hosting events for accountants, finance professionals and business owners. Not product demos. Not sales presentations disguised as networking. Just good conversations with people who have something useful to share. And zero PowerPoint slides.
And it has reminded me that one of the quickest ways to expand your reach is often through somebody else’s community.
Recently, Sage teamed up with Metro Bank and Penfold for a lunch event in Reading. On the face of it, it was simple: pizza, conversation and local businesses sharing ideas and experiences.
The interesting bit was not the food or the venue; it was the fact that three organisations with different networks came together around a shared audience.
Metro Bank brought one set of relationships. Penfold brought another. We brought ours.
Individually, we would have had a decent event. Together, we reached people none of us might have engaged on our own. That is the part many businesses miss.
Beyond referrals and lead generation
Partnerships are often viewed through the lens of referrals, sponsorships or lead generation. Those things matter of course, but the bigger opportunity is access. After all every organisation has spent years building trust with its customers, members or community. So, when you work together and pull those groups into one shared safe space, you are not just sharing a room, you are sharing credibility.
That is particularly relevant in sectors where people naturally operate across multiple ecosystems. Take accounting. Some firms run Sage, some use one of the other ledgers and many will run a combination of platforms. Yet the challenges they are facing are often exactly the same.
- Growth
- Recruitment
- Regulation
- Legislation
- Technology
- AI
If the goal is to understand and support the profession, it makes little sense to only talk to people who already sit inside your own customer base. The most valuable conversations (and intel) usually happen when different perspectives meet.
The commercial case for community
But this is not just about polite networking and conversation… there is a commercial benefit too.
Any salesperson will know that trust is often built long before a buying decision is made. Someone might not need what you offer today, but if you have helped them make a useful connection, solve a problem or meet a potential partner, they will remember it. These events pay forward in the best way possible and that, for me, is far more powerful than another sales email landing in an already crowded inbox.
Of course, one event does not create a community. You cannot host a lunch, collect a handful of business cards and declare success. Communities are built through consistency. Showing up regularly, making introductions, listening and creating opportunities for people to connect with each other, not just with you.
The businesses that do this well think beyond attendance numbers, instead asking: did people make valuable connections? Did conversations continue afterwards? Did someone leave with a new idea, a new client or a new opportunity?
Making events work harder
Those are the outcomes that really matter because that makes the event valuable to everyone, not just you.
For me, local events have always been about making a large organisation feel more accessible and more human. They remind people there are real individuals behind the logos and when everybody is competing for attention, that can be a genuine advantage.
Sometimes the best way to grow your own network is not to make it bigger yourself, it is to spend time in someone else’s.
Key takeaways
- Some of the best business relationships do not start with advertising or a sales pitch, but because someone brought the right people together in the same room with a simple shared purpose.
- Partnerships are often viewed through the lens of referrals and lead generation, but the bigger opportunity is access. When Sage, Metro Bank and Penfold pooled their networks, they reached people none of them might have engaged on their own.
- In sectors like accounting, firms use different platforms but often face exactly the same challenges – growth, recruitment, regulation, legislation, technology and AI – so it makes little sense to only talk to people inside your own customer base.
- Trust is often built long before a buying decision is made. Someone might not need what you offer today, but if you have helped them make a useful connection, solve a problem or meet a potential partner, they will remember it.
- Communities are built through consistency, and the businesses that do this well look beyond attendance numbers: did people make valuable connections, did conversations continue afterwards, and did someone leave with a new idea, client or opportunity?
