Networking: The Power Technique For Building Business Communities

How Genuine Connections—Not Cold Calls—Built My Career

Picture of the market where I used to shop at Granville Island market, Vancouver

It was my first business consulting assignment. I was green, shy, and fresh from my Master’s degree. I had abruptly decided not to get a PhD and pursue a career in academia, in favor of working in the “real world” which operated without the assumption of perfect knowledge.

I had been oversold by my new boss, who had parlayed a couple of graduate-level finance courses into me being an international banking expert. I was made the lead business analyst in charge of liaising daily with our new client.

There, I sat at a desk literally in the middle of a banking operations bullpen. The rest of my consulting team were way down a hall, all cozy, separate in their own room. I was in the midst of 23 women with different skills, job duties, and personalities. All capable, chatty, and curious. Some of them engaged in wicked humour. They challenged my role and my competency immediately, in a not-unfriendly manner.

I was sweating, I can tell you. I had never implemented an international banking system before. I had never been a business analyst before. I knew very little about being a consultant. I realized I better do something different, or I would be sunk.

The first strategy was to give as good as I got. So I made jokes as rejoinders to their jokes. It helped me establish some street credibility.

Secondly, I started going out for coffee, lunch, and after-dinner drinks with them. As first in groups and then one-on-one. We would go into breakout rooms to talk. I would sit with them and observe them as they worked. I basically abandoned contact with the other six consultants on the project team.

I didn’t pretend to be an expert. I asked them numerous questions about their jobs, banking, and their concerns about technology.

I listened and learned.

Not only did I gain a comprehensive understanding of the business processes that needed to be automated, but I also earned their trust and respect. Without any foresight or planning, I developed business relationships with many of them. I am still in contact with three of them 45 years later.

I had also stumbled upon networking, or at least my version of it. In hindsight, five years after I formally retired, I realized that networking was THE most powerful technique I ever had. It was the root of my success in growing three different consulting firms after I left Accenture in 1990.

Was I considered a great salesperson? No, I was just a great networker.

Was I considered to be very good at all aspects of talent management? No, I was just a great networker.

Here are the key elements of how I networked that were rooted in my shyness, as I hid my smarty pants nature. Subsequently, I learned that these factors were the essence of great networking.

• Only met with people I liked or who were easy to get along with

• Avoid it being transactional; build an ongoing relationship.

• Incorporate a social dimension to it, make it personal

• Be genuinely interested in their business and social lives.

• Adjust the frequency of meetings based on how much I enjoyed their company or how senior they were

• Exchange information, advice, examples, gossip, predictions, and opportunities with them as made sense

• Transactions are done to help each other, but they are subsidiary to the quality of the relationship.

Rinse and repeat.

This is the most important part, as the effects of this technique grow in a non-linear fashion. In networking over decades, I realized that I had a network of communities that every entrepreneur needs, as in the schematic below:

Conventionally, people think of each of these as separate domains and consider building community most commonly in the customer sphere. I believe that these groupings are more fluid and that these are actually intersecting communities.

This is the power of the network.

First, people can shift from one sphere to another.

Second, people can help you gain traction with other spheres.

Let me exemplify these two points with examples from my career. Realize that these are just a small part of this vibrant networking fabric.

One of the key employees from my banking example above (she was in a non-buying customer role) became an employee in my business 18 years later. We also hired her son for a period of time. She left my business after we converted to a Venture Capital financed software products company (a horrible and sad story for another day).

Ten years after that, she was in a buying position at a specialty financial company and brought another one of my companies in, now in the role of a customer. These are the transactions, but it was all part of the community. Through those years, we got together continually, mutually trading ideas, input, and gossip.

I saw her kids grow up, and she knew my son; I was there for her when her husband died, and she helped me relocate close to her neighborhood.

When we started our first business (there were five of us), we didn’t have much money. We found a guy who could put together innovative financing packages for our computer technologies (these were the days when they averaged $5000 - $10,000 each on historical 40-cent dollars).

I would meet with him just to stay in touch. We exchanged much information about the local market and technology trends. Over the next 14 years, we gave him all of our business - even when we didn’t need financing - and recommended him to others.

He was a funder but introduced us to a better hardware vendor, arranged for us to work with a related company as partners, and, when his wife moved to a new company in an elevated position, introduced her to us, which led to a new customer.

Without really being explicit and conscious about community, we learned to treat each domain as if it were a group.

Customers always want to know what their peers or competitors are doing strategically, operationally, or technologically, so we would hold customer training / discussion sessions, often having partners attend as we broke new ideas or software.

We encouraged employees when they left to be like alumni, so many became customers, partners, or vendors. Many recommended new employees; a couple returned to work for us again. And so on.

To me, communities are about networking one-on-one with people. For this to be successful, you really need to be interested in each person. Establish a relationship first; mutually beneficial transactions will happen naturally through the flow of time.

Looking back, I realize that every opportunity, every deal, and even many friendships were built on this foundation of genuine connection. Networking wasn’t a tactic—it was a way of life.

In the end, the strongest business relationships weren’t the ones driven by transactions but by trust, shared experiences, and a willingness to invest in people for the long haul. If there’s one lesson I’d pass on, it’s this: build the community first, and the opportunities will follow.

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Thank you for reading my article.

My name is David Crouch.

I spent 44 years as a consultant in most aspects of IT, business, and training consulting for clients in 5 countries around the world. Twenty-five of those years focused on growing my own consulting firms to over 100 employees. So, I know professional services entrepreneurship.

This article signals the April kick-off of my Substack community for entrepreneurs, especially consultants. My focus is on individuals who want to start and grow small firms. I will provide insider intelligence and insights to help you decide whether this journey is right for you to design success on your terms. I hope you will join me for The Entrepreneur's Adventure.