How larger companies can win business without winning new clients — internal networking

When I’ve worked with larger organisations, particularly but not exclusively in the professions, something which is really common is to discover their own clients buying services they could provide but from competitors.

People often think of networking as something external, something outward looking, something to gain business or referrals from people outside the organisation. But the benefits of networking internally are often overlooked, and it doesn’t even have to involve breakfast meetings!

A common reason for this is not that their competitors are better, or lower priced, but that the customer simply didn’t know that the organisation provided those services.

Very often in an organisation we focus on our thing. In a firm of solicitors for example there may be a team specialising in conveyancing, one team in litigation, one in probate matters etc etc. Sometimes we become so focussed on our thing that we miss opportunities to do more business with a customer to whom we could provide even more value by providing them with the other services that they are already buying. We focus so much on what we are doing for that customer, that we miss that they are leaving us to walk straight over to the other supplier over the road to buy from them what…