Easier Business:
SME bosses shun pub and golf club to do business, Internet not being used for professional networking.
Traditional breeding grounds for doing deals and making new business contacts like the pub, golf club or social club have fallen foul of the work ethic and professionalism held by today’s entrepreneurs, according to a new survey by Barclays Local Business. However, despite shunning an informal, social background to do business, the internet is also failing to prove itself as a meaningful way to meet new customers and suppliers.
Despite the recent growth of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which experienced 89% growth last year, there seems to be a lack of good sites for businesses to network. Only 8% of those surveyed used the internet to network.
Research conducted at the latest Barclays Local Business ‘Let’s Talk’ seminar to help people grow their business found that the majority of SME owner managers still go for the personal touch, with 61% citing organised shows and networking events as their preferred way to build up useful contacts for their business. The popular scene of a Del Boy-like figure having a network of potential ‘punters’ and business contacts in his local ‘boozer’, or the more affluent business person conducting business on the golf course is a thing of the past. Only in Scotland does there seem to remain a propensity to mix business with pleasure, as bosses north of the border are three times more likely to network at the bar (13 percent) than the rest of England and Wales. More.
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