The Essence of Business Networking in Property Markets
Business networking is an economic business activity whereby business people, landowners, and investors meet with others who share common interests and aim to establish business connections to identify, make, or accept business opportunities.
There are two main channels of a business network: the conventional one and the virtual one. While virtual networking takes advantage of digital communications from emails, social media, and video conferences, the most reliable is still the conventional network where people physically get to know each other in events, conventions, or coffee sessions.
Both channels provide a platform for cooperation in different levels among medium-to-large businesses as well as to those networks of cooperation between private individuals that aim to establish contractual agreements. These channels are very useful because they create a lot of opportunities for investors, property owners, and builders who can leverage them to their advantage.
Types of Business Networking
If you are a real estate investor or a property developer, there is nothing more important than your circle of support systems. There are several types of business networks for real estate investments to grow and expand quickly. These include but are not limited to:
Public Relations
This type of business networking involves sharing information about a company through various channels to boost property venture connections, develop new business relationships, and improve public relations. Business relationships are often enhanced when a company gives presentations and publishes newsletters, issues press releases, hosts conferences, and webinars, and produces media kits for a wide range of outlets. These efforts are usually done in exchange for favorable press coverage.
Real estate projects that engage in these activities also tend to expand their networks and receive referrals from individuals who have used the company’s services or products. Public relations can also be beneficial if the property business in question can help build brand recognition and reputation.
Public Relations Managers
Public Relations Managers are in a position to manage the PR aspects of a property venture can also conduct business networking events. These individuals are responsible for creating positive and negative press accounts for the business. They are also responsible for creating and maintaining positive relationships with corporate sponsors and other employees who may have access to news outlets. Some public relations managers are paid by companies, while others are hired on a contractual basis.
Marketing Firms
Proponents of property development projects can also work through marketing firms in order to create business connections. These firms typically hire people such as public relations specialists to handle the marketing aspects of a company. By doing so, the marketing professionals are able to obtain more clients for a company’s products and services, gain access to exclusive product discounts, and increase the visibility of the sale or rental of the property project in the marketplace.
Private Equity
Investors and property owners having a substantial amount of equity may want to use their investments to expand the scope and size of their businesses. By acquiring private companies, they can create joint ventures and acquire shares of ownership to increase their networking capacities. These private companies can either be small businesses or large corporations with track records in acquiring, developing, or operating property ventures. Private equity investments may also result in the hiring of consultants from architects, project managers, engineers, and even attorneys to help run the projects and acquired businesses.
Private Sales and Marketing
Businesses interested in increasing their business contacts and expanding their networks may use a team of qualified personnel to generate leads, market, and close sales. In doing so, they are likely to solicit business referrals from people they can convert from the general public to interested parties. Some property development businesses that use this method of networking may also develop and create websites, distribute press releases, produce newsletters, attend trade shows, and host conferences, and webinars. And oftentimes, may have to create packages of incentives for the number of inquiries or closed sales by the team. These private marketing and sales activities allow the company to reach out to people it would otherwise have not known about and create business relationships in local markets.
Benefits and Costs
These types of business networking are beneficial to any property businesses that offer a development product or industry service and need more exposure. For example, a business that has a high turnover rate may use these types of business networking to inform, persuade, and sell its services to the right people who can become loyal customers.
While business networking events provide many benefits, they can also have some drawbacks. Business networking can be expensive. They are often scheduled in advance and require plenty of preparation and resources. Business networking events may require the assistance of a professional business management team to manage them well.
Always learn to secure the benefits of investing in networking platforms or people to outweigh the costs.
Getting to Know New People
When conducting business networking on your own personal capacities, it is important to make sure that you are able to take the initiative and talk to those that you might not otherwise. This is because it is the way that you will build your network in the industry and also the way that you will make sure that your recommendations are seen by people that matter. The more you are seen as someone that can be relied upon, the more likely you are to make connections. It is very important that you are able to build quality relationships because they will help you when you are trying to explore project opportunities.
One Good Turn Deserves Another
A good business will always use networking in order to facilitate customers’ feedback because this is something that keeps them coming back to promote your brand to others as well. Another reason for the importance of business networking lies in the fact that it is a great way to create connections within a business that can make it easier to deal with other businesses down the line. This can also make it easier for the company to gain access to resources that are often needed when working with other related real estate businesses. This is because the company will no longer have to spend money on items and technology that they may need in order to source for specific tasks or solutions.
Many people think that it is more difficult to run a real estate business with networking as a part of the business than it actually is. All that is needed is some time and effort. When the network is built up, the development company will be able to identify the many people who have been working with the business in some form or another and many of these people also have connections to a lot of potential opportunities.
Business networking will always have a certain level of importance, regardless of the size of the development project or company. It is only as valuable as it is needed. By taking the time to build a strong network, one can use it to provide important information, gain access to contacts, and help improve the company’s image and reputation in the market. Fostering business networks will help project brands stay competitive. It increases a better chance of success within the business of property ventures.
Having more hands do make lighter loads. If you are looking to add an architect in your network of property ventures, please feel free to get in touch or send me a message to connect on LinkedIn. It is always a pleasure to meet new friends in the industry.
