Where can I network with other businesses in Surrey?

Surrey Hills Enterprises is a membership organisation for businesses, charities and other organisations working in, serving or contributing to the Surrey Hills economy. The emphasis is on relationships rather than volume: members tend to meet each other repeatedly through the year, which is what turns a contact into a referral or a supply relationship.

• Relationships built over time rather than one-off introductions.
• Referrals between members who understand each other's work.
• Collaboration on joint offers, shared stands and co-hosted activity.
• Member events through the year, from networking mornings to workshops.
• Cross-sector introductions between food and drink, hospitality, land management, professional services and the creative sector.
• Local supply relationships between producers, venues and retailers.
• Practical member-to-member support, including specialist expertise.

You can see what is coming up on our events and training page, or read the full list of membership benefits.

Surrey Chambers of Commerce(opens in a new tab) offers a broader, county-wide network covering organisations of every size and sector across Surrey. If your customers or suppliers sit well outside the Surrey Hills, or you want reach across the whole county and into export and policy support, it is worth looking at.

Business Surrey(opens in a new tab) provides free business support as well as events and connections for organisations across the county. It is publicly funded, so it is often the sensible first stop if you want general advice without a membership fee attached.

The Federation of Small Businesses(opens in a new tab) is a national membership body. Its value is less about local relationships and more about representation, legal and HR helplines and small-business advocacy at a national level.

Alongside these, Surrey has town-level business groups, chambers of trade, sector groups and informal referral breakfasts. They are often the cheapest way to test whether networking suits you, and attendance at a couple of meetings will tell you more than any website.

The question is not which network is best, but which one matches what you are trying to achieve. Be honest about that before paying anything.

• Who is in the room, and are they your customers, your referrers or your competitors?
• How often does it meet, and can you realistically attend that often?
• Is it built on long-term relationships or on rapid, structured referrals?
• What does it cost in fees, and what does it cost in time?
• Can you visit before joining, and what did the room feel like when you did?
• Does membership come with anything beyond the meetings, such as a directory profile, events or training?

If you are weighing up Surrey Hills Enterprises against another organisation, our membership quiz gives an indicative answer in a few minutes.

Most people who conclude that networking does not work attended a lot of different events once each. Attending fewer groups more often produces better results, because people can only refer you once they can describe what you do.

• Choose one or two groups and commit to them for at least six months.
• Be able to say what you do, who for and where, in one sentence.
• Describe precisely what a good enquiry looks like for you.
• Ask questions rather than pitching, and listen for problems you could solve.
• Refer other people first; it is the fastest way to be referred yourself.
• Volunteer for something visible, such as hosting or speaking.

The value of an event is created in the two or three days afterwards. Without follow-up the whole cost of attending is wasted.

1. Write a short note about each useful conversation while you still remember it.
2. Send a personal message within 48 hours that refers to what you actually discussed.
3. Offer something concrete: an introduction, a resource, an answer to their question.
4. Suggest a specific next step rather than a vague coffee at some point.
5. Diarise a reminder to make contact again in a few months.

Our networking follow-up templates give you wording you can adapt, and the networking event trial scorecard helps you judge whether a group is worth returning to.

Judging a network purely on sales in the first quarter will almost always produce a disappointing answer. The useful outcomes are broader, and they compound.

What good networking actually produces

• Recommendations to people who were never in the room.
• Mentoring and advice from people who have already solved your problem.
• Suppliers you can trust, often locally.
• Introductions into organisations you could not reach cold.
• Collaborations on joint offers, events and shared stands.
• Learning from other people's mistakes and successes.
• Future customers who buy in a year rather than a month.

• Is business networking worth the time and cost?
• How do I get better results from networking?
• Surrey Hills Enterprises or Surrey Chambers of Commerce, which should I join?
• Surrey Hills Enterprises or BNI, which is better for referrals?
• Can I belong to more than one networking or membership organisation?
• How can referrals generate more business?