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So international business and global businesses at the heart of what we do, I'm a facilitator,

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my role, my team, we facilitate connections as well.

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I think it's working like you're an alumnae of some university.

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You don't know each other, but you graduated from the same university and then you have

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already this trust.

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People buy from people.

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We want to know each other, we want to have relationships with you, we want to have trust.

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Unless you have something so unique that is not existing in the whole world.

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Behind the role there is a human with all universe inside of this person.

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Hi, I am Dmytro Shvets, your host at the Start Global Insights, where I interview experts

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in different countries about local business secrets and international expansion experience.

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Local business communities like business associations or chambers of commerce are often advised

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as one of the sources for exporters.

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In some cases they can be just formal organizations that are not worth spending your time on,

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but some of them may serve as gates to the local markets.

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And after the conversation with the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, I must admit

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that this is exactly the last case.

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My guest today is Nick Charles, the head of community and member relationships at the

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London Chamber of Commerce.

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And we will talk about the possibilities of cooperation with this organization for companies

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looking to sell to the UK markets.

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Hi, Nick.

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Welcome to the show.

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Good afternoon.

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Thank you for having me.

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Nick, could you tell a bit more about your experience and what do you do?

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Yes, of course.

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So my job title is head of community and member relationships at the London Chamber of Commerce.

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I've worked at the London Chamber of Commerce for 11 years now within the membership department

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of the London Chamber.

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Quite a bit of time.

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A lot of time.

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It's gone so quickly.

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It's gone so quickly.

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And we have a saying in England that time flies when you're having fun.

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And my whole experience at the London Chamber has been a fun and enjoyable one, particularly

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because of the huge amount of interest in individuals and businesses that you meet on

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a daily basis and fantastic entrepreneurs, innovators, and also the ability to be able

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to help people and provide support.

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So my role at the London Chamber of Commerce, the London Chamber of Commerce is presently

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on a real journey of growing and growing its outreach and growing its business community.

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At the moment, the London Chamber of Commerce business community totals in between 6,500

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and 7,000 businesses.

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It's a really good number prior to the start of the COVID pandemic.

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That number was only around 2,000.

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So we are growing significantly through a number of initiatives that we've launched that seem

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to be working really well.

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But we are London.

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When you look at the amount of businesses there are in London, we are a global city.

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People from all around the world want to come and do business in London.

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So we need to grow and we need to be able to provide services and the function that

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give support to the wider-out businesses that want to be part of the London business community.

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So my role itself, I look after a membership team.

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So our role is threefold.

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It's growing the business community, so bringing more businesses on board to become members

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of the London Chamber of Commerce, to join the London Chamber of Community Network.

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It's being able to deliver services and benefits to those businesses to ensure that they're

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getting the support that they need to grow and develop.

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Most businesses join the London Chamber of Commerce for three reasons.

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It's to connect, it's to raise profile, and it's to get business support.

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So connections will come in the form of events and networking.

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Prior raising will come in the form of being able to advertise on our website, being able

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to feature in our London Business Matters magazine.

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You'll be able to join or take part in the London Chamber of Commerce Digital Community

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App.

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We've had that up and running for over two years now.

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And business support comes in many different ways.

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We're very, very lucky as a not-for-profit organisation to have fantastic facilities

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in the city of London.

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There's workspace solutions and members lounge and private meeting room facilities that businesses

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are able to use.

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So if you are a business who is based overseas in Ukraine or France or Germany, but we want

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to visit London throughout the year to do business, to meet people, by joining an organisation

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like the London Chamber of Commerce, you have what we call home from home.

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When you're in London and you're away from your office, you can base yourself on work

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at the London Chamber of Commerce.

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You can respond to emails.

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You can have meetings there.

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You can invite clients and contacts to come and meet in your space at the London Chamber

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of Commerce.

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So it's like a representative office overseas, yeah?

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It is.

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It is.

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And it's about giving them support.

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So hopefully every year, people look back, businesses look back and say, yes, we got

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what we needed from the London Chamber of Commerce.

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We got the vital support.

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We got the connections.

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We got the profile raising opportunities that we needed.

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So we're trying hard to do that.

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It's never perfect.

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Because not everyone is able to get what they need out of it.

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But the feedback we are receiving is overwhelmingly very positive.

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So we're definitely doing the right thing at the moment.

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Nick, and you said that you mentioned that actually not only companies from London and

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not only companies from Britain are joining the Chamber of Commerce.

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So is it common that companies from abroad are also on the members?

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Absolutely.

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Absolutely.

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So what did you have?

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Prior to the COVID pandemic, we had an international business team.

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We ran trade missions around the world every year.

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We did events on how to do business in overseas markets at the London Chamber of Commerce.

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I'll also mention as well, I won't go into too much detail because I'm not a specialist,

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but we issue a lot of expert documentation.

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So we're one of the biggest issuers of expert documentation in the UK.

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So international business and global business is at the heart of what we do.

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By documentation, you mean some reports and researchers?

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No.

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If you are an exporter, again, I'll speak in very basic terms, but if you need to move

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or send goods all around the world, you need paperwork and documentation to do that.

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And many businesses get that paperwork through there.

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But yeah, people around the world, international business is very big for us and we are in

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a position.

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We are in the process of forming relationships with cities and chambers of commerce from

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around the world again at the moment.

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We are open to everyone.

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Anyone around the world, a registered business can go to our website, they can speak to us,

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say we want to come to London, we want to win business in London, we want to make connections

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in London.

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How do we do it?

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The London Chamber of Commerce can give you the help and support that you need to ensure

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it's a success.

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So in fact, if you are becoming a member of the Chamber of Commerce of London, then you

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are becoming a member of this community and then you can actually use the benefits of

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going overseas from London with the help of your Chamber of Commerce.

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100%.

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That's an interesting pivot.

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Yeah, so it is.

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I mean, anyone who joins the London Chamber of Commerce now gets access to the business

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community automatically of well over six and a half thousand businesses that's growing.

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It's companies of all shapes and sizes, different sectors, different industries.

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It's a real mix.

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We represent everyone with a voice of London business.

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It's a very good point and people are interested.

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I suppose if you are based overseas in a certain country, you want to come to London to do

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business, then you realize by being in London, there are other countries and industries

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you would like to embark upon, would like an introduction to, the London Chamber of

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Commerce can indeed help.

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Yeah, great idea.

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I just didn't think about that in that way.

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So I was always thinking about the chambers of commerce in other countries as an entry

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point to this country, but not like a hub to go in other countries represented already

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by the, for example, UK.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So you are like going to United States trade mission with UK Chamber of Commerce or London

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Chamber of Commerce and being from Ukraine, for example.

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Yeah, so you're like in the mission, but from the UK side, but being at the same time, the

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company from other country.

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Again, without being an expert on any paperwork and documentation that's needed as well from

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overseas travel.

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But yes, the business, if you join, if you're based overseas, in Ukraine, but you come into

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London and for example, the London Chamber of Commerce, we're looking to run a trade

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mission to the USA or Canada or anywhere else around the world.

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Absolutely.

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It's a great opportunity to become part of that.

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And our role will be to make connections and opportunities for those businesses.

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You said that you are dealing with members.

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Yeah.

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So you are like building relationships with them and talking to them.

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And you actually said why they are joining the Chamber of Commerce.

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But you know, there is also always this kind of a deeper insight of the value that people

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are getting.

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And when you are talking to them, what are the most things that they are using while

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being the members?

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That's a very good point.

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It's a very, very good question.

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And it's something we work and analyze on a regular basis.

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I can tell a story from a few years ago.

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So in there was a commercial cleaning company based in London, the southeast of England,

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who came to us and said, Dick, we're based in London.

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We've got a fantastic retail client.

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They're just about to open two flagship stores in major European cities.

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And they've invited us to work there.

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They're interested in us going there to work, for example.

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We'd love to, but we've never had any experience at all in doing business overseas.

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What can we do?

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How can we do this?

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Through our international business team and contacts, this was a good number of years

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ago, we were able to support that commercial cleaning company and put them in touch with

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fellow companies in these European cities when they were able to work together, subcontract

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the work.

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And it was a really, really successful project.

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So that's a really key good example.

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Other parts were very big.

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We've been very big and successful over the years within the property construction arena.

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So construction companies, residential commercial development, that type of thing.

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We've had companies who have been to our events members, construction companies or consultancies,

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who have been to a networking event and said, Nick, based on that event you held, there

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was a connection I made there, off of one that connection, we can trace and we can say

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we've got 70 or 70 million pounds worth of business out of it.

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So there's some really fantastic stories we're able, we don't measure them all the time,

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but the more we speak to members in terms of conversation and understand more about

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their businesses success, we just realized just how powerful our networking events are.

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That ability, a really simple forum to get people together with relevant partners and

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contacts in the room really does build tremendous results.

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It's a whole thing, networking connections in our role as a chamber of commerce.

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By being able to bring people together, which we do very well, we have a networking program

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of around 200 events a year.

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I think it's working like you are an alumnae of some university.

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So you don't know each other, but you graduated from the same university and then you have

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already this trust issue together.

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So the same thing as with your members.

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I think that's a really interesting point actually, that people get to know each other.

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People and other reason why businesses, I guess it's a particular point for any businesses

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overseas, looking to join the London Chamber of Commerce, they want to feel part of, they

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want to feel recognized as part of the London business community.

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They want to be able to go to the venue.

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You're another London Chamber of Commerce member.

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I'm a member of the London Chamber of Commerce.

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So a little benefit we do is if you join the London Chamber of Commerce, you can use the

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proud to be a member of the London Chamber of Commerce logo on your website, email signatures,

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other marketing material and people like that because it makes them feel part of the business

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community as it were.

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Yeah, I think this is a very, very strong psychological thing.

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So you don't need to build this trust for a long period of time because you are borrowing

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the trust of the umbrella community that you're in.

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Absolutely.

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And I think the thing I've come to realize is that everyone's different.

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And bear in mind my role, obviously in the London Chamber, I'm a facilitator.

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My role, my team, we facilitate connections as well.

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So what we tend to stress to members of businesses is about relationships, it's about getting

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to know each other.

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That's what people want.

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It's not what we call a hard sell.

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So what I'm really enjoying doing with businesses, if they're interested in similar areas, there's

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potential synergy of them working together to partner, look at shared opportunities.

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I think it's very easy to bring people together and say, guys, I'd like to connect you for

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a social conversation just as if it's any synergy altogether.

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Nothing about one company sending the service specifically to others.

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That does happen.

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It's about getting to know each other, conversation.

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Oh, I want to know you.

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Tell me about your business.

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How can we work together?

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How can we look for shared opportunities together?

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And that ethos works very well.

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Just coming back to your story about the networking and conversation between companies, probably

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it is different between the regions.

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So the business culture in London may be a bit different from the business culture in

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Glasgow.

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But in general, from your opinion and feeling, how open British people are to such conversations

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and relationships and just talking to a stranger about something?

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I think the whole point of joining an organization like the London Chamber of Commerce or another

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Chamber of Commerce in the UK is because you're willing to speak to other businesses.

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Obviously, there will be some organizations that aren't as open or willing to connect

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as others, but overwhelmingly, from my experience at London Chamber of Commerce, businesses

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want to meet people.

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They want to speak.

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They want to get to know you.

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They want to exchange details.

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They want to see if they can help.

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They want to see if you can help them.

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The side that we've been working in Shardland Swims is that we actually need to be the Chamber

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of Commerce of the 21st century.

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So what we launched two and a half years ago was the London Chamber of Commerce digital

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app.

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So if you are a business all around the world now, if you're in Ukraine, if you're anywhere

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in the world, you can register for the London Chamber of Commerce digital app.

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And whoever else around the world, part of the Chamber of Commerce business community

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is registered in the app, you can start conversations.

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You can connect them.

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You can raise your profile.

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They can go on the various groups on the app, a business owners group, an international

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trade group, a connected live in London group, a hospitality, leisure and tourism group.

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They can go on there, raise their profile and connect with an audience they'd like

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to connect with in London.

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And how do you sell?

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So you are selling your services yet to London companies.

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What is your approach to get these clients?

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It's a really good point.

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Selling the London Chamber of Commerce isn't about selling it.

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It's just about being open and making people aware of the opportunities.

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I would say understanding if a business has reached out to us or we've reached out to

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businesses in the campaign, say we are here to help London Chamber of Commerce with what

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to speak to you.

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I think we use social media a lot to promote what the London Chamber of Commerce are doing

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and encourage businesses to get in touch.

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You're creating the funnel, the incoming funnel of leads.

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They are coming to your website.

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It's a very interesting point that in the modern age, it's very digital and very remote

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and technological base and people still value the conversation.

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I want to speak to you over the phone.

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I want to speak to you on Teams.

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I want to have a coffee with you.

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I want to tell you about my business.

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I want to see how you can help me.

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How can the London Chamber of Commerce help my business support and grow?

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Apart from incoming leads that you are generating?

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Apart from incoming leads, we go out at trade shows and exhibitions is a big thing for us.

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If you can get an exhibition that attracts thousands of businesses over a two to three

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day period, we'd like to be there.

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Say here, we're the London Chamber of Commerce.

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It seems when you are at a place and you are here and other businesses are there, they

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want to speak to you.

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They want to speak to you.

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We don't like going out and say, we want to sell London Chamber of Commerce to you.

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It's about letting businesses and people know that the London Chamber of Commerce is here.

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When people speak to us as well, it's just being able to understand what are they looking

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for?

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Some business, particularly if you're a small business and particularly if you're a business

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overseas as well, all of our members get free legal and HR advice.

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Another key bit of advice that we launched two years ago as a service that we created

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the Ask the Expert service.

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Basically, in all key business areas, legal issues, financial issues, sales and marketing

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issues, IT and cyber issues, well-being issues as well, sustainability issues is another

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one amongst others.

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We went out to our members and said, look, we're looking to provide an advisory service

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where members can come to us and say, I would like advice in certain areas.

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Would you as a member, you're an expert in finance, for example, you're an expert in

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sales and marketing, would you be willing to give some free advice to fellow members

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who want to use the service?

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That's worked really well.

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Members can go to us now, whether they're based in London or overseas and say, look,

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I'd like to sell more effectively or market myself more effectively to UK London businesses.

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How can I do that?

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We've got members who are experts as part of this service.

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They'll be happy to give you an hour's worth of free advice to help you on your way.

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That's very valuable.

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And again, that's our role as business support.

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But again, we're bringing people together to get the support that they need.

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And for our experts as well, they're actually able to speak to an audience who are actually

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interested in their services.

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Yeah, and actually promote their services as well.

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You were talking about the social media advertising, yes, to get incoming funnel of leads.

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What are the social media that are popular within business community?

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It's really good.

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I'm not the expert.

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I'm not a social media expert, but I've got a good understanding leading.

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Obviously, most of our members, for me being at London Chamber of Commerce, I've got a

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network and connections of several thousand on LinkedIn.

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And I don't use LinkedIn proactively all the time.

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There are colleagues who use LinkedIn on a regular basis to a great degree.

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So LinkedIn is a fantastic way to connect with colleagues.

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Twitter, the London Chamber of Commerce is very successful on Twitter.

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We've got a really good funnel of Twitter to go out there as well.

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I just noticed from speaking to businesses, many small business owners I've spoken to,

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Twitter is one of those things that if you are to embark on Twitter to promote your business

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and engage, it's something you need to keep doing on a regular basis.

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When you are working and communicating with members from overseas and they are entering

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Britain like a market, do you see or from your experience, you can say about some usual

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mistakes that they do or what they are doing not correct?

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I think it's linked to what we were talking about is the approach to businesses.

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I think if you're just going to reach out to someone to do a very quick sale, my experience

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at the London Chamber of Commerce is that won't be terrifically well received by a number

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of businesses.

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So I would say that that's definitely a mistake.

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I think people need to realise they need to join an organisation and get to know each

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other to have to be patient, to build relationships, to understand the business environment, to

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understand who their target market is, who in membership, where can I build connections,

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who can help me, how can I help them, how can it reciprocate each other.

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So that would be my recommendation.

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The biggest mistake is not to think in long term, not to build this long term approach.

354
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Absolutely.

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And with that, I think a strategy needs to be made.

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Let me speak to organisations where they can help and guide me.

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If I'm going to launch a marketing business development strategy, where I'm going to

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email businesses in London, the UK, what would be the best way to do that?

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What are the key topics I should mention?

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What would be the best way to reach out and buy email?

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For example, another key service that we give is business development support.

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So members all over the world can come to us and say to our business information team,

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we would like a list of contacts, we'd like to reach out to people to engage.

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How can we do that?

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So great, we can help them contacts, we can do that for businesses.

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However, there's no point in reaching out to people if you haven't got a coherent strategy,

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if you haven't given support to who your target audience is, who in these organisations are

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the best people to speak to as well.

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My approach, if you are entering the country, then the first thing that you should do is

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to just talk to your potential clients, not sell.

371
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In no way to sell because you don't know the paints, you don't know what they are looking

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for and you don't know what you give them as a value because I'm sure that they are

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like bombarded by emails from all over the world, especially if they are some big distributors.

374
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Well, it's a very good point.

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If you're a finance director and organisation procurement manager, you're going to be getting

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far too many emails, even me, keeping up on emails and giving enough attention to emails

377
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is a really difficult task.

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So I think that's a very good point.

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Understanding businesses, let me meet, okay, these are the people potentially down the

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line I want to sell to, they're the people I want to do business with.

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Let me spend some time meeting them, get to know them, who are they, let me understand

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them, what are their needs, what are their challenges?

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How can I help?

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How can I combine business with its services and what it does?

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What's the advantage that I can provide to the business?

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How can I be as useful as possible?

387
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And yeah, that's my recommendation.

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I think that this is the problem of perception of your potential client as just a client

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or transactional point, but not as a partner.

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And if you're going overseas or abroad, then your client becomes your partner because it

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will take you a lot of time to build this relationship, to understand the pains and

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gains and then to deliver their value to them to grow it further.

393
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Because if you're just selling like a transaction, then what's the point?

394
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Unless you have something so unique that is not existing in the whole world.

395
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Yes, and that happens.

396
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It really does happen sometimes.

397
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Good luck to these people.

398
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People buy from people.

399
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:32,880
I know it's a cliche, we say it all the time, but here in the UK, people buy from people.

400
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We want to know each other.

401
00:24:34,420 --> 00:24:36,840
We want to have relationships with you.

402
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:37,840
We want to have trust.

403
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:41,040
We want to have appreciation as well.

404
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,640
At the same time, we still want to be able to deliver an excellent service and receive

405
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an excellent product, but I want to trust and have a good relationship with the person

406
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I'm engaging with.

407
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Does that make sense?

408
00:24:52,360 --> 00:24:59,880
That makes totally sense because just recently I made, as you know, I also teach in business

409
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school.

410
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:09,240
We have the course for sales and I have this type of exercise called the empathy map.

411
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You are learning how you can understand other people's feelings and what is inside of them.

412
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After that, afterwards, I was talking to two participants and they were salespeople from

413
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:22,680
an organization.

414
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:23,680
What are your insights?

415
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:29,920
I asked and then they said, you know, it was the first time in my life that I saw a human

416
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:31,520
behind the client.

417
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:39,000
It's remarkable how we forget that behind the role, there is a human, human being with

418
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all the universe inside of this person, with all these relationships and relatives and

419
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:53,400
problems and life events and just trying to sell them the functional stuff that they need

420
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:54,400
in their jobs.

421
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:59,800
But in their job role, there is a person that feels.

422
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100%.

423
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:07,120
We've got feels and emotions and we all react to certain things differently from one day

424
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to the next.

425
00:26:08,120 --> 00:26:10,120
It's part of being human.

426
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But I still think overwhelmingly the power of getting to know the individual, that person

427
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:22,560
and having empathy, like you said, empathy is so important and it's so critical and

428
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:23,560
so valuable.

429
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:32,120
Yeah, because if you are thinking about like we always thought about British people, England,

430
00:26:32,120 --> 00:26:35,320
Queen, Kingdom, ladies and gentlemen.

431
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:43,040
Yeah, so all that very posh and very like high level hierarchical structures and you

432
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:49,360
cannot even look different from what you are expected to.

433
00:26:49,360 --> 00:26:55,200
And then when I start doing business or talking to British people, it appeared that you are

434
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:59,200
just ordinary people from flesh and blood.

435
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:00,200
It's very true.

436
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,880
I mean, London, London is a very diverse city as well.

437
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,040
I mean, there's huge progress is being made as well.

438
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:16,880
I believe that I think some over 40 or so percent of the London population are from

439
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,760
different ethnic minority backgrounds, I think, for example.

440
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,120
I think it's significant.

441
00:27:23,120 --> 00:27:28,240
So the London Chamber is really promoting inclusivity as well.

442
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:32,880
So something we've done in recent years, we've had for a number of years now, really active

443
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:38,920
Asian Business Association because of the number of businesses in London that come from Asian

444
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:39,920
owned backgrounds.

445
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:45,480
Something we launched around two and a half years ago was the first London Chamber's first

446
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:52,400
ever black business association that's been really successful, do some great work on dealing

447
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:57,320
with the issues that many black owned businesses in London are facing, access to finance, for

448
00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:58,320
example.

449
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:02,320
Although we've done it in recent years, there was a stop we've launched this year, a brand

450
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:09,160
new women in business program and initiative to help female business people, female entrepreneurs

451
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:10,160
as well.

452
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:11,160
It's great.

453
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:14,960
So if you come to a London Chamber of Commerce event, now most events you sit down, look

454
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:22,120
at the audience and it's a really diverse mix of gender, ethnic backgrounds, for example,

455
00:28:22,120 --> 00:28:29,200
that's far more start to represent what the London community as a whole looks like.

456
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:30,200
Does that make sense?

457
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,440
Okay, clear.

458
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:37,880
Nick, I think that we are a bit running of time already.

459
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:42,520
As I said before, time flies when you're having fun, that time went quickly.

460
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:47,800
It was fun to talk to you and I would talk much more because it is really interesting

461
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:52,800
to understand the country, the culture, the opportunities that you have there.

462
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:53,800
Thank you.

463
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,640
I hope what little input I've been able to make has been useful for people listening.

464
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:58,640
Thank you very much.

465
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:00,640
Thank you.