Your Team’s Network Is Your Firm’s Untapped Growth Asset

Why Your Team’s Network Is Your Firm’s Untapped Asset

(And why relationship-building stays a bottleneck when it shouldn’t)

Most Managing Directors in professional services know their firm needs broader visibility and stronger relationships to grow.

What they often miss is this: their team already has those relationships.

Every day, your team is:

• working alongside clients
  
  
• collaborating with partners and stakeholders
  
  
• solving problems with people in other organisations
  
  
• building rapport with peers in neighbouring businesses
  
  

These aren’t just project interactions.

They’re relationship capital.

Yet in most firms, those relationships stay trapped in meeting rooms and email threads. When the project ends, the connection fades. When a contact moves role, or company, the relationship disappears entirely.

The asset exists.

The firm simply isn’t capturing its value.

Why this matters commercially

In professional services, relationships are how work flows.

Yet many firms still behave as if relationship-building is the MD’s job - or something reserved for “sales”.

The result is predictable.

New business pressure concentrates at the top.
Growth depends on a small number of relationships.
The firm feels smaller than it actually is.

Not because capability is lacking - but because connection is too concentrated.

Meanwhile, the team continues building trust every day - without that trust ever compounding.

Not because those relationships aren’t valuable -
but because no one has shown the team why their network matters commercially, or how to grow it in a way that fits professional work.

What’s lost when relationships stay offline

When teams aren’t connected to the people they work with on LinkedIn, value leaks quietly.

You lose visibility on career moves.
A key client contact gets promoted or moves firm - and no one notices.

Relationships cool between projects.
Months pass. A new need emerges. You’re not top of mind because you’ve disappeared from view.

You miss early signals.
A partner posts about a challenge your firm could solve - but no one on your team sees it.

Your expertise stays invisible.
The work is strong. The capability is real. But the network can’t see it.

Relationships don’t disappear because the work is poor.

They disappear because they weren’t maintained outside formal channels.

And when that pattern repeats, growth becomes harder than it needs to be. New business feels like constant effort instead of compounding momentum.

The leverage most firms overlook

Your team is already doing the work that builds trust.

Delivering outcomes.
Demonstrating expertise.
Solving real problems.

That work has value beyond the immediate project - if the relationship is maintained.

LinkedIn, used properly, becomes relationship infrastructure - not a performance channel.

It turns day-to-day professional interaction into durable commercial assets:

• relationships stay warm naturally
  
  
• career moves become visible opportunities
  
  
• intelligence flows without formal outreach
  
  
• expertise remains front of mind
  
  

This isn’t additional work.

It’s leverage.

What stops teams activating this

Teams don’t avoid growing their network because they don’t see the value.

They hesitate because they’re unsure what’s appropriate.

Is it odd to connect with a client mid-project?
Will it look salesy?
What do I say?
What if I see them in the office park tomorrow?

Without clarity from leadership, caution wins.

Professionals protect their reputation by staying silent.

Valuable relationship capital sits dormant - not through apathy, but professionalism.

The leadership shift that changes growth dynamics

In firms where this works well, two things are clear.

First: relationships built by the team are recognised as having commercial value - not just personal value.

Second: teams are given clear guidance on what’s appropriate, expected, and useful.

Who to connect with.
When to reach out.
How to engage without performance or pressure.

Once ambiguity is removed, hesitation drops.

Not because people are pushed - but because the boundaries are clear.

When teams grow their networks deliberately:

• growth no longer sits solely with the MD
  
  
• relationships have depth and resilience
  
  
• opportunities surface earlier
  
  
• the firm looks substantial, not dependent
  
  

Most importantly, the firm starts leveraging what it’s already doing - instead of relying on a few people to carry all commercial momentum.

Where this leaves leaders

If new business still feels like it rests on a narrow set of relationships, this is often why.

The relationships already exist.
The leverage doesn’t.

If you’re leading a service firm where relationship-building happens every day but rarely compounds, this is exactly the work Corporate Visibility Training addresses.

Corporate Visibility Training details are here.