Urbano Membership - Benefits - Options

Urbano has been connecting companies and those that run them since our beginnings in Shoreditch in the early 2000’s. We believe that opportunities come attached to people and are revealed through conversations. Our primary role at Urbano is to connect our members to facilitate and encourage such opportunities at our events, through our website, and other elements, including tenders which we send out each weekly, including architecture, masterplanning etc (see link below).

We allow any non-member company to send its representatives to a maximum of TWO Urbano events. There, they will experience the welcoming atmosphere of each event we organise, each designed to help your people enjoy networking with other attendees, plus get a chance to meet members and ask them what they get from membership.

But primarily it allows any company to gauge the quality of the companies and contacts that are already members of our community and to assess whether your company would find value as part of our community. 

For many, this is where their journey with Urbano ends. Mostly, this is because the expectations of a company approach to networking are based on a simple, flawed premise: they expect contracts from a first introduction and judge the value of their networking on that mis-placed premise. They leave disappointed and travel onto the next set of events elsewhere and the disappointment continues.

As our Connector-In-Chief, Mark Herring, is fond of telling everyone the key to getting value through networking is quite simple: the more contacts you meet, the more connections you make, the more relationships you develop, the more opportunities you will create.

But it starts with the individuals you send out understanding how they can listen for opportunities at events and their company using networking as part of their business development and marketing strategy. Opportunities come attached to people and are revealed through conversation. (He offers training on this to companies). 

Urbano has as a long and proud record of championing issues, such as zero carbon and sustainability, diversity and inclusion, workplace wellbeing and new technology – and often way before others – as we introduce ideas that start into one sector into another.  

But mostly we help our members to meet, share knowledge, learn and develop business opportunities together.  We do this at events, but also we know our member companies and where we see value, we make introductions and connections between them.

Urbano - The Sustainable Business Network 
We hosted our first speaker event on ‘sustainability’ (then called green construction) in 2004 and since then we have been challenging companies and individuals to make active changes on this front.

But we also help our members  adapt to the ever-changing challenges of running a successful enterprise. We believe it is the diversity of our member companies, our own experience of running a SME that celebrated its 20^th birthday earlier this year – www.talentlab.co.uk - and the mix of people and events that makes Urbano unique.

We continue to press for SMEs to be given a fairer chance at winning public sector work, including as part of project supply chains. Videos and podcasts on our Only Connect channel are available to download on different topics, including procurement, building reg changes, workplace design, menopause in work, sustainability in construction, and networking. The latest tenders list be found here: Urbano Opportunities Notice

Membership Options and Fees
Membership is by company and your representatives become part of the Urbano community on booking their first event.

We have three membership options:

Micro Company Members (for firms of up to six people not wishing to receive tenders).

Company Members (any size of company wishing to also receive appropriate tenders).

Corporate members (those wishing to use Urbano to share details of their own events to our database of 55,000 business subscribers on our bi-weekly mailers).

Fees and options available here: https://www.urbanonetwork.co.uk/membership

Membership starts with an email back to the office from the business owner, director or equivalent confirming your preferred status. We then send payment links or invoice with BACs as appropriate. Membership starts on payment.

If you have any specific questions about Urbano not answered elsewhere on the website, I am always happy to answer any questions you may have.

Best

Mark