Comment by protocolture

>over the normal market channels

You normally get zero until you acquire a customer. Then you get money in exchange for contracted goods and services.

>This means that you must be getting a better price not available through the normal market.

No?

>The only reason you could get that price with a connection vs without a connection implies some sort bad action.

"Bad Action" is doing a lot of work here. I have seen a lot of things done in the name of networking. I only really get concerned when there's no replacement mechanism, like a not for profit. A not for profit has generally little understanding of market forces, and they can be convinced to pay a lot things they don't need and don't feel that pinch due to competition.

But if Manager A has a 400 million dollar budget, and Provider B can provide service their needs under that budget and turn a profit, and has the capability to land Manager A as a customer, what "Bad Action" are you possibly afraid of? If the leader of Provider B has also a personal relationship with several decision makers, who will follow him to Provider C because they enjoy his services, why do you take offense?

I know a guy, he provides services to the hospitality industry. His customers are 4 local booze barons. Each baron brings 4-5 pubs/clubs/restaurants/strip clubs each. These guys have issues finding service providers who work all hours in less than admirable working conditions. They can get bartenders, security etc themselves, but they cant find management/IT/telephony/communications and other service industry side troubleshooting at all hours, that's actually competent. This bloke does all of it. He is a one man band, and he makes himself available 24/7/365. He has told me stories about working all night, taking a lady home, getting a call, paying for her uber and heading back to the city. He isnt defrauding anyone by being really good at what he does, and building on that a really good working relationship with his customers. And thats when things become personal, those booze barons would 100% follow him to any future employer if he decided to stop working solo. He could personally bring something like 900K of recurring revenue to an employer, possibly (i suspect) a lot more than that. That's a micro scale example but it does scale. I know another guy who can hold down 3-4 million of IT contracts from various customers. Just a really good sales engineer. And he gets paid accordingly by any of his employers. An ISP sales manager probably handles 30-40 million of contracts. If they don't give him a non compete, and he wanders to another employer, same again.