How do you meet the right business people in Townsville?

Scott Cundill · 2026-09-28 · Townsville

Ask a Townsville business owner how they found their best client, their accountant or their most reliable supplier, and the answer is almost never an advert. It is usually a name. Somebody they trusted said, you should talk to this person, and they did.

That is how business works here. The hard part is getting into those conversations when you do not already know the people having them.

Why do networking nights so rarely lead anywhere?

Because meeting forty people for two minutes each is not the same as being introduced to the right one.

A typical evening goes the same way. You swap cards, you hear a lot of elevator pitches, and you go home with a pocket full of names and no reason to call any of them. The person who could really help your business may have been in the room, but nobody told either of you why you should talk.

What works is slower and far more effective: someone who knows you both, telling you both why.

How does Townsville actually do business?

Through overlapping circles. Townsville is the biggest city in North Queensland, and a lot of its economy sits in a few large worlds: Defence, the port and the resources sector, health, education with James Cook University, and the building and trades that serve all of them. Around those sit thousands of small businesses, from cafés on Flinders Street to consultants working from home in Kirwan.

People in one circle know each other well. People in different circles often never meet. A builder may not know a single property manager. A new owner who has just moved up from the south may not know anybody at all. And a lot of families in Townsville move with Defence postings, so the city is always full of capable people who have not yet found their circle.

What makes an introduction worth having?

Three things.

It is specific. Not "meet some business people", but "meet the operations manager at a firm that needs exactly what you do".

It comes from someone who knows both of you. That person puts a little of their own reputation on it, which is why the other side takes it seriously.

It explains why. A good introduction is written to both people at once, in plain words, with the reason spelled out. Nobody has to guess.

Where Elevating & Connecting Townsville Businesses comes in

Elevating & Connecting Townsville Businesses is a club for making those introductions. It is part of My Most Trusted, a business introduction network where people meet through someone who knows them both, never through bought lists or cold pitches.

The club is hosted by Mary Stevenson, a Business Owner Coach with The Alternative Board Australia, who meets people face to face in Townsville. Her own description of her work is helping business owners "amplify the possible, uncover the invisible and write their next chapter in business and in life".

If there is someone in Townsville you want to meet but have no way of reaching, that is the question to start with. Not who is in the room tonight, but who you need, and who might already know them.