Being part of a BNI chapter is a unique opportunity. Where else do you get the chance to form a close bond – to work as a team in multiple areas – with a group of other independent businesses?

But so often we waste it by taking the easiest route, which is human nature after all. We lapse into a routine of attending meetings, making up our 60 second on the fly and only doing our dances when we have a gap.

For most of us, word of mouth referrals are the number one source of new business. The number and quality of referrals you receive, which directly impact your bottom line, are determined by how much effort you put into your networking.

Don’t leave it to accident. Take control of the process and drive your networking activity.

You can do this by:

• Setting objectives (what do you want to achieve from your BNI investment?);
• Recruiting new members for your own hub within your chapter (that’s how you get more referrals from your chapter);
• Increasing your visibility among the membership i.e. doing properly planned and structured dances more frequently;
• Preparing powerful, memorable 60 second presentations;
• Being specific with your referral requests;
• Helping other members with a combination of referrals, your time, your expertise, mentoring and encouragement (there is more to ‘givers gain’ than referrals).

These are the basics of BNI. They are there because they work (it’s the same reason other networks attempt to copy what BNI does).

Do these things consistently, regularly and with commitment and you will reap the reward.

Colin Kennedy is a keynote speaker, copywriter and content marketing consultant. As BNI New Zealand’s marketing director he is responsible for the organisation’s communications strategy, and also serves as an assistant director for North Central region of BNI.

Photo by Ambro

Life gets a lot easier when we accept responsibility for everything that happens to us.

By accepting responsibility for our life and everything that happens in it, we remove blame. Blame is a cancer of the human spirit. By blaming ‘others’ for our misfortunes, we make ourselves helpless to whatever ‘others’ do to us.

By accepting responsibility for the situation, I am empowering myself to make the next decision as to what I am going to do, because I am the only person I can control.

The other people who influence my life are just being who they are, I can either accept that and accept them – warts and all – or move on.

Don’t get me wrong, by accepting responsibility, I am not accepting blame. I am just accepting that at some stage I made a decision that put me in this situation and now I am responsible for making the decision that will move me on.

So, I ask again…

Are you responsible?
Are you a responsible person?

However BNI has a lot of similarity to a team sport.

Confused?

Well look at it this way, your BNI meeting is your team ‘training’, that Wednesday night you used to work away with your rugby or netball team to be better for Saturday. You learn about your team members, see how you all work together and members who don’t perform for the team soon get ‘dropped’. You are coached to learn the strengths and weaknesses of your fellow team members and how to use them in the game.

And like team sport, if you don’t turn up for training or just laze around and don’t make an effort, you don’t make the team.

Then occasionally you would ‘do a dance’ with a team member… “whoa” I hear you say, no dancing in my rugby team… but translate dance for a kick around with a team member, or a bit of one on one for a basketballer. Again, like team sport, those that make the effort to do extra ‘one to one’ training during the week, tend to get to the top faster.

Ok, so what about the game… well here’s the scary and yet exciting bit… the game is the rest of the week. Every minute we are ‘out there’ doing what we do. At work during the week, at play in the weekends. At a PTA meeting or Lions Club Meeting. Anytime we are around other people we are playing the game of BNI… because that’s where we need to use the training from our ‘team practice’ to identify opportunities for referrals and convert them.

It’s no coincidence that the more experienced BNI members tend to be better at getting external referrals… as famous South African golfer Gary Player once said “the harder I practice, the luckier I get.” Experience comes with time to hear and spot opportunity, where in the past we might only have seen the things that concern ourselves.

So don’t make the mistake of thinking BNI is about a meeting you have once a week to eat breakfast…

Commit yourself to be the best you can be at your new ‘Team Sport’….BNI!

Rob has seen what BNI can do for business, and is passionate about the country’s largest referral networking organisation which has 2,600 members nationwide.

Having learnt a few business lessons the hard way when he first started out, he is inspired to help business owners avoid making the same mistakes.

Being someone who enjoys networking and meeting people, he has a passion for matching a person’s needs to ‘that right someone’ who can help. He is also particularly keen on applying BNI’s principle of givers gain’, which is based on the philosophy that the more you contribute to society, the more you receive in return.

Rob feels his role as director has been a natural progression and looks forward to coaching other business owners: “I have a pretty sharp eye for systems and processes and, when invited to help, am able to size up issues in businesses.”

Applying his skill set, he has made some significant contributions to businesses in the past – something he hopes to continue doing for his counterparts in Christchurch: “I once identified an issue that saved a client $20,000 in my free initial consultation. Needless to say he thought his time was well spent that day!”

With experience in industries ranging from real estate sales to audio visual technology to business coaching and consulting, he now spends most of his working day focusing on Bookkeeping Business Development and business mentoring.

Rob says about Christchurch: “I think there is massive opportunity for BNI to help business get back on its feet by practicing the ‘givers gain’ principle – whether it’s in some form of training, equipping people to be better networkers, or by offering practical help like getting them along to chapter meetings where they can promote themselves and make new connections.”

In his spare time, Rob enjoys motorcycling, supporting the Crusaders and the All Blacks and raising four very lively girls.

.

With a track record in hospitality and conferences, she became involved in the real estate industry in the mid-nineties. Faced with the many opportunities on offer within real estate, Denise decided to specialise in property management.

Says Denise: “I enjoy the challenge of solving housing problems for tenants and owners, and presenting in tribunal hearings in particular.”

Denise wants to continue contributing to business in Dunedin after she has retired from her current position as business owner of Property Management Works, and sees her BNI director role as being the perfect opportunity to keep giving back.

The challenge of growing BNI is one that Denise relishes, and she looks forward to promoting the benefits of meeting with like-minded business people. “I’d like to add a personal touch to the the interactions between BNI members, bringing together new chapters and promoting the BNI ethos,” she says.

Denise is particularly interested in developing a  chapter dedicated to business women who are juggling family and work, and find the 7am meetings a bit of a stretch.

In her spare time Denise likes to garden, having just moved into a newly built home where the section was undeveloped. Entertaining friends most weekends and doting on her two grandchildren are also a priority. And if there’s still spare time left after all that, she enjoys going out on her mountain bike.

I did a 10 minute presentation to a chapter this morning that was ‘off the cuff’ so to speak (rather than pre-prepared), because I wanted to get an understanding of how they functioned as a ‘personality’.

My advice to them was to be more aware of their own personality, because like tends to attract like.

So, while you may be a small chapter that battles to compete with big chapters, targeting people who ‘click’ with your group is a good strategy.

To do this, you should consider two things:

1.     The chapter niche

2.     The chapter demographic

1. The first and easiest to work with is the chapter’s niche. This particular chapter had a clearly defined three way split between marketing people, property people and ‘personal services’ people (such as travel agent).

Break your chapter up into its hubs and build a list of visitors who will benefit your business personally and your hub, rather than looking to get visitors in randomly for the sake of growing the chapter.

For example it may benefit an IT support company to attract a company that writes software.

For example, this morning’s chapter has a number of marketing related people (web developer, SEO, PR, branding, print). Hence, finding a photographer and events co-ordinator would be a good fit for them.

2. The second, more difficult and possibly controversial strategy is to consider your chapter’s demographic. Is it primarily baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y? Are most members men or women? Is there, for example, a strong core of British immigrants who can attrack other Brits? Are people in the chapter sporty, sedentry?

By understanding the personality of your chapter you will be able to profile the prospective member most likely to click with you and other members in the chapter. It may be a debateable and perhaps controversial approach, but it is marketing 101 and a proven conversion tactic.

Colin is the Marketing Director of BNI New Zealand, a director of Iron Road Ltd and a professional speaker and copywriter.

We have much less control over winning or losing at something than we do over trying or quitting at something.

If you always try, you can eventually win. If you always quit, you can never win.

I loved this statement and it completely resonated with me and what I’ve seen in relation to people being successful at networking or at anything for that matter.

When people give up (even in their thoughts), it’s ‘game-over.’ I’ve always thought that I may not be the most successful man in the room or the smartest man in the room, but I’m pretty confident that I’m the most persistent man in the room. That commitment to “trying” has helped me succeed. I think it is the one thing that consistently helps anyone have long term success.

The whole process must begin with the old axiom – if you think you can or you think you can’t …  you’ll be right.

https://grants.ccf-la.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=292

I am pleased to say that this morning, BNI HQ was in contact with our office in Japan.  Our National Director (Asato Ohno) has received no reports of injuries to any of our members or Directors.

More details will follow.

Ivan Misner, Ph.D.

Founder & Chairman

misner@bni.com

www.BNI.com

www.NetworkingEntrepreneur.com

That being said – I thought that it would be useful to refer the readers of this blog to the BNI New Zealand Social Networking site – which provides a forum for members and non-members in which they can communicate – request help and offer assistance.

To view the site – CLICK HERE

Graham

I hope you get the opportunity to watch the short video and that you find it as entertaining as I did: