If you stopped everything in your day and decided just to focus on BNI for one hour, what would you do? Would you be at a loss to fill the time?
There are a number of different activities that you could immediately pursue to give you a tremendous impetus in developing business for chapter colleagues, whilst also giving your own business a major boost at the same time.
Break the “Hour of Power” down into three distinct and easily identifiable groups of activity.
Focus on generating referrals:
- Work on referrals for the previous week’s 10 minute speaker
- Review each member’s “most wanted referral” from the previous week (this ensures that you are carefully recording what each of your colleagues are looking for at each meeting),
- Follow up on possible referrals, to turn them into certainties,
- Review your contacts list to see what introductions can be made for fellow members
- Review your diary of upcoming customer/client meetings to see what opportunities there might be to introduce other members’ businesses or services at each meeting.
Focus on inviting visitors:
- Follow up with previously invited visitors to see what they thought of the meeting;
- Review the list of trade/professional categories that your chapter most wants to fill, and check your own customer and contacts lists to see if you can identify suitable visitors,
- Make invitation calls,
- Send invitation cards and e-mails confirming venue details for visitors,
- Make reminder follow-up calls to your visitors the day before the meeting.
Focus on your one-to-ones:
- Plan, diarise and prepare for your one-to-one meetings with other members,
- Follow up on actions arising from previous one-to-one meetings.
None of the benefits of BNI membership are guaranteed, just as success in life is never a matter of luck. It is always the result of working and developing a carefully honed and fine-tuned system of success. Applying and incorporating the Hour of Power into your weekly schedule will take you a long way towards receiving the best possible return on your membership.
