Words of Wisdom from BNI Canada – home of the biggest chapter in the world!

Well hello Graham,

I’d love to share my personal experience with you as a member of the Big Tsunami.

When the Big Tsunami was sitting at 24 members, our goal was to grow in order to make money for all. Although we were the Big Tsunami they had recently experienced a decline in membership and major attrition. 36 members decreased to 18! Why? They didn’t follow the agenda, were letting everyone in, and weren’t delivering the BNI experience. They never intended on being the biggest in town, just profitable.

So we started to make some adjustments that made us attractive to those visiting and helped our retention:

• Followed the agenda to a T.
• Sent control letters when a member earned them.
• The President (me at the time) kept saying, when we are 30, then at 30 , when we are at 35…etc. so that they can envision the chapter larger, and we had buy-in from all the members.
• We created an interview script that was used on every new applicant. 3 Membership Committee interviews were conducted to ensure due diligence. We explained our culture, goals and expectations. We said “no to the good, and YES to the BEST!”.
• We also limited the amount of guests due to our venue size. By that I mean…we had only 17 visitor spots so we had the members register their guests in advance so that they can attend the next meeting. This created an urgency to get your guests in and we would average 10-17 guests per meeting for a very long time.
• We created a Top 10 list and mentioned this at every meeting
• We asked the members how often they could refer to a florist (who was on the top 10 list), then we calculated each member’s referral possibility, and the Power Team’s referral ability and when we approached florists, we would tell them that we were interviewing for the position of a florist because we have 30 members that are each randomly referring to different florist and would they like to have these 40-70 + referral per year? This worked like magic!
• Embraced the Mentoring Program and ensured that each member received their mentoring sessions. We felt that this was part of the cost of membership so it wasn’t negotiable.
• Giver’s Gain: Our overflow guests would be directed to a ‘sister chapter’ that we strongly believed in and supported. If they couldn’t get into our chapter, we would help them find another.
• Set chapter goals and personal member goals
• Each summer we would have a one to one summer challenge with rewards
• We would have a membership drive with rewards (prizes!)
• Delivering the BNI experience at every level…we would ensure that this happened
• We also had several members who were Ambassadors and Directors in our chapter that helped strengthen and direct the group with their knowledge.
• We supported all BNI initiatives by attending events.

So these are some of the components that helped strengthen and grow our chapter. I hope this helps? Let me know if you would like further clarification.

Kind regards,

Ozzie Kipnes Managing Director
BNI BC Lower Mainland (West)
Cell: 604 649 7242 / BNI 604 689 0553
www.bnibc.ca