Learn more to Earn more
Question: Who here believes that the more we learn in our profession and business life and put into practice the more we earn?
Question: Who agrees if we don’t keep learning we will fall behind our competitors?
Question: Who is in a profession, trade or association which requires continued professional development?
Answer: That is a lot of Yeses!
Question: So, who here received formal training about Networking during their tertiary or trade education?
Answer: That’s a lot of Nos!
Rhetorical Question: So how do we learn more to earn more from our networking?
Lifelong Learning
One of BNI’s core values is lifelong learning. This recognises that ongoing learning is essential and in BNI we want to be around like-minded people who agree with this value.
BNI has made learning about networking easy by creating BNI U, or BNI University, one of the three online learning platforms within BNI Business Builder. It’s free with your membership and easy to use via the app or the webpage. Content can be watched, listened to or interacted with which suits all learning styles, and it can be accessed anywhere, anytime on any device.
Uber user feedback
One of the great aspects of BNI U is that it keeps score. If you are at all competitive you can compete to learn with another member, your chapter, all of BNI NZ or the BNI world.
Three members in NZ, Steve Sale, Simon Gengye and Fiona Paterson are the top users of BNI U nationally. They have all spent well over 160 hours learning from it. When asked why, they had some common replies, “it has helped me personally, with my business and to be a better BNI member”. They are all top contributors in their groups, in terms of PALMS and chapter leadership, which is something they attribute to learning more constantly. Steve said he started with MSP, got hooked and kept going. Fiona said: “it’s a no brainer, it’s free and motivates me every day”. Simon says that as an employee he believes he owes it to his employer to make the most of every opportunity BNI offers, BNI U being one of them. Each of these members are required to do CPD for their professions but still find it valuable to keep learning more from BNI.
University Challenge
How can we challenge our chapter, and ourselves to learn more to become better members? Instead of stopping at or not even completing MSP, how about we put up the chapter leader board each week, set a goal, or have a competition each month with prizes for the biggest user? Another idea is to have one member each week give a summary of a podcast they enjoyed.
BNI App – Top Tip
Even though BNI U keeps score, each point = 1 minute, the BNI Connect App isn’t yet updated automatically. So, for every 60 points you earn on BNI U, you record 1 CEU in the BNI Connect App. This will show in the chapter PALMS summary.
