It’s easy to forget that BNI is an international organisation with chapters all over the world. With over 220,000 members in 8,000-plus chapters worldwide, BNI is the world’s leading referral organisation. In 2016 alone, BNI member referrals generated $11.2 billion USD in revenue!
How can you make global connections?
If you get the opportunity when you’re travelling overseas, take the chance to visit other chapters. Whether you are on a business trip or just travelling for fun, it’s especially invigorating when you visit larger chapters. You may gain insights that you can share with other members back home.
That’s what happened when Marcin, president of BNI Howick, travelled to Sydney recently. He visited a local Sydney chapter BNI Face and picked up a couple of ideas that he thinks could be worth sharing with the wider NZ membership.
- Firstly, share the responsibility: BNI Face has over 50 members and more than half of them have a role in the Leadership Team. Each one of these members takes responsibility for a small role. For example, there are 15 visitor hosts: one for conflict resolution; one for attendance; one for follow-up. Everyone has a stake in and ownership of a task in the chapter.
- Secondly, be aware of the wider business community: The chapter had a dedicated Business Networking Event Coordinator who took responsibility for finding out what business events were happening outside BNI in the region. It was all about knowledge sharing with the members, so they could attend other business events if they wanted to. This could be used to further expand their networks and could also apply to chapters in New Zealand – for example becoming aware of your local Chamber of Commerce events.
- Thirdly, reward success: The chapter had a Golden Microphone Trophy that it awarded to the top 60 seconds each week. The winner not only obtained this highly visible trophy, they also earned the opportunity to speak for an additional 2 minutes during the next week’s meeting. Giving a uniquely designed trophy as a prize was a fantastic way to create a talking point at the winner’s business because they could display it in a prominent place.
So, if you do visit a chapter overseas share your observations with your chapter members and see what you can introduce to make your meetings even more awesome.
