Ruts are comfortable; they require less concentration to negotiate, but they also force the wheels to go where you don’t want to go and at the end of it, you find yourself wondering how you wound up where you did…
Are you in a BNI rut?
You know what I mean. You don’t miss a meeting, but you sit in the same seat, talk to the same people – week in and week out – and when the meeting is over, you forget about it until next week again. Perhaps you do a dance now and then.
Living, working and networking in a rut is living in expectancy of things happening to you. You no longer have control. You hope for a good referral, but if you get one it actually has very little to do with your own activity.
While this works for some, but for others who would like to make more money and get more out of life, it’s the same old wisdom: “You get out what you put in”.
Here’s some ideas that will help you put in more in order to get more out:
- Sit in a different place;
- Have good one-on-one conversations with at least one different person each week;
- Dance weekly;
- Identify your ideal referral partners and actively seek out referrals to give them;
- Plan how many referrals you want to receive and give. Set a goal for how much money you want to make from BNI referrals.
- Develop 10 great 60 second presentations you can roll out regularly.
- Carefully define your ideal referral and educate your chapter accordingly.
Take the road less travelled.
4 comments
Great article Colin and 7 good tips.
It is amazing how many people do sit in the same spot each week and talk to the same people rather than getting around other members of the group.
One way around this of course that we have seen work well, is for the membership committee to place name tags randomly around the table. The members then have no option but to get to know other members.
Good idea, thanks Rosemary.
Thanks Colin for these wise words.
I think I called a “RUT” rotten unforgetable times or a grave without ends in my book The Naked Career!
Either way, whether it be your career or BNI membership being in a RUT is not the place to be.
Keep up the great posts 🙂
Paul
Our group does as Rosemary suggests and we all end up in a different seat every week. It works well.
Regular dances are a great idea. It is too easy to assume we know what someone does!
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