BNI – Networking is the name of the game
I belong to a BNI chapter in Melbourne, Australia and have been a member for over 5 years. A lot of people have asked what I get out of it, and in particular, how much work do I receive? But they’re only looking at one side of the equasion – there is another side too. My previous post refers to this – building support networks for your business. Almost all of the businesses that I do business with, with respect to providing services or products to keep my business going, has been sourced through BNI chapters over the past 5 years. Even before then, most of what I found or used was through word-of-mouth referrals from other people. It makes sense to get to know people and their businesses – you never know what they can do for you and what you can do for them. It’s about building relationships – but don’t get that confused with doing business with friends or family – that’s a different story altogether!
Ivan Misner, founder of BNI, talks of ‘Givers Gain’. In principle the more you give out to others in the way of support, referrals, information, the more that comes back to you, over time.
I was one of the privileged few invited to a cocktail event (Meet the Founder) this evening to meet Ivan Misner, who is currently in Australia. We had a Q&A session so that we could freely ask him questions and I enjoy hearing him speak on the topic of networking, and he was well versed on the statistics relating to the development of BNI chapters worldwide.
He also talked about other aspects relating to people and their membership. Things such as people with 100% passion and 50% ability can be taught and are, therefore, much easier to work with. You can teach people how to do something but you can’t teach them to learn passion.
Attitude accounts for a lot – if they are going to be people others enjoy being around.
The largest BNI chapter membership is in the US with 75 members, in Australia the largest chapter is currently Taree, NSW with 52 members.
It is important for members of a BNI chapter to remember when they’re doing their 60 second infomercial that they are not trying to close a sale, but train a sales team. That’s kind of a ‘duh’ comment but many do forget this when attending their business meetings each week.
When anyone is out networking for business it is their passion that attracts people to them. Have you ever wanted to do business with someone who sounds bored, tired, sad, angry? No, but if someone is passionate they are also infectious and engaging and you want to do business with them and get to know more about what they do. It was good to hear this message shared at tonight’s event – I believe that passion does account for a lot when you’re in business for yourself, otherwise one morning you might wake up and wonder why on earth are you bothering? I still love what I do with a passion, my business is still evolving and developing over time – and technology is playing a big part in that process.
If you’re not already actively networking in some way or another for your business then you need to give it serious consideration – read some material (there are great books for sale at the BNI sites linked above), find out what network groups meet where you are located and make a regular appointment in your diary to attend – you’ll find networking definitely worth doing! KMT
