BNI meetings

[Ashley_Price]

Leaning against an open door here

I got caught up doing too much for the group as a member. As a director the way things were run, opinions and attitudes were not really in alignment with mine.

But in saying that I would recommend it to anyone serious about there business. It can work very well - use it and move on

I made an average of 7k a month from

I have to to agree with Steve, above.

I can understand you stepping away from doing the R.D. job, but to leave BNI completely when you were getting £7K a month is a major thing. If I had been getting anywhere near that level of referrals every month then it would have to be a HUGE reason for me to leave.

 

[Jonathan Smith]

The reason I left was because my partner was very I'll after the birth of my daughter.

However I did not re-engaged with BNI for the above reasons. unfortunately the RD experience left a bad taste in my mouth. There were several other instances for not wanting to be part of BNI anymore but I do not want my 'experiences' to become BNI bashing.

Thx J

 

[Talay]

Maybe some of the success stories would care to add to Ashley's experience and let us know what line of business was generating these decent incomes.

 

[internetspaceships]

I have to to agree with Steve, above.

I can understand you stepping away from doing the R.D. job, but to leave BNI completely when you were getting £7K a month is a major thing.

It also depends on how much £7k per month really figures in the scheme of things. Not everyone is taking (or making) money at the same rate as everyone else.

Also whether it's £7k per month turnover, or nett profit.

 

[Steve Sellers]

It also depends on how much £7k per month really figures in the scheme of things. Not everyone is taking (or making) money at the same rate as everyone else.

Also whether it's £7k per month turnover, or nett profit.

That did occur to me. But at 85k a year you could employ some jimmy on a fraction of that and get them to do the "networking".

 

[Geoff T]

you know - I wrote out this huge, long answer to a load of the things in this thread... then I thought "why bother"!....

Either you "get it" or you don't!

You keep wasting money on advertising with newspapers, TV, Radio, etc... I'll keep working on getting quality business from people who know what I do and the value I offer...

 

[Steve Sellers]

I'll keep working on getting quality business from people who know what I do and the value I offer...

So you are suggesting the BNI is the only way to do this?

 

[S-Marketing]

It really depends what ''it'' is. If ''it'' is marketing, then anyone who ''gets it'' isn't going to be messing about with networking groups and events.

you know - I wrote out this huge, long answer to a load of the things in this thread... then I thought "why bother"!....

Either you "get it" or you don't!

You keep wasting money on advertising with newspapers, TV, Radio, etc... I'll keep working on getting quality business from people who know what I do and the value I offer...

 

[doi_swilkinson]

I agree Geoff.
Every BNI discussion goes the same way.
I you tried it and it was not for - sorry , if it worked - fantastic.

Stefan

 

[Jet Virtual]

you know - I wrote out this huge, long answer to a load of the things in this thread... then I thought "why bother"!....

Either you "get it" or you don't!

You keep wasting money on advertising with newspapers, TV, Radio, etc... I'll keep working on getting quality business from people who know what I do and the value I offer...

Geoff could you can send me the long answer in a PM? It would be helpful.

Cheers

Dan

 

[Talay]

you know - I wrote out this huge, long answer to a load of the things in this thread... then I thought "why bother"!....

Either you "get it" or you don't!

You keep wasting money on advertising with newspapers, TV, Radio, etc... I'll keep working on getting quality business from people who know what I do and the value I offer...

Strange you feel the need to waste more time telling us that you have already wasted a considerable amount of time and then binned the product of your endeavours.

Perhaps we don't get it because we need your level headed explanation rather than some wishy washy blah blah "you get it or you don't".

There isn't a single member on here who wouldn't sign up for an extra few grand a week so why not cut down a few trees for them and let them feel some tangibility with the concept rather than keeping them lost in the forest.

I think I get it but I think it is only useful for certain businesses and is perhaps somewhat of a closed shop.

Is it just another name for the masons ?

 

[S-Marketing]

Ill give you a bit of advice for free. You certainly don't need to be messing about with networking groups in your line of business. If you join BNI that is a significant amount of time you need to commit, for the same results as you could get in next to no time using proper methods.

Geoff could you can send me the long answer in a PM? It would be helpful.

Cheers

Dan

 

[DarrenMcCabe]

ok here's my 2 pence worth on this.

I as a member of BNI for a year (until the group I was in folded) I was also a member of 4Networking for 6 months.

BNI does work and people do get good business from it. It is very structured and organised and designed to try and help you win business.

However the BNI organisation is but only for their own gain and profit. They dont actually care about referrals as they make their money from membership, meeting fee's and training (which is mandatory). This isnt to say the individual chapters dont care about the business being done in the group, but it certainly isnt a priority of the BNI organisation.

BNI is also too rigid in it's rules and structures. For example:

I was at a meeting where a printer was visiting the group to see if they liked it. We didnt have a printer at the time, but it just so happened that one of my customers had asked if I could recommend a printer the previous day. So thinking this will be great way to make the visitor think this group is great, I gave them a referral to my customer. Was I commended by the members? No I was disciplined (yes like you are at school) and told this was against BNI rules.

Recently I contemplated joining as an opening had come in one of the big "profitable" groups in our area. I went along as a visitor and found them all to be friendly enough. However I had been invited by a couple of customers to their groups, so help off signing up again as I wanted to help my customers out and check the other groups out to see if I was a better fit.

I was called the day after visiting to see if I wanted to join. I explained I was going to visit a couple of other groups then make a decision. I was promptly told I couldnt do this as I was only allowed to visit 2 groups.

Result was I definitely wont be rejoining BNI as this completely reminded me of what drove me mad about the damn thing.

Oh and you can be kicked out for not attending (or sending a subsitute) for 2 weeks or more and as clarified by a BNI director, this is true even if you are ill or have had a death in the family.

Finally watch out for those claims of "We have passed £X of business in this group" the group I was in, it was very clear that a lot of the referrals being passed were made up to keep the figures up. Might not happen everywhere but it does happen.

4Networking on the other hadn't I found to be fun, friendly and informative. It did lack a little of the structure and there was no formatted way of passing business, but it was a great way to meet other business owners and about 2 months after leaving the group I got a call from one of the people I met there that lead to us gaining our largest customer.

By all means go and join BNI, but do it with your eyes open. It is not the golden goose.

One more piece of advice, dont join the membership committee or be prepared to have more and more of your time stolen.

 

[mobious]

Having attended BNI for a trial meeting; we felt conned into going through bad sales. Told it was free, had to pay £10 so it never put us in a good mood to start with. Everything is scripted; far too formal for networking followed by someone taking us into another room for an aggressive sell for a fairly large chunk of money.

 

[Jet Virtual]

Ill give you a bit of advice for free. You certainly don't need to be messing about with networking groups in your line of business. If you join BNI that is a significant amount of time you need to commit, for the same results as you could get in next to no time using proper methods.

Stretchy I was getting excited when you said 'proper methods' but then you left me hanging! Am I going to find out about these 'proper methods'?

 

[mobious]

We call companies all the time and one of the things we notice is on some occasions (more frequent than not) calls go unanswered, clients don't have our direct line so they don't know it's an agency calling which means we could of been a potential client. I would target the local one-man bands such as plumbers who can't answer their phone when on the job etc... leave good voicemails like "if I were a potential customer" and "for as little as £2 per call" etc... Cold calling can be much easier (I think) in your profession.

 

[S-Marketing]

Stretchy I was getting excited when you said 'proper methods' but then you left me hanging! Am I going to find out about these 'proper methods'?

I can't do all the work for you. If you want me to tell you exactly how to get loads of clients you are going to need to tell me where to send the invoice.

I will tell you why networking is a waste of time for your business though. As you offer a fairly low price ticket service, the time taken to build relationships with a group is going to be wasted, as even if a good percentage of the group bought from you, it still wouldn't generate much revenue.

With a business like yours you need to be looking at ways of actively generating high quality leads from multiple sources. If you spent 10 hours per month at networking events, you would get nowhere near the results you could get if you worked on a well thought out plan to generate high quality leads.

 

[Jet Virtual]

We call companies all the time and one of the things we notice is on some occasions (more frequent than not) calls go unanswered, clients don't have our direct line so they don't know it's an agency calling which means we could of been a potential client. I would target the local one-man bands such as plumbers who can't answer their phone when on the job etc... leave good voicemails like "if I were a potential customer" and "for as little as £2 per call" etc... Cold calling can be much easier (I think) in your profession.

Thanks Mobious we do have quite a lot of one man bands but also have big LAw firms as clients so our client base ranges.

Cold calling is out of fashion I think.

We get all our leads from Google at the moment ...

 

[mobious]

Thanks Mobious we do have quite a lot of one man bands but also have big LAw firms as clients so our client base ranges.

Cold calling is out of fashion I think.

We get all our leads from Google at the moment ...

I would maybe do "warm calling" look for people advertising receptionists vacancies - if they can offer £16-20k for an internal vacancy and you come along offering a solution at a fraction of the cost without the HR and headache of interviews.

I know places like elance and people per hour often advertise jobs for call answering, have you had any joy with these websites?

 

[Faevilangel]

JV, I believe networkig would work for your business as long as you aren't a sole trader / single person running the business / phones.

I know a very lovely lady from my networking, who has been doing it for 5 years now and it brings in most of her income (she only got her website online this year).

Her message to people at the networking is, who is answering your calls while you're networking.

She has a team of 5 VA's who answer the calls so she can network, and her business is brilliant.

Getting to know people is the best way to gain new clients imho, as you build the trust with the business owners.

I can name another call answering company who also use networking and have done really well from it.

Networking isn't the be all and end all but when done properly in can be very productive. I do a lot of networking and it contributes quite considerably to my income as I am removing the initial barriers to business owners.

 

[S-Marketing]

JV, I believe networkig would work for your business as long as you aren't a sole trader / single person running the business / phones.

I know a very lovely lady from my networking, who has been doing it for 5 years now and it brings in most of her income (she only got her website online this year).

Her message to people at the networking is, who is answering your calls while you're networking.

She has a team of 5 VA's who answer the calls so she can network, and her business is brilliant.

Getting to know people is the best way to gain new clients imho, as you build the trust with the business owners.

I can name another call answering company who also use networking and have done really well from it.

Networking isn't the be all and end all but when done properly in can be very productive. I do a lot of networking and it contributes quite considerably to my income as I am removing the initial barriers to business owners.

Networking is ok for your business as you only need to sell a finite amount of hours of your services per week. For a business which is very scalable, like Jet's, its nowhere near as effective.

 

[Jet Virtual]

I would maybe do "warm calling" look for people advertising receptionists vacancies - if they can offer £16-20k for an internal vacancy and you come along offering a solution at a fraction of the cost without the HR and headache of interviews.

I know places like elance and people per hour often advertise jobs for call answering, have you had any joy with these websites?

This is an interesting method ...