Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

[Tom Bainbridge]

question in the title

[Stacey]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

I find BNI members can be a bit pushy about joining. You are required to go to one of their meetings every week and you can only miss like 3 per year or something like that. The idea is you bring business in for other members and they do the same. If you sell something small that is inexpensive and everyone needs then it works great. For the rest of us that have a fairly expensive item that people rarely purchase, you won't get a lot of new business from it.

They don't seem to have a non-profit component like Rotary. I've met a lot of people that have dropped out due to the amount of meetings that you have to attend.

[Tom Bainbridge]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

Stacy, your comment is exactly the sort of comment, I wanted

along with comments from paid up members

[Ted S.]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

Agreed. What Stacy said. My accountant tried to get me to join and that was my thoughts as well.

Also, the folks are almost cult like, at least the chapter I was looking at. Kind of scary in a way.

[dgbldr]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

I did belong to BNI for about a year. Not impressed at all.

The chapter I joined, in an affluent area, was basically a worthless exchange for names to cold call. I would call someone and say "John Doe wanted me to call you regarding your basement remodel" and they would say "What basement remodel?" and "Who exactly is John Doe, have I met him?"

After meeting with all members one on one I concluded that most were not someone I would want to refer and were desperate for business. Indeed a couple went out of business during the year. Only a couple were decent professionals and those were pretty hard up for work also.

The fees are stiff so the only people profitting are the owners of BNI itself.

My opinion, of course. Your local chapter may be different.

[Ted S.]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

And on top of that, the referrals I got from my accountant I never followed up on. I figure he is obligated to push them on the basis that they are BNI members and he is looking for "BNI Bucks" for making referrals - he is not pushing them on a merit basis.

[Ottoman]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

I can't speak to BNI specifically, but I'm in a similar type of group. It brought me in $86K in sales last year. It works out to be $1K per hour of meetings.

The thing that I found is that I group that pushes hard to get referrals can end up generating many worthless leads. I'd rather have fewer quality leads. But, like anything else, you get out what you put in to it.

[eightinchnails]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

I am a member of a local chapter and find that much of it is dependent on the chapter and its members. Some are extremely well run and the member pass very good referrals and business. Others are disorganized, unprofessional, and the members pass poor referrals. As in many types of marketing what works well for some does not work well for others. One of the benefits to me that I think gets overlooked is in my chapter I "bought" into thirty different circles of influence that I normally been a part of. I have also found that most of the people in my chapter are professional and I have willingly and gladly been able to use some of their services. The other value that I place on it is it allows me to every week verbalize my message and get better at clearly communicating to people what I do. I get a sounding board for new ideas and marketing projects. Furthermore, from an investment standpoint it should be viewed as what is your cost in "time", as the monetary cost is in the grand scheme of things the more trivial manner. If you can't give up the time to go to the meetings and meet with the other members personally to educate them to give you good referrals you shouldn't join. BNI doesn't work for everyone but it can be used as a successful way to get good leads. My advice check out 3-4 chapters close to where you live and work. If one is a good fit try it out and talk with other members in your same profession who are part of another chapter and see what they say. Results may vary...

[dgbldr]

Re: Wrong.... ! BNI, any comments

talk with other members in your same profession who are part of another chapter and see what they say.

Excellent advice. None of my local chapters had a builder/GC and no GCs I know were in BNI. That should have given me a clue :)