About BNI
Demonstration at BNI Delhi Chapter
Business Networking International, BNI is a forum for helping Businesses create more word of mouth Businesses, more references than they ever had before. Its primary purpose is to exchange qualified business referrals. It is one of the most successful organizations operating 6,500 chapters worldwide including UK, USA, South Africa , Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, and Australia
As customers, we rely on services that have a positive word of mouth. This is specially applicable to goods and services that are important to us both in terms of money and usability. So, referrals is a very strong way to get customers. Companies across the world spend huge amounts on advertisements, promotions and referrals ( tough to get).
BNI is a forum that provides a platform to generate referrals amongst trusted group of mermbers. It is a 29 year old organization that permits only one person from each trade to join the chapter. There are over 160,000 members across 55 countries in 300 varied professions.
In 2013, BNI generated 5.4 Million referrals which gernerated Rs.40,000 crores( USD $6.5 billion) of Business worldwide.
My Experience
I attended BNI forum, Delhi chapter – High Flyer first anniversary- Visitor day
Attendees
- High flyer chapter had about 50-55 members having only one member from varied walks of trades or professions.
- Each of the members had invited professionals from their personal or professional circles. This being an anniversary, there were 141 members as against only 10-12 normally in every forum.
Structure of the forum
- First all members introduced themselves by describing/demonstrating their business or releases followed by their ‘Give’ and ‘ Ask’ for the week
- Then there was introduction of visitors
- Third in the sequence was a presentation by a Business
- A live demonstration of how BNI functions. A person – XYZ was requested to tell his profession. He was from manufacturing business. Then the forum was requested to raise hand whose business was related to manufacturing. More than 10 referrals were generated on the spot. This was a humungous response in a matter of just 3 minutes. This clearly showed how businesses can get benefited.
- Then it was time for showcasing referrals from past meeting and a note of thanks by members describing how much business was done within the group.
- Later the forum was open for enrolment followed by open networking
- People exchanged cards with each other with people of connected Businesses
I got to exchange many cards with my related Businesses. In fact, few discussions have been initiated.
Frequency and Timings of BNI
BNI meetings are weekly per chapter generally during early mornings to avoid any disruption of daily routine.
I strongly felt about the concept of this forum ‘You help, I help’. Would recommend to attend this forum atleast once or become a member whether you are in India or abroad through one of your circles who is a member of this forum. You can visit them at WWW.bni.com
Nidhi KM
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