BNI SuccessNet - May/June 2003 - BNI: More Than A Meeting

The BNI sub-themes we are tackling for this issue are "opportunity" and "professionalism"—what appropriate themes for a networking organization such as BNI!

Anyone who, like me, has been involved in running BNI chapters for a period of time is likely to have been asked on at least one occasion, "What are the benefits to me of joining a BNI chapter?"

In the early days, when I was first establishing BNI in New Zealand, this question could sometimes catch me on the back foot. Before I knew it, I found myself seeking to justify the cost of membership, listing the tangible benefits such as the card file, books, orientation CD's, listing one's business on the Australia/New Zealand website etc., as if these in themselves were reason enough for joining BNI.

Today, with some 46 chapters and over 1,100 members, I find that I have a very different reply. Without a second thought I am likely to tell them that membership of BNI gives you the "opportunity" to grow your business as well as your "professionalism."

Opportunity
The BNI model has evolved over a period of time and provides a highly refined system that will work for anyone who is prepared to give it a chance. Does it work? You bet it does! However, in the majority of cases, members will only get out of BNI what they are prepared to put into it.

How many directors have ever been asked by members what they should do to improve their success in their BNI chapter and to maximize their opportunities? As directors we are trained to encourage members to work the program. I will often suggest that the member listens again to the BNI orientation CD, they re-attend an MSP training sessions and they look at their attendance, their dances, their 60-second presentations and the number of referrals they have been able to give to their fellow members. Then I may direct them to some of the excellent education material such as books and CDs.

The fundamental message is that members need to get involved to put themselves in play. In this context, analogies between membership of a BNI chapter and a sports team are obvious. Sports require dedication, training, tactics, teamwork, leadership and competitiveness; these qualities help BNI members, as well as athletes, succeed.

In truth, the lesson that sports mostly teach is conformity and sticking to a narrow range of options. Sports are, at heart, rule-based activities. The excitement is generated in tiny variations in otherwise predictable patterns of play. Watch a baseball game or football match and you will see the same shots or moves time and time again. The top teams are the ones that exercise the fundamentals flawlessly while the winner is usually the team or person breaking up play with an unexpected flash of genius.

To "seize the day," members need to take a step out of the secure comfort zone as defined by traditional business models—the tried and tested safe marketing techniques—to abandon the traditional "Lone Ranger" approach. Instead members must strive to become players on their team or BNI chapter. When you have a chapter of 30 to 40 business people from different backgrounds, trades and professions, all working together as a single business unit, actively looking for business opportunities for one another, sharing ideas and opportunities, carrying out joint marketing initiatives and promoting each other through strategic alliances, the opportunity for each and every member of the team to grow their business is limited only by one's imagination.

Professionalism
The key to it all, of course, is professionalism. Many people have commented to me that the one thing that attracted them to BNI over other networking groups is its professionalism. In today's competitive marketplace, you will beat your competition every time with your professionalism: delivering on time, turning up when you say you will, sticking to deadlines. The mere fact that you participate in a BNI chapter says something about you and sets you apart from your competition. Let's face it—it takes professionalism to be at a 7 a.m. weekly breakfast meeting on time each week; for many out there in the marketplace a commitment of this nature is simply too hard.

All kinds of things occur to BNI members that would not otherwise have happened were it not for their decision to commit to the program. A whole stream of advantageous events will flow from your decision to take advantage of the opportunity. All kinds of unexpected chance meetings and material assistance will take place, which no one could have foreseen. For the moment you definitely commit yourself is the moment that Providence also moves.

So enjoy your time in BNI, and celebrate your successes.