From the Founder
The One-Day Secret to Growing Your Chapter
By Dr. Ivan Misner with Dan and Penny Georgevich

This edition of SuccessNet has a number of articles about Visitors Days. The reason for this is because it's a great time of year to build your Chapter—and Visitors Days are a proven way to do it for any group that truly follows the structured Visitors Day program.

Chapters and members in countries around the world know the secret to drastically increasing the amount of referral business they get from their BNI membership. And they know how to make that happen in just one day! Their "one-day secret" is their chapter's Visitors Day (oftentimes conducted in conjunction with their national Membership Drive).

Your National Membership Drive
Your National Membership Drive (in some countries referred to as a "Member Extravaganza") helps members focus on inviting guests to take a look at how BNI can help their businesses. The goal is to significantly increase the number of members, or referral sources, in your chapter so all members get more referral business.

During the contest period, when members sponsor new members into their chapter, they are entered into a prize drawing. In many countries this is taking place now; in some countries it happens later in the year. Contact your local director to find out when it is taking place in your area if you aren't sure.

Motivation
Visitors Day is an initiative designed to create positive momentum in your chapter: to increase your membership, in order to increase referrals. Although Visitors Days can be done anytime during the year, when you hold it during a Membership Drive, the contest and prizes help you have some fun while you build your chapter.

Results
Here is some hard data that shows actual results for chapters that participated in a Membership Drive contest and sponsored a Visitors Day simultaneously. The chart below shows how many new members were added and the increased percentage in referrals.

It is interesting to observe that Visitors Days work for all size regions: large metropolitan areas, suburban areas, and rural areas. These groups didn't do a casual Visitors Day—they did the structured BNI Visitors Day that most BNI directors can train a chapter on how to conduct.


Keep It Going
"Really" successful chapters and members generate momentum leading up to their Visitors Day event by inviting new members before the big event. And they they continue to invite and induct new members for weeks after Visitors Day.

Great members know they need to help new members become engaged in the BNI system and help them create a stream of referrals as quickly as possible. Seasoned members know they can help new members "stick" by doing the following:

1. Help new members register to attend Member Success Program (MSP).
2. Attend MSP with new members to build positive and supportive relationships!
3. Schedule one-to-one meetings with new members.
4. Help new members schedule one-to-one meetings with other members in the chapter who are in businesses closely related to them; these members are likely to be a good source of referrals.

Chapter Cycles
Just as you'll bring new members into your chapter, members will also leave your chapter! Members step down for valid reasons: they get promoted; their spouse gets promoted; they decide to have a family; they change jobs; or, they retire.

Good chapters stay successful by replacing members that step down. Great chapters acknowledge the fact that chapter cycles exist and take steps to keep the chapter strong by inviting throughout the year. They even hold Visitors Days a few times during the year, as well as during the Membership Drive contest period.

Hard Work?
Most things worth doing take hard work; the only place "success" comes before "work" is in the dictionary! So planning, conducting, and doing following up will probably be hard work. As with most things worth doing well, the results justify the work involved. Ultimately, you'll create a stronger chapter and generate more referrals around the room at your BNI meeting.

Ask your BNI executive director or national director for more information about your country's Membership Drive contest and how to get information and support for a Visitors Day.

* Special thanks to Dan & Penny Georgevich for their contribution to this article.

Called the father of modern networking by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder and chairman of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. His latest New York Times best selling book, Masters of Sales, can be viewed at www.MastersBooks.com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company. He can be reached at misner@bni.com.