The $25B Best-Kept Secret to Growing Business

As CEO of BNI Global [Business Network International], Mary Thompson – CFE recently gave me a powerful explanation for how the world’s largest referral network had surpassed $25.8 billion in revenue generated for BNI Member in the last 12 months.

“People do business with people they know and like,” she said. “In the long run, it’s all about the people you know and like.”

There you have it. In an AI-world where we can ChatGPT stuff to death, our actions still defer to our circles of trust.  

“I want somebody I know to tell and show me how to best connect,” Thompson explained. “Because while vision is important and we can have the best vision in the world, effectiveness is how we will change the way the world does business.”

According to Audacy, Inc. ’s Innovation Tracker, people are more than twice as likely to trust a human voice over AI-generated content. A similar study by PwC found that 75% of customers desire more interactions with real people as technology advances.

That doesn’t render technology obsolete. In fact, Thompson explained, “We’re engaging AI to enhance and encourage face-to-face meetings and referrals.” The actual business results, however, come from honest-to-goodness human, transparent, in-person interactions.

BNI is a global franchise network helping small business owners succeed.

For BNI, that’s happening regularly in 11,200 chapter meetings in 78 countries. The results? Immediate impact for 340,000 members who consistently refer business to each other. Specifically, strong double-digit growth. BNI also began franchising in the U.S. again for the first time in 10 years to meet the rising demand. [Read more about it from Franchise Times senior writer Matthew Liedke HERE.]

Clearly, there’s nothing small about small business owners in an environment that scales. But many people still don’t know that BNI exists. Thompson is out to change that.

In a recent interview with Todd Falcone for “The Fearless Networker” she described the $25B benchmark saying, “I think there are 100 countries in the world that do less GDP than that.” [You can watch to the full episode HERE.]

Speaking of countries, she’s been to 12 so far and will travel to Vietnam, Malaysia and Hong Kong next. That’s what makes BNI and every other organization that values human connections more powerful in today’s environment. Not to mention, five years of ZOOM fatigue has the entire human race wanting more.

“We’re not built to look at each other on screens for hours at a time like that,” Thompson said. “Yet, in India, talking to 3,000 people in the same room? There’s nothing like it.”

Bonus: BNI wants to help franchisees of all franchise brands grow.

Thompson shared a similar small-business-big-impact message when she became Chair of the International Franchise Association this year.

“Franchising is about big business, and it’s about small business,” she declared. “We are local and we are global.”

Behind every franchise brand is a network of small business owners championing those brands. Not bots. Not computer-generated owner/operators. But humans doing real work in real communities for real customers spending real money.

She would know.

A proud member of the U.S. Marines, she knew little about owning a business when she entered civilian life. Yet, as a rookie franchisee for Cookie Bouquets , she earned her largest business account through a referral when she joined her local BNI chapter. It was for a small Texas startup called Dell Computers and off she went.

Today, after decades of experience as a franchisee, franchisor, and now IFA Chair and platform brand CEO, there’s nothing she wants more than to help other franchisees with their own referrals. Not because she’s an expert. More importantly because she didn’t use to be.

Human connections do more than drive business; they create fans.

We’re a fickle society with limited allegiance to AI-generated responses online. Meanwhile, we’re vastly open to and influenced by those we get in our social networks, our private DMs, our watercooler chats…and, yes, BNI chapter meetings.

Ask yourself:

-Who’s watching your child at daycare?

-Who’s cutting your hair?

-Who’s fixing your plumbing?

-Who’s caring for grandma in her home?  

The list goes on and on. Our patience for finding the answers, however, does not.

We give more attention to the yard sign on our street than the banner ad on our laptop. We hit the like button when a friend posts a review while searching “location near me” to check out the same thing. We seek and celebrate recommendations from people we know and trust, because we remain a society that deeply values those human engagements.

All this to say, the strength of referrals as a business driver has a human factor that ad spend and bots may never put to rest. Better yet, our friends’ recommendations will do more than drive us to drive the economy. They could turn us into raving fans for experiences versus transactions in the process.

It’s what marketing guru David Meerman Scott would describe as fanocracy. Co-author of the WSJ-bestselling book by the same name, he explains fanocracy as the power of making business personal, turning fans into customers and customers into fans. “The pendulum has swung too far in the direction of superficial online communications at a time when people are hungry for true human connection.”

BNI calls it Changing the Way the World Does Business®.

Here’s to that humanity, y’all.

[Note: BNI is a client of Thunderly marketing.]