Title: How BNI Helps Businesses Connect And Grow
Guest: Chris Goldman
Peter: Today, I’m sitting down with Chris Goldman. He is our marketing strategist at Biz Marketing.
Chris: Yep. Hello. Good to talk today.
Peter: I’m super excited about our discussion today.
Chris: Yeah. We’re talking about BNI.
Peter: Right? What is BNI? BNI. BNI is a networking group that you and I are both members of. I’ve been a member for about eight years.
I think you’ve been a member for
Chris: Four months. Four months. Yeah. And by the way, if you don’t know, it’s Business Networking International.
Peter: Welcome to the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them. We believe
Peter: that there is a great value for small business owners and managers and other professionals taking a look at this organization to join, that organization. But we decided to kinda demystify Yeah. In our own experience with that organization. This is not an official BNI podcast, by the way. This is just, Chris and I rapping about what we believe are the values of, BNI.
Chris: Yeah. Pete’s been part of BNI for eight years. I’ve been for four months, and we’re gonna talk about what it feels like to be part of it and what the purpose is. But let’s give you some numbers real quick. Yeah.
Worldwide, they have 286,000 members. They have 10,600 chapters. They are global. And right now, they’ve even gone to several of the chapters that are, exclusively online, and that’s the one that I’m in. Mhmm.
I’m in exclusively online using Zoom. Pete, you’re part of a group that’s been online for a couple of years because of COVID, but now you’re getting back together in person. Right?
Peter: So Yeah. So the chapter I’m a member of is called so BNI is broken up into chapters. And, usually, in a local market, there will be, you know, at least one or two, if not several chapters. They’re called we’re the big dogs. Yeah.
So we are we are the big dogs. And, just looking at the numbers here, Chris, if you’re if you’re saying that there’s 286,000 members, roughly 10,000 chapters, if my math is correct, it looks like the average chapter has a little more than 20 members.
Chris: Yeah. And that’s that’s for us. We typically have I’m looking at my Zoom screen here. We typically have about 25. Yeah.
That are there, 20 members on a regular basis and then four to five visitors every week.
Peter: What’s the name of your chapter?
Chris: It is cascade virtual connectors. Got it. And everybody should know that BNI is really about connecting and networking. Yeah. It really is named well.
Peter: For sure. For sure. So, if anybody is listening and they’re just they wanna find out about BNI, especially if they’re in the Pacific Northwest, you can go to BNI and w.com, and then you can actually find a chapter. But we’re not here to, you know, just give you this hardcore sales pitch. We just wanna give you the facts and kinda give you, some background on it.
So the numbers are amazing, but how does, BNI work? So I think you mentioned it’s a weekly.
Chris: Yeah. It it’s weekly, and I believe the format, the proven format that they have developed over the years
Peter: Yeah.
Chris: They were formed in 1985, so they have a lot of years here under their belt. Yeah. They have figured out how to train you to be a biz a business meeting manager Mhmm. By the way that you’re in the meetings. And I’m not talking about just with your team, but especially with other clients.
For example, they start on time, right on time, every time. And if you’re late, you’re late. They get going.
Peter: It’s pretty obvious that you are late.
Chris: Yes. And, you know, if you think about our business world, when you’re meeting with a client, your clients expect you to be on time. Now they can be a little late. You know? And you’ll Sure.
You’ll you’ll kinda give them a little bit of grace. But as a business owner, you wanna be a a timely person. And they teach you just by every week getting together, you welcome everybody and make everyone feel welcome. And in our chapter, what we do first is we spend about eight to ten minutes networking in small groups of three or four. Mhmm.
Is that what you guys do with yours?
Peter: Yeah. So in a in a in a in person so we do that virtually. And then in person, the meetings start off so the meetings are ninety minutes, very, very sort of time tracked agenda driven, meeting, but it actually is not, it actually makes the meeting a little easier than, you know, just kinda going all over the place by having the agenda. But the first fifteen minutes of the official BNI agenda is, open networking. So if you’re meeting in person, then you’re gonna have, that open networking moment.
What’s interesting is the agenda is the same worldwide.
Chris: It is. It doesn’t matter, and and it works. Yeah. So when you have that open networking time, we I’m thinking about this week. You know, what did we talk about in our open networking time?
We have a suggestion. You don’t have to
Peter: do But prompt.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Ours ours this time, the prompt was two prompts. What’s something that you lost in a connection during COVID that you’re excited to get back? And then the part two was what’s something you gained during COVID that you plan to keep?
And it was really interesting how many people said, oh, I’ve got two or three that I’m keeping. Mhmm. And the way that they’ve improved their business during COVID, which is spectacular. Small businesses, many of them have fallen. Yeah.
But the ones that have survived, many of them have thrived. And BNI, that’s what I’m seeing Mhmm. In our chapter. So quick rundown. You greet, you do open networking, and then you move into a section where everybody’s going to give their elevator speech.
That’s that’s
Peter: how we work. Commercial.
Chris: Yeah. We have an educational moment, kinda some training.
Peter: So everybody gets about five minutes to give a commercial?
Chris: No. You have sixty seconds
Peter: Or less.
Chris: Or less if your chapter grows. Yeah. Right now, we have sixty seconds. And, Pete, what does that sound like? What can you give us an example of your sixty second commercial?
Peter: Sure. I’m Peter Wilson with bizmarketing.com. We help businesses win online. One of the things that a lot of businesses don’t even think about is how they appear online. When was the last time you googled the name of your business?
What showed up in the Google search results? Are you horrified? Are you scared? Are you happy? If you’re curious how to show up even better in the Google search results, contact me, Peter Wilson, bizmarketing.com.
We help businesses win online.
Chris: Now that is a very succinct. That’s about thirty five seconds. Yeah. And here’s here’s what it trains you. You have to be prepared every week to do that.
And online, we have a timer, and in person, you have a timer. And what it trains you is to actually know how to articulate what you do Yeah. Who you’re looking for
Peter: Right.
Chris: So that people can give referrals. That’s a big part of BNI is giving each other referrals and just really honing in sharply to talk about what you do. Mhmm. And what I’ve observed, in our in our specific chapter, we have four or five members that English is their second or third language.
Peter: Oh, wow.
Chris: And we just started in November, and it is exponential, the growth of communication skills I have seen in those particular members. It’s been fantastic. Mhmm. And their confidence. Because okay.
So then if you have visitors or guests, they also Give a commercial. Give their little commercial, and then you move into your featured speakers. Now Right. This is something else BNI will train you how to do Mhmm. Is how to be an effective presenter.
So, I don’t know about your chapter. We have two speakers per week.
Peter: Yeah. We same. We have, two eight minute slots for, extended presentations. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. And often, if you do really good on your time Mhmm. Then they’ll give you a couple of for q and a.
Peter: Q and a.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where a lot of people say, you know what? I’m gonna give you a call this week because I need your services. Mhmm.
And then after the speakers are done, everybody gets fifteen seconds to give a referral or to receive referrals, and you can also do that electronically. So in our chapter, we really ask people to to give one shout out or one referral Mhmm. And then do all the other ones electronically through the BNI app, which is fantastic.
Peter: Right.
Chris: Right?
Peter: So there’s one there’s a couple bits that you missed. I just wanna make sure that we catch. One is the education moment Mhmm. Where there’s some an education coordinator that, features or, you know, delegates somebody to present a, an educational moment. And it doesn’t necessarily have to do with networking.
It could be, business skills. It could be time management. Could be about anything that’s relevant to the the audience in the room.
Chris: I did. I was asked by our education coordinator to do ours kinda last minute this last week. And I thought, what can I, talk three minutes about that would be helpful? Yeah. Yeah.
So I spent about three minutes showing people how to use Zoom because as advanced as we’ve gotten Mhmm. Zoom and teleconferencing is still a very new technology. Mhmm. And there’s all kinds of glitches that until you use it regularly Yeah. And what we find in our group is that everybody’s using it now one way or another for meetings or for client meetings, and they need to know how to do it without having all the distractions Oh.
Of the glitches. So I was going through about eight tips
Peter: to remove the distractions electronically from your meetings. So in each chapter, you have one person per business category represented.
Chris: Yes. Because you don’t wanna be competing within your chapter
Peter: Right.
Chris: With somebody who does exactly what you do.
Peter: So you have one bookkeeper, one auto repair person or auto mechanic, one Home inspector. Yeah. We have home inspector, crawl space, clean out person.
Chris: We have Maybe one dentist.
Peter: Yeah. Naturopath. These are actual, folks that are, sitting in in, seats in our chapter in the in the big dogs. We have one person that’s a financial planner. Now the seats that are very popular is insurance, chiropractor, financial planner, real estate agent, mortgage broker.
Those seats are usually taken immediately Yeah. In a chapter. In fact, a lot of chapters that are formed by those particular folks. Another thing that I wanted to talk about is that, you know, the idea is that you will refer business to each other. Right?
Yes. But it’s not a it’s not there’s no, you know, quid pro quo. There’s not like you have to do that. Right? First, the the part of the thing is with networking is like, you know, doctor Ivan Meisner who said who started BNI, it’s, you know, we do business with people we know, we like, and we trust.
Yep. Right? We don’t know, like, and trust somebody the first time we meet him.
Chris: That’s exactly right.
Peter: So, yeah, so we have this opportunity to build up a relationship with them over time.
Chris: And I’ll I’ll tell you that during our sessions in our four months, that we’re meeting together, we started in November 2021, and we’re recording here on March Yeah. Of twenty twenty two. Yep. So our home inspector has done quite well. And here’s why.
We have all these realtors and all of these, finance people that are doing business deals on residential, and they can’t get an inspector out to actually inspect the home. So, his name is Matt, and he has done exceptionally well Mhmm. In the networking. And consequently, sometimes when he’s out called for a home inspection, they’re looking for a broker or they’re looking for a realtor, and he knows them now within our chapter.
Peter: Right.
Chris: So it’s create a lot of synergy. And it it’s tangible the money you make. Now Mhmm. We were talking about I don’t know if you wanna share this, Pete, but we were talking about you’ve been at eight years. Yep.
And BNI tracks your money you make through it and also the money you’ve helped others make. Yeah. What did yours come out
Peter: to? Well so so let me back it up just a second. So one of the things I do like about, BNI with respect to the I like the agenda. It’s a there’s a, you know, there’s a set agenda, but there’s also a lot of accountability. And we keep track of everything using slips.
Yes. So we keep track of referrals. So if I gave you a referral for somebody, you know, there would be a slip that was given virtually. We do it with an app on our phones, and we give each other referrals. And we also keep track of the business that the referrals generated.
Chris: Yes.
Peter: So I’ve kept track of my business that’s been generated through the referrals I’ve received in BNI and given. And, of course, the amount of that I’ve given is only as good as what people report. But I’ve been in eight years. So far, I’m at $1,781,000.
Chris: Just through BNI?
Peter: Yes. In business received.
Chris: That’s amazing.
Peter: It’s it’s about 222,000 a year. Now I will say that one referral alone accounted for probably two thirds of that.
Chris: Yeah. But that referral was a local referral Yeah. For a local, franchise Yeah. That got noticed by the parent franchise and expanded. And that’s exactly what BNI will do for a lot of its clients Yeah.
And its participants Yeah. Is you get your foot in the door so that you can take your worth, your value, your quality work, and get known as a small business leader among a larger community, a larger network. And that’s the beauty of it.
Peter: Right. And then I I do wanna follow-up with saying that the amount of thank you for close business, that people have reported that I’ve that they’ve made off the referrals from what I’ve given them is about 304,000. Of course, again, that number is only as good as
Chris: As they’ve
Peter: reported. Report. Right. So that’s, so that’s, something that we should definitely talk about.
Chris: The number that you earn is almost always more accurate than the number that you have helped other people earn because sometimes they forget to post it, but we rarely forget to post the business we’ve earned. Right. And, and so that’s really good. I wanna say this about BNI. Networking builds trust.
And if it’s true that we do business with the people that we know, that we like, and that we trust, BNI basically creates that environment. It also has some other advantages. Mhmm. You can visit any other BNI chapter
Peter: Right.
Chris: Once you’re in. Now let’s just say something really clear here. It is high cost, high reward. And BNI, when I say high cost, the money’s not the high cost. No.
It is gonna cost you time and relationship. Yeah. You’re expected to do one on ones almost every week. Yeah. You are expected to engage and to be there.
You only have two unexcused absences a year. Yeah. When you’re gone, you have a more than that. I guess. Well
Peter: It’s every six months. Yeah.
Chris: Oh, two every six months.
Peter: You don’t to six months.
Chris: I can relax a little bit.
Peter: No. You can’t.
Chris: No. It it is, it is high investment of your time.
Peter: Yeah.
Chris: And you also have to do quite a bit of business learning as a base before you can start presenting in the chapter.
Peter: It’s not for dabblers. Let’s put
Chris: it that way.
Peter: Yes. If you’re if if you’re if you think it’s kinda cool and you wanna try it, it’s not something you just try. It’s like you go all in or you don’t do it at all. So
Chris: Exactly. And if you go all in, you find that you do really pretty well.
Peter: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. We are on we are on task. We have a one of our money crunchers that’s in the group. Mhmm. We have several, as you said.
They have looked at it and projected out the first year. Mhmm. And I think the first year were projected to clear something like $2,000,000 of business in the first year of
Peter: the chapter. The chapters. Yeah. So big dogs last year, thank you for close business, in the chapter was 2,100,000.0.
Chris: Yeah. So you have a chapter that’s been existing for a long time Yeah. And then a brand new chapter. Yeah. Both about 20 to 30 people and both of them in real dollars that we know about.
Yeah. You’re talking about 2 plus million dollars Right. For your investment in time.
Peter: There there is a lot of other intangible things that I would wanna mention real quick that it forces you as a business owner or as a business person to think about your marketing once a week. Yes. At least. Right? So you’ve got this account it’s sort of like this built in accountability thing.
The other thing, being a business owner, you figure out how lonely it is.
Chris: It can be very lonely in business. Yeah. Especially during trying times.
Peter: It’s it’s amazing how big dogs came together and just got we got through the last two years, and it it we had no idea what was gonna happen.
Chris: Yeah. We did it. We’re just like, wow. And it’s also interesting that when you, are lonely in business, you can get inside your head, and that can kill creativity. Mhmm.
And one thing I have appreciated so much in our group is they help each other come up with creative ways to market and create new products that they believe they’d be great at. And they also save money. I’ll I’ll use a personal example here. Two of our real estate people, right now, I’m just getting hit with all these kind of offers to refinance and, you know, sell and move while the market’s high. Yeah.
And two of our real estate people did one on ones with me, and I just asked them straight up. Should I sell and move Mhmm. To take the equity out, and should I refinance? And both of them convinced me at their cost because I’m I’m not an expert in this.
Peter: They could
Chris: have said, oh, yeah. We need to do this and made money off me right there. They both talked to me out of doing the very thing that would have made them money. You gotta know that when I do refinance and when I do sell my home Mhmm. I know exactly where I’m going.
Peter: Right. Right. Well, and and that brings up a good point. It’s the quality of the folks, business wise and their reputation. You know, we it’s not just an open door.
People actually apply to be members, and there’s refer reference checks and background checks and things like that that happen, beforehand.
Chris: And the dabblers and those that aren’t there to help everybody else do their best Yeah. Are the ones that we have seen drop out quickest.
Peter: Well and and the the BNI purpose is giver’s gain.
Chris: Yeah.
Peter: And that’s, doctor Ivan Meisner has, lived by that mantra forever since 1985. And if you don’t truly understand that concept or believe in it, then it is not the group for you.
Chris: Not for you.
Peter: No. It’s not the group for you. And I do wanna compare the difference between BNI and maybe some other networking opportunities like Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, Toastmasters. Each of those have their place.
Chris: Oh, they’re all fantastic.
Peter: Great organizations. One of the things that I found, though, is that I did some chamber of commerce stuff locally here, and I I did a networking breakfast. And what I discovered, unfortunately, took me a while to figure this out, was that most of the people there were there because they had a lot of time on their hands.
Chris: Yeah.
Peter: And but there was no commitment. Basically, you just bought yourself breakfast, and then everybody gave a commercial. So it’s sort of like BNI format, but the amount of, accountability there was no accountability at all.
Chris: Right. If you didn’t show, nobody really worried about it.
Peter: Yeah. And and if you didn’t refer somebody, nobody worried about it, and it just seemed like the level of commitment was just, like, very thin. And then when I discovered BNI, thanks to an invite that I received from two different members of that chamber group. Nice. Two different members, Bob Wilkie and, Ryan Brotherton.
I went to the first meeting. It was a, you know, like a networking event that they did to, bring up the numbers in the chapter. I walked in the room, and I saw my auto mechanic there, Brett Hartman. Yep. Brett Sink.
I’m like, what are you doing here? Yeah. And I knew at that point, hey. I think I’m in the right place.
Chris: And BNI is for most of the chapters, they are local. There are people in the same community. Mhmm. It’s kind of experiment right now to do the online virtual one that I’m part of. Yeah.
They’re experimenting what happens if you have people from different regions or different parts of a state. Yeah. And how does that work? And so what we’re doing that’s a little bit different than yours is next, Thursday, we have a networking event at a winery, wine tasting group. Okay.
Oh, where we’ve been recently. Yeah. And, we have one of our members who’s in Alaska who’s flying in for some business. And so we decided let’s get together Yeah. And let’s network.
And by the way, guess what? When we’re at that winery, that wine tasting room Mhmm. The owners there are gonna be going, so what brings all of you Sure. Together here today? And we will be helping their business at the same time they’re gonna be learning something, Yeah.
About our businesses.
Peter: Well, funny thing, we had a couple things happen here recently. I got a email yesterday, totally unsolicited, and we’re happened to be hiring a graphic designer. So, a guy in the East Coast said, hey. I have a friend that moved to Seattle. He’s a graphic designer.
He’s looking for a job. Any ideas? And the guy in the East Coast had a marketing company, and he reached out to me because he’s in BNI. And I’m like, actually, as a matter of fact, I’m looking for one right now, and he we got in contact. We were actually interviewing this person.
So the the number of connections you can get, we’ve also found a development company in India that we did a little work with
Chris: Yep.
Peter: Through BNI
Chris: Mhmm.
Peter: As well. So it’s it’s interesting how the connections one of the things that we found is that, you can actually use BNI to if you were let’s say you have a family member that’s moving to a new town, and they need to find a realtor, or they need to find a professional, somebody to do their roof. First thing I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go into my BNI, app and see if I can find somebody. Now I’m gonna check them out, check out their website, if they look legit, but, that’s that would be the first place to start. Yeah.
You know? So So shout out
Chris: for BNI. Pete, been in eight years. I’ve been in it four months. Both of us have had a really rich experience. It’s relational.
It’s monetary. It’s real. It’s hands on. And the people who are part of those chapters find that they feel like they’re part of a very real network where you get to know each other, through the one on ones and the weekly, and you’re building trust and relationship, and that’s how you build business.
Peter: Yeah. And and and I would just throw in a final comment is, some of the friendships. Yeah. They’re amazing.
Chris: They become very rich and very supportive. Yeah. Yeah. So So, yep, BNI gets our thumbs up. And if you’re interested, just look on bni.com, and you’ll find a local chapter.
Peter: Yes. Thanks, big dogs, and, thanks, Chris. No. I don’t know. I’ll edit that out.
Thanks, Chris.
Peter: Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.
