Referral Marketing: What's the Point?

Many people know that I'm a huge fan of BNI. I'm a six year member of BNI in my region and can't even imagine my business plan without it.

Part of what makes BNI work is the built in opportunity to be in the same company of people each week. Seeing everyone in the group once a week really helps you to build relationships at a faster pace. However, building the relationship is ONE thing ... generating REFERRALS is another!

Generating referrals can happen more quickly when you TEACH people how to do it for you. That's the point of meeting with people one to one. Many networkers fail to appreciate the value in time spent one to one. And ... many networkers fail to understand how to leverage their one to one meetings to generate referral opportunities. Furthermore ... many BNI networkers fail to take advantage of the full BNI network and limit their one to one activity to members of their own chapter. Big mistake if you ask me.

Last week, I had lunch with Larry Schwartz, owner of Midnight Blue Technologies. Larry and I have known each other for some time and continue to connect together even though we are in different BNI chapters because we can appreciate the value we bring to each other. [By the way ... if the possibility of your computer network crashing causes you to lose sleep at night, you might want to look into Midnight Blue].

So ... if you're in BNI ... take off your BNI blinders and connect with people in other chapters. You'll be amazed at the opportunities you're missing!