1. Show up on time.
2. Be here.
3. Invite  visitors.
4. Pay attention to 60-second presentations
5. Educate your members how to refer you & don’t sell to the room.
6. Following up on a member referral.
7. Use one-to-one’s to learn & educate on how to get referrals.
8.  Prepare your presentation before you do it.
9. Make your 10-minute presentation about how others can find you referrals.
10. ABOVE ALL TO GET TO THE BEST REFFERALS
    Build Trust by being professional. Doing good jobs on time at the price you quoted.

(Ed: George delivered a great education slot in the month of April, and so the Vision Chapter members wanted to share it in this post)

Don’t’s

• Talk about all of your experience and qualifications
• Talk about how long your business has been trading
• Be Boring (you will lose your audience)
• Try and cover everything (that’s what 121’s are for
• Rely on technology
• Fidget
• Have your hands in your pocket

Do’s

• Confident body language
• Eye contact (3-5 seconds then look at the next person to really engage with your audience)
• Control and use the Volume of your voice accordingly to get your message across
• Move around
• ENJOY IT
• Tell your audience what they need to hear to find you referrals not necessarily what you want to say
• Plan your presentation (break up into 1-2 min slots with 2 mins left for questions and no more than 30 seconds to 1 min for intro)
• Highlight your end goals for your presentation and work towards providing the information in your presentation to achieve those.
• Demonstrate the need for your products/services
• Highlight your solutions to problems and/or how you supply the demand you have highlighted
• Teach us how to find you a referral (what or who do we look out for e.g. loose carpet  = referral opportunity for Steve Smith of Flooring Solutions)
• Who are your end users? What do we say to them? Why might they want to use you?
• What other professions do you or could you align yourself with to get referrals? What do we say to them? Why might they want to use you?

I hope you have found this useful…I have many other tips and tricks on networking…

We welcome the new Leadership team for Vision Chapter of BNI. Michael Cuschieri is the new Chapter Director. James Munns is the Membership coordinator and John Pardo is our secretary treasurer.  They are counting on our help and support over the next 12 months and send huge thanks to Norma, Romesh and Jane for passing on a chapter in such a fantastic position.

April 2012.

This month saw the taking over of the new leadership team for the Vision Chapter of BNI. Norma Morris – Director Romesh Muthiah – Membership Coordinator Jane Palmer – Secretary / Treasurer The new team rallied the members with their inspiring goals for the next 12 months. 

The text and pictures will automatically arrive on your website.

 

This will make the website easier to update while you are in a meeting.

Cheers Bradley Bishop

Areatrade

 

Paul Moston – Director

George Theodosiou – Membership Coordinator

Imtiyaz Bhatty – Secretary / Treasurer

The new team rallied the members with their inspiring goals for the next 12 months.

Paul Moston kicks off a new years to rapturous applause.

George Theodosiou outlines theme of inclusion and participation.

Some people know that I go to  BNI, so I thought I would do a blog entry so I can direct people here for more information.

What is BNI?
Business Network International was set up in America in the eighties by .

Dr Ivan Misner and Me ! (No photo shop its Real!) It is the world’s largest referral organisation, with Chapters all over the world. Be

BNI has a simple philosophy – “Givers Gain”. If I give you business, you will want to give business to me.

BNI also operates a “lock-out” policy. Once you have become a member of a Chapter no one else with the same classification can join.

BNI Chapters meet for breakfast, with the meeting finishing by 8:30am so people can get on with their day.

What does it do?
Basically, BNI gives its members a structured, formal, weekly breakfast meeting to learn more about each others’ businesses and pass referrals.

Every week, each member stands up and gives a “60 second presentation” on their business. Also every week, one member gets to do a 10 minute presentation. These help to educate the other members on what to look/listen out for when talking to their friends, colleagues, associates, etc., so they can pass more referrals.

Every member of the Chapter has a cardfile full with every other members’ business cards, so they have everyone’s details on them at all times.

Each chapter also tracks the referrals passed and (in many cases) the value of each referral. So, for example, my Chapter (currently quite small with only 14 members) passes approximately 28 referrals a month but the average value of a referral is £1515.55 (at time of writing).

Why join BNI?
Yes, you can just do this with my freinds, but it’s amazing the difference in results when it is part of a structured agenda. Before BNI I didn’t think much about actively seeking out referrals for friends, etc., if someone happened to say to me “Do you know a…” then I would give them details of who I knew, but this rarely happened.

Now, I am always on the lookout for how I can pass a referral to a member of my Chapter – because I know they are doing the same for me!

My product/service is different, BNI won’t work for me.
If you are willing to put the time and work required into getting referrals for your fellow members, BNI will work for you!

BNI works because it’s not just the other members that will give you work, it’s who they know that’s important.

So BNI is not expensive, when you take into consideration what you are likely to get back.

Want to know more ? follow the link and see you on friday http://www.bni-vision.co.uk/members/garry-kousoulou/