Today, our new education co-ordinator, Inge Berrie of Berrie Garden Design presented the concept of ‘planning your 60 seconds sales slot’.

If you are the member of a BNI chapter for a year, you will have the opportunity to present around 50 ’60 seconds’ to the people in the room. The audience will not always be the same (thinking about visitors, substitutes and new members), but your business is likely to be. (more…)

We’ve been hearing about BNI Connect, which is supposed to take us forward into a new dimension of online networking – but so far I’ve been wondering what is actually happening, and when.
BNI founder Dr Ivan Misner has posted a video on YouTube, in which he explains some of what BNI Connect will do. It’s being rolled out now, he says, and will be in place worldwide by the end of 2011. The basic version comes free. Dr Misner evidently sees individual chapters using BNI Connect as the basis for their chapter web sites.

I’ve been exploring Twitter, and one of the people who is prolific there is BNI’s founder, Dr Ivan Misner. Fellow members of Sutton BNI will know I find the whole business of referrals a bit of a challenge, so I was interested to see this posting, which I thought I’d share. It’s about how to build relationships with people who give you referrals.

Most of our posts about training refer to BNI-run training sessions – fair enough. But I was interested to see this announcement about a free training resource.

Free Training

The company that owns the web site developed the resources intending to market them commercially, but in view of the economic climate is offering them for free. You have to register (also free) and then you can go into the web site and view the resources.

Mary Chadwick of Rosemary Bookkeeping gave an education slot this morning on how to improve your general networking results:

There are five questions to help you leave a lasting impression when you’re networking with people and meeting them for the first time. Here are the five questions. (more…)

Written and presented by Stuart Allen, Commercial Insurance Services – www.insureeasy.co.uk

We are about to have another Visitors day here at Sutton BNI and with this in mind, I think that it is important that we are all reminded of the fact that whilst we have nominated Visitor Hosts – we all need to be a visitor host some times.

At some point, each and every one of us visited our first BNI meeting.  I should imagine that without exception, we all felt a little nervous on that first day, perhaps not quite knowing what to expect or what the people would be like – maybe you felt a little daunted knowing at some point you would be asked to stand up and talk about your business.  A lot of visitors find this quite difficult and so it is important that they are made to feel at ease from the moment that they arrive.

It is likely that one of the door persons will greet the visitor initially and they will sign them in; take a couple of business cards; take the meeting fee and they will then hand the visitor over to a visitor host.

Now I am sure that we are going to have a great number of visitors next week and if this is the case, there will be times when there are not enough visitor hosts to cope.  If this is the case, we must all be willing to step up to the plate.  So how do you look after a visitor?

The first thing to do is to introduce yourself and ask the visitor their name and what they do?

You should then take them over to the refreshments so they can choose a beverage of their choice.

It is a good idea to give the visitor a brief outline as to the order of the meeting; show them where they will sit; explain that they will get the chance to present their business in a 60 second slot and they will also get the chance to give out their business cards.  Giving the visitor a brief outline like this and allowing them to ask any questions they may have will help to relax them – this will help to ensure that they take in the meeting and understand what is going on.

Having already asked them what they do, you should have given consideration as to who they might like to be introduced to.  For instance, a Builder might particularly like to be introduced to one of our Tradesmen members -  so take the visitor over to the relevant member and introduce them to each other.  If you are the person that has been introduced, take an interest in the person and what they do, ask about their business – people like to talk about themselves!  Again, this all helps to make them feel welcome and relaxed.

When we all sit down for breakfast, if you find yourself sitting next to a Visitor, introduce yourself, talk to them, make them feel welcome.

Our visitors should be made to feel welcome and relaxed from the start of the meeting and until the end.

We can all take part in this, we are all required to be a visitor host sometimes.

We all know that Visitors to the chapter are our life blood and it is important that we are all making every effort to find our next visitor.

But where can you find yours? Have you considered the following?

We all receive leaflets through the door. If someone is distributing leaflets about the services that they can offer, they are obviously looking for more work. Invite them to BNI!

Small business directories are distributed in all areas – in Banstead and Reigate, there is The Challenger Magazine, in Carshalton there is the Carshalton Beeches Directory. These directories are full of adverts for small independent local businesses, all of which have spent a lot of money to advertise in this book. So they are eager for business and they are willing to invest money to find it.

I know from personal experience that the results from these books are minimal – why not call them and invite them to BNI to find out how for a similar investment, they could enjoy far better results?

It is worthwhile being specific about the type of business that you are looking to invite and concentrating on this. For instance, you might choose a Caterer as the next ideal member for Sutton BNI. In which case, enter ‘Caterer, Sutton’ into a search engine and you will be presented with a list of potential visitors. Concentrating on a particular business like this might mean that you will have two or more visitors in the same category, then they can compete for the position!

Once you find your Visitor, you need to look after them!

• You can send them a formal invitation by email which contains further details about BNI together with a Map for the venue.
• Call them on Wednesday, ensure that they know how to find us; what time they are expected; bring plenty of business cards with them to pass around
• When they arrive at BNI, welcome them; get them a tea or coffee; introduce them to other members; make sure they know where they will be sitting and perhaps run through a summary of the format of the meeting – this will help them relax and feel comfortable

We look forward to welcoming your next visitor to Sutton BNI!

The above education slot was presented by Carolyn Reilly of PrintInc