Chris Groom of Calver Groom Financial Management spok about “Why we all need to be a visitor host sometimes” as BNI members
The Visitor Hosts job is to look after the visitors, introduce them to the leadership team, who in turn will introduce them to other members that they feel the visitor would most benefit from talking to.
Now I am sure that we have all at some time walked into a room of people you have never met before (I did it Tuesday) and found small groups of people all talking, unless you are a very confident person you are not going to bowl up to a group, introduce yourself and start to join in the conversation.
I was met by one of the organisers of the seminar who introduced himself and pointed to where the coffee was. Having gone over and helped myself, it was up to me to find a little group of people I liked the look of and muck in.
Now turning back to a BNI meeting once the visitor host has introduced a visitor to the leadership team and they in turn introduce the visitor to another member it is then down to the members to act like visitor hosts. Has the visitor drunk their tea or coffee would they like a refill, is there another member you think they would benefit from speaking with, act like a visitor host and look after the visitor.
Over the last 12 years I have seen a number of members join Sutton and not another chapter they went to because of the initial impression, the greeting, being attended to, listened to and looked after before, during, and after the meeting. This is why we all need to be visitor hosts. Even if they don’t join their experience of the morning will have and make a lasting impression.
Just think of Steve, a visitor Fintan O’Toole brought one morning. He didn’t join, but his impression of the morning and the group was so positive that over the following 18 months he must have made a referral to nearly every member of the chapter. His visit and our ability to welcome him and make him feel welcome and valued translated into £1,000’s of pounds of business being done.
on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 17:58 and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
