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.
on Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 14:54 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.
