My BNI Experience

For all good intentions and purpose; BNI is a great place to display your business, learn how to connect with others and develop a presentation.  My prospective of this organization is based upon my activity and participation with a couple local groups I have attended.  The concept of “Givers Gain” is something that everyone in the group should grasp, but all too often it was; you give so I can gain.

  I was excited with the first meeting my wife and I attended.  The thirty second infomercials explained the members business, who would be a great referral along with the eight minute spotlight presentation on a members business, presented a platform I would be very comfortable participating in. I initially saw the value with membership, having the ability to present our business to fifty other business members within our community.  We looked at the application fee as a little pricey, but with all of our other marketing failures of the past, what could we lose having the eyes and ears of fifty other members who would possibly refer our business to other members of the community.  Since only one of us could be a member, my wife joined and I would join her weekly, at the 7:30 AM meeting. My wife attended the mandatory leadership training for the purpose of being able to give an eight minute presentation as well as learn the value of; one on one’s, continued education and the referral concept, all great information.  The strict rules of the organization; only one member per industry, (we had four different insurance agents, three real estate agents, two attorneys), wink-wink, nod-nod they created different categories for each just to fill a seat within the group. Absenteeism and tardiness would cause expulsion from the group, unless you had someone substitute for you. What a perfect platform for me as a Toastmaster, I became a professional substitute for several members within our group as well as another BNI group. This was going to be a fun experience, or so I thought.

After several months of one on ones, continued education tapes and books, the monotonous 30 second infomercials, (often read from a smart phone or tablet).  The eight minute spotlight for business often presented family vacations and left me wondering what their business actually did.  I quickly volunteered my services, as a Toastmaster, to several members to create a more effective thirty second presentation.  I coached several members with their eight minute presentations, which would have been applauded by most fortune 500 companies, and developed confidence with the members I coached, (Givers Gain), for free.  My thoughts were; why should I accept a poor business presentation just because I live in Gainesville, Florida and why should those with limited business experience be given accolades, for such poor presentations, which established weak business foundations.

Months had past, we gave out thousands of dollars in referrals to several members of our group and yet our business received nothing, although we were told to expect 6-8 months before we actually started to see results.  We witnessed members come and go, we watched as the referrals passed from member to member as we passed referrals and the dollar value increase to over a million dollars of referrals in a year from the group and yet nothing for our business.

The downturn started; we used the services of company who cleaned tile floors and carpet. They made appointments with a couple of our customers and stood up both appointments both times. We used them on a project to clean tile in the bathrooms and kitchen in a home we were remodeling, we had to go back over areas they completely missed during the final walkthrough. Other disappointments; overpriced services, failure to deliver a website, (which I’m still waiting for a refund), failure to keep appointments and the invitation to a five hour education credit seminar, which turned out to be nothing more than a hard sell presentation for a “Networking Course”, that would have given the “Buy Real Estate with No Money” a run for its money.  Attending a BNI social event which became a hard sell; “why aren’t you using my business” from several members of a different BNI group. The final straw came from two different BNI, HVAC members who promised service but only tried to deliver a sell.  Their diagnosis was it would be too expensive to repair a pair of HVAC units, ($1800-$2700 respectively), and we should replace them at a cost of $4200, each. I got a traveling HVAC tech to evaluate the units, he repaired both units for less than $700. I took the story to the media to expose what many in the HVAC industry is doing to an uninformed public.  The member filed a complaint against us, we attended a hearing and made our decision to drop out of BNI.

Our experience with BNI was not all bad.  We met some wonderful people and will continue to refer customers to their business. Helping business people develop a professional presentation was a joy for me personally. What is lacking with the application process is the reviewing process for each business that applies. Some questions need to be asked; what is your business model, what does your business plan look like and how will your business benefit the group as a whole.  I believe there should be some ethics training as part of the education system of BNI. Would your business benefit from BNI? If you lack the basic skills of networking, BNI is a great opportunity for you to learn and possibly gain from being a member.  I encourage you to attend several meetings, with several groups, before making a decision to join.  Just by attending the meetings, you will be able to start developing a, “one on one”, strategy without spending a lot of time and money joining an organization that attempts to shackle both.  

An HVAC Repair Nightmare

We recently acquired four rental units to manage in a condo complex, within our local community.  The owner was dissatisfied with the previous management company’s operation and the condition of their investment properties. As we inspected and made the necessary repairs to make the units move-in ready for the next tenants, we found an HVAC unit not working.  We contacted a vendor who was in our networking group to service the unit and what we received was information we were not expecting nor could the owner could readily afford. The technician advised us; he would have to remove the interior coils to clean because they were impacted with debris and because of the age of the unit, it required the old R-22 Freon, which is difficult to acquire and very expensive.  Along with various other repairs, the cost to repair the unit was $1800 and it would be money better spent to replace the unit for $4200.
The problem was; the owner had purchased the four, ten year old units, as an investment near the height of the real estate market. The rent, at the time of purchase, was barely covering the financial costs of the properties. Over the past eight years, the property values declined over half and the rental income by 30%. The owner was coming out of pocket every month, hoping to maintain ownership of their investment and appreciation values would increase over the next several years and paying $4200 to replace the system was not in the budget.  To protect the owner’s interest, I inspected the unit and found the coils were not impacted and I easily cleaned them myself within fifteen minutes.  I contacted a local HVAC technician to evaluate the system and what he found was surprising to me.  The system was low on Freon, he charged the system and it held pressure. The cost to repair the system; under $300, the owner was ecstatic. A week later, another one of the systems went down and we contacted another vendor who we had used in the past. The technician evaluated the system and said it was leaking Freon and couldn't be repaired efficiently, (around $2700), and it would be better to replace the system for $4200. My thoughts were; a system just doesn't break overnight unless something catastrophic happens, so I inspected the unit and called my tech back in to evaluate. The system was leaking, at a valve, and could be repaired efficiently, under $400. The owner was not happy about having to pay $700 for the recent HVAC repairs, after having to pay the cost to make the properties rent-able with paint and repairs, but was excited about us looking out for their bottom line and saving them an additional $8000 in replacement cost.

What we didn't know about the first vendor; the technician earned commissions on the sale of new units and up sales on maintenance.  Not only did the tech earn money from selling, it guaranteed him a day’s work. The pressure to inflate price, if the owner was to accept the cost of repair, would have put additional bonus dollars in his pocket.

The second vendor turned out to be the owner of the HVAC Company. His focus was to sell a new system, build his customer base and not offer the service our owner desperately needed.  

We learned some valuable lessons we intend to follow for the future, for all our customers. I want to pass on the following suggestions to you if you are in the property management business or concerned about estimates for repairs for your personal home.

Ask your vendor;

Are technicians paid commission? If the system needs Freon, how do they measure it, (have them show you the scale they measure with before and after the service)? If parts were replaced, have them give you the old parts. Do they charge a trip charge along with a diagnostic fee to come to your home or business?  How many employees does the business have, (think about the cost and overhead of a large business versus a small one or two man team)? 

By asking these questions, you can possibly save yourself hundreds to thousands of dollars in repairs not needed, overcharges as well as looking out for your bottom dollar.  Is it better to have a new HVAC system than a fifteen year old system? The answer is a resounding, YES; but if you can't afford to pay for a new system, repairing the old one may be your best bet.  Get a second or third opinion before you make the choice of spending money you don't have.

The Noose

One of my favorite books of all times is “Watership Down” by Richard Adams. The simple overview is how the world appears through the eyes of rabbits, but it goes far beyond that.  In the beginning, a character has a premonition of the destruction of their colony.  When he tells his friend of the premonition, they decide to take the information to the leader, who discredits their ideas.  The characters so believed in the premonition, they told several other of their friends and decided to leave their colony before disaster befell upon them.  In their travels, they come upon a colony of rabbits who were larger, healthier with shiny fur.  Their colony was well protected among blackberry and raspberry brambles within a large pile of brush, giving them protection from predators and the weather.  The characters didn’t understand why these rabbits were so much larger and healthier until they asked.  The rabbits explained a human created their habitat for them and often left them piles of food, more than enough for the members of the colony and invited the characters to join the colony.  As the days went by, the characters shared the wealth of the gifts the human had left for them. They felt they had found their new home but another premonition befell upon them that brought them to be concerned of their new home.  The premonition brought more fear to all the initial characters than before as they watched their friend appear to be choking to death.  The character awoke from his dream and told his followers, they were not safe here and must leave.  Several of the characters were in disbelief until the premonition come to pass.  One afternoon while the group were heading to eat from the pile of food the human had left for them, reality set in.  One of the characters had slipped into a wire noose and as they struggled with the noose, it tightened and choked the character.

I don’t want to ruin the story for you, you’ll just have to find the book to find out what happens, but the point being made is what appears to be happening within our human country right now.  The healthy colony of rabbits knew of the danger of their colony but were willing to accept the sacrifice of a false security.  They were willing to accept the gifts from their host but what they thought were gifts was nothing more than scraps.  Many within our society are just like the rabbits living among brambles in what they believe is security and are willing to accept the scraps for what they assume is their security.  As our government draws many to a false security, it prepares a noose to choke our society into serfdom. Do not allow yourself to be drawn into a false sense of security by the gifts of government.  Remember, the security for the rabbits was a brush pile in a blackberry and raspberry bramble and scraps for the many.

 So, are you prepared for the noose?