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.
