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.