Ok - (this is where I ask two or three members of the group) "what percentage of
your business do you get from BNI"?
Gather the answers and say to the group ...... we should all be able to analyse how much of our business is generated from our BNI chapter.....
Various answers will come out of the Q and A session ..... but let's assume a
minimalistic figure of around 20%.
Then taking a working week of 5 days –
can we assume that if BNI gives you 20% of your business, you spend 20% of your
time (ie one day) on BNI???
No – I hear you
say? So how long should you spend on BNI outside the meeting?
Get answers from the
group – settle on one hour. Let’s call it the “BNI Hour of Power” and the
results it can produce can be truly extraordinary.
Successful leadership
teams encourage members to set aside one hour a week in which they focus solely
on BNI activity. Think about it: If you stopped everything in your day and
decided just to focus on BNI for one hour, what would you do? Would you be at a
loss to fill the time?
Or would you have a
number of different activities that you could immediately pursue to give you a
tremendous impetus in developing business for chapter colleagues, whilst also
giving your own business a major boost at the same time?
Break the “Hour of Power”
down into three distinct and easily identifiable groups of activity. Give the
members the three main options (referrals, visitors, 1-2-1's), then in small
groups (if this is a ten minute slot - or deliver from the front for a large group)..... let them brainstorm ideas within each category. Then get members to
shout out their answers.
1.
Focus on generating referrals:
- Work on referrals for the
previous week’s 10 minute speaker
- Review each member’s
“most wanted referral” from the previous week (this ensures that you are
carefully recording what each of your colleagues are looking for at each
meeting),
- Follow up on possible
referrals, to turn them into certainties,
- Review your contacts list
to see what introductions can be made for fellow members,
- Review your diary of
upcoming customer/client meetings to see what opportunities there might be to
introduce other members’ businesses or services at each meeting.
2.
Focus on inviting visitors:
- Follow up with previously invited visitors to see if they are
ready to join,
- Review the list of trade/professional categories that your chapter
most wants to fill, and check your own customer and contacts lists to see if
you can identify suitable visitors,
- Make invitation calls,
- Send invitation cards and e-mails confirming venue details for
visitors,
- Make reminder follow-up calls to visitors the day before the
meeting.
3.
Focus on your one-to-ones:
- Plan, diarise and prepare for your one-to-one meetings with other
members,
- Follow up on actions arising from previous one-to-one meetings.
We would all like our BNI Foundation Team to be doing considerably more BNI things throughout their working day, but everyone that has adopted
the Hour of Power has found that it can transform any member’s experience
within BNI, almost instantaneously increasing the value of business generated
and received by over ten-fold.
None of the benefits of
BNI membership are guaranteed, just as success in life is never a matter of
luck. It is always the result of working and developing a carefully honed
and fine tuned system of success. Applying and incorporating the Hour of
Power into your weekly schedule will take you a long way towards receiving the
best possible return on your membership.
Delivered 30 August 2012
