Every week at BNI each member has a chance to showcase their business and ask for specific introductions. This approach is proven to result in more referrals being passed as members are given a clear and specific target and, with the huge range of contacts our members can boast, there is invariably somebody in the room who can make an introduction or refer you to someone who can. We see our success in this approach as a badge of honour and members have been known to go to some lengths to track down someone who can introduce members to the relevant contact within companies they’re looking to do business with.

While we all love being able to help each other out in our attempts to grow our businesses it helps to keep things fresh and in order to liven things up once. Among the techniques we employ is our Member Swap. Don’t worry, we don’t have a cosmetic surgeon in the group so it’s nothing too drastic! We simply select a few members who swap roles with each other and give a short presentation as each other. This provides a valuable insight for members as they see how other members perceive them and it can help them refine their pitches for future weeks. More importantly though, given the free reign we allow members in this process, it usually results in something amusing.

To see last weeks madness click here.