Training

Work together

60 seconds!

1-2-1

Meeting people

Networking

BNI provides a structured, supportive, business environment in which local business people can get together to network, learn valuable new marketing skills and develop the strong personal relationships that lead to trust and the consequent generation of significant business for each other.

Before we discuss the benefits of being a member of BNI, the largest organisation of it’s type in the world, first let’s consider two other alternatives to generating business.

The Cold Call
To get your business known you could rely on mass advertising, printed material for targeted distribution or door-to-door leafleting, you could also buy advertising space in a periodical, or similar publications and be charged a fortune for a half / quarter page colour advert and the additional cost for the graphic designer to produce your advert. True you will attract business, about 1% if you are lucky for your “hit & miss” effort!

The Yellow Pages
To place an advert in the Yellow Pages costs about the same as membership of BNI. Being listed in the yellow pages is great, your business is categorised and people can find you easily if they know the alphabet. When all the adverts look similar why should they call you, they don’t know your who you are just what service you provide.

Business Through Business Referral
Or word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising. BNI provides a structured environment for the development and exchange of quality referrals. The key word here is QUALITY referral. The average chapter of 40 members gives around 60 referrals per month to its members from the BNI statistics.

Professionals like referrals because they bring in customers that really want their service and have some confidence in the business that they are not dealing with a cowboy outfit. A single referral can have a chain reaction to your business, as one satisfied customer tells other, who in turn tell others.

BNI and Education hosts a number of training events and functions to educate their members so they can gain more business.

Presentation skills workshop For you to hone your presentation skills and network with a variety of chapters.

Finally- Why do these meetings have to start so early?
Commitment to building relationships is a key philosophy to BNI and we only want the most dedicated professionals to become part of this chapter and it’s continuing growth. The simple reason the meeting starts at 06.45 is this - if you’re serious about your business, you’ll be serious about seeing it grow, you’ll be here at 06:45, because at Harbour we believe it’s the networking we are here for!>