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Being active in BNI is like having lots of extra sales people working for you, because your fellow members will be carrying your cards and referring your business to people they meet, without you having to pay them any salaries or commission. Successful businesses depend on 'word-of-mouth' marketing as the best form of promotion there is. 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. The BNI philosohy is "Givers Gain" - I give you business you will wnat to give me business..... Founded in 1985 by Dr. Ivan R. Misner with the sole purpose of strong contact business networking to generate business for fellow members, BNI has now grown to over 103,600 members. Who can join? Anyone in business but only one person from each profession is permitted to join a chapter of BNI. All participants should represent their primary occupation, not a part-time business. Attendance is critical. If you cannot attend a meeting, you may send a substitute and it will not count as an absence. Participants are required to bring bona-fide referrals and/or visitors to their chapter weekly meetings. Cost: Fees are made up of an annual membership fee and monthly chapter fees to cover the costs of our breakfasts. See the Membership Coordinator or Treasurer for prices. If you apply to join BNI, your application will be reviewed by the chapter's membership committee generally within 7 days. Belfast City Chapter - About Us The Belfast City Chapter was officially launched in May of 2000 and has been a stong and active chapter ever since. The second chapter in Northern Ireland it was founded by a group of local business professionals, including 2 who are still members today, to help them promote and gain new buisiness. It is still doing that today. For most of the chapters life it met in the Malone Lodge Hotel before moving to it's current location in the Wellington Park Hotel in December 2008. In the early days it met also met in ........ The Most Important 'Meal' of the Day 'Its not net-sit or net-eat its net-work' - Ivan Misner PhD Founder and CEO of BNI The essence of BNI is that although the meeting takes place at breakfast the sole reason for coming is to net-work! Efficiency and timings are maintained because every BNI meeting follows a structured 20 point agenda. If you attend a BNI meeting in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, the United States or anywhere else, you will find all meetings follow exactly the same format, using exactly the same agenda. They are focussed on generating business for the participants and there are no secondary agendas
At the heart of the BNI meeting is the "60 Second Speech" slot. This is each member's opportunity to tell everyone at the meeting all about their business, the kind of leads they are looking for, and anything at all that will help the other members generate business for them. 60 seconds may seem to be the briefest of speeches, but BNI have developed a system to harness the power of this format, and regularly organise free training workshops to allow the members to develop their presentations, introducing techniques such as the memory hook, and effective ways to ensure that the message is remembered. This system has immense practical benefits outside BNI, where in in real-life networking situations, the BNI member is trained to be able to give an instant and concise account of what they do. |
The 60 Second Speech
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