Established in 1985 by Dr Ivan Misner, Business Network International (BNI) is the most successful referral organisation in the world.

BNI consists of groups of local business people, called Chapters, who meet weekly over breakfast with the sole purpose of helping each other find more business.  Each Chapter allows only one representative from each trade or profession, which means that members are able to lock out their competition from their group.

The philosophy of BNI is based on “Givers Gain” where members are very much focussed on how to help fellow members find more business rather than trying to sell their own services to one another.  It’s like have dozens of sales people working for you where Chapter members recommend your services to their own networks.

BNI is now represented in 43 countries around the world.  There are well over 5,000 chapters with around 120,000 individual members. In 2008, members of BNI passed over  5.6 million referrals which generated over €1.7Bn worth of business – serious numbers, indeed, which very much speak for themselves.

When I first started networking I really didn’t seem to be able to generate the results that I was looking for and had come to the conclusion that I was doing something wrong.

The problem is, I didn’t know what it was and, when I started asking other people about it, neither did they.  In fact, many people I spoke to were doing even worse than I was with their networking!

It was only when I first visited BNI that the ‘penny dropped’ or, at least, started to.  BNI set me on the road to understanding exactly what networking was all about.  The secret revolved around the philosophy, the structure and the emphasis on building relationships with your fellow members.

I would definitely suggest that you visit your local BNI Chapter.  There’s almost certainly a Chapter near you and if you’d like to find out exactly where it is check out www.bni.com in the US or www.bni-europe.com in Europe.  I guarantee that you’ll have a great morning.