BNI

I've been a member of Magic City BNI in Birmingham, AL for close to 4 years now. It is without a doubt one of the greatest advertising and marketing tools for my business. If you aren't familiar with BNI, its an international networking group (stands for: Business Network International) and there are chapters all over the world that meet on a weekly basis. There is only one person per industry allowed in each group, and the motto is "Givers Gain". The idea is that if you have a Chapter with 30 members, each week when you meet you tell them what you are looking for in terms of a referral and you have 29 sales reps that go out and help you drum up business. The more specific the better. One time I asked for a specific name at a large company I was trying to get a meeting with, and someone in our group was good friends with them. Now if I had just asked to the marketing director at that company, I probably wouldn't have gotten the referral since the company name and title wouldn't have clicked in their head, but when I mentioned the name, it clicked immediately. Here's a fun clip of a guy that made a song out of his 60-second, and it's pretty catchy. If you aren't currently a member of a BNI Chapter in your area, I would encourage you to find a few and go visit. What do you have to lose??