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Dear readers,

Have you ever joined a business networking group like BNI?

BNI stands for Business Networking International.  The purpose of the group is to give and receive business referrals.

There are local BNI chapters all over the world.  In each chapter there can only be one person representing each profession.  This helps protect you from competition within your chapter.

In my experience a business networking group like BNI or LeTip can be great for your MLM business.

How does BNI apply to MLM?  Especially since you’re supposed to talk about your products and not your opportunity:

There were two interesting articles today from BNI’s Success Net newsletter.

1. BNI and MLM Companies, the real scoop

In this article the founder of BNI Dr. Ivan Misner and my friend and top income earner in my company Jordan Adler talk about how you can successfully build an MLM business by participating in BNI.

2. Gender-proofing your 1-to-1 meetings

This is a great post on how to handle yourself during 1 on 1 meetings.  Whether or not you are participating in a BNI chapter and meeting with other members or whether or not you’re doing 1 on 1 meetings with prospects for you MLM business this is important to remember.

Are you in a business networking group like BNI or LeTip?  Maybe eWomen Network or HeartLink Network.

Perhaps I should put together a list of business networking groups? Do you have any you recommend?

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > bni

In my series on my business plan for 2009 I talked about how one of my goals was to develop new friendships.

You might be wondering, why?

First of all I think we sometimes don’t want new friends because we maybe got hurt by old friends.  So we keep our friendships to a minimum.  At least I know I sometimes get like that.

Remember network marketing can also be called relationship marketing.  So think about those “relationships”.

That means you need to work on developing new friends.  You don’t want to simply target these new friends for your business though.  You want to actually BE a friend.  You want to GIVE to them.

One thing I did to meet new people was to get out locally and meet new business people.  I joined a BNI group.  BNI is a group that is designed to help other business people with referrals. One of the main tennets of BNI is that “giver’s gain”.  In BNI you give referrals to others.  You participate in the group.  Maybe you bring coffee/breakfast to your group meeting.  Maybe you go meet some of your other group members one on one to learn about their business.  You learn to look for ways to help other people.

As soon as I started to do this in my BNI group I began to get referrals back.  You see the people had learned to trust me and we had developed relationships.  I was giving out referrals. I was assisting the group by sending out welcome cards to visitors and new members.  I was sending invitations to the open house.  I was becoming an active member of the group.  When the other members saw this they began to trust me with their referrals, but it took awhile to build that trust.

So that’s what I mean by making new friends.  I mean looking at these relationships as friendships not simply business connections.  You would go out of your way to assist a friend. You would probably not go out of your way to assist a business connection you just met at a chamber luncheon.    By building relationships you grow stronger bonds.  If that business connection had gone out of his way to help you, if he had show genuine interest in you, your family, your business… then you’re much more likely to go to extremes to help that person.

Do you agree or disagree?

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > bni

Last week I wrote about BNI and wondered if BNI was a good place to meet mavens and connectors. (click here for original post.)

I was reading Dr. Ivan Misner’s book The 29% Solution: 52 Weekly Networking Success Strategies…

And right in the introduction he quotes some of the same research used in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

Ever hear of the 6 degress of seperation?

The reality is there is no such thing.  This was research done in the 70′s and 80′s where people who had no direct connection were asked to get in touch with a specific person in New York City.  This is where the 6 degrees of seperation comes from, because in the test results the average person took 6 connections to connect with the specific person in New York City.

The reality of the test was that in the best test only 29% of people were able to connect with the specific person.  That means 71% of them failed.

Back to my original point.  Dr Ivan Misner in his book is talking about ways you can improve your networking skills.  He talks about ways that you can become one of the 29% who has enough connections and clout that you can “connect” with anyone.  This is a key to becoming a successful network marketer and these are the kind of people I personally am looking for in my business.  I guess that’s one reason why so many successful network marketers I know are members of BNI.  BNI is a social networking group for business professionals.

BNI is founded by Dr. Ivan Misner the man whose book tells us how to become “mavens” and “connectors” like Malcolm Gladwell speaks about.

Having said all that… and knowing that BNI is a great place to network… I’m going to my first BNI meeting tomorrow!

I’ll keep you posted of my results.

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > bni

Have you read The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell?

In the Tipping Point, Mr Gladwell talks about mavens, connectors, and sales people.

The connector is the person who knows everyone.  He or she is the person who has a thick address book.  They can remember names and faces of all the people they’ve met.  If you needed to ask for a referral you’d ask them because they always know someone.  I have a friend named Al who has 3 businesses.  He grew up in the area and he always seems to “know a guy”.  If I need someone to do some work on my house, he knows a guy.  If I need to get my car repaired, he knows a guy.  Al’s a connector.

Maven’s are people who are willing to freely give advice.  They’ll meet a stranger and share a tip with them.  They’re the person you meet when you are on vacation and they recommend a great little local restaurant to you.  They aren’t looking for anything in return they just genuinely enjoy giving free advice and recommendations to others.

I haven’t been to BNI. (The largest business networking organization)  I build mostly on the internet and find that I don’t have a lot of local leads to share with other members of BNI.  Yet I’m beginning to build locally and I wonder if I am missing out by not participating in BNI.  These are people who have agreed to help share leads with other members of their BNI group.  These are mavens and connectors.

I think I’ve been missing out by not being a part of BNI!

Do you have experience with BNI or LeTip or another business networking group?

I’d love to hear from you!

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > bni