BNI

So I joined BNI today. (http://www.bni.com)

I had built this into my marketing plan for the year, I downgraded my telephone book advertising just a little bit so that I could invest a little into this.

The concept of BNI is that you get a bunch of normal business people in a room each week and you basically talk to each other about your business. Over time, you get to know each other and your busineses so that you naturally start building relationships through word-of-mouth for each other.

It's like if someone asks you, "I need a graphic designer do you know anyone?" You'd naturally say, "OH! As a matter of fact I know a great designer in Lowe Studio let me have him call you!"
So they have these chapters across the country that is at least 15 members to each one. The nice thing is that each chapter will only allow one member from each industry. So you're never competing with another person for the same type of work. If you're a vacuum cleaner salesperson, there can't be another vacuum salesperson in the same chapter.

So that's kind of nice. Today I already picked up maybe 4 or 5 people that I might end up working with...either they need my design work or I might need their help. I met 2 photographers today in a couple of the new chapters.

The chapter I joined is trying to make 15 people so we can split off and form our little node. There's a photographer in our group, somebody from the dietary supplement business, a mortgage specialist, a guy from Sprint, etc so far. I know there's very little graphic designers in BNI so there's a lot of potential business for me. There's a LOT of realtors, insurance agents, & brokers in BNI so they're kind of hard up to find available chapters to join.

I keep my fingers crossed this will work out for me.