SoKy Local Business or "SoKybiz": BNI Bowling Green KY Rainmakers SoKybiz Small business in Southern Kentucky Ky.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

BNI Bowling Green KY Rainmakers

Many of you already know how I feel about BNI and that I have been less that enthusiastic about the organization in the past. I have always felt it was too regimented for me and feel there are other ways to network with small business people. I hold true to that opinion however I must admit that I had a nice (albeit long) experience yesterday morning.

I was asked to attend this meeting by client and friend, Tanya Griffeth of Master Clean. (www.mastercleanfloors.com) Actually, she asked me to attend a number of weeks ago. I've been able to put it off for a wide variety of reasons ranging from unpreparedness to spacing it out. She called me the night before and "shamed" me into being there this morning using all kinds of tactical offensives on my integrity, loyalty and manhood. (grin)

It was as expected at first, a small group of young enthusiastic frontline sales people and entrepreneurs doing their duty to make more money. Big smiles, firm hand shakes and the compulsatory, "so what do you do?" small talk. They were friendly and very welcoming, perhaps more so than other meetings with other groups that I have attended before. (No food though... what's up with that?) LOL

If you don't know how it works, I'll list some contacts below so you can find out for yourself, but briefly it goes something like this. The president opens the meetings and a few key officers make their comments and reports. The opening by the education person (Rick Bruce) was very motivational and well done. Each person is then allowed their 60 second pitch, (every single week). I do have to admit that by practicing this 60 second pitch over and over again, it should make it easy to stand in front of a customer or group and answer the "so what do you do?" question. Then the visitor (that's me) is allowed to speak.

When I stood up the time keeper (yes, there's a person with a stop watch keeping time) said that I had 5 minutes. I didn't know he was joking and was trying to figure out how to fill 5 minutes on the fly. I introduced myself and was just getting in the zone when the beeper went off and my time was up. ?HUH? Looking at the time keeper he says to me, "Oh I was just kidding, you only get 1 minute." It was all in fun I but it did kind of make me feel awkward. No big deal, I observed them go through the rest of their meeting.

Every week at a typical BNI meeting, two people get 10 minutes to teach about their company, products and services. This week it was Tracy Oliver of NCSS Security Services and Curt Gammons, of State Farm Insurance.

Tracy did a great job of communicating the specialties, products, services and uniqueness of her company in a lively and quite innovative way. She had brought a door prize of Halloween candy and used the candy as a prop. Asking people to pick from a verity of candies, she used the brand name of each candy to make a point about what made her business special. Well done Tracy!!!

Curt Gammons took the floor and even had handouts, examples and brochures. He knows his stuff that's for sure. He was able to highlight some things about insurance that I had not considered for my home, auto and business insurance. Using sample quotes, he convinced me why I need and good and trustworthy insurance agent and inspired me to submit a quote request.

These feature presentations are more useful than I originally thought. Think about it, I was a visitor and left with a better knowledge of the networking partner's product and service plus I was convinced that they knew what they were doing and could refer them confidently. The people in their "network" also become more knowledgeable about their partner's product making it easier to share the strengths of their partner and prequalifying the referral. Their mission to network with other professionals and create an environment that motivated referrals is working in my opinion.

They also have a period where they share referrals, testimonials and other ways BNI has been working for them. The Rainmaker group was a lively bunch to say the least. Lots of laughs, lots of fun and yes, lots of business.

I was asked to share what I liked best about the meeting. I tried to be brief (just in case that timer went off again (grin)), but Gammons kept pressing. I said that I liked the testimonial best when Dr. Owsley shared that he has had more results from the Rainmakers than any other professional organization including the Chamber and the Young Professionals Association. I told the group that I thought this spoke volumes to the strength and quality of the group. I expanded my review to include the fact that I have never been a real "fan" of BNI, having attended a number of other groups, but this group had quality people, a good energy and seemed to get the job done.

I remain skeptical of BNI in general and have no intent to join for a few reasons. Mostly because I refuse to commit to meeting once a week and generate reports... I'm in business for myself because I hate reports. Also because I use many of their techniques on my own and frankly, I have enough business right now. That said, I do think this is something a small business should review for themselves because I've heard many positive testimonies of how BNI has help increase sales.

If you would like to find out more, there is plenty of information out there. But in the spirit of networking, maybe you should contact Tanya since she is my direct contact to the group. Her contact information, as well as everyone else's is below.

They offer a welcome kit with the business cards of everyone in the group. A glaring omission is the Banker's business card, and I can't remember his first name, "Thomason" is his last name and he is from US Bank across from Buckhead. The pest control company was also not in the packet... sorry man. I loved your hook... "We kill more bugs than penicillin." I scanned the cards, click on the small version to see the info more clearly. I am not publishing their email addresses for spam control.