BNI Greater San Diego Chapter

What a great group we are!  We like each other so much that we want to get together on Thursdays AND even on Summer Saturdays.  On Saturday, June 26th the group is getting together at a Sunset Cliffs beach house for a little business, a little putter golf and a little beer.

“The most important thing is that we make the time to really get to know each other,” said chapter Vice President, Michelle Balke.  “Every time we invest a little more into each other, learning each other’s interests and skills, we have another connecting point upon which we can make a meaningful and profitable referral.  Isn’t that what we’re all here for?”

Every member at some point asks for a referral to a property manager.  We now have our own Property Manager!  We welcome Jim Staron of Peerless Management as our new member.  Jim represents residential property owners and helps them place renters in annual or monthly leases.  Let’s do some good business together, Jim!

The chapter’s new Leadership Team for the April 1 – Sept. 30 session were announced today:

• President-Elect: Sharon Mabrey, Domestic Assistant
• Vice-President-Elect: Michelle Balke, Marriage & Family Therapist
• Secretary/Treasurer-Elect: Michael Stowers, Mortgage Broker

As a chapter, we welcome them and look forward to building business with their ideas.  Congratulations.

We have a tracking system that allows us to understand how much money moves through this business referral group.  This last week we had three members all generate referrals resulting in more than $500 in business (just last week!).  Thank you for closed business to:

• Gene Polley, E.J. Polley & Associates Tax & Accounting
• Jeff Delaney, Aflac Supplemental Insurance Representative
• Barbara Tackett, Keller Williams Realty

When we pass more than 50 referrals in a week and average about $20,000 in business completed per month, this is just a small indicator of our members’ committment to growing their businesses.

Visit us any Thursday to see it in action!

Givers gain: support Visitors Day for chapter growth

Our chapter is preparing with great energy for a vigorous Visitors Day on May 19th.  This week members are encouraged to bring their 20 letters to addressed to professionals we would like to see in our group.  We are actively looking for florists, attorneys, specialty tradesmen, and other business owners who want more business referrals.

The Greater San Diego chapter is ready in every way for more members to share business with.  If you receive a letter from one of our chapter members, we encourage you to take the opportunity to lock out your competition from a vibrant networking group seriously.

Members, please bring your letters, and 20 additional names for next week’s letters, to our Thursday meeting so we can keep on schedule.

The Visitors Day system is a well-oiled machine that works best when everyone participates.  The benefits of that effort are obvious with new members who will share business with us.

Cielo Marketing, the Marketing Consultant for the Greater San Diego Chapter, has recently been approved with the State of California, Department of General Services as a Small Business.  Cielo is available to work with larger firms as a sub-contractor to help fulfill the state’s 25% bid requirement.

Other BNI members can file their request to be considered as a state certified small business here: Small Business & DVBE Services Home (New).

We’re trading four times the business each month than an average BNI group. The VP reported today that we gave (and received) 240 referrals in the last four weeks, when a typical group will give out 60 per month.  Is it good members?  Good training?  It’s certainly good business.

Really, it’s all of the above. We take the time to get to know one another through dance cards, we work hard on our 60-second presentations to train our sales force, and we ask our own colleagues and clients how we can help them solve their problems.  Funny how the solutions are often right there in our BNI group.

Join us for breakfast next Thursday.  It’s not about the food.

BNI San Diego trains the world’s best networkers! That’s the tag line from Director Doug Means. Is it true? I believe it is, but you will have to go and see for yourself. Yesterday (Saturday 9/6/8) I was able to attend two of the four advanced training modules. Each module had exciting information that was new to me, and each reminded me of things BNI that perhaps I was getting sloppy with.

We were shown a new format for our 60-second commercial and reminded that the purpose is to “start a fire” or “wake up” our sales team. The one on one, or dance card module shows a very structured way of doing a dance card. It’s the same information we received in MSP2.0, but greatly expanded. The purpose of the first dance card might be just to get to know you, but the second one should be to help each other up the referral tree. For me the training was great, I’ll be repeating the modules. Hope to see you there!

Jerry

One of our members, Karen DeHart of ServiceMaster Absolute Water and Fire Damage in Lemon Grove just updated her website.  Take a look!  www.smsandiego.com