How much business has your BNI membership generated? A quick look at the referrals you have received might seem to answer that question, but it could leave a considerable amount uncounted.

In this BNI Education Slot, Darren Jamieson of Engage Web explains why members need to look beyond their immediate referrals when assessing the value of their membership. At the time of recording, his BNI app showed lifetime revenue of £736,197. That total reflects his approach to tracking the business generated through his BNI relationships.

https://youtu.be/cT4vDLa3F6o

The most obvious example is a referral that becomes a paying client. A member makes an introduction, the work goes ahead and the resulting business is recorded. However, Darren explains that the value of that introduction does not necessarily end with the first payment.

If the client continues buying, commissions further work or remains on a monthly retainer, that ongoing business still stems from the original relationship. Forgetting to record it can leave members with an incomplete picture of what BNI has generated.

The same applies when someone leaves a chapter. Their membership may have ended, but they might still be a client or continue recommending the business to others. Darren argues that those opportunities remain part of the value created by meeting through BNI.

Another easily overlooked source is a referral that leads to further introductions. A client originally introduced by a BNI member may recommend the business to someone else. Although the new customer has no direct connection to the chapter, the chain of introductions began there.

Darren also highlights the importance of visitors. A visitor does not have to become a member to contribute to the businesses in the room. They may become a customer, introduce someone else or develop a relationship that creates opportunities later.

At Engage Web, Darren has seen visitors become clients and introduce other businesses that subsequently became clients. No formal BNI referral was passed in those instances, but the opportunities still arose from attending the chapter.

For members accustomed to cold calls, emails or LinkedIn outreach, meeting someone face to face provides a valuable opportunity to start a conversation. Asking about their business, finding common ground and arranging a follow-up can be the beginning of a lasting relationship.

The reason for tracking all of this goes beyond chapter statistics. Business owners need to understand where their revenue comes from when deciding how to spend their time and marketing budget.

Darren describes conversations with members who questioned whether BNI was working because their recorded referral numbers were low. Some had overlooked repeat work, former members and business from visitors when assessing the results.

His central message is straightforward. Before judging the value of your membership, trace the business back to its source and make sure you have counted the full relationship, including what happened after the first introduction.

Watch Darren’s full BNI Education Slot here.

Full Transcript

[00:16]
Do you know how much money you’re actually making through BNI? Now, I don’t mean do you know how many referrals you’re getting? And, and do you

[00:24]
know what those referrals are worth? I mean, do you know how much money you are actually generating through BNI? Are you

[00:32]
logging everything that comes through BNI? In a moment, I’m going to show you exactly all the things I’m doing to make

[00:39]
sure that I’m tracking all of the return on investment I get through BNI, because I think a lot of members are missing this trick. But before I do that, don’t

[00:48]
forget, if you do like these videos on BNI Education Slots, please subscribe to the channel. Uh, click the subscribe button somewhere around, and you’ll be

[00:55]
notified when new videos are added. We add new videos every Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m., uh, GMT in the UK. So, you’ll

[01:03]
get notified immediately when a new video is added, showing you how to get more business and get more from your BNI membership. But first of all, thanked

[01:11]
business. Do you log every piece of thank you for every referral? Now, you may think, “Yeah, yeah, I do actually,

[01:18]
Darren. Yeah, of course I do. If I get a referral, somebody gives me a referral,

[01:22]
it turns into business, I log it.” We should all be doing that. Not every member does that, and they should do.

[01:29]
It’s important because it helps the chapter know how much money the members are making through BNI. So, it helps the chapter know how successful they are. It

[01:38]
helps the region know how successful they are. It helps the country know how successful they are. And it helps BNI globally know how much money its members

[01:47]
are making. And it is believed that the money that BNI announces every year that its members are making is actually

[01:54]
really a lot more than that, because a lot of members just aren’t logging it.

[01:59]
Now, for example, if I go into my BNI app, you may not know you can even do this in your BNI app. If you go on the

[02:06]
front page of the app and you click on lifetime, you can see how much revenue you have received through BNI since you have been a member, assuming you are

[02:15]
logging everything. So mine, for example, I’m looking at right now, I’ll show you in a moment, uh, shows that I have received 736,197.

[02:26]
And there it is right there. That’s the revenue I have received through BNI since being a member. Now, I don’t just

[02:34]
log thanks for referrals that I receive, because they’re obvious. Somebody gives you a referral in BNI. You speak to the

[02:43]
person. Yes, they need what you do. You give them a proposal, it turns into business, you do the work, they pay you, you log the thanked business. Everybody

[02:51]
understands that. But what about then those members who leave BNI?

[02:56]
They’re no longer BNI members, uh, but they still use you. They still refer work to you. Do you log the thanked

[03:05]
business for that? Because that is a referral that you received, not through the app, not through BNI, but from

[03:13]
somebody who used to be in BNI. So that is still a BNI referral. That is still money you should be thanking BNI for,

[03:21]
and you should be logging it on your app and logging it against your BNI chapter.

[03:24]
So you’re thanking BNI for that. An ex-member gives you a referral or continues to work with you. Or if a member of BNI is a client of yours and

[03:33]
you do it on a retainer basis like we do at Engage Web, and then they leave, you still log that thanked business, but you

[03:40]
should be thanking BNI. So if a member leaves and they’re referring you and they’re still referring you, the thanked business doesn’t change. You just change

[03:48]
who you log it for. Then what about a member who’s given you a referral? You work with a particular client. That client introduces you to someone else.

[03:59]
So they recommend someone else for you to work with. So that referral didn’t come from a BNI member at all. But the introduction originally came from a BNI

[04:08]
member. That is someone you would never have met. You would never have been introduced to had it not been for the referral you received in BNI in the

[04:15]
first place. That should have thanked business logged for it. You should open your app. You should thank the member that originally gave you the referral to

[04:23]
the person who then introduced you. If that member is no longer a member of BNI, you log that business against BNI.

[04:32]
So, you’ll find you’re actually earning more money than you thought you were earning. Then, of course, there’s what about visitors? And this is something

[04:40]
that many members don’t really fully capitalise on. Having, um, an introduction

[04:49]
to someone who then knows who you are, who you can speak to, you can shake hands with, you can have a coffee with,

[04:57]
um, and then they might want to become a client of yours. So that is a warm introduction, is absolutely priceless if you’re in the type of business where

[05:05]
it’s difficult to get in front of people. So if you’re cold calling people, you know how difficult that is and how, what sort of rejections you get.

[05:13]
If you’re messaging people on LinkedIn, you know the number of messages you need to send before you get a response rate.

[05:19]
It could be 10%, 20%. If you’re doing email marketing, your response rate could be 1%, could be half a percent. If

[05:27]
you’ve got someone stood in front of you and you can talk to them and you can build rapport with them and you can have a coffee with them and you can share a

[05:34]
joke with them, tell them stories, ask them about their business, tell them about yours, even book a follow-up meeting with them. And it’s not pushy in any way.

[05:43]
That is absolutely priceless. And that is what a BNI visitor is. Somebody visits your chapter, they are right there in front of you. Whether they

[05:52]
become a member or not, whether they come back and visit again or not, it doesn’t matter. They are in front of you. You should treat them like a red-hot

[06:00]
prospect, because that is exactly what they are. If they then become a client, which we have had at Engage Web, we’ve had visitors come who’ve then ended up

[06:09]
working with us. We’ve had visitors come who’ve then introduced us to someone else who’s ended up working with us. No BNI referral was passed. Yet that is

[06:18]
still thanked business to BNI. So that you log against the BNI chapter. So you log that against BNI, because it’s business

[06:25]
you would never have got had that person not been invited to BNI and come along as a visitor. These are all referrals

[06:34]
you get through BNI. Even though there’s not an actual referral logged, everything should be thanked as business. And it’s important you do this,

[06:42]
not just for the fact because you can see how much business you’ve earned through BNI. Not so the chapter knows how much

[06:49]
money it’s making. Not even so BNI knows how much money its chapters are making and its countries are making and it makes globally for its members. No, no.

[06:56]
These are all lovely statistics and they’re great to have, but the real reason you should be tracking this is for your own knowledge about where your

[07:06]
marketing spend is going and what is working for you. Because the old adage in marketing is that only half of all marketing spend produces any results.

[07:15]
The trouble is we don’t know what half.

[07:18]
With BNI, you do. You do know what’s working. You just need to track it. And if you track everything that you get

[07:25]
through BNI, whether it be a specific referral, whether it be a member or an ex-member, whether it be a referral from a, a referral who’s referred you, you

[07:33]
know what I mean, or whether it be from a visitor, if you’re tracking every single penny of this, when it comes to you thinking, “Right, am I going to renew

[07:41]
my BNI membership? Am I going to stay for another year? Or am I just going to give this up because I’m not sure if I’m making enough money from it?” If you’re

[07:50]
tracking all of that, you’ll know, “Yeah, actually it is working. Look at how much money I am making.” And I say this very

[07:57]
specifically because I don’t want to mention any names. I don’t want to talk about anybody in particular, but I have had conversations with members in the past who’ve said to me, “You know, I, I

[08:06]
don’t know if BNI is working for me. I need to get more referrals in to make it work. I don’t know if I’m going to renew. I don’t know if I’m getting the

[08:13]
return on investment. I don’t know what business I’m getting from it really.

[08:16]
Don’t think it’s actually working,” because the number of physical referrals they’re getting on the app are not that high. But what they haven’t done is look

[08:26]
at the work they’ve got because of people that are in BNI. They haven’t looked at when ex-members come back and use them, which they never would have

[08:35]
got if they weren’t in BNI. They haven’t looked at visitors who’ve used them.

[08:39]
They haven’t looked at clients who they’ve got through BNI who have then continued to use them again and again and again. Some people don’t even log

[08:46]
repeat business from referrals from BNI, which to me is, is, is crazy. It’s crazy.

[08:53]
If they log all of that, if you log all of that, you’ll know what the return on investment is through BNI. You’ll know how much it’s truly making for you.

[09:00]
You’ll know that it is a valid use of your marketing spend and of your time and that BNI is truly successful within

[09:07]
your business. So, I hope you’ve enjoyed that. Give me a follow. Give me a subscribe. We’ll get more videos out to you like this that will talk to you about how you can improve your BNI

[09:16]
return on investment. Uh, thank you very much.