Inviting visitors to BNI does not have to involve complicated prospecting strategies or hours spent searching for people online. In his BNI Education Slot, Sauren Ghosh explains that some of the best potential visitors are likely to be people members already know.

Sauren begins with a simple question: how many people do you know who would like more business? For most BNI members, the answer is likely to be quite a lot. The more challenging question is how many of those people have actually been invited into the room to experience BNI for themselves.

https://youtu.be/NFffHBXt-Xg

His message is that potential visitors are everywhere, and members do not necessarily need to work particularly hard to find them. Instead, they need to become better at recognising the opportunities already around them.

One of the first places Sauren recommends looking is the contacts list on your phone. Most people have hundreds of contacts accumulated over years, including self-employed people, small business owners and people actively trying to grow their companies. Many of these contacts could potentially benefit from meeting a room full of local business owners who regularly refer opportunities to one another.

LinkedIn provides another obvious source of potential visitors. Sauren encourages members to consider not only their immediate connections but also the people connected to those contacts. A first-degree connection may know exactly the type of business owner the chapter is currently looking to meet.

Sauren also suggests asking business owners simple questions such as, “How’s business going?”, “Is business a bit quiet?” or “Are you looking to grow your business?” These questions can naturally lead into an invitation.

Importantly, he advises members not to overcomplicate that invitation by trying to explain every aspect of BNI before the person has even visited. Instead, the message can be much simpler: you work with a group of local businesses who meet regularly, refer business to each other and may be useful people for that person to meet.

The overall message is that inviting visitors is a responsibility shared across the chapter, and finding those visitors can become much easier when members develop the habit of spotting opportunities in the people and conversations already around them.

Sauren leaves members with five simple areas to remember: their phone, LinkedIn, customers and businesses they buy from, suppliers, and everyday conversations.

Sometimes inviting the next great BNI visitor really can be as simple as saying: “I think there are some people in the room that you’ll benefit from meeting. Why don’t you come along and meet them?”

FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:12
Good morning, all.

Morning.

00:14
So, I’m going to talk about visitors this week. Guess what we’re going to talk about next week?

Visitors.

00:20
Visitors as well. But this week, we’re going to get the non-digital version.

00:24
Darren’s going to take us through the digital version. I’m going to do the analogue version, if that’s okay.

So, here’s a question for you. How many people do you know who would like more business?

00:36
Yeah, a lot. That is the right answer.

00:39
Brilliant. But how many of those people have you actually invited to this room, to BNI?

That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. No need to answer!

00:46
The key thing that I want to cover today is: where are you going to find those visitors? And what do we actually say to invite them into the room?

And we don’t have to work too hard at this.

01:00
Do you know why? Because they’re all around us. They’re all just waiting for our invitation.

01:06
So have a think about where you can find them.

Now, when I’m helping my Utility Warehouse team members to get started and they say, “I don’t know anyone,” I say, “Let’s have a look at your phone.”

01:13
So, I want you to — not now, but you can look at it now if you want — have a look at your phone and think about the people that are already in your contacts.

Who do you know who is self-employed?

01:30
Who do you know who is running a small business?

Who do you know who is trying to grow their business, looking for more customers?

01:38
Dare I say, anybody in business is looking to scale and grow, and you’ve probably got potential visitors sitting in your phone at this moment.

01:50
The next thing we’re going to talk about very briefly is LinkedIn, because we’re going to have a LinkedIn masterclass next week for visitors.

But what I want to share with you is, before then, have a look at your first- and second-degree connections, because you don’t know who your contacts know, and they just might want to come along and see how we do things, how we grow our businesses.

02:08
Thirdly, where do you spend your money?

02:18
Because if you’re somebody else’s customer, they could come here and grow their customer base as well.

Who do you already use and recommend?

02:27
Who valets your car? We’ve got a car valeter here today.

02:31
Who does your commercial energy, if you’ve got a business? Those people can come here today.

So, have a think about flooring companies. Who’s done your floors recently? Recruitment companies.

02:42
Who do you know that recruits? We’ve got some business parks in the local area. Those staff don’t come out of nowhere.

02:48
Recruitment companies quite often help them.

02:51
Fourthly, who are your suppliers? Who do you know in other business networks?

02:58
You’re starting to get the idea.

What we’re doing, really, is building a contact list of people that you can invite to see how we pass business to each other.

03:06
Your local garage. A solicitor that doesn’t do conveyancing — there you go, Colin, throw that in there for you.

03:12
Cybersecurity is a big one at the moment. I’m seeing lots of cybersecurity people. More tradespeople that can work with Steve and Dave.

They’re all potential visitors.

03:21
And more importantly, because I always think — not that we’re lazy by nature, but we can become lazy — make the most of the conversations that we’re already having with people.

03:29
The words “Who do you know?” are great.

So, if we’re looking for a flooring company, which we are, or a recruitment company: who do you know?

03:40
Who do you know?

I think that’s such a powerful question.

Who goes to the gym?

03:46
Oh, some more hands have gone up than I thought! That’s great.

We are quite a healthy chapter, by the way, if you’re watching this online.

Why not ask them, “How’s business going? Is business a bit quiet? Are you looking to grow your business?”

These are great questions to ask, because what we can then say is not explain BNI and how we refer people and we have a 90-minute meeting and all things like that.

04:03
Just say, “I work with a group of local businesses. We meet at the Grosvenor Pulford, 7 a.m. Why not come along and meet them? We refer business to each other. See if you can grow your business through what we do.”

04:21
But great questions will always have great answers.

You might have your own different question that you want to ask. It doesn’t really matter. What works for you to get people in the room to see how great we are?

04:33
So, what number are we now?

We need more, don’t we? We need more people in the room.

It’s all our responsibility to invite visitors.

We’ve got a stack day on the — what date is it?

04:46
24th.

And we’re looking for — I’m going to forget, aren’t I? — builders, flooring companies, architects.

Have I missed one?

04:56
No? I think they’re the key ones we’re looking for.

So, I’m going to leave you with this:

Think phone. Think LinkedIn. Think customers. Think suppliers. Think everyday conversations.

And simply say:

05:03
“I think there are some people in the room that you’ll benefit from meeting. Why don’t you come along and meet them?”

Thank you.