If you have been paying attention, you’ll know that I’ve been busily trotting around Norfolk for the last couple of months taking every networking opportunity that has come along. Through this, I’ve met several people in BNI chapters and have attended a couple as a visitor. BNI is a large highly structured networking organisation, with chapters in every town and city all over the UK and worldwide. Each chapter has no more than one member from any one profession or trade. They meet weekly usually for breakfast and the meeting appears to have two main functions: to ensure all members know exactly what each other is offering and the type of work they are looking for, and to give each other referrals that they have gathered in the previous week.
This is a great way of generating business, particularly if you are working in a relatively straightforward and well understood line of work such as a solicitor, plumber of florist. It’s a bit tricker for yours2share because we’re pretty unusual, well unique; and it is unlikely that I could generate a reasonable number of referrals, but I’m still considering joining. I’ll probably attend as a visitor again
I was invited to the castle chapter in Norwich by Kate Mamo who runs invisage event management and to the Colman chapter by Paul Bullinger of First Finance who provide businesses with ways of financing the purchase of assets, and am grateful to both for their kindness and help. At the Colman chapter I also met Daniel Arpels of pondlife web design and his enthusiastic response to yours2share kept me going through an otherwise gruelling day yesterday.