Small Business Reading Room

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Can a Business Referral Network Bring Additional Customers to Your Business?

The Wilmington News Journal reports today in their business section that five new Delaware chapters are being added to a business referral network which has local branches but a national and international scope of service.

The idea behind the BNI referral network is that business owners join a local group, and meet weekly over breakfast or lunch, and talk about referral opportunities for each other. At each meeting, one of the members talks specifically about their business, and what they may have to offer to clients and acquaintences of the other members.

The main page of the site (see the "international" link above) claims that this is the largest business referral system in the world. One interesting aspect of it is that each local "network" can only have a single representative from a particular business type. So, there can only be one lawyer, one accountant, one handyman, one pest control service provider, and so on.

There is a fee to join a network, but it sounds like it may be possible to earn that fee back fairly quickly with referrals from others. According to their web site, there are over 4,200 chapters world wide with approximately 84,000 members. Each individual chapter contains from 15 - 50 members.

Is something like this worth doing for your business? It may be.

posted by William Slawski at 12:44 PM - permalink 0 comments

Small Business Reading Room

Can a Business Referral Network Bring Additional Customers to Your Business?

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