What if the secret to getting more referrals through BNI wasn’t having more meetings, but making the meetings you already have more meaningful?

That’s the message from BNI Adelaide CBD & South member and Growth Director, Marissa Hankinson, who has contributed a chapter to the book 20 Secrets to Maximise Your BNI Membership, curated by Chris Mutimer and Jeremy Dart.

With more than 22 years of BNI experience across Australia and the UK, Marissa knows a thing or two about building relationships that lead to business.

Her contribution, Chapter 4, is titled The 1-to-1 Strategy That Multiplies Referrals, and explores the often-overlooked conversations that can make all the difference to your networking success.

BNI is about business, not busyness

It’s easy to fall into the trap of measuring your networking success by how many meetings you attend or how many people you catch up with.  But as Marissa explains, building strong referral relationships takes time, and the real value comes from the quality of those connections.

In BNI, members are encouraged to hold regular business meetings (formerly referred to as One-to-Ones) to learn more about each other’s businesses, ideal clients and referral opportunities.

Marissa offers a great analogy: think of your fellow BNI members like your favourite playlist. You don’t listen once and move on.

Subsequent business meetings allow you to revisit the conversation, reconnect with intention and keep learning what makes that person tick.  Continuing to build the connection allows you to better understand the person, and better equip you to recognise opportunities for them.

Go beyond the business pitch

Your first business meeting with a fellow member might cover the basics: what someone does, who their ideal clients are and what makes a good referral. Not to mention the GAINS exchange (which is the tool behind BNI’s successful Guinness World Record attempt)!

But as relationships develop and trust grows, there’s an opportunity to have much more meaningful conversations.

• What are they passionate about?
• What experiences have shaped them?
• What do they enjoy outside of work?

These details might seem unrelated to business, but they can make someone far more memorable and it’s a simple shift that can completely change the conversation.

Perhaps you remember a fellow member because of his passion for his lawn, or another for the fact that she is a jiu jitsu medallist.  These personal details create natural conversation starters and help you remember the person behind the business.

As Marissa reminds us, we don’t need scripts. We need stories.  Stories are often much easier to recall and share when an opportunity for an introduction arises.

One meaningful meetings beats four forgettable ones

There’s no shortage of opportunities to connect with fellow members through BNI. But filling your calendar with meetings isn’t necessarily the same as building strong referral relationships.

Marissa’s advice is simple: one meaningful business meeting a week will beat four forgettable ones.

That means approaching each business meeting with intention.  Rather than simply repeating your business pitch, use the opportunity to discover something new about the person sitting opposite you.

Over time, those interactions build the trust, understanding and confidence that make it easier to recommend someone to your own clients, colleagues and contacts.

Keen for more?

You can get your copy of the book here:  https://www.bni20secrets.com/sales-page 

Connect with Marissa from Wavebreaker Productions on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissahankinson/

You can find the 20 Secrets To Maximising Your BNI Membership podcast here: