Business Networking : Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:40 pm  

Has anyone ever heard/ got experience of this company http://www.bni.eu/uk/ ? I've been asked to go along to join, £640 for a year membership has it worked for yourself or anyone you know?

Has anyone ever heard/ got experience of this company http://www.bni.eu/uk/ ? I've been asked to go along to join, £640 for a year membership has it worked for yourself or anyone you know?

Re: Business Networking : Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:24 pm  

How good are you at small talk and bullshit ?

A long while I ago when I had my own business selling to other businesses I was persuaded to attend a business breakfast club in Leeds, a fiver for the meeting to include a decent breakfast and then a chance to introduce yourself to the meeting and explain what you did in 60 seconds, and finally "mingle".

I found I was almost the only person in the room of around 100 people who wasn't an accountant or a lawyer, christ knows who they all thought they were selling to, complete pain in the backside to someone like me who hates small talk and organised socialising.

Most of my business came from recomendations from other businesses that I'd worked for, not from shaking hands with 100 accountants and pretending to be everyones new best friend.

But it might work for you

Re: Business Networking : Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:36 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

How good are you at small talk and bullshit ?

Increasingly at these awful 'networking' events you see people concentrating intently on their smartphones/ipads in order to escape the banal rubbish being spouted around the room. I'm pretty sure 90% are thinking "I have better things to do and this coffee is crap".

Networking is only worthwhile if you know precisely who you want to speak to and having something of substance to discuss, or even better if you know half the delegates in the first place.

£640? A lot of money, but then as my boss never fails to remind us if it leads to just one contract it's paid for itself. That said, there are any number of these businesses trying to flog access to their database of businesses and contacts, it's just a case of ensuring they can deliver something worthwhile.

Re: Business Networking : Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:58 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

I found I was almost the only person in the room of around 100 people who wasn't an accountant or a lawyer, christ knows who they all thought they were selling to, complete pain in the backside to someone like me who hates small talk and organised socialising.

That's my experience too (although sometimes surveyors and bankers too). Reminds me of one event I went to about 20 years ago. By the end of the night (a Christmas do) the people left were worse for wear and all accountants, solicitors, etc except one Japanese chap who was a director of an engineering company and had only recently been seconded to their UK business. He was drunk and inevitably more drunk to the professional, introverted vultures who by now getting competitive about chatting him up. It was farcical - he was sat on a table with a semi-circle of these drunken artists all trying to impress him. What made it hilarious was the futility of it all - his English was poor, his accent thick and given he was ratted he was incomprensible! Eventually he fell off the table! Didn't stop the vultures though. Pathetic doesn't begin to describe the scene.

Re: Business Networking : Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:35 pm  

Wouldn't you be better off wearing an apron or joining The Rotary?

Re: Business Networking : Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:07 pm  

Thanks for the replys

Think I may borrow the wife's apron