The BNI Edgbaston Meeting
The really big breakfast
Every BNI meeting follows a structured formal 18
point agenda. They are not a social get together,
or "breakfast club".
If you attend a BNI meeting in the UK, Ireland,
Canada, Australia, the United States or anywhere
else, you will find all meetings follow exactly
the same format, using exactly the same agenda.
They are focussed on generating business for the
participants and there are no secondary agendas.
The 60 second speech
At the heart of the BNI meeting is the "60
Second Speech" slot. This is each member's
opportunity to tell everyone at the meeting all
about their business, the kind of leads they are
looking for, and anything at all that will help
the other members generate business for them.
60 seconds may seem to be the briefest of speeches,
but BNI have developed a system to harness the power
of this format, and regularly organise free training
workshops to allow the members to develop their
presentations, introducing techniques such as the
memory hook, and effective ways to ensure that the
message is remembered.
This system has immense practical benefits outside
BNI, where in in real-life networking situations,
the BNI member is trained to be able to give an
instant and concise account of what they do.
Chapter Meetings
BNI members meet each week for the sole purpose
of generating business for each other. The referrals
passed are written out on Referral Slips, and formally
passed to each other at the relevant point on the
agenda.
 All referrals are logged in and tracked by the
Chapter's Administrative Co-ordinator, so that accurate
numbers can be kept in each Chapter. Referrals passed
at BNI meetings are not cold call information. Members
are required to follow specific steps in generating
their referrals, so that when the referral is passed,
the person on the Referral Slip is awaiting the
call of the BNI member with anticipation.
Most BNI chapters report that over 75% of the
referrals passed each week turn into business!
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