Breakfast Networking Events - useful or waste of time?

That's interesting, a targeted community. Is that a paid group/service?

Both targeted and paid. The community aspect is really good, lots of like minded people trying to achieve the similar things

S

Hi All,

I was a member of BNI for about 7 months. To be honest the chapter I was in felt like an old boys network - the men stuck together in their groups - although a lot of business was done - about

They can be useful if you find the right 1, its funny how even the bad ones, once they've finished still try to get you to sign up to be in their "circle"

Its good going and giving out business cards etc

I went to my first breakfast last week. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it and I have since been in touch with several people.
I was less impressed by the hard sell I got as I was leaving. I had to sign up to the meeting the following day (another 10 quid) in the near by town or I would loose out on the 'one off' deal on the registration fee. An opportunity I could not miss I was told.

I've been to several breakfast networking events to see what it's all about. Up at the crack of dawn for a breakfast I couldn't face at that hour, nice though it looked. After the third visit I saw he same faces, the same intros, the same Boy Scouts almosphere, the same expectation to have brought referrals to the table, the same ceremony and hard sell for the sign up.
My instinct was to get the hell out of there and not get roped into the club mentality. It was a self limiting membership and made no allowance for anyone you couldn't stand or had no confidence in. PLUS it was

I don't think that breakfast meets are for everyone but the main advantage for me is that it doesn't interefere with the rest of the working day where I need to be working flat out.

I agree that many networking groups have become businesses in their own rights and don't always have the attendees interests at heart but a good networking group can be very beneficial.

Because what I sell is such a high ticket item, building relationships is a large part of my job as clients need to know that I can be trusted and that I am good at what I do. While networking isn't a hard sell environment, it is perfect for getting to know the people behind the businesses.

From my experience (member of Chamber, Junior Chamber, been as a guest to most business breakfast/lunch/evenings in a wide area) it all comes down to:

- You have to attend regularly to build up a presence. If you can't find the time/money for 12 months' worth, there's little point.

- You need to go along with an open mind and a notebook in the car (comments to wedge names/business details in memory).

- You're more likely to be remembered for the WIIFM factor. Hand them a business card and ask how you can help them seems to work well as an ice-breaker.

- You have to be prepared to build the business relationship away from the meetings as well as at them.

- Having run these as a JC director, it's a lot of hard work but if you get the right speaker in, you'd be amazed at the enthusiasm for the following meeting!

- If it's all about the hard sell, the organisation isn't doing it right and/or the attendees aren't.

I've been truly put off by the cliqueyness (yes I know that isn't a word, but it should be!) of all-female meetings and the "well we've got a ladies night dear" attitude of some other business groups.

My preference is a mixed open meeting, pay on the door, in the evenings. If somebody arranged one for the Warwickshire area, I might even break a long-held vow and offer to help out...

We went along to a 4Networking breakfast meeting for the first time not long ago. we all thought it went very well, it was a nice atmosphere, no pressure selling of their product(the premium membership) which is always nice.
overall had a good time, it's not really whether we get any business out of it, it's just the fact that you get your name out there a little and get to know some more people
Worth doing! it's just hard to commit the time to doing it, we had to cancel 2 because of meetings that appeared out of nowhere.
ohwell

I went to a BNI meeting in Newport a couple of weeks ago, this may be ok if you are a one man band, I can't see it working for a larger company.

In principle it sounds good but in reality it's expensive, time consuming and bloody early in the morning, once every week, if you miss three you're kicked out unless you have a good reason, like a doctors note, mmm sounds similar to something I did when I was very young.

As my company has many products and services, I asked how this would work, not much of an answer, pick one one and you can't take work from anyone for any other category if there is another person registered for that. Great! Can you imagine the frustration of seeing business pass before your eyes to someone else (possibly) without being able to utter a murmur.

Also, you have to bring someone new along fairly frequently and give referrals.

No, not for!!