How BNI Helped Me During These Challenging Times

I'm a member of Business International Network (BNI) for 11 years. Starting July 2020, I am steeping into my 12th year. In the last 10 years of my BNI experience, I have only done one business meeting with another fellow BNI member online. It was done over Skype. I’m sure some other BNI members would have done online meetings too. We didn’t hear about them because there never was a reason not to meet in person over a cup of coffee to talk business. The current situation changed the way BNI members do business in Malaysia literally overnight.

Since March 2020, besides getting comfortable with attending weekly BNI online meetings I managed to do more and learn more than I ever did before. I learned how to use the various online tools for meetings - Zoom, Google Hangout, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams to conduct business meetings and I hosted an online meeting for a chapter member with my referral.

I learned how to conduct interviews online, make videos, edit them and post them online. I did two interviews with two members in my chapter who are mothers, for Mother’s Day. My 'powerteam' members and I did a live Facebook event to promote our services. These skills are useful to me now as I can make marketing videos for my business.

I am grateful that I am in BNI. The average referrals I received from mid March to June 2020 is more than the average I received before this period. I attribute this to the increased business meetings, trainings and workshops that helped me stay focused in building better relationships with my referral sources. Without being in BNI, I believe I will not be able to say, “I’m doing great!” when people asks me 'how’s your business?’

Finally, what made me most proud was the RM 100k thank you note I received in April 2020. It feels really good to know that I did manage to help another person’s business grew a bit more in the most challenging of times.