A friend of mine joined a local networking group in Houston a couple of years ago and was told he had to attend an orientation class before he would be allowed to become a member of the group. This particular friend is a seasoned business owner and accomplished networker. I promise you that he could teach all of us a thing or two about networking. However, he was told in no uncertain terms that it was important that he be introduced into The BNI® Way.
Reluctantly, he agreed to attend and, as often happens in this big old city, he found himself running ten minutes late due to traffic problems. He showed up outside a locked door. After much banging on the door, the moderator finally made his way over to my friend and told him very pointedly that “showing up late was not the BNI® way,” and that he was going to have to return at another time. I cannot print here what his response was.
Fast forward two years, and he’s sipping wine at home while he’s watching the Network In Action tutorials from his phone—doing things The NIA® Way.
He has been a great contributor to his NIA® group for years.
In today’s world where our on-demand, technology-driven culture has made its way into every industry, the lack of technology in the world of networking groups is mind-boggling. It’s ridiculous and unnecessary to require you to take a few hours out of your busy schedule to learn how to be a good, loyal Kool-Aid drinker of whatever networking group you just joined. Most weekly, early-morning meetings run by volunteers rely on little slips of pink paper to keep track of referrals—both for the accounting of referrals from the collective group and for you personally to send and receive referrals. If you don’t happen to have one of those little slips of paper in your back pocket when you come across a referral for someone in your group, oh well! It’s frustrating watching all of these reports being given based on those bits of paper. Can that possibly be accurate? What if you did happen to capture a referral, but the paper ended up in the wash? Or crumpled up at the bottom of your purse? Or left on a countertop somewhere? It’s just not practical.