Networking group brings in £1m in business in a year

Established over 30 years, BNI has around 240,000 members in more than 70 countries worldwide.

It works by organising weekly networking meetings for groups of businesses. Groups, known as chapters, use their combined network of contacts to find business opportunities and referrals for one another, to a specific brief that members outline at every meeting.

BNI Castle, which has 29 members and meets at The County Hotel, Carnforth, every Thursday, passed £1,015,551 of business between its members in 2018 alone, making it the first chapter in the Lancaster & Morecambe area to top the £1m mark.

With 11 active BNI chapters in Lancashire, the total business passed in BNI chapters across the county in 2018 was £8,762,321.

BNI Castle Chapter President Simon Drake of vehicle leasing company KeyFleet said: “We’re really proud to have generated more than £1m of business from our weekly meetings here in Carnforth. One of the reasons BNI stands out from other types of networking groups is that we have proven procedures that ensure the early mornings are worth it, and that we really do generate a significant amount of business for each other.

“One of those procedures is Thank You for the Business which is a feature on the BNI app used to track the amount of business generated by each chapter’s members.

“We currently have 29 members in our chapter, but we are aiming to grow even further. The more good businesses we have in the group, the greater amount of business we can generate for each other, so visitors are always welcome to come along and see if it’s for them.”