BNI member wins store of the year

March 13, 2012

We would like to congratulate BNI member Bintesh Amin, from the Canterbury chapter in Kent, for winning store of the year:

LOCAL LONDIS SHOP WINS STORE OF THE YEAR IN NATIONAL COMPETITION

 

Bintesh and Reena Amin, owners of the local Londis in Blean, have won the top title of Londis store of the year in a national competition.

Bintesh and Reena received their award at a prestigious awards ceremony at the Londis annual conference and gala dinner in London on 8 March.

Some 2,000 shops across Great Britain were entered into the competition after a year in which the Londis business has sought to drive better value to its shoppers.

Entries have been judged on the essentials of the Londis brand:

  • Customer service
  • Range
  • Store standards
  • Value for money
  • Promotions
  • Services
  • Involvement in the community

Judges said: “This store was well merchandised, clean and tidy with great offers. The hot food on offer was extensive (including home-made pizza, which was exceptional!) The fresh foods and chilled range was excellent also.  Above all this however was the fantastic customer service that was evident from Bintesh, Reena and their team. This is an exceptional store.”

You can view Bintesh’s BNI Connect profile at the chapter website.

Bintesh would also like to thank Geordie , Tim Beggs, and Pat Melsop for their help and support in the nomination process, also Chriss Syrett for the supplies we used in the shop while being judged, and to every one that has supported them. (All the people mentioned are BNI members, apart from Pat who is the commercial director of Kent County Cricket,  where the Chapter meet.)

 

Picture shows: (from left to right) Paul Courtney, Londis sales director; Donal Horgan, Londis managing director; Kiran Patel and Meena Patel (Reena’s parents); Bintesh Amin; Reena Amin and Steve Bassett, chairman of the Londis national retailer council.

Networking Evening with Kent Wildlife Trust

March 5, 2012

Kent Wildlife Trust are holding a networking evening this week and asking you to join them for a networking event with a difference!

Thursday 8th March 2012 – 5pm-7pm at Tyland Barn, Sandling, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 3BD.

Guest Speakers:

Hamish Mackay Miller – Publisher of The Net

Joanne Creighton – Kent Wildlife Trust – Head of People Engagement

Enjoy tea and cakes and a guided tour of their nature reserve.

Minimum donation: £5.00 per person for Kent Wildlife Trust corporate members £10.00 for non-members. Spaces limited.

RSVP to: marion.turner@kentwildlife.org.uk or 01622 662012.

BNI saves @ecademy from the cold!

February 13, 2012

We have heard of a success story in Surrey from Jody Atkins. This follows on from the Social Media event we ran in Kent last week:

SUCCESS STORY

This story involves an emergency for Ecademy Chairman Thomas Power.

I met Thomas Power  years ago through a mentor of mine, Terry Toms (who incidentally was responsible for introducing Thomas to  Brian Tracy  and Ivan Misner I believe, talk about small world)

On Saturday , Ecademy Chairman Thomas Power tweeted that his boiler was broken. I tweeted the following and got this response from him:

Cushionista – Jody @theCushionista @thomaspower hope you get it fixed soon, they’ve just said on the news that Surrey temp low last night was minus 18.4 degrees, a new record!

                        Thomas Power @thomaspower  @theCushionista yes nightmare still no sign of a single plumber zero response from @ratedpeople @yell @twitter #ratedpeople #yell

1:08 PM – 11 Feb 12

So at this point, I told him I would make some calls and come back to him. As an Interior Designer I have a contact book of plumbers anyway, some BNI some not, but 2 of my usual plumbers were either on holiday or already working so no joy there. I contacted Paul Cameron and asked for a list of all plumbers in his chapters that were closer to Thomas’ house in Farnham( thx paul for digging this out at the weekend for me!) I also made a couple of calls to other plumbers I know including new BNI member Guy Bilham who is based in Cobham but a member of BNI Coombe wood, one of the groups where I am ambassador.  I had been very conscious of his professional approach and wanted to see if I could help get him up and running with BNI.

Suffice to say Guy (who was not planning on working on Saturday) went and restored hot water,  Although it couldn’t all be fixed on Saturday he and promised to return first thing Monday with the replacement part for the boiler. Thomas and I tweeted a lot that day but here was the outcome tweet.

Cushionista – Jody @theCushionista  @thomaspower so happy to be able to help – big thanks to TJ Bathrooms – glad #bni network & @twitter surrpassed @yell @ratedpeople @google

2:25 PM – 11 Feb 12 via web ·  this retweet went to Thomas Powers nearly 72,000 Twitter followers!

This morning, knowing it was Thomas birthday, I sent the following:

Cushionista – Jody @theCushionista  @thomaspower Happy Birthday, may the warmth in your heart soon be mirrored by a return to warmth in your home!

3h Thomas Power @thomaspower  @theCushionista many many thanks Jody and for Saturday too. Tx

3h Cushionista – Jody @theCushionista  @thomaspower You are more than welcome!

Thomas Power @thomaspower @theCushionista Guy Billam is a fantastic plumber and wonderful personable man love him xxxx

11:29 AM – 13 Feb 12 via Twitter for iPad · Details

This was because Guy rang them this morning and recommended they contact the manufacturer direct and take out a maintenance contract as it would  cover the parts needed and save them money and he had checked they could sort today too. Great advice and putting the client first!

Cushionista – Jody @theCushionista  @thomaspower glad you’re delighted – please do recommend Guy’s plumbing to your @ecademy friends! #bni #jobwelldone bit.ly/wp2tFF

Thomas also told Guy and I that I needed to help get him up and running on Twitter as Thomas couldn’t tell everyone how fabulous he was and he needs an account – so, I’ve just passed Zoe Cairns details over to him (after her fab offer on Friday at the training) and he will be giving you a call to help get him set up.

While writing this email – penny power has just sent me a Direct message on Twitter

Penny Power @pennypower  @theCushionista morning, I am going to write a blog for #bni about the help u gave me sorting the plumbing,, I will DM u

12:50 PM – 13 Feb 12 via web ·

So some great PR for a new member, for my 2 brands and for BNI too! – showing the power of combining BNI with Social Media

Over £111,000 of business in four years for one BNI member

January 22, 2012

Alan Johnson, BNI member at Sutton, shares his own BNI success story:

I applied to join BNI at my very first meeting in November 2007 thinking “why on earth didn’t I know about this earlier” By Christmas, with not a single decent referral and not a penny Invoiced my mind was now on “what have I done”

But luckily the relative peace and quiet between Christmas and New year gave me some time to listen to the CD, read the manual, and the book and in one of those eureka moments I realised I’d got the whole concept wrong.

The people in the room weren’t potential customers, they were my potential sales force. Seems so obvious now. So I changed tack, rewrote my 60 seconds, and resolved to “train” these sales people in how to sell Teknicare, 121’s frantically followed.

Results? Never looked back, January saw BNI related sales of £1,778 and February £10,208. In 2008 I made £27,832, in 2009, £23,571, in 2010, £25,250 and last year, well with all the doom and gloom of recession about I’d hardly expected to do well, still £34,949 is not to be sniffed at. 2012 is already looking good with over £3,000 Invoiced.

Not huge figures by some standards but it’s a reasonable part of the overall business I do and is almost all service work, so therefore almost all gross profit.

Loving numbers as I do here are some more for you:

Total Invoices 303. Average Invoice Value £368.32. No of weeks attended 208. Invoice value per week £518.53 (after costs)

So every Thursday morning I’m sitting in my van driving to meet a great bunch of friends and getting paid over £500 for the privilege.

Monetary benefit after 4 years; £111,603, personal benefit; PRICELESS.

No wonder I’m smiling

Alan Johnson citp mbcs

Teknicare Ltd. www.teknicare.co.uk

From Necker Island to BNI!

January 18, 2012

Katie and David Lester are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the launch of their company Elite Blinds.   Later this year they will also celebrate 10 years of BNI membership and say:

BNI has been crucial to our business success.  I would recommend BNI to anyone”.

David and Katie had a rather exotic early working life.

Katie had stints as a holiday representative in Majorca and chalet girl in an Austrian ski resort.  She also delivered yachts to Greece and theCaribbean.

They met when Katie attended a dinghy sailing course at Cowes where David was her instructor.  Thereafter the emphasis was on warmth and water.   They worked with Richard Branson onNeckerIsland, where they were Assistant Managers.  One rather festive Christmas was enjoyed with the Branson family.

Katie said: “It was great fun.  The Bransons and their guests were all really great people”

They then spent several years crewing yachts for holiday makers in the Caribbean.

On returning to the UK David studied for a BA in Business Administration at KingstonUniversityand then took up a directorship with a print supply company.

David joined Whitstable and Herne Bay BNI in Kent shortly after they launched Elite Blinds.    Katie took a more active role in the company when the children started school and joined Canterbury BNI in 2010.

Elite Blinds offers all types of interior blinds and shutters.  Their customers are schools, businesses of all types and private home owners.

David said: “We give the customer what they want and offer the highest level of service.   Our ethos has not changed whether on NeckerIsland or running a blinds company.  The aim has always been to exceed our customers’ expectations. Hopefully we are achieving this as most of our business is either repeat or comes via customer recommendations.   BNI has been crucial to our business success.  I would recommend BNI to anyone”.

 

You can contact them on 01227 720881 or email katie@elite-blinds.com

www.elite-blinds.com

Chapter Directors dinner January 2012, BNI Surrey

January 18, 2012

In the past the Chapter Directors have attended an on-track forum mid way through their term.

For 2012 this took the format of an evening dinner rather than a morning meeting, and in Surrey we met at the Mandolay hotel in Guildford.

This is a great opportunity to reflect on successes from the past three months, as well as to share best practice from other chapter directors in the region and also refine plans for the remaining three months.

As BNI member and chapter director John Murray posted on our blog, being a chapter director can be likened to being the CEO of a company – in his case one that had a turnover of over £250,000 so it is important to ensure that the company direction is planned for and reviewed, and the chapter directors dinner is an ideal location to do this.

There was very high feedback from the attendees as to the new format, and there was the opportunity to develop relationships with other chapters.

As BNI is continuing its expansion in Surrey, with two new chapters opening in February 2012 alone, there is also the increased opportunity that more members will bring… and with chapter directors working closely together they will all benefit from this expansion.

Additionally, as we had a room full of chapter directors you would expect that any referral opportunities would be noticed!

Jody Atkins, from BNI Kingswood, noticed that the sign to the meeting room didn’t match the ones they had on the doors of the other meeting rooms – and as they have an excellent sign writer in their chapter they passed his details to the hotel.

As Social Media is increasingly important to business, this referral was actually passed to them via twitter.

Remember secondary referrals

January 18, 2012

In the BNI meetings we record the primary referrals, and their value via the thank you cards.

When evaluating the value you get from your BNI membership, you may also want to include secondary referrals in your calculations as these can also be valuable to your business.

One example of a great secondary referral comes from Surrey BNI member Kevin Bishop:

“In June 2009, a BNI colleague at Caterham BNI, Alan Hiscox, referred Ian Marlow of HFM Tax Assist from Catford to me. We performed a collection of debt exercise for him and remained in contact.

In November 2011, I received an e-mail from Ian Marlow, (who had by now moved to the City and grown a lot) asking me whether we would be interested in helping one of his larger clients. (Who just happen to be an enormous debt collection agency) with collections in the UK.

After some negotiation, It has transpired to be an incredible referral”

You can find out more about Kevin on his chapter website here.

How are you recording your own secondary referrals?

Referrals with X Factor!

January 10, 2012

We have just learned of a truly amazing referral story, showing the power of referrals globally:

BNI member and assistant director Paul Cameron was on a charity cycle ride from Angkor to Saigon recently.

On his first day of the trip he was taking in the sights at Angkor Wat Cambodia – one of the wonders of the world and he had wandered off-track into a Buddhist Temple where he was not supposed to be…

…taking a moments silence and reverence to soak up the atmosphere his phone goes off with a number he didn’t recognise.  At the verge of ignoring the call, he took it to hear that it is Elton John looking for a first birthday present for his son [with David Furnish] Zachary who was born Christmas Day 2010 – he wanted a very special first birthday and Christmas present and wanted a treehouse from Treehouse Life to be delivered and finished ready for the special day.

Of course his answer was “yes”, he just needed to work through the design and contract.  By the following Saturday, some wi-fi along the way in Cambodia, photos of the garden and designs by Treehouse Life, he received the confirmation call while laying in his hammock in the jungle at Vinh Long in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam – now in a position to ask why Elton John had come to Treehouse Life, he confirmed that it had been a direct referral from Gary Barlow for whom he had completed a treehouse project over a year ago – referrals work and this one came with X Factor!

And that’s not all…

Returning home early having changed his flight to avoid the strikes at Heathrow, he was able to attend Surbiton Chapter rather than use the substitute that he had arranged.

In the last two weeks before leaving for Cambodia he had been inspired by attending the Phil Berg workshop to deliver a special 60 seconds about the power of ‘6 degrees of separation’.

Phil Berg had talked about this and referred to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer.

Phil berg was talking about how this underpins the purpose of our 60 seconds in BNI and that we should simply ask for our “dream referral” and by 6 degrees of separation we would always get the connection – Phil Berg’s point was that in our 60 seconds we needed to give the words and benefit to enable and make happen the connection of two people in six steps or fewer.  This was his inspiration point and whilst Phil was talking he wrote his next 60 seconds, here was what he wrote and the 60 seconds he delivered in the two weeks before leaving for Cambodia/Vietnam…

“I went to the Phil berg workshop

I learnt about 6 degrees of separation

I would like to be introduced to Richard Branson

I know that if I met him I could inspire him to see the benefits of Treehouse Life to want to give these benefits to his children/grandchildren

He would want to add a Treehouse Life treehouse to his hotels

He would want to have one for his employees to conference and be inspired

He would want to put a photo of one of our treehouses on the front of his Virgin branded in-flight magazines

He would engage with all our values of family and nature

He will like Treehouse Life so much that he would want to buy my company

We have 2 levels of separation in this room, from me to you and from you to all your contacts.

For Treehouse Life to have the 3rd degree of separation I need to give you a benefit for you to WANT to recommend my company

Just think IF you connect me to degrees 3, 4 and 5 which connects me to Richard Branson – think about how much business I could give to YOUR Company if Richard Branson buys my business”

Yesterday, when Paul returned from Vietnam early and attended the Surbiton Chapter personally guess what happened?

He had a referral introducing him to Richard Branson, his personal mobile phone number – asking for a “dream referral” works, Phil Berg’s BNI take on 6 degrees of separation works and he is certainly a very happy BNI member this morning!

You can find out more about Paul, and his treehouses, at:

www.facebook.com/treehouselife  (Website www.treehouselife.co.uk)

10,000 views for BNI members video

January 6, 2012

BNI member and Assistant Director Paul Cameron is featured in the below video, produced with Bosch:

At the time of writing this video had just under 10,000 views – we are sure that this will have been exceeded 10,000 very soon.

BNI South East also has it’s own YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/bnisoutheastuk

Please contact us if you have any chapter videos that you would like to share…

You may not be aware that YouTube is actually one of the top search engines now, so it is a great way to promote your chapter.

Exciting start to the year in Surrey

January 4, 2012

Happy New Year!

Many of you will be returning to work this week after the holidays, and starting to think about 2012 plans…

In addition to those people you know who would love to join a BNI group but are locked out, there are others who have been considering joining and have held off until the new year, as well as people looking for ways to grow their business in 2012.

Now is an ideal time to take the next step towards profitability, BNI was started during a recession and has a proven track history over more than twenty five years.

In Surrey we are pleased to announce that two new core groups will be starting soon:

1) New Malden – starting Thursday 16th February, at:

The Glasshouse

14 Coombe Road

New Malden

KT3 4QE

Contact details for this group are:

Dao Tran-Boyd Tel. 07793 747386 dao@bnisoutheast.co.uk

John Mager Tel. 079793 843444 john@bnisoutheast.co.uk

2) Cobham – starting Tuesday 28th February, the venue is to be confirmed

Contact details for this group are:

James McBrearty Tel. 0845 6801423 james@bnisoutheast.co.uk

We will be letting you have updates in due course on these chapters and the others launching in 2012, in the meantime please do contact the relevant assistant directors if you would like further information