Business group hits 40 milestone

A Chorley-based business group is celebrating after signing its fortieth member – a recognised milestone for BNI groups globally.

BNI Endeavour is part of the world’s biggest referral organisation, Business Network International, and meets for breakfast every Tuesday at Dante’s Halfway House, Preston Road, Clayton-le-Woods.

Ian Moore, managing director of Tyme Online is the newest to join the group. Based in Darwen, Lancashire, Tyme helps companies maximise their online sales through major retail platforms such as EBay and Amazon. Launched in late 2015, the company already has several multi-million pound clients based around the UK, and has joined BNI to help increase its business further.

Established over 30 years ago, BNI now has over 200,000 members in over 70 countries worldwide. It works by organising weekly networking meetings for groups of businesses, who use their own network of contacts to find business opportunities for one another. Each group, or chapter, follows proven networking processes to ensure the maximum amount of business is generated for members.

Tyme Online managing director, and new BNI member, Ian Moore said: “These are exciting times for Tyme. We offer proven solutions to help companies maximise their online sales and we already have some significant clients that have come to us by referral alone, so we know the power of referral marketing. BNI offers a structured way to motorise the approach.

"We’ve already had some major introductions since joining, so we’re proud to have brought the BNI Endeavour group past the forty mark.” Welcoming Ian to the group, BNI Endeavour Chapter President Chris Astley, of Astley Electrical Systems, said: “They say life begins at forty and the same could be said for BNI, where forty members is very much seen as a milestone.

With referral marketing, it’s the amount of relationships that exist in a room that makes all the difference. As the amount of members increases, the amount of relationships increases exponentially. A group of two has one relationship, while a group of 40 has 780 relationships.

“In the last six months, our group has generated a fully measured £1,022,259 of business, which puts us well on target to smashing through the £2m a year mark.

“The reason BNI stands out from other types of networking groups is that we have a proven structure that ensures we really do generate a significant amount of business for each other. And our processes mean we can track exactly how much too.

“The other key to success with BNI is not just the number of people in the group, but ensuring they are the right people too. We’re lucky to already have a great group of businesses, but we want more. 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.”

BNI Endeavour is one of four chapters in the Preston and Chorley area, and a total of ten in the Lancashire area as a whole. To enquire about available spaces in any of the chapters in Lancashire, go to www.networkingnorth.co.uk or email janey@bnionline.co.uk.