Business Group Aims to Set World Record

A new business referral group is launching in Samlesbury, Preston, next month as part of an attempt to set a new world record for global networking company, BNI.

The world’s leading business referral organisation, with over 300,000 members in seventy-seven countries, BNI provides weekly networking meetings for groups of businesses, who follow a structured meeting agenda that enables them to use their combined network of contacts to find business opportunities and referrals for one another.

Last year, its members in towns and cities across the UK & Ireland shared over half a billion pounds (£538m) of business between one-another, with the ten chapters in the Lancashire area alone providing a £12M boost to the local economy.

Executive Director Louise Eccles of BNI Lancashire is aiming to launch BNI Preston Rocket on 3rd November as part of an attempt by BNI UK & Ireland to launch fifty chapters with twenty members on a single day, hoping to smash the previous record of twenty-two chapters on a single day, set by BNI Spain earlier this year.

Executive Director Louise Eccles said: “The aim of the UK-wide world record attempt is not just to beat our friends in Spain, it’s about impacting fifty business communities across the country. Launching fifty new groups would support over 1,000 businesses, creating potential opportunities and business in excess of £40m.

“BNI has been shown to have a significant positive impact on the economies of the areas in which it operates, bringing together the SMEs that form the backbone of UK Plc, and helping them grow together.

“A key value for BNI, so much so it’s a registered trademark, is Givers Gain®, which reflects how our systems are entirely built on encouraging and facilitating an altruistic approach to business – if you help me, I’ll want to help you. It’s a case of tapping into that natural human impulse, and BNI’s success across the world shows it works.

“And it’s an approach that has helped many thousands of people across the planet over the last thirty-eight years to build businesses of their dreams.

“We want to welcome local businesspeople, who are looking to grow their own businesses, to come along and try BNI and see if it works for them. So, all are welcome to register to attend our first meeting. Come along and help us break a world record!”

The BNI Preston Rocket launch meeting will be held at Samlesbury Hotel on 3rd November at 9.30am. Businesses interested in attending can register at www.businessnetworkingnearme.co.uk.