BNI for B2C versus B2B

Hanley

Cliffs:
-First few lines = a ramble
-Next few lines = a question
-Last few lines = a strategy Q

A quick search tells me BNI has a bit of a divisive quality on here.

I was a guest at a Dublin meeting today.

I went along because one of my friends raves about it, and she seems to be doing quite well with referrals and contacts.

At the end, they did the "your referrals generated this much biz last week" calculation. It made for some impressive numbers.

BUT the numbers were dominated by B2B companies.

I noticed very little traction / pay off for B2C (that's what we are a - a small group & personal training gym).

That's not to say it doesn't happen, just that at the meeting I attended today - I didn't hear of much direct biz generation for B2C.

So, has anyone taken part in a BNI or a business networking group while running a B2C biz that relies on recurring monthly revenue and seen good results?

Would the following strategy by worth persevering with; instead of looking for leads, look for footholds inside of BNI member businesses, offering special discounts / programs to members of staff and their family?

...and then trust word spreads from there.

Cost wise, it's approx. €800 for the year. If we even got 2 members for 3 months that would repay our financial investment (time's another story). So even though there's a cost, I'm sure we'd cover it.

ironclaw

I don't have any experience with BNI myself but I do work in the eCommerece space. B2B contracts are multitudes more lucrative that B2C. A lot of our work would be broken down as a minor B2C implementation and a massive end to end B2B system. Obivously depends what you are selling but all the major suppliers want (and need) an 'Amazon' experience for their B2B customers as the upsell is massive. This is as opposed to legacy systems where you upload a rake of line item numbers and then you hit 'Submit' You now can have a B2B site where perhaps the procurement manager orders 100 pairs of boots but you can upsell some high-vis vests on the side panel or cart. Bingo, more cashflow.

However, there are differences in how B2B and B2C operate from an ordering / cash flow perspective to name but a few. So if you are strictly B2C, you may need to tailor your site and experience to the B2B market. Some of the major requirements I've worked with would be:

- Vendor / Volume specific pricing
- Auto replenishing orders e.g. 100 boots every 6 months until they say stop.
- Credit Handling & Limits
- B2B Only Site e.g. You must log in to view pricing

But I'm probably off topic at this stage. Long story short, I would certainly recommend pursuing B2B contracts but I don't think I would pay for it. If you have the online capabilities to delivery B2B, you should be able to sell yourself.

Trojan

If you can stomach BNI, it can be very worthwhile. It's clearly better for B2B as you have a captive audience of regular & guest business owners every week. For your B2C offering, I think it'll depend on exactly who is in the group and if there's potential parterships you could get a good return on investment. But you should be looking for those partnerships regardless of BNI in any case.

Some of the ones near me do a lot of training and presentations - sometimes during the regular meetings which can take 2 hours or more.

Personally I can't commit to the attendance requirements that BNI has, and even if I could, that hard sell format is just not my thing.

I've subbed for many people at BNI, mostly locally, but at remote branches too. Personally I far prefer independent network groupe, where the membership fee is invested in the group, and they tend to be a little less KKK with the rules and regulations.

I think B2B and B2C both work in networks, but from my experience, it's the same categories that do well every time - accountants, solicitors, printers and a few more. This is possibly because these disciplines span B2B and B2C.

It's all about referrals, and the biggest issue with these groups is that the pressure to generate refrerrals results in crap referrals. I've even uncovered referral chains where a refers to b, b to c and c to a. The referrals are all bogus, but they back each other up and say the referral worked out, all to get their numbers up on their referrals. Also, the businesses that get a lot of footfall have a better chance to generate referrals. I've also seen savvy businesses join a network, do one-to-ones with every member, make a bunch of sales and leave without contributing any referrals.

After 10 years of figuring this stuff out, I'm of the opinion that it's more effective to do your own networking, targeting referral partners, where both parties have the capacity to refer business to each other. But that's just what I've encountered, you may have a different experience.

mrawkward

BNI is populated by hangers on, you would never catch a real entrepreneur treading the boards twice at one of these meets. It is about making money off the gullible, the service providers need a good flow of new marks/victims. Are you there for the menu or on the menu?

Hanley

Thanks for the feedback all.

I'm in the gym business so referrals are obviously majorly important for us, BUT surprisingly we find them to be less "quality" as a long term client - mostly because what we do is kind of unique/different and the people that are the best long term fit tend to self-select.

It's one of the more frustrating things doing things the way we do - you have to go thru a lot of people on 6-12 week memberships to find the right people who are a good fit for a 3+ year commitment.

I'm sure BNI could open doors for me somewhere, but since we're not currentl operating in the corporate space, I don't think there's much in it.

mrawkward wrote: »

BNI is populated by hangers on, you would never catch a real entrepreneur treading the boards twice at one of these meets. It is about making money off the gullible, the service providers need a good flow of new marks/victims. Are you there for the menu or on the menu?

It's the old poker rule right? If you're sitting at the table and don't know who the sucker is after 30 minutes....

Trojan

Hanley wrote: »

I'm in the gym business so referrals are obviously majorly important for us, BUT surprisingly we find them to be less "quality" as a long term client - mostly because what we do is kind of unique/different and the people that are the best long term fit tend to self-select.

It's one of the more frustrating things doing things the way we do - you have to go thru a lot of people on 6-12 week memberships to find the right people who are a good fit for a 3+ year commitment.

This is going off on a bit of a tangent, but from what you said there, I'd be surveying or interviewing your existing clients, trying to see what the commonalities are in demographics and psychographics and see if you can direct market to them with PPC, etc.

Is there a particular type of sport that has good fit? E.g. triathletes stand out to me as very competitive, somewhat self-centred individuals, usually with a discretionary budget for things like €10k bikes and €2k wheelsets.

Are you already running a referral program open to the client base? They should know people who are like them.

Digital_Guy

Spot on advice from Trojan there, although obviously you'd want to focus your research and surveying on those who have stayed past the initial trial period. Since your model is high quality, high cost (relatively), then you are probably going to get lots of people continuing to cycle in and out unless you get very specific with who you target and how you position the offer.

It should have a real air of exclusivity in many ways - think David Lloyd but for the type of training you offer rather than the venue / facilities.