CRESTVIEW — Every Tuesday, a group of area business professionals gathers to swap cards and share referrals. Networking is — literally — the group’s middle name.
Business Network International, founded in 1985, is forming a Crestview chapter.
“We’re all about building relationships,” BNI Area Director John Marshall said. “It’s all about relational marketing.”
The new chapter meets weekly at Hideaway Pizza, where members and guests share business goals and seek business referrals from one another.
Local members working to build the new chapter include a chiropractor, financial adviser, CPA, restaurant manager, insurance agent, radio sales rep, shipping company owner and an identity theft protection business.
“You’re amongst friends,” Marshall said. “It’s about accountability and trust.”
During the meeting, participants pore through a binder containing each other’s business cards, pulling those they don’t yet have and adding their own.
“BNI is all about business,” Santa Rosa Press Gazette publisher Jim Fletcher said, noting one of his sales representatives has recouped nearly seven times the Milton BNI chapter’s membership fee.
There’s nothing casual about BNI, Marshall said. Members must make a commitment to attend the weekly 90-minute meetings so they don’t miss sharing referrals and receiving some themselves.
“BNI isn’t just another way to make business,” Marshall said. “It’s a way of life. The bottom line is, if we take the BNI model of ‘givers gain,’ and treat it as an actual lifestyle mantra for ourselves, won’t that make us better business people?”
WANT TO JOIN?
The developing Crestview chapter of Business Network International meets 11:30 a.m. Tuesdays at Hideaway Pizza, 326 Main St. N. A membership fee has yet to be set.
Contact Joe Faulk, 682-8844, for more information. Only one representative of each professional classification is accepted.
An earlier version of this article erroneously said the group meets Mondays.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Business networking group forms Crestview chapter