BNI Cuthbert

This year, BNI celebrates its 25^th anniversary.  What started as a humble enterprise in the spare bedroom and garage of my house, has now turned into an organization with almost 5,600 groups and over 125,000 members in more than 40 countries.  BNI Headquarters now resides in a commercial building in Southern California with roughly 30 employees working onsite.  However, more than 1,000 people work for the company (mostly in locally owned and operated regions around the globe).  Our focus remains unchanged: To help business people increase their business through a structured networking program.  With that focus in mind, I am pleased to say that last year, BNI members passed roughly 6.2 million referrals, which generated more than $2.6 billion (USD) worth of business for our members globally.*

It is surreal to look back over the last 25 years.  One of the things that I’m most proud of is that many of my employees and even more members have been with the organization for decades.  After 25 years, one of my first two employees, Lonie Misner-Feigerle, as well as four members (Mike Ryan, Carolyn Denny, Lee Shimmin, and Dr. Jim La Briola) from the original two chapters are still part of the organization!

Soon after the organization began, it was clear that I struck a chord with the business community.  Business networking classes weren’t taught in colleges and universities; there was a hunger to learn how to network and apply it in local communities.

It was clear to me as we expanded into many countries that BNI was a classic example of “thinking globally and acting locally.”  This approach has served us well over the last two and a half decades.   Although we have grown strong with our past strategy, it is time to look to the future in order to remain the world’s largest and most successful business networking organization.

Increasingly, we are living in a global community.  This week celebrates International Networking Week, started by BNI four years ago.  It is a great example of our efforts to think globally.  However, it is not enough to just think globally; it is time to act globally.  That’s why BNI has been working on the largest single project in the history of the company: BNIConnect.  This online system will integrate our database with web sites and an online social network, enabling members to not only network in their individual chapters but also connect with members around the world.

The 25^th anniversary of BNI will celebrate the release of BNIConnect and the launch of the idea that any local businesses can, and will through BNI, have a global network.  I look forward to discussing this more during the year.  The transition to this program will have challenges.  I ask for members and directors to work with us positively and proactively to help implement this system.  I truly believe it will contribute to this organization in ways that I never thought possible 25 years ago.

I am looking forward to the future of BNI more than ever before.  I think that we are on the verge of great things, and I invite you all to join me in the Local Business – Global Network® initiative.  This year, 2010, promises to be a better year for many businesses around the world—and BNI wants to be an important part of the economic recovery and a big part of your success.

* Note:  Members sometimes ask where these numbers come from.  As part of my doctoral dissertation published by the University of Southern California, I conducted a statistical stratified random sample of the members of BNI as part of a comprehensive survey of the membership.

In this survey, we asked several questions such as: How many referrals have you received?  What percentage of these referrals have closed into a sale? And what is the average value of a referral that you receive? From the results of this comprehensive analysis, we generated several hundred pages of statistical tables that gave us a clear picture of the quantity and quality of referrals generated in the organization.  This study was duplicated several years ago by another doctoral student with similar findings.  We use the formulas developed by these two doctoral studies to calculate the value of the referrals generated in BNI.


Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author.  He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI (www.bni.com), the world’s largest business networking organization.  His newest book, Networking Like a Pro can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com.  Dr. Misner is also the senior partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company (www.referralinstitute.com).