Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Really Getting to Know You

It's always fun to meet with networking friends, because I usually walk away with a new idea.

This week was no different when I had coffee with Certified Networker Sharon Czarny, owner of Czarny Insurance Agency. Sharon wanted to meet with me to talked over an idea. I hope our conversation helped her because she shared a really great networking exercise with me.

It seems that David Marrufo who is the Educational Coordinator of her BNI chapter, is really creative. Not too long ago, he had every member write something about themselves that others might not know. Each slip of paper was folded and then he collected them and put them into a paper bag. He then went around the room again and having each member draw a slip. His instructions were that each member had to find out who was connected to the information they had in hand. That in itself is a great networking exercise, but here's the twist David added. The members had to count the number of guesses or people they went through to get to the right person. Whatever that number was, they had to schedule that many one-to-one meetings with members. Sharon said that she had 8 meetings set as a result of this exercise.

I love it. BNI's success is based on members really getting to know each other, so that they feel comfortable referring each other. David's creativity will help that to happen for their chapter members.

Thanks Sharon for sharing!

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