BNI commences operations in Sri Lanka

Business Network International (BNI), a leading networking organisation that links businesses and facilitates business promotion using the structured and proven method of word-of-mouth advertising launched operations in Sri Lanka recently.

Country Director BNI Marjan A. Manzil said that the first chapter of BNI Sri Lanka has been set up in Colombo.

The second and third chapters will be set up in Kandy and Galle. BNI revolves around its simple philosophy "Givers Gain".

Country Director BNI Mayan A Manzil

If I give you business you may also give me business.

BNI has spent nearly 20 years evolving its system and its members can tap into this refined program that yields significant results, Manzil said.

A BNI chapter is formed with minimum 20 members and the chapter holds weekly breakfast meetings that last for 90 minutes.

Members need to attend or send a representative to the meeting. Each member gets a minute to address the meeting and promote his business.

Only one person from each profession classification is permitted to join a chapter.

Membership committees of each chapter have final authority relating to classification conflicts.

An individual may be a member of only one BNI chapter at any given time.

Manzil said that although it seems that promoting business within one minutes time is impossible, after practice, chapter members do their business promotions in less than one minutes time.

The breakfast meetings are useful to members to educate others on business, talk about products and target markets.

This is an easy way of getting new businesses, he said.

BNI is also useful for companies to promote their businesses overseas. if you want to promote your product in other countries you can find contacts via BNI chapters in that country or city.

BNI was founded by Dr. Ivan R. Misner while he was doing his Ph.D in California University.

Currently there are over 2800 BNI chapters in 30 countries with more than 76,000 members and the network is growing at an encouraging rate.

Millions of referrals are passed and translated into billions of $ worth business transactions annually under BNI referral marketing system.

"Malaysia, Singapore and Australia began BNI chapters over 10 years ago.

We are in India, Thailand and Taiwan.

The Sri Lankan chapter is the latest.

We started in India four years ago and today there are over 1000 members," Manzil said.

GW