By Emma Sun
MORE than 60 people turned up to the launch of Business Network International’s (BNI) Cranbourne chapter on last Wednesday.
After months of painstaking organisation, the chapter has finally started and is now looking for business people to become members.
BNI is an organisation that focuses on word-of-mouth marketing techniques to gain referrals for businesses.
It is the world’s largest business referral organisation, with more than 3600 chapters in 23 countries.
BNI executive director Brent Edwards said it was quite difficult to get a new chapter up and running.
“It’s hard to get a new chapter started, you need a group of committed people and the right mix,” he said.
President of the BNI Cranbourne chapter Trent Gribbin said Cranbourne was a great suburb to open a new chapter in and it already has a large number of members.
“Cranbourne is a growing area with plenty of business opportunities,” Mr Gribbin said.
“We already have 18 registered members, and today we had 50 visitors.”
Vice-president Cathy Anthony said after the launch that they’d had one person transfer from another chapter, three new applications and 13 visitors from the launch will be sitting in on their ‘standard’ meeting.
“There has been a real need for a chapter in Cranbourne,” she said.
“The interest generated from our kick off day has been fantastic.”
Peter Knox from Jim’s Computer Services said he joined the Cranbourne chapter as soon as it started.
“Everyone I know from Jim’s is in BNI groups,” he said.
“I got 10 referrals in a matter of five weeks.” BNI Cranbourne meets every Wednesday at 7am at the Settlers Run Golf and Country Club in Botanic Ridge.
For more information on the Cranbourne chapter or to register your interest call 5941 9588.
