Garage to Global ® – Another Four Lessons

I literally built my business from operating out of my garage to a global enterprise with over 9400 BNI chapters in more than 70 countries all around the world. Overall, I have twelve lessons for you that I’ve learned from taking my business literally garage to global. I’ve covered eight so far in previous blogs.

Here are the final four lessons on how I took BNI literally from my garage to global organization

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

I think culture is the secret sauce to a successful organization. Your organizational culture is critical to your success. If you are part of a company that has a horrible culture and an amazing strategy, you’re not going to do well. However, if you are part of a company with an amazing culture and a really good strategy, you are going to be the industry leader.

Know your mission.

Get really clear about what your mission is. The mission of BNI is to help members increase their business through a structured, positive and professional referral program that enables them to develop long-term, meaningful relationships and referrals

Work in your flame, not in your wax.

Do the things you’re passionate about, and hire people to the stuff you hate doing. When you’re in your flame you’re doing things you love to do. When you’re working in your wax it’s taking all your energy away. There are times we may have to work in your wax. However, as soon as possible, you will want to hire somebody who your wax is their flame and they’re excited to do that.

Share a vision that everyone is striving towards.

BNI has dominated its industry in almost every market for decades because of a shared vision and a shared implementation of that vision. Vision is where you want to go and your mission is how you want to get there. BNI’s vision is “Changing the Way the World Does Business”.

So, these are the final four of my twelve lessons on how I took BNI literally from my garage to global organization. If you missed them, here are the links to the first blog and the second blog in this series.