growing forward together Archives

The global business world experienced many challenges with growing forward during “The Great Pause of 2020”. Last year was the most difficult economic time worldwide since the Great Depression. However, BNI® not only faced these challenges but thrived during the global pandemic. BNI’s Global Leadership Team focused on finding solutions instead of focusing on the problems. It is amazing that I love what BNI is doing for our members and I love what our CEO, Graham Weihmiller, is doing with this company.

Growing Forward Together™

Watch the first part of this video about BNI’s innovative programs from last year and what they achieved during “The Great Pause of 2020”. Then, watch the second part of this video for announcements about upcoming BNI global initiatives, programs, and events as we enter “The Great Acceleration” phase of 2021.

The Great Pause of 2020

For over 35 years, BNI was the leader in hosting weekly local in-person referral networking meetings worldwide. However in March 2020, for the safety of our members, BNI paused over 9,500 in-person BNI meetings and transitioned these to an online virtual meeting platform: BNI online. This maintained business continuity and allowed our 275,000 BNI Members worldwide to support their fellow BNI Members during the pandemic. In 2020, our BNI chapter members passed over 11.5 million referrals which generated over $16.3 million(USD) of global business revenue for each other. Here are a few more of BNI’s innovative programs from 2020:

In May, The BNI brand was completely refreshed with a new logo, colors, graphics, social media guidelines, and images.
In July, the “Growing Forward Together World Tour” focused on leapfrogging the “lockdown recession”.
In September, BNI launched the “Restart the World” initiative to help businesses worldwide to change their mindset.
In November, the virtual BNI Global Convention was our largest global event in the history of BNI.

The Great Acceleration of 2021

In January, we celebrated BNI’s 36th anniversary with the announcement that BNI has 36 Years of Growth.
In February, BNI celebrated “International Networking Week®” by encouraging the sharing of gratitude with the “A World of Thanks” theme.
Join us in October for BNI’s Largest Networking Event in beautiful Miami, Florida for our 2021 BNI Global Convention.

BNI is a Beacon of Hope in a Sea of Fear

Today, now more than ever, you need your network and you need to be networking with them. You need a team of people who will be there to help you during difficult times. During 2020, many people became frozen by their fear. However, I also saw many people became focused by their fear. They were focusing on surviving and thriving because “BNI is a beacon of hope in a sea of fear”.

Since 1985, BNI has created over $130,000,000,000 USD in revenue for BNI Members via over 130,000,000 Referrals. Today, the average BNI referral results in over $1,000 in revenue. And we’re just getting started. Your local BNI community can give you, and the people that you know, the support you need to thrive. Our BNI members are growing forward together. Today, more than ever, you need your network. Today, more than ever, you need BNI.

It was very exciting to present the BNI Growing Forward Together World Tour over the past three days. Furthermore, this event was the first live global event in BNI’s 35-year history. On July 14th, 15th, and 16th we streamed live in over 70 countries on Facebook and YouTube. Thank you to all of the BNI members, directors and visitors who joined in this historic event

The broadcast was open to businesses, entrepreneurs and business executives focused on leapfrogging the “lockdown recession” and doing more and better business in 2020 and beyond. The presentations were watched so far this week by nearly 45,000 viewers worldwide in twelve different languages.

During each broadcast, I shared my vision for the future as well as my insights for business growth and personal success. Furthermore, I talked about refusing to participate in the recession and how BNI and its 270,000 members are taking action leading businesses around the world to foster global business recovery with business growth and professional success. Therefore, now is the time to thrive!

I want to thank the CEO of BNI, Graham Weihmiller, for his inspirational vision for the future and much more. Furthermore, I also want to personally thank the BNI marketing team for the planning, the marketing, and the amazing execution of this global event. For example, watch this fantastic video their team created to promote the event on social media.

Different people, different places, different countries, different faces, different cultures…

We all speak the language of referrals, growing forward together.

In case you missed the LIVE event, would like to see it again, or want to share it with others, here is the presentation in 12 different languages:

Chinese Subtitled Version Thai Voiceover Version Japanese Voiceover Version

Vietnamese Voiceover Version Portuguese (Brazilian) Subtitled Version

Spanish Voiceover Version Portuguese (Portugal) Subtitled Version German Version (Pending)

Italian Voiceover Version Spanish (Spain) Voiceover Version Bulgarian Voiceover Version

English version below from Day Two

BNI brings so many people together across so many boundaries for such a productive purpose. Therefore, we build meaningful relationships and extend our hand to help others grow, and they in turn help and support us in the essence of Givers Gain®. At BNI, we are Growing Forward Together.