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Strengthen Your Chapter through Mentoring

Best practices for mentoring new members.

by Tom Herndon, Chapter President, BNI by the Bay, Marin County, CA

Have you ever wondered if Visitors Days really produce quality members?

Four years ago, our chapter laid out this question after a disastrous experience with new members who joined after a Visitors Day. While we gained nine new members, their attendance was so low that several had to be removed from the chapter within a few months.

This led our chapter to reevaluate our approach with new members and to develop a tiered mentoring system. It has helped reduce attrition, increase group cohesion and trust, improve the quality of referrals, and multiply closed business. And we haven’t had a Visitors Day since.

Michael Westgate, developer of the system, shares that he, like many new members, experienced trouble getting started in BNI after a Visitors Day.

“I didn’t understand how to refer well for at least six months,” Michael told me. “Out of my own frustration, I developed a system that people could follow to help them integrate and experience success.”

When Michael became education coordinator his second year, he developed a four-week mentoring program that would quickly teach new members the basics of BNI. It included a handout for the mentee to take home and review, test questions from the following week’s material to check on retention, and an audio CD to expand on each week’s ideas.

This helped each new member feel welcomed and informed on how to generate and give referrals—even before they attended MSP. The next year, Michael became chapter president, and his mentoring program became mandatory for new members.

3 Roads of Mentoring

Riding Michael’s success, Tiffany Schneider (Michael’s successor), did something radical; she added a membership mentoring role to the LT. She asked Michael to take the lead.

“With so many new people,” said Tiffany, “the chapter was struggling to integrate them. They were floundering, and we were failing them. The leadership team felt like new members needed something up front to help them integrate into the chapter.”

The mentoring coordinator became a formal role during 2008. Tiffany and Jay Zemansky (former chapter president and now AD) cooperated as the first mentoring coordinators. Together they implemented the second level of mentoring by offering monthly focus groups to help current members improve their skills.

Jay also developed the guiding philosophy that the chapter has since adopted: “The 3 Roads of Mentoring.”

1. Orientation
The first road is for new members: a four-week orientation period with a trained mentor. On this road, they learn the terminology of BNI and receive personalized training on the procedures of giving referrals and being a good member. It reinforces the Member Success Program over a longer period and ensures that new members “get it.” As Jay says, “When you start a new job, you have orientation. This is the same concept. It helps people hit the ground running.”

2. Skills Development
The second road is monthly mentoring in an open forum. Started in December 2008, it focuses on a narrow topic such as infomercials or presentation skills. These one-hour sessions provide a comfortable atmosphere for members to hone some of their business skills by tapping into the wisdom within the chapter.

3. Ongoing Support
Lastly, there is Members in Need of Mentoring (MnM). This third level of mentoring began in January 2010, as Jay shared the mentoring coordinator position with Gene Berman, founding chapter member and former chapter president.

When the membership committee reviews the PALMS report, they take note of members who are not giving or receiving a reasonable number of referrals within a two-month period. Those members are invited to go through another four-week mentoring program to retrain them on giving and receiving referrals. The team tracks the member’s progress, which helps to identify his/her progress.

MnM has given members confidence because of the extra support. They know that they will not face formal probation until they have been given a chance to raise their stats. Everybody knows that the goal is to help them be successful.

Five years ago we were writing ten percent of the business we are now. This is our seventh term over $1 million. Our chapter continues to grow steadily, and attrition has slowed.

Regional leadership has studied our approach and asked for our help in implementing the program throughout our area. Jay taught our methods at the regional leadership meeting in March of 2010. In October, the new member orientation became mandatory, and the mentoring coordinator is now a formal position on the regional leadership team.

Both the culture of cooperation and having a strong mentoring system in place have ensured that our mentoring program has strengthened our chapter. I believe that it could do the same for any chapter that seriously implements the tiered mentoring model.

Tags: mentoring, networking, October 2011 Edition, Visitors Days

8 Responses to “Strengthen Your Chapter through Mentoring”

Carole Markee Says:
October 5th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
This is great. Thank you so much!
Barbara Roman Says:
October 6th, 2011 at 9:35 am
I like this idea. The members that have qiit or chosen not to join again the 2nd year are usually the ones that have no idea how to give referrals or have not looked to bring in members within their sphere.
Betty Jo Waxman Says:
October 6th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
I have the privilege of being the Assistant Director (now “Director Consultant”) for this chapter and can vouch for the effectiveness of their mentoring program which had been in place several years now. What stands out is that mentoring is part of the chapter culture. And the buzz in the chapter is that mentoring is a big part of what supports the success of the members, both newer and “seasoned”. The willingness of the creators of the process to share it across the region has made a huge positive impact on many other chapters and their members as well.
John Drury Says:
October 7th, 2011 at 2:03 am
This is a great article.
I have noticed in our chapter that there are several members who naturally give referrals to one another because their businesses have an easy synergy.
The members who do not last in BNI are not good at thinking about others. They come to meetings hoping to receive referrals but rarely with a mind to give a referral. They think about other members of BNI the night before the meeting rather than actively through the week.
We talk about Givers Gain almost every week but I’d say that very few have got it yet.
This 3 roads to mentoring is something we need desperately to make our group productive.
Thank you for taking this initiative and leading the way.
John
Mary Ahern Says:
October 15th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
I really like the idea of mentoring. I’ve watched newer members sit quietly waiting for leads to flow to them & then become discouraged when they don’t. We take it for granted that all small business owners are true entrepreneurs. Many are not & I think each chapter should build a plan to help those to whom outreach & marketing don’t come easy.
Thanks for bringing this issue into the discussion.
…mary ahern
Lizette Says:
October 16th, 2011 at 11:10 am
Great article! In our chapter we are establishing a monthly Mastermind meeting (voluntary attendance)where we take a topic of interest ( marketing, advertising, how to introduce each other etc) and develop it with whomever shows up. BNI to me offers businesses a tremendous brain trust, and so with this monthly meeting we can mine into that and build relationships while we help each other with referrals.
Carole Queen-Hamby Says:
October 20th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Our Monroe GA chapter – The Monroe Money Makers – officially chartered last week! Our core group has been involved in BNI now for a year and naturally passes and receives referrals resulting in closed business. As we have now grown in membership we realize the need to guide the newer members through the BNI concepts and practices. Referrals come more naturally for some people and there is a natural synergy for particular businesses. My role on the leadership team is that of Mentor Coordinator and I am eager to learn more about this process and how to implement it in our chapter. We are eager to build a strong chapter and move to 40+ members in our first couple of years. Thanks for posting this article and sharing your insights.
Matteus Åkesson Says:
October 20th, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Brilliant from an incentive standpoint. Mentoring is to Give – it fits right into the Givers’ gain concept. And, subtly, a little stick, which most of us do need from time to time (I do at least): once you know the four week program, you’d better produce referrals unless you want to do it all over again. It seems like the perfectly balanced method to increase value: you can easily raise the bar step by step (“Now that everybode actually always deliver at least X referrals every week, let’s raise the bar and make even more money…”) and you never have to talk about “let’s find a way to give more referrals”, which is one of the most destructive subjects possible, since it makes everybody feel bad about their team. Thank you!

8 Responses to “Strengthen Your Chapter through Mentoring”

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