Consider this: regardless of which industry we are in, we are all in marketing business and in order to "sell" yourself and your business.

Your BNI chapter means to answer 2 "simple" questions. Here is my version (totally subjective and not forced by anyone :o)).

The more I learn about networking, the more I try to apply that knowledge to my daily life.

The more networking sessions I attend, whether public or private, I begin to realize that there are two main categories of networkers - the hunters and the sharers.

Who here likes cold calling?

Not you? Great, then please keep reading this article!

Cold calling is just too much of a 'maybe'. There are more rejections than a positive outcome; it is a waste of time and energy.

Agree 2 Disagree

Every week when the president of my BNI chapter asks who loves making cold calls, my hand pops up for a brief moment before quickly retreating to my lap. Truth be told, I get 5 hits from cold calls a week. I will present 10 tips on making successful cold calls for those interested in another article. I do believe that cold calling works.

However, I'm still a fan of 'Word of Mouth Marketing' because it offers extremely high quality referals with less work, as half the selling has already been done.

BNI's philosophy is "Givers Gain". I really love it because it perfectly reflects and says what word-of-mouth or referrals should be all about, or any business in general. You give, you will get in return. We all know it, yet, it is sometimes difficult for us to unconditionally give.

In BNI Rendezvous, we should give 2 main things - referrals & testimonials. To give referrala, especially qualified referrala, you actually have to work for it and then you give it away. It is a very high level of giving. To be able to do that, we need to practice our givers' mindset every single day. We can practice by giving...Giving simple things that will cost us nothing, yet will improve our business and our life. These practices will prepare us in becoming true givers.

Here are 50 things you can give on a daily basis to practice your Giver's mindset. Forget about getting, that will come naturally and automatically, sooner or later.

One of the deadliest sins in the referrals-based business is not to follow up on a given referral. It does not matter if the referral is good or bad, you HAVE to follow up.

I went for Brad Sugars' seminar yesterday and he said "We only get, what we deserve and what we can handle."

I think it is true in our referrals business too. If you are getting bad referrals, then maybe you do not deserve better ones (for millions of reasons - maybe you are not educating members about your business enough or you do not do dance cards, etc.).

Perhaps you are not able to handle good referrals. You might not ready for those quality and big referrals because you are not seen as a person that can be trusted and relied on.

There are simple strategies and steps you can implement to make sure that from today onwards you will be perceived as a great person to refer business to. You can start by following up on referrals given to you through the following steps: