Marketing News: Doing Business at Breakfast makes Yorkshire Companies £1m

News Release from: Chocolate PR
08/02/2010
Yorkshire companies, BNI, sales generation

Friday mornings are not usually the most productive time for sales generation but for a business group in Leeds getting up to network at 6.30am has brought in over £1m business over the last year.

Leeds Network Central group of Business Network International (BNI) is celebrating after hitting over £1m as of January 28th, £155,000 worth of business in the first 3 weeks of 2010.

The breakfast networking group, which includes companies like Leeds Building Society, The Pentelow Practice, Chocolate PR and Bartfields Accountants is now ranked as the sixth most successful in the country with an average seat value per member of £40K.

The group now set to reign as number 1 in Yorkshire for January 2010 is also celebrating a series of award wins announced today including most improved group over 6 months, most outstanding performance, best growth in 2010 and most referrals per member.

Having fought back from being number 464 in the league table just 5 months last September it seems there's nothing stopping the Weetwood Hall based business networking team.

Companies to have benefited from the immense success of this group include Leeds based The Bed Guru who's expanded three-fold thanks to the group; Leeds based Mentor UK who generates 100% of its business through the referral process; Wetherby based web design company Pixel Vector who've invoiced over £500,000 through the group and credit 80% of new business to referrals gained, to name just a few.

Founding member and BNI regional director Rick Armstrong said: “We’re obviously delighted with hitting this milestone and with the growth of the group over the last 6 months. For me this proves the power of working collaboratively. The recession has meant companies having to look at the most cost effective way of gaining business and networking within a group of trusted business professionals who become an extension of your sales team makes a lot of sense. We’ve got great group of people representing a wide variety of industries and we are all looking forward to even more success this year”.

BNI is a referral-based organisation founded on the concept of ‘givers gain’. Established twenty five years ago it operates on the basis of only one company from each sector being within the group so when that product or service is required by contacts of the other members a referral is passed.