# Small business owners, opinion on BNI...
**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-business-owners-opinion-on-bni/275002
**Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [January 10, 2018, 5:47am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-business-owners-opinion-on-bni/275002 "2018-01-10T05:47:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wahoo](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Wahoo)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2018, 5:47am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-business-owners-opinion-on-bni/275002/1 "2018-01-10T05:47:21Z")
So I’m trying to grow my business, and I was told BNI is a good way to network [https://www.bni.com/](https://www.bni.com/)
I’m curious if anyone locally has had experience with this, is it worth doing? Or is it a scam?
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### Author:  [@theblue](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/theblue)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2018, 6:32am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-business-owners-opinion-on-bni/275002/2 "2018-01-10T06:32:03Z")
mixed bag. like any networking stuff. get in, mine the value, get out
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### Author:  [@BOBBYGRV](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/BOBBYGRV)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2018, 12:24pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/small-business-owners-opinion-on-bni/275002/3 "2018-01-16T12:24:02Z")
I’ve done plenty of networking groups and here is the best advice I can give you.
If you join one of these groups in hopes of soliciting the people who attend them, you will be disappointed. If you join one of these groups with the intentions of having lunch with every single person to exchange your contacts with theirs, you’ll probably be successful.
There is nothing worse than going to one of these meetings and some new, excited person expects you to buy their sale because they just spent money to show up to the first meeting.
The biggest challenge these types of events present is that most people aren’t willing to give their own prospects/clients out to someone who might make them look bad, so they don’t. They also probably don’t get much in return, unless people can speak to their reputation, quality of work and how it helped them improve their life.
Be prepared to network after hours, during your lunch break and on the weekends. If you aren’t willing to put that kind of work into this, save your money and go to the bar, you might get lucky on a drunk on a barstool.