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00:00My wife and I we moved to Dubai in 2004 and the networking scene at that time
00:06was totally different to what it is today. I knew about BNI back in my
00:10ladies in the UK and I thought there was a gap in the market over here. So an
00:15opportunity, it started with a side hustle. We didn't have a vision to grow
00:19you know an organization to the scale it is today. So the idea was to build a
00:23community of people who are like-minded and we can meet their needs and that's
00:29long story short today you know of course it's grown phenomenally. We have a
00:33community of over 1,500 members. All businesses big and small, word of mouth
00:38referrals are an important factor. You know of course you have other form of
00:42sales and marketing that happens but ultimately referrals would be a strong
00:49part of that. You need a structure where you know that when you're gonna turn up
00:55somewhere everybody else is there for the same reason. You have the trust built
01:00between each other and you don't have any shame in actually asking for help, asking
01:07who you want to be referred to and everybody's committed to helping each
01:11other. That's important. So to have the trust, the commitment and knowing that
01:18everybody's there to support you. It's in a structured system like BNI because
01:22everybody's there just to help each other in generating referrals. It really
01:28really works and we see the results. The structure of BNI is in in multiple
01:33forms. So one is there is a weekly commitment. You probably don't meet your
01:36best friend every week and here you are committed to attend a meeting every
01:41single week. So it's a fixed time, fixed venue on a fixed day and when you turn up
01:46to that event there's a very structured agenda and the whole agenda is designed
01:52around getting to know who else is in the room, holding everybody accountable,
01:56educating everybody as to what it is that you do and then really being very
02:01specific in the kind of introductions of the referrals that you're looking for. So
02:05when that happens, you know, every single week, there's recall. When you walk out of
02:10that meeting, you know everybody else, everybody else is holding each other
02:15accountable and when you meet somebody outside on your day-to-day, you know,
02:19whatever it is that you do and you identify a need or an opportunity, it's
02:23very easy to refer that to somebody in your network. Each member belongs to what
02:30we call a chapter and the reason why we have multiple chapters is you're only
02:34allowed to have one person in every business profession to be in a chapter. So
02:38if I was a lawyer, no other lawyer is allowed to join the chapter. So a chapter
02:42could have anything between 30 to as many as, you know, we have chapters as large as 90
02:47members and every single person is doing something different. He's very diverse.
02:51So I become a member of a chapter and that's the meeting that I attend every
02:55single week. Those are the members that I have a very strong and trusted, credible
02:59relationship with. So we have multiple chapters because there are so many more
03:04people wanting to take advantage of this opportunity. So right now we have 40
03:08chapters servicing over 1,500 members. We like to call BNI a hard contact
03:13network. Any other networking that happens out there is what we call casual
03:18networking. Now there are advantages to both. So when you go anywhere else for
03:24networking, when you turn up over there, firstly, there is no assurance who else is
03:29going to be there. Secondly, you don't know what other people are there for and
03:34you're meeting people and you kind of got to work the process in building the trust
03:38and the relationship if you can start sort of, you know, referring business or doing
03:42business together. Over here, yes, it's paid membership. But when you turn up to
03:47your meeting, you pretty much know everybody else who's going to be there. The
03:51commitment is from everybody. So the attendance is very, very high. So that's the
03:58first advantage. Secondly, everybody is held accountable to help each other. We
04:03actually have a scoring system. So you can actually calculate the return on
04:07your time and money that you invest in being part of this. And that's what sets
04:12it apart. It's results driven. We have dashboards. We have a lot of tools. We, you
04:19know, so you can actually see that by becoming a member, being part of this, how
04:24much time you're putting into it and what the return that you're getting out of
04:28that. We can track, you know, the number of referrals that are being passed, the
04:32number of referrals which are being converted, and how much business is
04:35actually being generated as a result. It's not necessarily just about business
04:39win conversion, but how lives are impacted. So those are the kind of success
04:43that you get because it's a team of people coming together. They all speak the
04:47same language. It's all about helping each other. And in our, in BNI, we have a
04:51philosophy about givers gain. You know, the more you help others in doing good, the
04:57more comebacks to you. I'm doing it purely out of the good faith and goodwill, and it's a
05:01good thing to do. They're referring business to each other without expecting
05:05any commissions. And yet the ecosystem, the referrals flow around the room all
05:09the time. We are very blessed to be in a city and a country which continues to grow.
05:15There's an influx of people coming in every single day to make this their new
05:20home. So growth is going to be continuous. We anticipate to touch the 2000
05:26member mark by the end of this year. We're expanding out into other emirates. So
05:30we've just launched a chapter in Rasul Khaima. We're just talking to somebody who
05:35wants to now relaunch in Abu Dhabi. We're anticipating that in the next two
05:39years, we would have about 60 chapters, of which at least 10 are between Rasul
05:46Khaima and Abu Dhabi, and then perhaps the other 10 new ones in Dubai. We are
05:52very committed to making sure that all the members who are part of this network are
05:56also getting the appropriate return on their investment. So we don't want to
06:00leave anybody out. It's very easy sometimes when you have a lot of success
06:04stories and when you have so many members, some do get left behind. And our
06:09focus is, let's make sure that every single member benefits out of this,
06:15depending on the kind of business that they are. And everybody can proudly say,
06:19yes, I got my share. So how do we make that pie bigger? It's not about, you know,
06:24cutting that pie in multiple slices. How do we make sure that the overall pie is big for
06:32everybody to get a generous share of it?
06:34So we've been doing expos for two years now. This is our third one. And this
06:38is a two day event, Thursday, 9th and 10th. We are celebrating 20 years of our
06:43existence here as BNI UAE. And it's bigger in every sense. You know, we have a lot
06:48more exhibitors. We have so much of a learning base, as I call it. We have so
06:54many speakers coming to speak and give education and tips on different topics
06:59from that perspective. We're expecting a lot more members and visitors, what we call
07:04non-DNI members to visit the expo. So from that whole perspective, it's just so much
07:08bigger over the two days. You know, we have a speaker lineup for different topics like
07:14AI and LinkedIn. These smaller businesses don't always have access to these things.
07:19And if you think about chat GPT, talk about AI in general, everybody's talking about this,
07:23but then how does a small business really use this or incorporate it in their business
07:28so they can also benefit from these technologies? So we have a lot of speakers who are speaking
07:33about all these different topics. Business coaching is another one. How do you kind
07:37of, you know, design, think your business? How do you think differently and out of the
07:42box? So we've got these various topics that we're going to be kind of talking about, discussing
07:47through panel discussions, through fireside chats, through keynotes. And we want to be able
07:51to give that knowledge base to the members, the small to medium-sized businesses that don't
07:57necessarily have access to all of these things. We're expecting about 100 over exhibitors
08:01at the expo. And we have a lineup of seven speakers. We're running three panels and there
08:06we have topics like business coaching. This year, we wanted to stretch our members. We
08:11wanted people to think, what more? What more can I do? What more can I give? How can I sort
08:16of dwell in my network? So beyond goes in that, it could be beyond in anything. Whether if you're
08:22setting goals, how do you stretch yourself to do that differently? If you are networking, how
08:26would you network differently? How would you go that one mile extra that you've not done before?
08:32If you're in that space of, I want to change something for my business, how are you going
08:37to use knowledge? How are you going to dwell into it deeper so that you can really push yourself that
08:43little bit boundary and just go over the mountain tip, you know, push yourself. That's what the whole
08:48idea of beyond is a theme. And how can all of us individually do that one thing differently that
08:54will take us beyond our comfort zone, stretch ourselves and then make it happen for ourselves.
08:59We have speed networking taking place. We have four different speed working sessions all day long.
09:03We have context-free networking. So in the speed networking, you kind of have, like a speed dating,
09:08you know, you have people sitting across each other and you have that X amount of time before you speak
09:12to one person, then you move on. So we have four such sessions taking place across on the 9th, I think that is,
09:17and then context-free on the 10th. So we're giving a lot of contact time with different people that
09:24we're making this facilitated so that you can meet more people, you can meet new people.
09:28And for that, you've got to be prepared. You've got to be prepared and prepare yourself so that you can
09:32present yourself quickly in that short time. But we're giving all of these opportunities to
09:36everybody who visits us that day. This is for the business community of the UAE. We are trying to reach
09:42everybody who's in business, you know, come and experience it. You don't have to be a BNI member,
09:48just come and experience the networking. You never know who you will meet there and how that will
09:53impact you and your business. But the opportunities for every person, even if you're a mompreneur,
10:00even if you're new, somebody new in the business, come and network, meet people, because you just
10:05never know what contact turns into not only business, but where that can lead to for yourself.
10:10So it's absolutely open for the business community of the UAE, just not for BNI members. BNI is an
10:15international organization, you know, we've been around for 40 years. And one of the benefits of being a
10:20member of BNI is that you're going to get access to members in other countries. Obviously, we all
10:25subscribe to the same philosophy of give us gain. So when I say that if I'm making a contact with
10:30somebody in Japan, I may not necessarily speak Japanese. But we kind of connect on the same level,
10:36because we've all subscribed to the same BNI followers for give us gain. In that way, it opens
10:41the first door that he's a BNI member, she's a BNI member, we kind of, you know, speak the same language,
10:45if you want to put it that way. And then what happens from there on is obviously you have
10:50translations, but the BNI opportunity is such that it allows you to network with people across the
10:56country, across borders, borders is not something that defines us as businesses. And so this gives
11:02the opportunity to cross network across borders across continents, we have expecting international
11:08members to come and exhibit with us, so that they can reach members or visitors or, you know, just the
11:14general business community here in the UAE. But we are expecting people just not from the GCC,
11:19but across borders as well from Asia. But it's about how a small business can really take advantage of
11:25everything that everybody is talking about in today's trends, and implement them, whether it's
11:29automation, whether it's AI, whether it's marketing yourself, or like I said, just how do those industries
11:36impact me? There's just so much learning. And I would say to anybody that take advantage of these
11:41things, hear them in, and you may start to think differently about how you want to position yourself
11:46going forward. Come and experience the Expo, where we're gonna, we're live on Platinum List as well.
11:51BNI.A is our website, so visit that and you'll find all the information there. But I would just
11:56urge anybody in the business community, come and spend two days of learning, networking, and go beyond yourself.