I just attended a BNI guest meeting and was impressed. I will re-attend this Friday to make sure I understand ALL of the requirements before deciding to apply or not. There may be other groups like BNI as well. For example, in Knoxville, TN there is TNT which stands for Tennessee Networking ..something.. and may be cheaper. The idea of 1-only member of each profession is brilliant, and I imagine there is little competition for piano tuning spots. Apparently, at least in the chapter I attended, you can only miss a limited number of weekly meetings or you are booted, and forced to reapply. That is possibly a deal-breaker, as i like to vacation. There are also other networking events. In NYC I never needed, nor even considered, networking much. Just knowing piano stores and other techs and being active in the Guild and having a sufficient website and spot on Google Maps was enough. In Knoxville, TN however, I see things are very different. I was very spoiled in New York! So I constantly keep my eyes open for opportunities. For example, there was an ad in the newspaper for a "Clicks and Coffee" breakfast last week, which the newspaper put on and gave a seminar on search engine optimization for your website, which was helpful. I happened to win the big raffle drawing, which, hard to believe but true, is a half-page full color ad in the newspaper for 1 day. So sometimes big results can come from a seemingly trivial affair. I will let ya'll know how the results do from the ad. (However, we may break it up into a smaller ad and run it multiple days, since a half-page may be overkill - or maybe not - maybe that half page will generate 1000 calls! If any one has suggestions on this feel free to chime on.) On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 9:03 AM, jimialeggio <jimialeggio at gmail.com> wrote: > Marshall Gisondi wrote: > >> I know word of mouth is the best, but I need to get some more mouths >> first. >> > > You might see if there is a BNI chapter near you. http://www.bni.com/ The concept is each local chapter only allows one person in of a particular > trade into that chapter, and that members of the chapter and society agree > to serve as a mutual referral network for each other. I'm not a member, but > have considered it. Members say that after some time of going to the weekly > early morning meetings, as members get comfortable with you, and as you get > better at selling your services, referrals, both direct referrals from the > members, and indirect referrals, ie people members know outside the group, > become a significant portion of their businesses. > > Might be helpful... > > Jim I > > > -- > Jim Ialeggio > grandpianosolutions.com > 978- 425-9026 > Shirley, MA > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100518/b82f39c5/attachment.htm>
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