Today 13th September, I have mixed emotions of sadness & excitement because after 5 years & 9 months I have stepped down personally from being a member of Business Networking International ( BNI ) due to fresh commitments I now have relating to frequent business visits to India.
Gautam Ganglani with Bijay Shah, National Director of the UAE & Kenya & Chairman of BNI International, Dr Ivan Misner with over 500 delegates on Feb 19th, 2011
I wish to place on record that Right Selection Group’s recent rapid growth, more especially in India, has been largely due to BNI India and in particular Bijay Shah, Anuradha Shah, Niiraj Shah, Twiinkle Shah & Niiri Patel who have in many different ways, all helped me achieve my dream this year of hosting Ron Kaufman & Bob Urichuck in India at the BNI India Conference. My personal thanks, to each one of them.
This BNI Conference will always be remembered positively in my mind as a strong starting point for me in launching our company in India enabling Right Selection Group to add value to the lifelong learning community on an SME level and for the big corporate clients. This was added by the delightful pleasure of meeting the Chairman of BNI, Dr Ivan Misner personally at the conference in Mumbai and socially at Niiraj’s 40th Birthday Celebrations.
I am confident the journey has only just begun as we have now been invited by Mac & Murali Srinivasan for the Bangalore National Conference in Feb 2012 with speakers Ron Kaufman & Rick Itzkowich. Thank you all for your wholehearted support & friendship.
I joined BNI, Dubai – The Early Bird’s Chapter, in February 2006 thanks to a great friend and referral partner, Prem Mulani who invited me for a Visitors Day launch at Al Habtoor hotel.
I very much remember joining BNI after attending my first meeting at Palm Hotel next to Hard Rock Cafe. I was very curious to learn how and why members came at 6.45am every week and paid over US $1000 for an annual membership. What were they benefitting from BNI ? However I learnt very fast and my findings very were positive.
In my very first meeting I received a referral for Asif Osman of Air Miles who booked his entire team for the Ron Kaufman Public Seminar. I immediately realised I had received back my return on my investment in the BNI membership within the first week.
This referral alone has a Butterfly story as our Chairman of BNI Dr Ivan Misner shares, and putting things simply, this referral resulted in on-going business for one year with Air Miles and its clients including Hertz, Panasonic & Black & Decker doing more than US $50,000 worth of business with Right Selection in year one.
The above is a story being simply shared to endorse BNI as the best business referral & relationship building organisation in the world.
Within 6 months of joining BNI I had also visited chapters in London & Mumbai and what was most admirable about BNI is the consistency in all 3 countries with regards timing, punctuality, attitude of “How can I help you?” and a genuine interest to build relationships.
By following the “Givers Gain” Philosophy of what goes around comes around, the potential of a regular flow of business and continuous growth are very much in your hands. It is in your hands how you are able to help & in turn motivate your fellow members to help you by providing you with qualified referrals.
Right Selection Group’s goal: Our goal is simple…. to help you reach yours, follows the same philosophy and I endorse this mindset combined with living life with an attitude of gratitude being your greatest asset to success and inner happiness.
At a time when the economy was extremely challenging in Jan 2009, about 3 years into my BNI membership we were given badges,“ I am not participating in the recession” which was another great initiative from BNI which I fully supported.
Phil Bedford was a friend & a member of Early Birds when I joined in 2006, however in 2009 when he launched The Referral Institute, I booked myself for the 12 week Certified Networker Workshops.
During this time, I also took on the role of Chapter Director of Early Birds successfully for 1 year and was proud to be recognised at the BNI Dubai Conference by the National Directors Bijay & Anna Shah for being on the Green Status of Traffic Lights with 100 points for a whole year. This was a huge achievement and a learning curve for me and I recommend everyone to take a Leadership role as it will add tremendous value in Visibility, Credibility & Profitability within BNI for you and in turn help you become a better and more versatile human being for your business and your community.
I recommend any entrepreneur looking to take their BNI membership to a deeper level of commitment to meet Phil Bedford personally to learn how you can have a steady flow of predictability in your business by having regular qualified referrals through the power of Referral Institute.
I am abundantly grateful to BNI for the learning because from presenting 60 seconds to taking on different roles & responsibilities, it is in turn a form of personality development.
The intangible benefits include the quality of people that you meet. To me it has been like having a board of advisors from 25+ different industries and it is testimony that the more you put into BNI the more will receive from BNI in business, valuable advice & learning.
BNI has made a tremendous impact on my life personally & professionally & I will always be abundantly grateful for the doors that have been opened by BNI for me both in the Gulf & India.
An additional testimony I would like to share about BNI is that for the last 5+ years both personally & professionally is to always look to BNI members as my preferred service providers and give them first right of refusal. This is something I will continue to do so with full confidence & trust in the BNI network.
Throughout my 5 + years at any given time I had a minimum of 10 members being service providers for Right Selection from my chapter. This the trust & credibility that I have in BNI and the members.
Last Thursday the 8th of September I hosted the Early Birds Social at my home with members, partners and some VIP guests. A fun filled evening which went on until 2am. Today on Tuesday 13th September, I presented the 10 minutes slot at my last chapter meeting on the Mind Mapping workshop for Kids and the seminar with international speaker Bob Nelson based on the best selling book UBUNTU a philosophy about the importance of creating positive teamwork & collaberation to ensure productivity & success. UBUNTU has been inspired by Dr Nelson Mandela & the author has been endorsed by world renowned speakers Steven Covey & Ken Blanchard. A dream finish to my BNI membership tenure. Thank you Early Birds.
Thank you BNI International, Dr Ivan Misner, Bijay Shah, Anuradha Shah, Phil Bedford, Niiraj Shah, Twiinkle Shah, Niiri Patel & Phil Berg.
My thanks also to the current Early Bird Chapter members of 2011 and past members Bency Kurien, Nic WW, Nic Watson, Nic Pearson, Steven Brown, Fiona Swaffield, Niousha, Srikanth, Prakash Lakhiani, Susan Furness, Mazarine, Mahesh Shahani, Sonja Ohly, Sabine Poolke, Youmna, Zena, & Nasim for the friendship, support & advice which has been invaluable.
I also had the pleasure of additional friendships in BNI with Joshi, Manoj Pillai, Phil Bedford, Graham Moore, Simran Samtani, Hussein Hallak, Corrina Cross, Claire Kanj, Claire Fenner, Sonam Mirchandani, Dave Crane, Vishal Shah amongst many other BNI members including my BNI friends in India like Sumeet Vaid, Sampath, Gopal, Alpaa, Sundeep Jain, Prashant Welling, Ajith Panicker, Arunaagii,Shailesh Kedia, Neha, Hitesh, Nitin Sapre, Viral, Meena, Mac & Murali just to name a few. Thank you BNI UAE & BNI INDIA members at large.
Right Selection Group will be continuing its representation & membership of BNI in the UAE through my colleague Ms.Vibhuti Dugga as a member of the Early Birds and my positive word of mouth about BNI as a referral & relationship building network will continue as well, with qualified referrals.
On a closing note, I will continue to live life with an attitude of gratitude, givers gain mindset & continue my dream of reaching more people to enjoy the learning & networking experience from our events and enrich their lives so that I create a memorable legacy. Thank you.
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