Business Networking Groups

I considered joining BNI a couple of years ago. I attended a couple of meetings but decided my marketing money was better spent somewhere else.

Matt

Bow - I was a Rotary member for a couple of years. Great people who
do great things for the local community. But, it did not seem to generate much
business. However, as a method to get your name out there offer to speak at
a Rotary meeting. Our local group is always looking for speakers. Even though
I am no longer a member I have been back twice to speak.

Scott

I'm a member of a local group not affiliated with any of those nationwide organizations. I love it -- it's fun and I get lots of work from it. The reason there are so many is because they only allow one member for each business category. Around here, it's pretty normal for a networking group to have around 15 to 20 members.

Clients vs. customers

I know people who swear by BNI, but my viewpoint has always been that I'd rather avoid one time clients and spend my efforts cultivating relationships with long term partners.

If you want to do stakeout and development related work - the spend your time at the homebuilders association

If you want to do surveys for real estate settlement, then research the thee or four largest real estate law firms in the area you work and find out what clubs/groups/charities/etc. the partners are involved in (LinkedIn is a great source of "marketing intelligence")

If you want to do surveying support for consulting engineering firms, join the Florida Engineering Society

One thing I found successful when I was solo was to keep up with "gossip" in other design professions and see who was also starting out on their own. We're not the only group where technological advances have allowed solo operators to be successful where it took a multi person firm in the past. Find the solo engineers, architects, and land planners.

I set up a series of lunch meetings with a couple of engineers, architects and planners who had also just started up on their own. Eventually a couple of us were able to team up and take a pretty good sized project (120 lot subdivision) away from the usual suspects (the 25 person design firms).

Marketing is like hunting - you can just walk into the woods and sit on the first stump you see and wait for whatever passes by; but if you take the time to know your quarry and their habitat you're more likely to be successful. 😉

One word: Chamber of Commerce and your State Surveying Assoc. (especially if you're one of the states with automatic NSPS membership for $40).... I know that's a lot more than one word of course! LOL

I have not found any reason to join any other "social" groups such as Elks, Masons, etc...

To clarify, this is better known as a referral group. The idea isn't just to network among your 15 members but more to send and receive referrals to others in the group. So it's not like you are limited to just those 15 members. While I have actually gotten work from some of our actual members in that group, most of the work comes from outside the group via referrals from those within the group.

Furthermore, it's pretty common to have a realtor, title company, bank and attorney in the group, all of which can help broaden the network for a land surveyor. It's also an opportunity to educate others on what a land surveyor does and the real costs involved.

As a matter of fact, my group has an attorney that deals with a lot of land issues and I can see where a land surveyor would benefit from that association. I worked for a company in the 90's that did a lot of work for a local land use attorney.