Rick Roberge had an interesting post about the BNI group, including his own cost justification and the kind of salespeople who do and should belong.

What he doesn't say is that networking groups, however helpful or useless they may be, are great for salespeople who:

• can't or won't make cold calls but will make calls if they have a referral;
• are great at developing relationships and can parlay their membership into 27 great relationships;
• are great networkers and can make the most out of whatever quality of salespeople make up the membership;

So while the average return from a group like this may be quite unattractive, if the salesperson meets the three criteria above, it should be required.

(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan