What Is BNI?

Sam Parr says BNI is a networking group that puts local business owners who do not compete in one room to trade leads. A chapter can mix an accountant, an HVAC company, a realtor, a garage-door service, a lawyer, and a landscaper. The room is a shared opportunity: one member refers landscaping jobs, and another refers legal work. He used to watch chapters meet at the YMCA, about 30 people, and each person had to bring a lead, such as a new neighbor who needed garage doors.

He thinks membership is about 800,000 people, with dues in the low thousands of dollars a year. He has met the CEO, a woman from Texas, and the group had just been acquired. Shaan Puri says the price he heard was a rumor in the billion-dollar-plus range.