"It's not what you know, it's what you know about who you know."

According to a report in ScienceDaily, "a study of the biotech industry has revealed that opportunities which arise, and whether or not they are exploited by biotechnology entrepreneurs, depends to a large extent on how well connected is an individual business person and how well they mobilise their social network. Photo by Ambro

Key messages are most often associated with public relations – those important messages it’s important to raise time and time again – but they also make a useful networking and word of mouth tactic.

Photo by Michal Marcol

It took an apparent failure to reach a corporate goal that taught one company that business referral networking is not a numbers game.

“Small and intimate should be the rule of thumb for business networks,” says BNI New Zealand Marketing Director Colin Kennedy. “At BNI New Zealand we have 126 chapters countrywide, and we wanted them all to reach memberships of about 40 businesses each.