Very few people can find ways of generating an amazing amount business for their company but David Rowlands can proudly say he is one of them, and is passionate about helping others do the same.
The Berwick businessman is a proud member of BNI Australia, an organisation which allows members to exchange qualified business referrals by word of mouth, and thus gain benefits from each referral.
BNI is run through chapters, which are located in various suburbs across each state, including Berwick, Narre Warren, Pakenham and Dandenong.
David, who is part of BNI Berwick family of 25 members, said they do very well each year and generate a large amount of income for each business owner.
“Last year BNI Berwick did about $630,000 business,” he said. “Since we’ve been back in the last week of January, we’ve done about $100,000.
That’s what we can track but there are still things we can’t track, such as members who have come and gone who we still do business with.
“Pretty much any business can do well with BNI, the ones that do the best out of it are people like hairdressers, handymen, printers, web designers – the kind of businesses people need all the time.”
David runs his own web and digital design company called Digital Developments and occasionally helps out with his wife Lucy’s cafe and catering business Sojourn.
“I’ve been in business with Digital Developments since 2004 but I’ve been building websites since 1995 so I’ve been in industry long time,” he said.
“I’ve probably dealt with over 1000 websites, which I do for everybody and anybody.”
After joining the BNI soon after Digital Developments was up and running, the results gave David no reason to look back.
“$100,000 is the most I’ve made out of it, just from referrals,” he said.
“It cost me $700 to be in it and I could easily do that. Just a fewweeks ago I had four referrals ranging from $3000 to $4000, all from friends’ referrals.”
David is currently the oldest and earliest member of BNI Berwick and has won a number of awards to show not only his successes, but the successes of others because of him.
“I’ve won member of the year, which is like the academy award of the BNI,” he said.
“Second best is the chapter award, which Berwick has won as well.”
David said he would continue to enlist in BNI for the future of his business, and encourages others to do the same.
“It’s all word of mouth and that’s how BNI do so well,” he said. “It’s awesome for a business. You walk out a far better businessperson than you walk in.”