A Darwen-based photographer has won the biggest single commission of his career through an introduction at a network meeting organised by the world’s largest referral marketing organisation.
Wayne Myers of Myers Creative had recently joined BNI Endeavour, which meets weekly at Shaw Hill Golf Club, Chorley, when fellow new member Adam Fletcher of Wigan-based Adam Fletcher Design, passed him a referral to his client GF Holding, who were looking for a photographer for a special project tying into their major refurbishment of Santander’s Bradford head office.
The contract involved internal photography of the refurbished offices and also a special art commission, involving landscape photography from around Yorkshire, with final images to be framed and hung around the offices.
The commission saw Wayne visiting eight sites around Yorkshire to take the photographs and then arranging framing through another fellow BNI Endeavour member, Adrian Meakin of Wrea Green-based Framing Incredible.
BNI Endeavour is part of the world’s biggest referral organisation, Business Network International. Established over 30 years with 200,000 members in over 70 countries worldwide, it works by organising weekly networking meetings for groups of businesses. Groups, known as chapters, use their combined network of contacts to find business opportunities and referrals for one another, to a specific brief that members outline at every meeting. With over 40 members, BNI Endeavour is currently the largest group of the eleven across Lancashire.
Wayne said: “A substantial piece of work based on my exact specialisms, this contract represents the biggest single commission of my career so far, and just shows the power of referral marketing. Nearly every B2B business in the country wins the majority of business through referral. BNI simply taps into that and provides procedures and processes that ensure business is referred to well known, liked and trusted contacts.
“The breadth of businesses in the network means you can get situations like this, where businesses from Darwen and Wrea Green receive a referral from a Wigan-based business to a Cheshire-based customer for a contract in Yorkshire, servicing the needs of an international brand.”