I signed up with a local chapter in my area and 5 months in I passed many referrals.  I tried setting up 1 to 1's and only 2 of the members kept the appointments.  One tried to hard sell me for the great majority of the time.  The 2 referrals that I was given were to people who refused to take my call.  Realizing that this chapter was more self serving and focused on making money by over charging for lunch meetings and padding the account.  I truly felt like a money pot for them and they were not truly operating in the way BNI described I switched chapters.

Chapter #2 people were a lot better and there was synergy.  While in this chapter the "success coach" seemed very driven to promote their own business in EVERY visit.  It was always an event/fundraiser drive or something to get money that was beneficial to thher MLM business.  

Other members noticed and started leaving the chapter.  We were down to 7 members and the success coach lost their marbles at one meeting and literally went off on one of the chapter members calling the member VERY LOUDLY a B*tch (amongst other equally nasty words) in the midst of our meeting in the restaurant. Everyone was shocked and immediately contacted the chapter's owner.  Not sure what the outcome was for everyone else, but that was the moment the chapter simply ceased to exist and the chapter's owner took 4 months to finally respond to my complaint.  It took that long for me to reach the correct executives of BNI to finally get an answer.

I was an outsider looking in and joined but the reality in my area did not match what the hype was about. That was a $1,000.00 mistake. I choose to take it as a learning lesson.

I say truly vet the chapter you really wish to join.  Interview them. Really make sure it is right for you. If it is what you want to do....best of luck.  There are other ways of networking that are less expensive with better results.

Worst experience ever. Like being back in high school where the really mean girls gang up on the good-looking one and torture her non-stop everytime they see her. Just horrific. A waste of time and money. The woman that ran this chapter (and others) was 100x incompetent. Don't bother, there are better alternatives out there.

Having a group of business professionals focused on how to support each other and refer business is a great model. I've been a member of BNI for only a few months and have received a number of referrals from those in my group. It's also great to meet regularly with other business owners and stay connected.