Bart RatliffFounder, Upstate Business Network.
WHY I BUILT
UPSTATE BUSINESS NETWORK
I’ve been a BNI member for 20 years, and I can trace 100% of my business, and the relationships behind it, back to it. When I became an authorized BNI Launch Director Consultant for the Upstate in May 2026, the question I kept asking was simple: how do we make every chapter in this region stronger, and help launch new ones?
Upstate Business Network is my answer. It’s built to grow BNI across the Upstate, and to give every business owner, sales professional, and entrepreneur, whether or not they ever sit in a chapter, a way to live the idea that changed my business: when you focus on serving others, you grow.
I started with a simple idea: a website and a Facebook business page that would attract business owners, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs to BNI and help the whole region grow.
Then I kept building. After my first year here, getting to know this market, I saw what else was missing. The Upstate needed a real Facebook community built for business owners, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, not another feed of people posting ads. And I kept thinking: wouldn’t it be something if there were a business directory that helped everyone across Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina find each other?
That’s what Upstate Business Network became. A community anyone can join, monthly events that put faces to names, a directory that puts every business in front of the people who do business here, and a BNI chapter for the people ready for weekly accountability.
It reaches past our own chapter, too. There are 16 other BNI chapters across the Upstate. When someone reaches out or visits us and their profession’s seat is already filled, I refer them to another chapter that has their category open, or that’s simply a better fit for them. The goal was never one chapter. It’s a stronger Upstate.
The community is the on-ramp. It’s where people find out what happens when you focus on serving others and helping them grow their business. That’s the whole idea behind BNI.
BNI isn’t the right fit for everyone, and that says nothing about the person. Every BNI chapter meets every week, and for a lot of good business owners, a weekly commitment just doesn’t fit: family obligations, a business that needs them, a schedule that simply doesn’t bend that way. That’s exactly why Upstate Business Network exists: so everyone who believes in serving others has a place to grow, on whatever schedule works for them.
It all runs on one idea. BNI calls it Givers Gain.
We call it Serve Others. Grow Fast.