Synopsis -
In this episode, Dr. Misner and special guest, National Director of BNI Portugal, Hélder Falcão, discuss:

Dr. Misner’s Travels to BNI Chapters Throughout Europe

National Director of BNI Portugal: Hélder Falcão

How BNI Portugal Got Started

Applause Is American - Or Is It?

BNI Strategic Alliance Partner www.Ecademy.com

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 004 -

Frank Felker:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the official BNI Podcast. I am Frank Felker in Washington DC joined on the phone today by Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from Portugal. How is your trip through Europe going?

Dr. Ivan Misner:
Any flight that lands safely is a good one. Things are going great. I have really enjoyed meeting members from all over Europe. I will be visiting five countries in two weeks and three countries I have never been to before.

Frank:
Which countries are those?

Ivan:
I had not been to Denmark. I went to Copenhagen, Demark. Then I went all over Sweden, which I had visited once before. I spent part of the afternoon in Oslo, Norway. I am calling right now from Lisbon, Portugal with a good friend and National Director here, whom I am going to introduce in just a moment.

Frank:
That’s right. I understand you have a special guest on the phone from Portugal, but before you get to that, this is not all pleasure. You are staying busy. You were telling me that you had an amazing number of presentations to make in a small number of days.

Ivan:
I wish I could say I was sightseeing, but not this time. I have 19 presentations that I am doing in ten days.

Frank:
They are keeping you busy. So who is our special guest on the line today?

Ivan:
Well, we have with us the National Director for Portugal, Hélder Falcão. Hélder has been operating in Portugal for a number of years. Hélder, why don’t you introduce yourself and give us some flavor of BNI Portugal with some Portuguese, would you?

Hélder:
Okay. (Speaks briefly in Portuguese) Which is basically very good afternoon, and it is a fantastic pleasure to be here on this podcast. BNI Portugal has been operating since October 2005, and we now have 16 chapters in multiple cities. There are four chapters in Lisbon, where we are at the moment, recording this podcast.

Ivan:
What I think is really incredible about this broadcast is this is the first time that we have done a podcast with another country. We are going to do another one next week. It really shows the international nature of the organization. It is one thing to hear us say we are in several dozen countries, but to have someone from another country speaking a little bit of the language and sharing their experiences is just awesome. For the members who are listening, I think this gives you the flavor of the true international nature of this organization.

Hélder:
Absolutely. Portugal, in western Europe, actually only met this concept two years ago. I believe that Portuguese entrepreneurs have accepted it very well. We are having business meetings very early in the day because usually in the country, it is not very common to see a meeting before nine or ten, or even eleven o’clock. This is something that BNI is bringing to the Portuguese culture that is actually educating them and making them more structured and professional in that sense. People don’t arrive late to the meetings. They get a good, positive attitude.

It is going really well. We are lucky enough to have a team of 25 regional directors that are now implementing BNI countrywide. I am really glad to see the progress of BNI, and I am very privileged to have the presence of the Founder and Chairman, Dr. Misner, in the country.

Ivan:
It really is exciting to be here and I will be doing my first presentation in just a few minutes. We have translated my “Truth or Delusion” material. We will be doing a simultaneous translation as we do the presentation.

Hélder, you came across BNI while you were in the United Kingdom, and you attended a couple of chapter meetings, did you not?

Hélder:
Yes. That is correct.

Ivan:
Tell us how you then took this to Portugal.

Hélder:
Basically, I was living there. I am a member of a networking platform. It is an international community called Ecademy which is a networking tool for entrepreneurs to connect with each other in over 188 countries, I believe. There are over 110,000 people who belong to these online communities. I obtained this one event in Liverpool, where I found one guy who was a member of Ecademy, and he had a really big badge when he first came to check in. I asked him, “What is that BNI thing?” I had never heard about it before.

He said, “BNI is an organization that I belong to.” To make the story short, basically, one very special person for me, Terry Hamill, had visited his chapter a few weeks before and said a good referral for me would be someone from Portugal because I bought a franchise and I need to expand it.. This gentleman here whom I had just met for a little while said, “I know someone who could be of interest to you. Is it okay if he gives you a call?”

We exchanged a referral - now I know what a referral is - and a month later, we had a business meeting at 6:30 a.m., on a very dark, cold and rainy day in Manchester. By 6:35, people were coming. When I saw all the agendas and people exchanging referrals, I wanted to do this in Portugal. From there, it took some time as I had to do the training, as does everyone else. Then we came to the country and basically two and a half years later, the concept is picking up very well.

Ivan:
One of the things that I find amazing with your story is that you have described the way that a good referral should take place in BNI. Terry put out there that he was looking to open up in Portugal. One of the members sees you, meets you and you’re from Portugal. He puts the two together, and that is the way that the program should work for every person looking for referrals. Hélder, the meetings in Portugal are for the most part the same as the meetings in the UK, the US and other countries. Is that not true?

Hélder:
Yes. We have the open networking part, where everyone introduces themselves with their visitor host, the leadership team, and the 60 seconds is a time we have a lot of energy at the meetings because after each presentation, they actually clap. We always feel good about it. It is actually quite an energetic meeting, and every person who goes to a BNI meeting for the first time gets absolutely blown away. There is a lot of fun inside of the meeting - it’s fantastic.

Ivan:
But if you went to a meeting in the United States and then went to a meeting in Portugal, it would be, except for the language, very much the same.

Hélder:
I believe so because this is an American concept. You guys have a lot of energy. You give awards and you recognize people. Clapping is also fantastic, you know.

Ivan:
I thought that was interesting because you said that some of your members said that this thing about clapping after everyone speaks is very American.

Hélder:
Very American, absolutely.

Ivan:
But we don’t do that in the American chapters, so now all the Americans who hear this are going to say that is very Portuguese.

We need to wrap up, but I did want to say one last thing. You mentioned Ecademy and I have to say thank you because you are the person who introduced me to Ecademy and BNI now has a strategic alliance with the organization, which we recommend our members participate in. That is Ecademy.com. Thank you very much for introducing me to the organization and we are proud to have a strategic alliance with them.

Well, Frank, I think we are pretty much out of time. Hélder, thank you so much. It is a real honor to be visiting your country this week, and I am looking forward to speaking to the members in just a little while.

Hélder:
Absolutely. I also want to thank you very, very much for being here. The members, within 20 minutes or so, are going to meet you. It is going to be a fantastic event. It has been a great few days. The press has a great interest. The major economic newspapers are going to be launching a few stories in the next few days, and it is going to be a fantastic event.

Ivan:
Thank you so much, Hélder. Frank, back to you.

Frank:
Gentlemen, thank you so much for calling in. For Dr. Ivan Misner and Hélder Falcão calling in from Portugal, I am Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI Podcast.