Synopsis -
In This Episode, Dr. Misner Tells Us How Introverts Can Be Great Networkers, Including:

Information in Ivan’s book: Truth or Delusion?

Question: You Have To Be A Great “People Person” to be a great networker - Truth or Delusion? DELUSION!

A Good Networker Is A Great Listener - Extroverts Often Dominate Conversations

Introverts Are Better At Carrying-On A Conversation Than They Are At Initiating One

Must Learn Techniques For Introducing Yourself And Getting The Other Person Talking

Volunteer To Be A Chamber Ambassador Or A BNI Visitor Host

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 018 -

Frank Felker:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the official BNI podcast brought to you by networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I’m Frank Felker in Washington DC joined on the phone today by Chairman and Founder of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from BNI headquarters in southern California. How is the weather, Ivan?

Ivan:
Everything is great here in southern California. It is a beautiful summer.

Frank:
Isn’t the rainy season like in January and February? I was out there one time in February for a big event that I was hosting and it did rain like heck.

Ivan:
Sometimes it does but it’s usually nice and sunny here. It certainly is now and it is hot.

Frank:
But there’s not much humidity, right? It isn’t the heat, it’s the humidty. So you want to talk to us today about why introverts can be great networkers. How does that work? I can’t quite get that.

Ivan:
You know, it’s really interesting and we talk about this in a couple places in BNI. Our stuff on it is in my book, Truth or Delusion. It’s also on entrepreneur.com in an article that I wrote called Why Introverts Can Be Great Networkers. It comes from some material that I wrote for Truth or Delusion where I ask the question is it truth or delusion that you have to be a real people person to be great with the networking? The answer is delusion. You don’t.

Mind you, you have to like people. You have to like working with people if you want to network, but you don’t have to be an extrovert. You don’t have to be really, really outgoing. It’s a common assumption that somebody who is an extrovert is the best type of networker. That’s not necessarily true. A good networker has two ears and one mouth and uses them both proportionately. So they listen to what people have to say.

Extroverts love talking about themselves. They are not really good about asking questions and finding out about other people. What we’ve learned is that oftentimes, introverts can, in fact, be better at networking because they are great at talking about you and asking questions about you. It’s really interesting because often, introverts eliminate themselves from the process because they think that they’re not good at networking because they can’t initialize a conversation. They’re not good at walking up to a stranger and starting a conversation.

That’s really unfortunate because I think, in many ways, they’re better at the second part of networking that the extrovert is. The extravert can just walk up to a stranger and start a conversation, but they’re not good about asking questions and finding out more about the other person. The introvert is not good at just walking up to a stranger in introducing themselves, but they’re much better at building the connection and the relationship.

I think it’s really important to understand that you have to have both parts of the process to be good at networking. You have to learn how to introduce yourself to people. There are ways introverts can do it, by the way. We can come back to that in a minute. You have to be good at introducing yourself, but then once you’ve done that, you really have to be good about pulling out of people information and learning about them so that you can network with them effectively of the over time.

Frank:
That’s interesting because most people prefer – their favorite topic of conversation is themselves, so if you just ask them an open question and let them go, you’ll find out a lot.

Ivan:
Especially with entrepreneurs. They love to talk about themselves. It’s easy and a lot of the entrepreneurs tend to be a little more on the extroverted side but not all of them. So if you are one of those who maybe isn’t an extrovert or maybe you are an extrovert but you’re just uncomfortable for some reason in the process or a setting that you’re not familiar with – what do you do?

One of the things that I recommend is to volunteer to be a role within whatever organization that you are in. That will get you out to introduce yourself to people. In the chamber of commerce, that would be the chamber ambassador. If you join a new chamber and you don’t know the people there and you want to get to know them, the best way to do it is to volunteer to be the investor so that when you go to chamber mixer, you are standing there and you meet people.

It’s so much easier to say,”Hi, my name is Ivan. I’m the chamber ambassador and I would like to welcome you to the chamber mixer this evening. Could you tell me a little bit about what you do? I’d love to put you in touch with some of the other people here.”

You act as a connector and it is much easier to play the role of host when you take on the role. Even if you’re an introvert, it’s easy to do because all you’re doing is saying, “ Hi. I am the ambassador and can I connect you with anyone here?” It’s a technique that introverts can use to make themselves feel a little more comfortable in the introduction, rather than walking up cold to a group of strangers and saying high my name is_________ and this is what I do.

Frank:
So they have to put themselves in a position to easily interact with people.

Ivan:
Yes. And this really stems from a book from Adele Scheele where she says if you’re going to be successful in networking, act like the host and not the guest. It’s a great story and it’s in her book, Skills for Success. I also talked about in The World’s Best Marketing Secret. The truth is that it’s easy to say to act like the host but it can be difficult to do. The best way to do it is to not act like to host but to be the host. You can be the host by volunteering to be the ambassador of the chamber or in BNI, what’s the role that is basically the same as the ambassador?

Frank:
The visitor host.

Ivan:
The visitor host – now that’s your job, to introduce yourself to every visitor of you who walks in. If you’re a little uncomfortable and an introvert, now you have a reason to do it and it’s a simple reason. Your goal is to introduce yourself to a visitor and walk around and introduce them. You’re a connector. That’s really the job of the visitor host. You stand there by the door and say, “Hi. My name is Frank. I am the visitor host for BNI. Welcome to the meeting today. I’ll be happy to answer the questions you have.”

What a great way to meet people and it makes it very smooth so that it’s not uncomfortable even for introverts to do.

Frank:
But I would be eating my breakfast during that time. You are going to interrupt my breakfast so that I can talk to them.

Ivan:
Yes, you’d have the first fifteen minutes of the open networking that you’d have to do before you could start eating your breakfast. Of course now, the extraverts, they’re pretty good about that. What they have a hard time doing is the second part of it and I’ve talked about the second part in some other material.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on it here but basically what you want to do is ask the who, what , when, where and why kinds of questions. Extroverts have to stop talking about themselves and start talking about the other person, and the best way to do that is to ask them questions and take information out so that you can learn more and help and support them.

There are two parts of the process. Extroverts are good at the first part, which is introducing themselves, and introverts are better at the second part of asking questions and getting to know each other. Both introverts and extroverts have something to learn. I have to tell you that I think it’s harder to learn how to ask questions and pull out information than it is to introduce yourself if you follow the methods that I talked about which is being a host. To tell you the truth, extraverts have more work to do than introverts because there are mechanisms that people can use to introduce themselves.

Frank:
That’s so funny. I never would have believed what you’re saying as far as why introverts can be great networkers until I heard what you just said. I think you’re absolutely right because the easiest way to network or get information out of somebody is just sit and listen to what they have to say. Obviously, extraverts tend to have a very hard time doing that. Well Dr. Misner, we’re just about at a time for this week’s podcast. Any last word or pearl of wisdom that you want to share with the listeners this week?

Ivan:
Networking is a skill that can be learned no matter what level of outgoing-ness. If you remain ill at ease in environments where you have to introduce yourself to people or are meet new people, take advantage training materials like this podcast. These podcasts really will help you become a better member. Listen to this material and take a look at the books and learn the skills of how to network more effectively.

One last thing Frank before I quit, I invite our listeners to comment up here at bnipodcast.com about things that they hear me and some of my guests talk about that resonate with them and has helped make them a better networker and how. This is the way other members will learn – if you members who are listening to this share what has worked for you. Post a message up BNI podcast.com. I invite you to do so.

Frank:
I agree. That’s great and I encourage everybody to do that. That’s it for this week’s episode of the BNI podcast. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.