Synopsis -
In This Episode, Dr. Misner Tells Us About His 10th Book, Masters Of Sales, Including:

This Is The Third In His “Masters” Series, Following Masters of Networking And Masters Of Success

Contributors Include Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins, Zig Ziglar, Martha Stewart, Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins and Many Others

How Ivan’s Books Promote and Brand BNI

Setting Both Sales Goals and Personal Goals

How To Speak Effectively About Your Product or Service

Masters Of Sales is Available Immediately at Amazon and All Major Bookstores

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 020 -

Frank Felker:
Hello everybody and welcome 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 again by Chairman and Founder of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from BNI headquarters in southern California. How are you today, Ivan?

Ivan:
I have been really excited because we have a new book from BNI coming up.

Frank:
That’s what I understand. You have your 10th book coming off the presses. Is that right?

Ivan:
Yes. The tenth book has just been released. It is called Masters of Sales. It is a sequel to the Masters series. The first one was Masters of Networking and second was Masters of Success. Masters of Networking was a New York Times bestseller. Masters of Success was the number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, and now we have the third in the series, Masters of Sales. We believe that it will hit the bestsellers list within the next month.

Frank:
So does the book talk about specific masters of sales – people who have mastered selling- or is it about the process of mastering sales?

Ivan:
The answer is yes. Both. We have about 80 contributing authors. Many of them talk of the process. A number of them also talk about specific people who were masterful in sales. The book is written by many, many well-known people as well as the average salesperson.

It has the trifecta of sales guys. Brian Tracy, Tony Hopkins and Zig Zigler. They all contributed to Masters of Sales. In addition to them, we have Martha Stewart, Harvey McKay, Cainfield, a good friend of mine contributed a story to the book,J. Conrad Livingston, Tony Robbins. We have a well known people in the field of selling like Tony Perenillo, who wrote Selling to Veto the Very Important Top Officer. And Keith Ferrarzi, a friend of mine who wrote Never Eat Alone.

So we have some really well-known people in the sales and marketing group who contributed to the book. There are dozens and dozens of other people. We might not know their names, but they are in the real world every single day selling. They truly are masters of the process.

Frank:
That’s great. So what can we learn from this book?

Ivan:
There are a lot of things, and I urge members to read it. I’ll answer that question directly but first I want to you know why we do these books because you mentioned that this is the tenth book that I have written and I’ve done them all for BNI.

There’s a really good reason why we do these books. I think this is a great opportunity to tell the average member why these books are so important. First of all, we started doing books to provide content for members at a chapter level to be better in marketing, selling and, of course, the networking and referral process. We don’t teach this in colleges and universities so there is a lot of content that will help people do that.

As the organization evolved we had education coordinators. We had others who had helped coordinate and many of them needed lesson plans to help do that. The books really provide lesson plans and that is the first reason that is not the dramatic reason.

One of the reasons that I think is radical and why we do these books is that it builds the name recognition and branding of BNI. If you open up one and look to the back, you’ll see our logo, the picture of the headquarters and description of BNI – our books are published by major publishers. Masters of Sales is published by Entrepreneur Magazine.

So it’s great media exposure for the organization. You know, Frank, if you go to the media and say you want to talk about BNI, you know what they would say to you? Take an ad out. The media doesn’t want to talk about your business, but the media will interview any idiot with a book. So I have lots of interviews. I’ve lost count. I have done over a thousand radio, TV and newspaper interviews.

That is why we do these books because they build the credibility and the recognition of the organization as well as the branding. If I go out and do an interview, they’ll say what led you to go out and write this book? And I get to take off talking about BNI. That builds the brand which builds the organization and members. At the same time, it provides content for education coordinators who can train members of the local level. It is a total win-win.

When you see these books coming out, that’s the reason we do it. If you look at our group, there’s no doubt that it has had a huge impact. The first book that I did came out at the end of 1994. In 1995, we had 350 chapters after first ten years. From 1995 to 2005, we opened an additional 3500 chapters. 350 chapters the first ten years. I first came out with a book at the end of the first ten years. And in six to seven other books came out over the next ten years. We went from 350 chapters to an additional 3500 chapters in the second ten years. Clearly, the books have added to the foundation.

Now mind you, if you don’t have a solid foundation, nothing will stand. Clearly we spent ten years building a foundation based on manuals, systems, procedures and processes that work. But the next ten years has really been spent in building up the brand. The books do that. That’s why we do that.

Frank:
I know that’s a lot of work writing books. I’m sure the book tours are lot of work for you also.

Ivan:
Yes. Certainly. But they’re very effective. Your question was what does the book cover? We go through lot of things here that I think are helpful for BNI members and it starts with understanding how to align yourself with your personal image in your business. How to set goals, both selling goals and life goals. The thing is that they are related. How to get clients prospecting. How to speak effectively about your product or service. How to go up to corporate clients.

We talk about a buyer’s perspective. We talk about sales systems, handling objections and of course one of the most important things that we talk about is relationship selling. That’s what BNI is all about. It is a really important chapter. And there’s no surprise that many of the contributions in that section come from BNI members and directors. We also talk about technology, what is helpful. All of these things are part of the Masters of Sales. It is the largest of the Masters series and we think it will be one of the successful.

Frank:
We’re just about out of time for this week’s podcast. Can you tell the listeners where they can pick this up? When will it be available on Amazon.com, in bookstores and so forth? How can they get it?

Ivan:
The book is available now from Amazon.com. It’s available at most major bookstores. It’s also available at BNI.com. There is a web site for the book, mastersbooks.com. It has Masters of Sales shown prominently, and of course, Masters of Networking and Masters of Success. We really believe that this book with all the contributing authors and many BNI members as well as other people, will help BNI members in particular to sell effectively.

Frank, sell is not a four letter word. Okay well, it is, but you know what I mean. It’s not a four letter word. People may not like to be sold to but they love to buy. If we can teach people how to sell particularly through relationships selling, we will make better BNI members because they get the referrals through BNI and then they have to close the deal. If they can’t close the sale, all of the work in BNI is really not as effective as it could be.

Frank:
Sure. You have to get to the goal line. I look forward to reading it myself, Ivan. And the fans to the sales process. It sounds like what you’ve done especially with all of those contributing authors is great. I can’t wait to read it. That’s it for this week’s episode of the official BNI podcast. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.