Synopsis

Dr. Misner talks with special guest Brian Tracy about how BNI is like exercise machinery. Everybody knows that a treadmill works—but only if you use it. The only question about whether BNI works is “How often do you use it, and how long do you use it each time?”

Here are a few highlights from this conversation:

• You can’t get a haircut over the phone: in-person contact matters.
• BNI gives you better prospects, but you still need to make more calls.
• Never be complacent, and always ask for the order.

Take advantage of the alliance between BNI and Brian Tracy University.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 040 -

Priscilla Rice:
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 Priscilla Rice coming from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley California. I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, as well as his special guest, Brian Tracy. What would you and Brian like to share with us today, Dr. Misner?

Ivan Misner:
Thanks Priscilla. We’re going to be talking a little bit about networking today. Brian and I connected a couple of months ago and he had a great analogy that I think I would like to start out with. Brian, I don’t know if you recall, but we you were at Entrepreneur Press, the Entrepreneur Magazine offices. We were talking about networking, and you had this incredible analogy about the health industry and BNI. Would you mind sharing it with the BNI members?

Brian Tracy:
Yes. One of the things that people often ask is does it work? They want to know if being a member of BNI works. Is it helpful? I ask the question, what is the best-selling piece of exercise equipment in America? After a few guesses, we conclude that to the best-selling is the treadmill. They sell $8 billion or more worth of treadmills every single year in America.

Now if you buy a treadmill and you take it home, what determines how much value you get from the treadmill? I ask this of my audiences and people will say how much you use it. I say, yes, that it is actually a combination of two things. It’s how often you use it and how long you use it each time. And everybody agrees.

Then I say now here’s the question. Is there any it doubt whether or not the treadmill works? The answer is, of course, no. That’s already been decided. That’s why it’s so popular. Everybody knows that it works. It’s been proven over and over again hundreds of times, millions of times, at every health club in the world that the treadmill works as long as you use it on a regular basis.

Now, it’s the same thing with networking. And that is the point that we are discussing. The same thing with networking - throughout the last hundred years of business, the most successful business people are those who know the most other people in business and know them in a positive, favorable way. So the only question about BNI and the only question about networking is how often you use it and how long you use it each time.

Ivan:
I couldn’t agree more. We have a phrase in BNI, that it’s called not netsit or neteat, its network. Meetings aren’t all about the breakfast. They’re not about coming in and sitting down. It’s about working the network, and part of that is doing it regularly.

That’s why I love the analogy of the treadmill because you have to get on it regularly. Just having it sit there in your gym isn’t doing any good. You have to get on it regularly and [consider] how long you do it. So networking at BNI meetings an hour and a half every week and networking outside of BNI and meetings - we tell our BNI members don’t be a cave dweller. Go out and you can join other networks such as a chamber of commerce or service club because the more you are out there connecting with people, the stronger your networking skills are going to be.

Brian:
It’s interesting, Ivan. Some years ago when I was holding an international conference, I invited a gentleman who also had an international distribution business to speak. Someone said, “Why are you inviting him to speak? All he wants to do some more of his stuff.”

I said, “My friend, that is all anybody wants to do is sell more of their stuff. Of course he wants to sell more of his stuff. We all want to sell more of our stuff. The only question is how we go about it. What he wants to do is expose his stuff to as many people as possible.”

It’s the same thing in networking. All of us, when it’s coming right down to it, want to sell more of our products and services. The bottom line is that we always find it easier to sell to people that we know. It’s easier to recommend people that we know.

I will give you a very simple example. I was at a conference in Ireland some years ago, and I was speaking all day. My host invited a great, big businessmen, a president of a large company with 2000 employees to the meeting. He couldn’t attend but he came at lunch. He could only come for a short time. He came at lunch, and he came up and met me. We spoke for about five or ten minutes. It wasn’t very long. Then I went on and he had to leave.

I never saw him before or after that, but my company in Ireland did business with his company for the next five years. The president would always say, “Yeah, I know the guy personally. I have met him personally. I met him face-to-face and had a great talk with him. I met him personally.” That’s what tipped him over. You know, with the 200 other companies competing for the business, the fact that one person had met somebody else personally was the critical factor. That’s why networking is so important.

Ivan:
It really is and you have to get there. I don’t know if you noticed, but in BNI, we have an attendance requirement. Often times people are say why make an attendance requirement? It’s not critical that they be there.

One of the things I always told members is that you can’t get a haircut over the phone. It’s one of those kinds of things where you have to be there. With networking, it just makes a huge difference if you are where they are, and you are face-to-face and meet someone because nothing beats that kind of personal contact. Your story is a perfect example of that.

Brian:
The other thing that comes from networking is everybody that you network with has their own sort of learning process going on. Some are reading. Some are listening to audio programs. Some are listening to podcasts like this. They are picking up little bits of information.

When you meet with them, what happens- I have seen this in my own organization - someone says I read this the other day or a heard this the other day. The other person will say it’s a good idea. They hadn’t thought of that. That will help them sell more stuff. Sometimes they will get one idea that will open up a whole direction of business, a whole new industry, or find a way to get appointments or close sales because somebody just dropped in to a networking meeting and wasn’t even part of the plan.

Ivan:
Yeah, you’re right. Often times, it’s repeating back. You may have heard something once or twice but you weren’t ready to hear it before. You get these ideas and you may come across them again, and now you’re ready for it or it sinks in this time and you start applying those concepts.

Brian:
Here’s something that I do, and it may be helpful or not to people in BNI. Sometimes I will say to my audience that if anybody here could share their very best ideas with everybody else, everybody here would double their income. Everybody here would sell twice as much of their stuff. I will say, “Why don’t we do an exercise? I’m going to ask you this question. What is your best idea? If you want to help somebody succeed in sales in business, what is the one idea that you think is the very best? For the rest of the meeting, go around and say. ‘What is yours?’ ‘What is yours?’ When somebody asks what yours is, you tell them your best idea. And then, they will tell you their best idea. My promise to you is you will get so many great ideas that you won’t know where to start when you leave this meeting.” You can only get that from networking.

Ivan:
That’s a great idea, Brian. So, let me ask you - I know you have so many great ideas that it’s hard to narrow it down. Give me one great idea for the members to hear.

Brian:
In telling actually, there are three key ideas. One is you have to make more calls. The key to success in sales is to make more calls on better prospects. Make more calls on better prospects. Of course, that’s what BNI does. It gives you better prospects, but you have to make more calls. There is a direct relationship between the number of calls you make and two things. First of all, the number of good calls you make. And secondly, how good you get.

The more you call on people, the better you get. The second thing is to present well. This requires continually upgrading your skills in selling. Never, never be complacent. You get better and better at what you do. The first thing, of course, is ask for the order. At the end, just ask for the order. “Do like what I’m showing you? Why don’t you give it a try?” Ask for the order.

This is a skill that you can learn, again, through practice, repetition, books, tapes and so on. I would say that the key to success in sales is frequency of activity. Make more calls. Make more presentations. Ask for the order more often.

Ivan:
Great advice. One of the things in BNI that we have really tried to establish is a culture of learning. These podcasts are a great example of that, where it gives me an opportunity to flatten the communications hierarchy and talk directly to members and help teach members how to do this more effectively. You have created a new program, reasonably new, that is really powerful. To wrap up our podcast, I wanted to have you talk a little bit about the Brian Tracy University and the strategic alliance that we have with BNI and Brian Tracy University.

Brian:
Well thank you. I love a sweetheart question like that because what we’ve done is we have invested more than $1 million developing an online university in sales and entrepreneurship. I’ve taken the courses that I have developed over the years and presented to more than a million people in 46 countries and made them available to give you the critical skills you need as a sales professional to make more sales. It teaches you every single part of the selling process, right from prospecting, developing rapport, identifying the need, making the presentation, answering objections, closing sales, getting referrals and so on.

We’ve made it available to BNI members at a fantastic price. We even had a new structure for people who are not sure about it. We will actually take and do an analysis. We will assign you to a personal coach and take you through a lesson that will be most helpful to you at this time, so you can demonstrate to yourself this process works. It is the most powerful, effective, most convenient, cost-effective form of becoming outstanding in sales that has ever been developed.

Ivan:
You are giving a huge discount to BNI members. I really appreciate it and I know that members will too, giving 25% off to any BNI member who signs up for the program. The website for BNI members listening is BrianTracyU.com/BNImembers. One word for BNI members. That will take you right to a special site for BNI and Brian Tracy University.

I have to tell you, Brian, I took one of the courses because before I would refer it to my BNI members, I wanted to experience it myself. I have to say it’s outstanding. Really, really good. It opens up with an overview of what you’re going to be talking about and then there’s a video lesson of Brian doing his [presentation] and nobody does sales and management leadership better than Brian Tracy. Then there is a lesson review and action exercise, additional learning resources and then a feedback survey. It’s very comprehensive.

The one course I took was on high performance leadership. I don’t know, I think it says a whole program but there are like 10 courses or lessons under that one course. Really nice job - you and your team have done a great job. I highly recommend it to any BNI member.

Brian:
Well, thank you. One of the things that hit me when I was a young salesman, about 24 years old and frustrated in spinning my wheels, was a senior salesman who was making 10 times as much as me. He said, “You know, the top 20% of salespeople make 80% of the money, but the bottom 80% of the salespeople have to struggle for the crumbs that are left over.”

I had never heard that before. I made a decision at that time that would change my life. I said, “Well if that’s the case, I want to be in the top 20%.” From that time onward, all I did was read to study, learn and practice with the top 20% of salespeople did. And surprise, surprise - I got into the top 20%. Then the top 10%, and in the top 5% and so on. I find that everybody who does that gets into the top 20% where the money is.

Ivan:
Well, it’s time for us to wrap up Brian. Any last comment?

Brian:
No, except that people have to realize that no matter what they see in the paper about the economy going up and down and up and down, America is still the very best economy in the world and the potential future in the American economy is better than any other country on earth. The potential for salespeople is absolutely wonderful if they take advantage of every resource that’s available to them, especially BNI.

Ivan:
Thank you very much, Brian. I consider you a friend, and it’s a real honor to have you on the podcast today. I will turn it back over to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay, thank you. I think that’s it for this week, Dr. Misner. Thank you so much for the great information. This podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another episode of the Official BNI Podcast.