Synopsis

Dr. Misner reaches the final chapter of Givers Gain in this episode. Over time, Dr. Misner developed a clearer and clearer vision of what BNI would be, a vision that continues to grow and expand.

The theme of this chapter is summed up in this phrase: You may not be able to make a world of difference, but you can make a difference in the world. BNI is about cooperating for mutual success.

Givers Gain concludes with the following quote: “I believe that if all the people in an organization row in the same direction, that organization can dominate in any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 062 -

Priscilla Rice:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast brought to you by Networkingnow.com, the leading sight on the net for networking downloadables. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California. I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, how are you?

Ivan Misner:
I’m doing great today, Priscilla. Thank you.

Priscilla:
It looks like this is the last chapter of Giver’s Gain.

Ivan:
It is. Over the last year, every month or so, I’ve covered a different chapter of the book.
My hope is that the members of BNI who get a copy of Giver’s Gain, and everyone should be getting a copy of Giver’s Gain when they go through the MSP Training or New Member Orientation Training that are done around the world, that they can use this audio file, this podcast, to go along with each chapter and use it for support material for the book that they’re reading.

Priscilla:
Great. Tell us all about this chapter 11.

Ivan:
This is the last chapter. It’s called 20/20 Vision. We came up with the term 20/20 Vision because that was our theme for BNI’s 20th Anniversary. That’s when we first released this book. It’s been revised since then, but we kept this title, 20/20 Vision. I’d like to tell that when I started, and I talked about this in the book, when I started BNI in 1985 as a 28 year old business consultant, that I had 20/20 vision on where the organization was headed. At that time I didn’t, but as time went on, I got a clearer vision of what this organization could be and where we were heading as an organization. That’s what I really talk about here in this book is the success, and how we got to be as large as we became.

I think creating a truly effective system took time, and it’s a never ending task because we’re constantly improving the program as we go along. In the late eighties I began to think that BNI could be an international organization. It took several years to actually create the corporate infrastructure necessary to make that happen. By the early nineties, we spent most of our time spreading the program across the United States, but the real triumph for BNI was in the mid nineties when my vision for an international organization came to fruition, became a reality. We opened our first countries outside of the United States; they were Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and then we continued to spread throughout Europe and then Africa, and throughout all of Asia.

I now have chapters operating in 40 countries around the world. We have well over 100,000 members. It’s been an incredible experience for the organization and I think this phenomenal growth hasn’t even been dented by international recessions, the economy. As a matter of fact, one of the things we’ve learned is that as we have recessionary economies, the growth for BNI tends to continue to be just as strong, if not sometimes stronger because businesses, when times are tough need to be creative. They need to find creative ways to build their business. BNI has helped small businesses in recessionary economies. It’s one of the things that I think we learned.

One of the things I talk about in chapter 11 is that you may not be able to, this is a phrase I really love, that you may not be able to make a world of difference, but you can make a difference in the world. I think that BNI makes a difference in the world. We are changing the way the world does business. And we’re doing it through this philosophy that the book is named after, that is, Giver’s Gain. If I help you, and you help me, we’ll all do better as a result of it. With Giver’s Gain as a foundation, a powerful organizational culture has evolved. It was really, I think, fortuitous for us to use that phrase, because it’s been one that has been so simple, but so effective to apply world wide.

As I travel around the world, sometimes people say BNI is so American, and I have to tell them, BNI is one of the least American things I’ve ever done. And they will say how can that be? I say when you think of American business do you think of cooperation, of helping, of support, collaboration? They go , well no not really. Well that’s what BNI’s all about. It’s all about helping each other as a way of building each others business. This is not an American concept. This a human concept. This is about people helping people around the world. Different people, different places, different races, different religions, different countries, different cultures, we all speak the language of referrals. I think that’s why we’re going to continue to see growth worldwide of the BNI phenomenon.

When I first wrote the book, it was about 70/30. 70% of the organization was in the United States and 30% worldwide. And now it’s down to about 67% U.S., and I think that as the decade continues and throughout the century, we’re going to see the global BNI very soon become larger than where it started. I think we’ll end up having more chapters outside the U.S. in just the next few years than we have inside the U.S. One of the things I said in the first edition of the book, is that we don’t see any signs of slowing, and by the end of the decade, I said this in 2000 when this first came out. I will think we will have more than 5000 chapters by the end of the decade. And sure enough here we are in 2008, when this podcast is being recorded, and we have 5,100 chapters. We hit that target that I put out there many years ago.

I think we’re going to continue to see it grow. A lot of people don’t know, and I talk about this in chapter 11, that we established a few years ago, a cross cultural counsel in BNI. We did that to address the many different cultures that are operating in the organization. This is a volunteer group of BNI directors, mostly directors, and some members headed by the founding chair of the cross cultural counsel, Stacia Robinson of Montgomery, Alabama. The counsel develops cross cultural policies and guidelines and educates and trains staff, directors, and members of cross cultural issues. It meets at all the directors conferences and communicates from time to time. I think it’s a great example of how we need to be aware of the cultural differences throughout the organization. We are not a religious organization. We are not a political organization. But we are an international organization and so we need to be aware of the cultural differences and the different people from around the world, and how we can all work together effectively.

I think that although our international growth will most likely out pace our growth in the U.S., our studies show that there’s still a tremendous potential in the United States as well and so we’re going to continue to see growth in the U.S.. I don’t think we’re anywhere near saturation point for BNI. I believe that we can have more than 15,000 chapters worldwide in my life time. That’s huge growth, but I think it’s quite possible. It’s possible because networking is one of the bests ways to build business. We still don’t teach it in colleges and universities, but it’s one of the best ways to build business. No other networking organization anywhere in the world devotes as much time and energy to teaching people how to build their business through word of mouth than BNI. I think the chapters who have learned how to immerse and engage in a culture of learning are the ones that will be most successful. The groups who are regularly look at our podcasts, the members who are watching and listening to these podcast, going to my blog, going to SuccessNet, those who are engaging in educational opportunities that BNI has to offer, and there are so many of them, Our books, our CD’s, our materials, those are the ones that are going to be even more and more successful. I think you’re going to see nothing but a continued growth in the wealth of information that’s available through BNI.

Integrating technology, BNI has already invested in new technologies, and I think you’re going to see more and more technologies in the next 12 months. We hope to soon be announcing some development of some technologies that will help our members to network more effectively on-line all around the world. You’ll hear more and more about that.

I’m almost out of time and I just want to wrap it up with a couple of closing comments from chapter 11, Giver’s Gain. If you’re a member and you haven’t read the book, please, take a few minutes and skim the book and listen to these podcasts as you’re reading the book because it will add a little flavor to the content to the material. There’s some great content in this book. You as a member of BNI are part of a remarkable organization. An organization whose primary purpose is to help you increase your business through referrals.

I’ve often said that the local chapter is only the tip of the iceberg, that there’s so much more than just the local chapter. You’re part of something bigger, bigger than what you see from week to week. It’s my hope that the stories and the traditions that were discussed throughout Giver’s Gain and throughout these podcasts of me reviewing the book Giver’s Gain with you, that you will learn from these and grow from these. I believe, and this is how in the book, Giver’s Gain, the BNI story, if all the people in an organization row in the same direction, that organization can dominate any industry in any market against any competition at any time. BNI has dominated its industry in almost every market against all the competition for almost a decade now. It has happened because of a shared vision, and a shared implementation of that vision. I invite you, BNI members, to share that vision with me and be part of Giver’s Gain.

Priscilla:
Thank you, Ivan. I think that’s a great place to end. That’s it for this week. This podcast has been brought to you by Networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of the Official BNI Podcast.

 

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