Synopsis

This week Dr. Misner has a guest with him: Bob Nicoll, creator of Remember the Ice, a comprehensive program that teaches you to enhance your communication skills, shares his tips for reframing interpersonal communication into positive terms.

Instead of saying “Don’t forget,” say “Remember.”

Instead of saying “I don’t have a referral,” say “I have a testimonial.”

Dr. Misner is happy to endorse this program. There’s a 10% discount for BNI members, and Remember the Ice makes a donation to the BNI-Misner foundation for every purchase by a BNI member. Click this link to order your copy.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 063 -

Priscilla Rice:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the official BNI Podcast brought to you by Networkingnow.com which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I’m Priscilla Rice and I’m coming to you live 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 doing?

Ivan Misner:
Hi Priscilla. I’m doing great. I have a guest with us today, Bob Nicolls. Bob has been a BNI member since 1989. He’s really, really passionate about BNI. He originally got involved in the organization in the Phoenix area, and a few years ago moved to Alaska. He did a book and some material called Remember The Ice, which I loved so much, I did an endorsement on it. I asked Bob to be on this podcast today to talk a little bit about his book. Bob, welcome.

Bob Nicolls:
Thank you very much, Ivan. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m very excited about Remember The Ice. Basically, if I can, let me just give the background of this story very quickly.

Ivan:
That’s important because Remember The Ice is kind of an obscure phrase.

Bob:
Yes it is. What it focuses on is helping people to understand that there’s power in the clarity of their articulation. Every word that you say has a great deal of meaning and impact. Very quickly, how I came up with the title. When I lived in Phoenix, Arizona in the desert, there was a little store across from my apartment. I walked in one day and noticed the manager had a sign that said, “Don’t forget the ice” above his cash register. So I asked him how his ice sales were doing. and he said they were terrible. I mean Ivan, this is Phoenix in the summer. I said, if you will give me a piece of paper and a magic marker, I think I can help you out. I made a new sign that said, “Remember The Ice.” We put it up. I stayed away for about 3 to 4 weeks. When I came back, he almost tackled me in the parking lot. His ice sales had absolutely shot through the roof. Very simply, it was because we reframed the message. He asked me, Bob, what did you do? And I said well Rick, let me ask you this question very quickly. If I say to you right now, “Don’t think of the color blue,” what color did you just think of. He said, “Why blue of course.” Exactly. So I said to him, “if your customers see a sign that says ‘Don’t Forget The Ice,’ what do you think they’ll do?

Ivan:
They forget the ice.

Bob:
So just by the reframing of it to remember the ice, for him it really helped increase his ice sales. But for me, it absolutely shifted the paradigm in the way that I communicate with both myself and with other people. I made a decision to get rid of and eradicate the words not, don’t, can’t, won’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t out of my everyday language. The result has been extraordinary.

Ivan:
There’s a couple of things that I think this applies to BNI really, really well with. One is in relation to visitors. If you want to, share your comments with us on that?

Bob:
Yes. Absolutely. One of the most important things in BNI, of course, is to have new visitors come to the meetings, because that’s what’s going to help grow the chapter. And most of the time, the president of the chapter or maybe one of the other leadership team members will stand up and say something to the effect of, “Now remember, don’t forget to invite people next week. Don’t forget to fill out your letters for the visitors day. Don’t forget.” Well, wait a minute, we just went through an example of if you say “Don’t Forget,” you end up forgetting. So the point there would be, what if we reframed it to say, “Remember to invite visitors for next week. Remember, every time you meet someone out in your everyday world, there’s a potential member of your BNI chapter, so think about asking them to come.” Very simple reframing.

Ivan:
Very simple, and I think a lot of people will go, yeah, come on. It’s so simple that it really doesn’t make a difference. But I believe it does and I think the next thing we’re going to talk about, to me is very tangible for me as to why it works. And that is something you brought up right before we started here on the podcast. You were talking about the ‘I have’ statement in our meetings where we’re supposed to say “I have a referral or I have a testimonial.” It’s really interesting because years ago, we learned in BNI, that if we didn’t say that, if we didn’t tell people, “Use a positive ‘I have’ statement,” they would just automatically stand up and say, “I’m sorry. I don’t have a referral today, or I don’t have a testimonial.” And it was very negative. By focusing on the positive ‘I have’ statement, in chapters who really did that consistently, they had a huge difference in the results in terms of the positive attitude, so talk a little bit more about that concept. I love the positive ‘I have’ versus ‘I don’t.’

Bob:
Yes. Well think about this. You know when you think that there’s power in the clarity of your articulation meaning, when you say,” yes I have a referral, I have a testimonial, I have a positive comment about BNI, there’s also power in the physiology of your articulation. Think about the body language that you have when you stand up and say, ” you know, today I’m excited. I have 3 referrals that I’d like to pass out.” Where in the past, someone would stand up and say,” Gee, you know what? I don’t really have anything today.” You can hear the physiology in my voice as I’m saying it on the phone to you. And when you watch the person giving that message, when they get caught up in the ‘I don’t have,’ there is a definite difference in their physiology with respect to if they stood up and said, ” you know, today, I have this.” So it really is more than just being positive. What you’re really being is empowered and this tremendous congruence between your verbal message and your nonverbal physiological message.

Ivan:
Right, and even if you don’t have a referral you, you generally have some kind of testimonial for somebody, or your experience in BNI. The cumulative positive effect of the ‘I have’ statements makes a huge difference in a really strong meeting.

Bob:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ivan:
I love your material and when I read it , I was really pleased to do an endorsement on it. Tell us a little bit more about the material you have, and where BNI members can go to get more on this. I think it will help them not only in their business, but certainly in their BNI group.

Bob:
I appreciate that. Thank you. My website is www.remembertheice.com. And of course, any BNI member that goes to that website, you are entitled to a savings on the program that we’ve developed. It is a combination of a 20 page workbook, a two 50 minute audio CD’s plus a 40 minute DVD. One of the other things I’m passionate about is giving back, and years ago you developed the BNI Misner Foundation. Every time a BNI member makes a purchase of a copy of “Remember The Ice,” in addition to getting the 10% discount, the Remember The Ice, also makes a donation to the BNI Misner Foundation which, of course, supports education and we are absolutely on board with that.

Ivan:
We really appreciate that. That goes to children in education worldwide. We appreciate that. Thank you.

Bob:
Absolutely, so they can come to the website. There is a banner up at the top. You click on that, it takes you to a page where you can absolutely preview the product, all 3 aspects of it at no cost. And then, of course, if you’re inclined and want to make a decision, by all means, you can certainly get one.

Ivan:
Well thank you very much, Bob. I think we’re pretty much out of time. I appreciate you coming on. I don’t highlight too many books on our podcast, but I really do like the concept of this. I think it integrates very well into BNI. Any last closing comments before we wrap up?

Bob:
I appreciate the opportunity to share the message, and am very excited about working with people and helping them improve the power in the clarity of their articulation. I want to remind everyone in respect to bringing people to BNI, just remember to invite.

Ivan:
Excellent. Bob Nicol, involved in BNI since 1989. Thank you so much. Priscilla, I’ll turn it back to you.

Priscilla:
OK thank you. Thank you, Bob. Thank you Dr. Misner. I think that’s it for this week. I just want to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by Networkingnow.com which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of the official BNI Podcast.

 

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