Synopsis

Dr. Misner reports from BNI’s executive retreat in Big Bear.

Today’s podcast is based on an article Dr. Misner published on Entrepreneur.com.

When you get a referral, sit down with the person who gave you the referral and ask a few questions. The more you can find about your prospect before you call them, the better your chances. The best referral you can get includes a testimonial or introduction from the referrer. Ask for that introduction. It will bring you a lot closer to that closed sale.

Follow up with the referral, but follow up with the referral source first.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 067 -

Priscilla Rice:
Hello everyone. 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 and I’m coming to you from Live Oaks Recording Studio in Berkeley, 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, Priscilla. Thank you very much.

Priscilla:
Where are you today?

Ivan:
I’m up at Big Bear. I have a lodge up in Big Bear and we’re doing an executive retreat for the management team of BNI. I think a lot of members sometimes see the tip of the iceberg. The organization’s really quite large. We have over 5,100 groups now in 39 countries. There’s over 1000 people who work for BNI full or part time. We get together a couple of times a year with the top executive management of the organization and try to create strategies for where the company is going and how we’re going to get there.

Priscilla:
That sounds great.

Ivan:
We try to do it in a really nice place; there’s a beautiful view of the lake here from Big Bear.

Priscilla:
Tell us, what are you going to teach us today?

Ivan:
I want to talk a little bit about some material that I’ve written on, it’s called, A Referral Doesn’t Mean A Closed Sale. I think that is really relevant to BNI. When a business associate or BNI member passes you a referral, it’s important not to assume that the prospect is ready to hear a full presentation on your product or service. When that associate or BNI member passes you the referral, you want to thank them, but you want to start digging for information. You want to find out as much about the prospect as you possibly can. If you can determine what you have to offer–if it fits what the prospect needs, that enables you to take it to the next level. Taking the time to do this up front saves you a lot of time and energy for both you and the prospect.

The kinds of things you want to ask are, exactly what is it the prospect does, what are they looking for, what products or services do they want from you? Will what you have to offer, truly fulfill their needs? What are some of their business goals, what direction are they headed, how big is the company, how small is the company? Any of these kinds of questions–and you don’t need to know all of this, but the more you can know, the better. It’s very important. In BNI we get that referral, take it and make a phone call. But the smart thing to do is to sit down with the person who gave you the referral, and ask a few questions. Ask specific questions about the referral; sometimes they don’t have the answers, and that’s fine. But sometimes they do.

If you don’t have answers regarding the specific needs of the referral, you might be able to get answers about the company. Find out a little bit more about the company, this is obviously someone the other BNI member knows, and so they can give some general information. The more information you have going into the phone call, the more successful you’re likely to be. Even with the referral in hand, you don’t want to skip steps in your sales process. Before you approach the prospect, decide on what strategy you want to take based on the conversation that you had. Also, get a sense of where the referral is in terms of levels of referral– where is it and are there ways you can push it up a level?

Let me see if I can give you some examples. There are at least eight levels of a good referral. The worst and lowest level is just the name and contact information. Of course, you can use their name, but it’s just name and contact information, and that’s really all you have. You don’t have any other details, and that’s not really very helpful. Without the use of the name it’s not even a legitimate BNI referral. Now some people give those as referrals, but that’s not even a legitimate BNI referral. Where you’re getting legitimate BNI referrals would be at the second level, where it’s name, contact information, and authorization to use the name. That’s where it’s a legitimate referral in BNI.

The third level is a testimonial or an introduction. That is, the member is actually introducing the prospect to the other members. So, if you have somebody that needs a product or service and you refer a BNI member, you make the introduction via email or a phone call or in person. The phone call is probably the strongest, that’s better than an email– an introduction call and actually connecting somebody, the more you can push it to the next level– you get a referral and they say it’s OK to use my name. If you can say, “hey look, do you mind making an introduction via email?’ Now you’re pushing it up a level. Would you mind making a phone call and doing a 3-way phone call? Now you’re pushing it up a couple of levels. What about a meeting, where you’re actually meeting with the person. You’ve got the BNI member who is giving the referral, the prospect and you. Now you’re pushing it up three or four levels. Maybe the member is willing to do it, and maybe the member is not willing to do it. But the more you can nudge the quality of the referral up, the stronger it’s going to be. That face to face introduction is at the seventh level. That’s one of the higher levels. Of course, the highest is a closed deal. That is somebody says, “I have a referral for you. It’s a done deal. I told them about you and they’re ready to move.” That’s the highest level and the more you can move it along the better.

The best way to move it along is to do two things. Get as much information about the prospect as possible and ask the person giving the referral if they’re willing to do a step more that just giving a referral–name and contact. Make a letter of introduction or meeting or a face to face introduction. The more you can nudge the quality of that referral up, the higher the closing ratio is going to be for you and the business that you’re going to get.

Priscilla:
I thought of something while you were talking. What is this person like in terms of how do they like to be approached?

Ivan:
That’s a great question. In the article I wrote sometime ago about Referral Not Meaning A Closed Sale, one of the things I talk about is, what is the behavior profile? Often times people won’t know that. But if you do happen to know what they’re like, what their behavioral characteristics are–the system that I use a lot that’s developed in the Referral Institute, is called the GEMS System. You take a look to see if someone is a ruby profile or a sapphire or pearl, or different behavioral characteristics which are aggressive or detail oriented kinds of personalities. The more you know about the person, the more you can pass that on, the easier it is for that individual to close the referral. You bring up a really good point.

Priscilla:
I took that course and I really enjoyed it.

Ivan:
Did you take Gems?

Priscilla:
Yes I did.

Ivan:
That’s a great program. You’re up in northern California, so you probably took it from Dawn Lyons. Dawn is the absolute best trainer for the Referral Institute in the world on the GEMS Program.

Priscilla:
Yes. It was fantastic, so much fun.

Ivan:
The better your source knows you and is confident of your character and your business, in many cases the referral source is the BNI member, the more often you’ll get the higher level of referrals. You will want to keep in mind, in order to get high level referrals, there are things you can do to nudge it up slightly by having conversations with the person who gave you the referral. Spend the time and your due diligence looking for ways to open the doors to move the quality of the referral up. There’s nothing wrong with having a dialog with the person who gave you the referral to see if you can move and improve the quality.

Priscilla:
Great. Those are all really important points. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about in this podcast?

Ivan:
Just to wrap it up, I think sometimes we’re so busy in our lives and in business, that we just get the referral and we run with it without doing a little due diligence. Spending a few minutes with the person giving the referral can make a huge difference in the quality of referrals. On a somewhat connected topic, but also a bit different–when you get the referral, follow up. I just had a conversation with a good friend of mine, a chiropractor here in southern California, and he talked about how he just doesn’t get it when people get a referral and they don’t follow up. He ran into a member that he had given a referral to, and didn’t follow up. Forget about asking him questions, he didn’t even follow up with the prospect. Of course, that created some challenges for all parties. The first and foremost thing you want to do is, follow up with that referral. If you’re really smart, you’ll follow up with the referral’s source first, to get more information. And then follow up with that referral.

Priscilla:
That’s great. Thank you so much Dr. Misner. This podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com, 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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