Episode 88: “Capture Your Success Stories”

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Synopsis

Dr. Misner calls in from Hawaii to talk about how to share your success stories without bragging. Telling your success stories is vital to the growth of your business. Here are five ways to do this.

1. Ask for written testimonials. (Write samples to help clients get started.)
2. Write down two success stories that represent your preferred client and your strongest work.
3. Write a personal introduction for your network to use when making referrals.
4. Toot your own horn. Tell people about the good things your business does.
5. When someone gives you a testimonial at a BNI meeting, write it down and ask them for permission to use it.

Feel free to tell us which of these you’ve done, and how they worked.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 088 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and 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 from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hi, Ivan. How are you and where are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great. I’m in Hawaii this week, first, going to a conference for the Transformational Leadership Council that’s run by Jack Canfield, and he has spoken at a number of our conferences and written for us at SuccessNet. I’ll be visiting some BNI chapters this week here in Hawaii.

Priscilla:
That sounds great. So what are you going to share with us?

Ivan:
Well, I’m going to talk a little bit about Capturing Your Success Stories. I’ve talked about this in some of my books and on my blogs, and I think this is a great topic for the podcast.

Many of us are taught as kids that we should refrain from bragging about our successes, but there’s a real caveat to those rules that our parents usually didn’t teach us, and it’s important to understand that it really helps our business to do certain things that capture our success stories. Now, success stories about businesses and entrepreneurs are really vital for those who are dedicated to learning all we can in order to make our own enterprise as successful as possible.

There are four approaches that I want to mention to capture your success stories. One is to ask for written testimonials. Get satisfied customers or colleagues, certainly fellow BNI members who’ve used your services to write letters on their own letterhead to spotlight their positive experiences with you and your business. Here’s a recommendation that I have. If you are looking for a testimonial from somebody who is really successful, they will be a crown jewel in your list of testimonials. I recommend that you ask them if it’s okay if you write a couple of sample testimonials that they could look from, edit, and use themselves.

Now, that sounds kinds of crazy, but the truth is, if you’re going after really, really, really busy business people and really successful business people – and let’s assume they’re happy with your services – they’d be glad to do you a testimony. The problem is they just don’t have the time to do it, so giving them a starting point that they can edit really helps a great deal.

And it’s something that I’m often asked to write endorsements for books, and I’m always willing to do it, but last year we did almost 60 endorsements. And that can be almost a full-time job just doing endorsements. I’m exaggerating a little, but that’s a lot of work. And many of them gave me drafts to work from and then I added my own flavor to it, and it really helped expedite the process. And I think it works really well with testimonials. So that’s my first recommendation.

Second one is a little briefer. Write down two success stories; highlight your successes to help your network; understand who best represents your preferred client. These stories should clearly emphasize what you do better than anyone else and use those success stories as examples, particularly in BNI, for people to understand the types of products or services that you offer so that they can better refer you.

Third is to write a personal introduction. Provide your network with material that they can use when talking about you and your business with people who fit your preferred client profile. You don’t want your referral sales force making stuff up about you, and this really simplifies their task and ensures accuracy. So if you can write up a little brief statement, “Here’s what you can say about me when you meet someone who might be able to use my products or services.” For those people who are serious about trying to help you, it’s a great tool; it’s a great benefit. For BNI members, I’d recommend you definitely do that during your ten minute presentation. If you’re giving the Ten Minute Talk, here’s a great opportunity for you to give them something to walk away with to help them remember what you talked about.

And number four, the last one, is toot your own horn. Tell people about the good things your business does. This isn’t about crowing over your amazing golf handicap or admitting your own fine taste in wine. It’s about spotlighting your business strengths as well as it being about the legitimate good works that you do in the community. There’s nothing wrong with letting people know some of the projects that you’ve worked on and your success with it. You can do it without being boastful. There are ways that you can do it. For example, if you’re the Ten Minute speaker, you have in your introduction some of that, so somebody else is talking about some of your successes rather than you, personally.

But the more you can communicate your success stories to others, the more they will be confident in your ability to provide quality products or services. I think these are some really tangible techniques that BNI members can use to help increase their credibility at the chapter level.

Priscilla:
I think one of the real advantages to BNI is that you don’t actually have to say all that about yourself; you can get somebody who’s used the services to stand up in the meeting and give you a testimonial at that time.

Ivan:
You bring up a great point, and I’ve never really thought about this. Here’s a fifth one. As people are giving you testimonials at a BNI meeting, jot it down. Try to capture the essence of what someone is saying. Type it up, e-mail it back to them, and say, “Thank you so much for the testimonial today. I really, really appreciate what you said. This is the essence of what I heard you say. Could you edit it, make any changes you want to make to it, and may I use it in my testimonial folder?”

You just gave me a great idea. I think that’s a super technique to do, because I’ve never really thought about writing it down as you’re hearing it. But you’re right, and you want to capture those testimonials as much as possible.

Priscilla:
There’s also another way to record people’s testimonials and put it on an MP3, if you have a Web site.

Ivan:
Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. I think maybe having a combination on your Web site of some written testimonials as well as a few audio versions of it, or even video versions of it, are great suggestions, good stuff.

Priscilla:
Yeah. Well, have we come to the end? Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

Ivan:
No, I think that’s it for today. And what I’d love the BNI members to try some of these four and the fifth one that we added on; that’s a brand new idea, never tested it, love to hear how it works. So those of you who listen to this podcast, please feel free to give us some feedback, tell us what you like, and if you’ve done the fifth one, or when you’ve done the fifth one, get back on the podcast and post a message here on the bulletin board, because we’d love to hear how it works out.

Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Oh, you’re so welcome.

Well, I’d just like 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 so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.