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Synopsis

This week Ed Wallace, author of Business Relationships That Last, joins Dr. Misner to explain that there’s a system to the “soft skill” of relationships. Here are the five rungs on Ed’s ladder:

1. Establishing Common Ground
2. Displaying Integrity and Trust
3. Using Time Purposefully
4. Offering Help
5. Asking for Help

Dr. Misner sees this ladder as a microcosm of the BNI program. The book is available from Greenleaf, the same publisher that produced The 29% Solution.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 131 -

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.

Hello, Ivan. I hear you have a guest today.

Ivan:
I do, Priscilla. I have a good guest, great book. His name is Ed Wallace, and Ed’s book is called Business Relationships That Last. And I don’t bring on a lot of guests with books on the podcasts, but this one is right up the alley of BNI, and I just wanted to welcome Ed chat a little bit about his book.

Ed, hi.

Ed:
Hi, Ivan. Hi, Priscilla. How are you today?

Priscilla:
Hi, Ed. Great.

Ivan:
We’re doing great, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to jump right in and ask you a question. You’ve got this great model in your book, Business Relationships That Last, and first of all, the topic is perfect for BNI members, because I talk to them all the time about that this is all about relationships. That’s what networking is all about. And you’ve got this relationship ladder that I really like, and in the ladder, the sides of the ladder, the forms of the ladder talk about two things; one side is the soft skills, or the art; and the other is the hard skills, or the science. And then you have a number of rungs that go up.

But that really resonated with me because I’ve talked on this podcast and in a lot of my material about the fact that we don’t teach this stuff in colleges and universities and that most colleges and professors think that relationship marketing is a soft science, and it just drives me crazy. I think that’s what I loved about your book is that it really focuses on this soft skill that is so very important.

Do you want to talk about that and then jump into your five rungs?

Ed:
Oh, I’d love to, Ivan. Thank you for teeing that up.

When we talk about relationships as a soft skill, it’s really the hard stuff. It really is because we’re all getting, in our formal education, we’re all getting the hard skills, and then we get more of those when we join corporations. But the soft skills, the art, of how we communicate, how we listen, how we pay attention, how we ask questions and care about the answers, that’s what the soft skills are all about. So when I created the relational model, first of all, I wanted a vision or a model that everyone could understand, and a ladder is very simple. But speaking about the frame, a ladder has to be sturdy; it has to be in balance.

Sometimes we get stereotyped as a hard skill person. Believe it or not, Ivan, I’m a CPA, and that’s my formal education. But I’ve always leaned more to the soft side. And we can get stereotyped one way or the other, and I think that really limits our ability to develop our careers and to advance our relationships. So I set the frame up so that we could demonstrate and model the balance that we have to have between our hard and our soft skills, and that’s one thing that great relationships helps us to do.

Ivan:
Well, let’s tackle it from the bottom line up starting with Establishing Common Ground. Do you want to talk about that and the next several levels above it. And the listeners need to visualize literally a ladder with each rung of the ladder, and it starts with Establishing Common Ground, which is basically with acquaintances.

Ed:
I will, Ivan, and you notice on the ladder, it’s wider at the bottom because that first step, it’s the hardest step for us to take. It represents when we’re acquaintances in our business relationships. And Establishing Common Ground is when we really need to put ourselves out there, and I know with BNI, that’s what that’s all about. We’ve got to put ourselves out there, go out to meetings, meet people. Use social networking to set those meetings up. And Establishing Common Ground is really finding a way into the business relationship or the conversation, finding a way in to what that person is trying to accomplish in life or their career or whatever they’re trying to do.

So Establishing Common Ground is the first step, and it’s more or less a giant leap, because once you establish common ground, and I suggest we do that by asking great questions that make us credible, that make us believable.

Ivan:
Okay. So, Ed, once you’ve established the credibility, the next rung is Displaying Integrity and Trust. Do you want to run with it from there?

Ed:
Absolutely. Once we’re deemed credible, that’s when our colleague, our clients, our peers, whoever it is, that’s when they believe we might be able to help them with their goal, their passion, or their struggle, which I call their Relational GPS. And when we start hearing questions like, “Can you help us with this,” or they start asking us to do things, that’s when we get a chance to move to the second rung of the ladder, which is Displaying Integrity and Trust.

Then there’s two sides to that, Ivan. There’s the public side, which is keeping our promises, and there’s the private side, which is doing the right thing when nobody’s watching. Once we continue to live up to those commitments, continue to fulfill those promises, then we move into another dimension on ladder. We move from Acquaintances to what I call Professional Peers. And that’s where there is an hierarchy in the relationship. You’re working on a totally professional level, and you are really concerned about each other’s time, not as a cost, but as an investment in the relationship.

Hence, the third rung is the Purposeful Use of Time. And that’s where we plan our meetings our effectively, we think about who we’re bringing together, etc.

As you continue to move up the ladder, the fourth rung is Offering Help. When you first started off on the first rung, they really don’t want your help yet because they haven’t deemed your credible enough to see whether you can help them with their issues or their problems, their goals, passions, and struggles. But this point, your colleague or client, they’re looking for your help, they’re looking for your unsolicited offers of help.

And then finally, the fifth rung is Asking for Help. And that’s when you’re brave enough to say, “I don’t know,” that you don’t have all the answers.

So there’s your five steps.

Ivan:
Well, I love that, and I’ve got to tell you, one of the reasons I really like these steps is I think, in a way, this is much of the process that takes place within the BNI context. People who join the organization first have to Establish Common Ground; you’ve got to make connection with other people. They’ve got to Display Integrity and Trust, and if they don’t, they’re never going to get anywhere within the group. One of the ways to do that is through our endorsements and our testimonials that we do at chapter meetings. Using time purposefully, well, that’s what really the BNI program is all about, is trying to create that structure and use your time effectively with each other. Offering Help, one of the philosophies of BNI is Givers Gain, if you want to get business, you have to be willing to give business. So you start off by trying to help other people. And you’ve got to ask for referrals, which is Asking for Help. And I saw this ladder as really a microcosm of the BNI program, in a way, and that’s what resonated with me, and that’s why I recommend this book to my BNI members worldwide.

Ed, where can people get the book? Is it available at book stores?

Ed:
It’s available in all the bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Borders. It’s also available on all the online outlets, Amazon, BNI Online, etc. So anywhere you click, you should be able to find Business Relationships That Last.

Thanks for asking, Ivan.

Ivan:
Yeah, my pleasure. We have the same publisher, Greenleaf, that did 20% Solution.

And for the members listening to this podcast, I really do recommend Ed’s book. I think it really resonates with BNI members in terms of the relationship aspect of what we do.

Ed, before we close up, any closing comments or thoughts that you think people who want to build their business through referrals and relationships would like to know?

Ed:
Well, Ivan, I think we’re both on the same page with this, and that is we really need to consider thinking about relationships first. Before we think about anything else, think relationships first, and it’s something that you can do immediately. You don’t have to sit around and grind on it or anything like that; you can think about it and say, “You know what? I’m going to create a strategy. These are the five people I’m going to go meet at this conference or this BNI meeting, and I’m going to move forward from there.”

Ivan:
Yeah, I agree. One of the things that we try to teach is that networking is more about farming than it is about hunting; it’s about cultivating those relationships. And so that’s why I really enjoyed this book. I thank you very much for your time today, Ed.

BNI members, I urge you to go out and take a look at it. The book is called Business Relationships That Last by Ed Wallace, and it’s available at most major bookstores and, of course, Amazon.

Ed, thank you very much.

Priscilla, back to you.

Priscilla:
Great! Well, thank you both.

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. 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.