Episode 139: “Follow-Up’s Covered—Now What?”

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Synopsis

This week, Dr. Misner wants to address characteristics 2-5 of master networkers:

1. Positive Attitude—makes people want to cooperate with you.
2. Enthusiasm and Motivation—Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice.
3. Trustworthiness—Making a referral puts your reputation on the line.
4. Good Listening Skills—The better you listen, the faster you can establish a good relationship.

Recommended reading: The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey.

Share these traits of a master networker with your chapter so you can develop these skills as a team.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 139 -

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. How are you, and where are you?

Ivan:
Oh, I’ve been traveling a lot this month, Priscilla. This week I am in Miami for Entrepreneur Magazine’s conference, and then I’m doing a Get Connected 2010 conference in Miami, which is co-sponsored by BNI, so we’re expecting to have an opportunity to talk to hundreds of business professionals throughout the rest of this week.

Priscilla:
Oh, that sounds like fun. Well, what did you bring to the podcast this week?

Ivan:
Well, I have a follow-up to last week’s podcast, which was What Was the Number 1 Trait of a Master Networker, and the answer is follow-up. And so this week, I want to talk about the four next characteristics that ranked high in the survey that I talk about that was published in Masters of Networking, the Top 10 Traits of a Master Networker. So last week I talked about the number 1 trait, which is follow up on the referrals that are given, and hopefully, the people have listened to that and they’re fine tuning their follow-up strategy to work on mastering their skills as a networker.

This week I wanted to talk about the next four, and they are: positive attitude, enthusiasm and motivation, trustworthiness, and good listening skills.

So let’s start with positive attitude. A consistently negative attitude causes people to really dislike being around you, and it hurts for any referrals. A positive attitude makes people want to associate and cooperate with you. Positive business professionals are like magnets; other people want to be around them, and they’ll send friends and family to them.

I remember a BNI member in a chapter who once said that they were having a problem with some guy in the chapter and he just had a bad attitude. And she said, “He is just a fun sucker. He sucks the fun right out of a room. He has such a negative attitude that nobody wants to do business with him.”

So it’s interesting that something so simple as your attitude can make such a huge difference. It was the number 1 characteristic in that survey – or number 2 characteristic in that survey.

Third was enthusiasm and motivation. When you think about the people you know, who gets the most referrals? People who show the most motivation. I believe the people are really excited about what they do; they love what they do; they’re good at communicating it. It’s been said that the best sales characteristic is enthusiasm. I agree. It’s really important to remember that ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
And sometimes people who are really, really excited can make up for some lack of knowledge. Now, clearly, you have to understand what it is you’re doing, so the only thing that’s even better is, of course, knowledge on fire. So you have somebody on fire, and enthusiasm really shows, and it makes it easy to refer other people.

The third characteristic is trustworthiness. When you refer one person to another, you put your reputation on the line. We talked about that last week. You have to be able to trust your referral partner and be trusted in return. Neither you nor anyone else will refer a contact or valuable information to someone who can’t be trust to handle it well.

A book that I really recommend is The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey. He’s a good friend of mine. I just saw him and his associate at the TLC Conference in Puerto Rico. Great book, The Speed of Trust, and it really fits in this category.

The fourth one I’m going to talk about today is the fifth trait of a master networker, fourth in today’s list, is good listening skills. Your success as a networker really depends on how well you listen and learn. The faster you and your networking partner learn what it is that you need to know about each other, the faster you’re going to establish a valuable relationship. Communicating well and listening well, very important. Remember a good networker has two ears and one mouth and should use them both proportionately.

So once you’ve got follow-up covered, these are the next four things that you want to focus on if you want to be a master networker: developing a positive attitude; creating enthusiasm and motivation for what you do; trustworthiness, highly recommend the book The Speed of Trust; and good listening skills.

Anything you’d add to that, Priscilla?

Priscilla:
Yeah, the one thing I would add is generosity of spirit because, for example, when I visited your international conference, the thing that I was most taken by when I would have one-on-ones with directors and people that I hadn’t met before, ultimately, the conversation would come around to “How can I help you.” And I was so taken by that; it was really impressive. It hadn’t happened at any other conference I’d ever been at.

Ivan:
Thank you. I appreciate you saying that, and I was really pleased. One of our keynote speakers, Stuart Emery, who’s the consultant who helped develop the MasterCard campaign, the Priceless campaign, which is a great campaign where they say, “Night out on the town, $46; dancing at the dance club, $25; time with your loved one, priceless,” that kind of thing. And he helped develop that, and he said the same thing; he said the exact same thing, that he had done many, many conferences over the decades that he’s been a keynote speaker, but he’d never felt so welcome.

And it’s funny that you bring that up because it is one of the top ten traits; it’s sixth or seventh, that Givers Gain attitude, that law of reciprocity. And somebody who practices that is one of the top ten traits.

Priscilla:
Yeah, I loved it. It was beautiful.

Ivan:
Well, thanks. And I think it is important. There’s no question about it, and when you develop these skills and work on these skills, you’re viewed as a much more professional individual, especially in terms of your networking efforts.

So BNI members, I’d love for you to share with your chapter these five traits of a master networker. Last week we talked about follow-up, and this week the positive attitude, enthusiasm, trustworthiness, and good listening skills. Share that with your chapter members because the more you can develop these skills as a team, the more you can be working on it, speaking the same language, and having the same vision as to where you want to go as a chapter, the more successful your chapter is going to be. I’d love to hear your comments. Leave a message here on the podcast on what you think about these.

Thanks, Priscilla. That’s it for today.

Priscilla:
Okay. You’re so welcome. Thank you, Dr. Misner.

Well, that’s it for this week, and 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 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.