Episode 146: Visibility Through Touchpoints

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Synopsis

Dr. Misner is joined today by special guest Rick Itzkowich, who specializes in helping BNI members triple their referrals using LinkedIn to complement their offline networking.

Here are some facts and figures behind Rick’s “QuoteActions” program.

• Only 3-10% of people are ready to buy now.
• People need to be touched 5-12 times before they buy.
• You need a system that helps you build relationships by touching people on a regular basis with content they want to receive.

You can use a newsletter to create these touchpoints, but that’s a lot of work. “QuoteActions” sends a short inspirational quotation to your mailing list, with no sales pitch—and you don’t have to do anything after you set it up.

You can try “QuoteActions” free for 30 days at www.quoteactions.com.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 146 -

Brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com, where you can ask Ivan Misner any question you ever had about networking.

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com, a Web site where you can ask any question you have ever had about networking.

I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I’m joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. Where are you, and who’s with you?

Ivan:
Well, today I’m in Sacramento for BNI. We’ve got a big event up in the Sacramento area, and we have some great members, and I’m looking forward to doing a presentation for them up here this week.

I have with me a guest on the podcast today. His name is Rick Itzkowich, and Rick is a good friend of mine and a friend of BNI. He’s the co-founder and vice president of Productive Learning & Leisure, which is an organization that offers courses in training on learning adventures and products that promote self-development. He’s also creator of the QuoteActions, which I’m sure we’ll talk about here sometime today, and the LinkedIn referral process program. So Rick is a very creative guy. He’s got lots of good stuff, and he’s really got some good content in terms of touchpoints in connecting with people and staying in touch with them.

So Rick, welcome to the podcast.

Rick:
Dr. Misner, thank you for having me here.

Ivan:
Well, it’s great to have you on board. And there’s really three things that I’d like to touch upon today in this podcast, and the first one is about having the system in place to follow up. I think that’s one of the major challenges for anybody in networking, certainly for BNI members. We just completed a study of about 12,000 business professionals, and one of the questions we asked them, “What are some of the challenges you have in networking,” and follow-up was one of the big ones. So what are your thoughts about that in terms of the kinds of things that you recommend for BNI people?

Rick:
Well, first of all, people will buy when they are ready to buy and not when we are ready to sell to them. And that’s a key point to remember, because most of us in BNI are in sales of some sort or another, and the statistics – I got these from Chet Holmes in his book, The Ultimate Sales Machine. He talks that only between 3 and 10 percent of the people that are interested in a product or service will be buying right now, with the rest of them doing it at a later time.

Ivan:
That’s an important statistic, Rick. Do you want to repeat that.

Rick:
Yes. Only between 3 and 10 percent of the people who are interested in a product or service will buy from us right now. The rest of them will do it at a later date.

Furthermore, 81 percent of the people buy after the fifth to the twelfth contact. That means they need to be touched at least five times, if not twelve, before they buy. And most people give up way before that, leaving a lot of money on the table.

So a couple of examples I can give you also. In networking events, people who go to Chambers and other events where they collect business cards, well, people typically do three things with a business card: they put them in a rubber band and stick them in a drawer; they add them to an e-mail list and they start sending unsolicited e-mail; or –

Ivan:
Which everybody loves, right?

Rick:
Oh, yes! And the third one is they pick up the phone and they start selling, which everybody loves, too!

Ivan:
Yeah, right!

Rick:
So none of these, in any way, build a relationship, which is what BNI is always talking about, that people need to like you and trust you before they will do business with you. So many BNI members who are sole-preneurs without the staff, the time, or the money to extend marketing campaigns to stay in touch with their databases have a system in place to be able to contact people on a regular basis. And furthermore, the trend is that today people want short and sweet communications, McBites if you want to. We have USA to thank for all of this. But many of the long pieces that we are used to sending are just not being read nearly with the frequency than shorter communications.

Ivan:
You mentioned something about building relationships, so that’s really important. How do you do that? And do you do that prior to focusing on doing business? I mean, I think I know the answer to that, but I’d like to hear your perspective on it.

Rick:
Sure. Well, the Referral Institute, which again you’re a part of, has taught me the VCP model, and for many BNI members who are familiar with this, is Visibility, Credibility, and Profitability. People need to know who you are, then they need to trust you, and then, and only then, will they do business directly with you or refer business to you.

So in BNI, we use a one-on-ones and the power groups to build our relationships. The weekly presence, it’s all about building relationships. So we know that the more frequent we attend the meetings, the more we build that trust, that likeability, so we need to have a system in place that will allow us to do that in a time efficient manner and with many, many more people than just the people in our chapter. So having a system in place that allows you to touch people on a regular basis with content that they want to receive starts building your bond and your relationship with the people, so that when the time is right for them to want to use your product or service, they will, a, think of you first, and more importantly, think fondly of you.

Ivan:
Yeah. You know, a lot of people do this, and some use a newsletter as a way of staying in touch, but putting together a newsletter is really an immense about of work. Now, you’re talking to somebody who’s done it for 25 years, and it’s just an immense amount of work, and I know you guys have something that you use that I love that is a touchpoint; it’s a way to stay in contact that doesn’t require that you have to be constantly producing a newsletter. And I hope I’m not jumping the gun here, but I love your QuoteActions program, and that’s exactly what you’re talking about in terms of staying in touch with people without trying to sell. Would you agree?

Rick:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And yes, I created QuoteActions as a way for me to stay in more frequent communication with my clients, because I also produce newsletters, and I know the amount of work that they take, and I wanted to do something that was far more frequent than that. So we created this internally, and quotes is one of those things that people love receiving. They use them all the time, but there was already a lot of quotes out there. This was a stroke of inspiration that came up where we added an action to the quote to make the quote come to life and basically personalize it to the person, so that instead of being just something that was nice or interesting, it was something that people could do with this. Because the action part of it is what we strongly believe makes a difference in people’s lives.

So we created a system that not only allows for regular content to be delivered, but it’s already preprogrammed so that the individuals can simply just make it available as a gift to somebody and then all the work is being taken care of for them.

Ivan:
And the QuoteActions, what I like about it is you can get it on a daily basis or you can get it, I think, also two or three times a week as well as on a daily basis?

Rick:
Yes, the recipient of the QuoteActions chooses to get it either once a week, twice a week, or five days a week.

Ivan:
Give us an example of the kinds of things that people would actually receive. I know some of my quotes are in there. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. But there’s some other people and other kinds of things as well.

Rick:
Yeah, here’s one, and it just came to mind. It says, “A true measure of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your success,” and that is by Cullen Hightower, a writer, and says, “Your action for today is to think of three people who have benefited from your success and thank them.” So it’s something that is short and it’s sweet, and more importantly, the quotes are delivered from you or whoever sends them with their e-mail address and their contact information at the bottom. And because you’re not selling anything, all you’re doing is you’re offering something that is very short and sweet but it reminds people of you, it builds up good will and it’s totally automated without you having to do anything other than make the initial offer, a gift, that people accept by clicking on link when they opt in.

Ivan:
Yeah, and it doesn’t look like it’s coming from QuoteActions; it looks like it’s coming from you as an individual, whoever you are, an individual member of BNI or someone else. It looks like it’s coming from them, and so what I like about the concept, and this is how it ties in and the reason why I wanted you on the podcast, is that I have always said that if you find ways to help people, if you can finds ways to give information to people, to stay in touch with them other than to try to sell them something, you are much more likely to build a relationship to the point where they’re willing to do business with you and willing to refer you.

And this is a great example of that. I get QuoteActions on a regular basis from Betty Jo, and I’ve loved it.

Rick:
Yeah, well, it does also let you form a bond in a relationship with many of the people that you just recently met, a lot of the prospects that you’ve just recently met. It’s a great way to get back in touch with former clients who, instead of sending them an offer to buy something from you, instead what you do is you send them a gift which is “I’d like to offer you this gift. If you’d like to receive it, here it is,” which is a much more elegant way to get back in touch with people using the Givers Gain mentality that we’re all very familiar with BNI.

Ivan:
So, Rick, the Web site, QuoteActions.com, is that right?

Rick:
That is correct. People can go there and they can take a 30 day free trial so they can experience it and try it out for themselves.

Ivan:
Yeah. Any closing thought or comment, Rick?

Rick:
Well, I think that we all agree that BNI secrets of success lie in its proven system of bringing professionals together to give and receive word-of-mouth referrals on a consistent basis. So as we’ve covered in today’s podcast, people need systems to stay connected with people, the touchpoints and have them first, and we believe that QuoteActions would be a great tool for people, that it’s very cost and time effective for them to do this.

Ivan:
You know, I don’t recommend a lot of systems on these podcasts. There’s just a handful of things that I recommend, and this is absolutely one of them. I think it’s good because it is a touchpoint; it is a way to stay in touch regularly with people that you want to do business with or that you are doing business with, and it’s a very subtle technique to stay in touch with them providing them valuable information. And whether you use QuoteActions or any other kind of system, you need to have a system to stay in touch with people with content that they want to have, and I love this content, and that’s why I’ve recommended it. If you’re listening to the podcast, go take a look at the Web site. I think it’s a great way to maintain touchpoints with your fellow BNI members and with your clients and prospective clients.

Rick, thank you very much for being on the show.

Priscilla, I’ll turn it back over to you.

Priscilla:
Okay, great. Thank you so much.

I think that’s it for this week, and I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com. 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.