Episode 157: “A Culture of Learning with Fast Track”

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Synopsis

In this episode, Dr. Misner is joined by BNI director Asa Davis, who shares his experience using the Fast Track program with the BNI Leading Edge chapter in Michigan.

BNI Leading Edge was already a successful chapter, but still wanted to try Fast Track. In the first 3 months, their referral numbers went down by 15%, but close of business went up almost 100%.

These results demonstrate the value of the culture of learning in BNI. Fast Track is not a replacement for training, but a supplement. After Fast Track, many of the members of BNI Leading Edge went back through Member Success Training for a second time. Leading Edge is now the number one chapter in all of Michigan.

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Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 157 -

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’m joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. Do you have somebody with you today?

Ivan:
I do, Priscilla. Thank you very much. I have on the line with us Asa Davis. Asa is an assistant director in BNI Michigan. BNI Michigan is one of the biggest regions for BNI. If BNI Michigan were a country for BNI, it would be something like the third largest country for the BNI organization. They have so many chapters, and their average number of members per chapter is very high.

Asa has been a member of BNI for six years and has been an assistant director for just under two years. And I think that’s a really good example of how directors almost always start as members, and so they have lots of experience with the organization. Asa certainly has that, and he represents a great region.

We’re here today to talk about instilling a culture of learning using the Fast Track program, which is a program I’ve recommended and have talked about, published by del Fuego. And he’s done a great job in instilling this with the chapter.

And so, Asa, welcome to the podcast.

Asa:
Well, thanks for having me, Ivan.

Ivan:
Let me start with my first question. Why Fast Track for the Leading Edge chapter, which is the chapter where you tried it out? Because I understand they were a pretty successful chapter to begin with, but you had them do this program. And maybe you could just mention what the Fast Track program is and then jump into my question.

Asa:
Yep. It’s the BNI Networking Secret CDs, the three CD set that you had recorded with Tom Fleming through del Fuego, and it just provides great learning opportunities for BNI members to listen to in their car, to put it on an iPod, some kind of portable listening device and really get a handle on the fundamentals of BNI. We had posed the question of having the whole chapter do the Fast Track after I went to the national conference last year in Wisconsin, and we posted it at a leadership team forum, so the leaders from all of the chapters were there, president, vice president, secretary, treasurer. And Leading Edge had a very strong leadership team and decided that that’s something that they wanted to do, to have all their members listen to it and see what kind of difference it would make, as a chapter.

Ivan:
Well, again, I think you just said something really key. They decided that they wanted to do it. One of the things I’ve learned is, when you’re talking about education and training, you can’t push a noodle, you can’t make people learn; they’ve got to really want to do it. And so here was a chapter that said, “Hey, that sounds interesting. We’d like to do this.” And so they ran with it, even though they were already a pretty good chapter. Is that a good assessment?

Asa:
Absolutely. Yeah, they were 26, 27 members at the time, very good chapter, passed about 40 referrals a week, and one of the selling points of the program was that they would increase the number of referrals that they passed. And I studied the chapter and followed to see they progress, and actually, their referrals went down.

Ivan:
The referrals went down?

Asa:
Yeah, the referrals went down.

Ivan:
In the beginning?

Asa:
In the beginning, yeah.

Ivan:
So explain that one. That’s surprising.

Asa:
Yeah, it was very interesting. The referral numbers went down about 15 percent, and that was over the first three months, and I was sort of feeling dejected. I was thinking I recommended this program to this chapter and then I actually looked at their closed business numbers, because I hadn’t looked at those before, and their –

Ivan:
Let’s talk about that for just one second, because not all chapters track closed business, but we do have the mechanisms for chapter to track closed business. And so this is a group that was not only tracking referrals, but they were tracking how much business was actually closed in the group as well. What happened to that number?

Asa:
Well, again, referrals went down about 15 percent, the closed business went up almost 100 percent.

Ivan:
You’re kidding me?!!

Asa:
No, it was huge. And the members, I went back and asked the members about it, and they said it’s really – really, people have made a commitment to passing better quality referrals, and that showed up right away in those closed business numbers.

Ivan:
So would you say, then, that they just slowed down in passing bad referrals and they improved their passing of really good referrals so that the actual number of referrals went down, but the referrals that turned into business went up dramatically?

Asa:
Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that helped is they said that the program gave them a playbook. And that term comes up a lot on the CD, having a playbook and a consistent language that all of them could use. And there’s one particular member who, on several occasions, was able to turn in a – well, it was really a cold lead or just a name into a true referral, and she was able to do that because of the common reference that people had in the CDs.

Ivan:
Yeah, you bring up another good point. One of the things that the CDs do is they help people operate with the same language, talking the same language and applying the same concepts, so that it’s kind of like if you don’t speak a language and you go to another country and people are talking, you just don’t know what’s going on. I know, I was just in Switzerland a few weeks ago. I only knew about half of what was being said, if that! And so it’s really a way of coming up with a dialog that everybody’s playing with and a language that everyone understands and is all working in the same direction.

So what do you think is the longer-term benefit for the chapter of this work?

Asa:
Well, Ivan, one thing I noticed you say consistently in your talks and on your CDs and in your writing is it’s important for chapters to really instill a culture of education and learning, and that’s one of the things that we’ve seen. Rather than this program being a replacement for our training, it’s really a great supplement. We have more of the members come back through the Members Success Program. They actually sent half of their members through Members Success Program over a two month period, and actually, all of those people had already been, they had already gone one time when they were members; they went again. We have more people going through our advanced training modules. We have people going through the Referral Institute. The chapter actually now does their referrals – and we’re still working on implementing, but a majority of the members now, when they stand up and have a referral, they actually say what level the referral is or the shade of the referral, level of referral from your most recent book, and so they can identify, “This is a Level 7; this is a Level 8; I have a meeting scheduled with somebody.” So not only do they pass better quality referrals, but they let everybody else know the quality of the referral as well.

Ivan:
Nice. Have you seen any other shifts in behavior with the group?

Asa:
They have more fun. They’re always fun chapter, but they have more fun together. They meet socially regularly. Their meetings not only are good business time, but it’s a fun time as well, so they’ve really found a great mix of the whole chapter being friends and still being good business partners. And they seem to have more of a culture of open, honest communication as well. That’s something that this program has fostered, because if something is not of the quality that they want, they seem to be more willing to go up and talk to people about it, help improve the quality of everyone’s referrals.

Ivan:
What you’re talking about is where I often say you have to really immerse and engage in that culture of learning. From what I’m hearing you say is that this is a group that fully immersed in it, improved their communication, decreased bad referrals, increased the quality referrals, and it led to great results. And I love stories like this. I think it’s just so powerful to show how, when you apply the concepts systematically, you get results.

Asa:
Yeah. And for a long time, the largest membership number they had was 31. This is a chapter that kicked off in April of ’03. The highest they ever got was 31 members. They recently broke through that and got up to 35. And then we have our Member Extravaganza, the visitors days, coming up in our region, and they’ve got a ton of momentum for that. So they’re excited about having some new quality members, and now they have a mentor program as well, which has helped – the Fast Track program has helped facilitate so they can help get the new members off the ground.

Ivan:
Well, let’s wrap up with one last question. Let’s go back to the long-term benefit. What do you think the long-term benefits would be for other groups that want to do something like what the Leading Edge chapter in Michigan did?

Asa:
Well, I’m somebody where I’ve got to see the results, and it’s one thing for me to walk into a chapter and say, “Yeah, it’s a good chapter” to a different chapter, but if I’ve got numbers to back it up, that helps me. We have, in the BNI Connect system, for chapters and for directors, and this may be more for the executive directors, a Traffic Light system to show where our chapters are in terms of chapter size, chapter growth, referrals passed per member, visitors, absentee rate, attendance rate, and then converting visitors to members. And prior to doing the Fast Track, they were a yellow light chapter. So there’s green light for really excelling chapters; the yellow light for sort of the middle of the road chapters; and red light, chapters that maybe need a little more help.

They were a yellow light; their score was 55, so they were right in the middle, pretty good chapter. Since doing the Fast Track, their average score went from a 55 to a 75, so on average, a green light chapter, a solid chapter. And actually for April and May, by those statistics, they were the number one chapter in all of Michigan.

Ivan:
Wow!

Asa:
175 chapters. So that, to me, said that there’s something going on here, there’s something that other chapters can benefit from, and it’s night and day difference, just looking at the numbers. Plus it’s just a great chapter to be at. The members like going there; I like visiting. Visitors are warmly received, so it’s good all around.

Ivan:
Well, just for the listeners, though, Traffic Light system that Asa is talking about isn’t implemented everywhere internationally, but you will be seeing it; it is part of the BNI Connect system. So as regions transition to BNI Connect, you’re going to see this Traffic Light system that he’s talking about, and it is a great way, and a quick way, [in] determining where you’re at in the whole system.

So, Asa, I think we’re out of time. I want to thank you very much for doing this today. Any closing comment that you had before I wrap up?

Asa:
I’ve just really enjoyed working with the chapter. It’s fun, as a director, to support a chapter who does immerse and engage in a culture of education and just encourage people, if they’re thinking about getting involved in the program, to listen to some of the other podcasts that have been done about it, definitely get in touch with Flynn and Sarah at del Fuego, who are fantastic, and they’ve got a good support team there to help people if they want to figure out how to get involved in the program.

Ivan:
Do you know the Web site for the Fast Track system?

Asa:
I know BNINetworkingSecrets.com.

Ivan:
So go to BNINetworkingSecrets.com. We put that link on this podcast.

Asa, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to do this with us today.

And I urge BNI members everywhere, go take a look at this. This is a tape series done by a third party, del Fuego, but what’s amazing about what they’re providing is coaching, actual coaching to go along with the CD. So it’s not just a CD, it’s a lot of support.

Asa, thank you so much. I appreciate your help.

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

Priscilla:
Great! Thank you both.

I think that’s it for this week. I would 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’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.