Episode 182: “The Best 60-Second Presentation I Ever Heard”

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Synopsis

In a BNI meeting, the “memory hook” isn’t as important as when you’re meeting strangers. To give a great 60-second presentation requires specificity and asking for a referral.

The best 60-second commercial Dr. Misner ever saw was done by a florist in Chattanooga Tennessee. He used visual aids: a rose from a grocery store, and one of his own roses. He compared the two, demonstrating how far superior his rose was, and concluded by saying “There’s only 3 cents difference in price. Theirs is more.”

Why was this presentation so good?

• He led with value.
• He trained a sales force.
• He was extremely specific.
• It was memorable.

Remember, Specific Is Terrific. The more you can train a sales force, the better results you’ll get.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 182 -

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 am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, CA. I am joined today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.  Hello Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I am doing great, Priscilla. Today I am going to talk about a topic that I am often asked when I travel around the world and I talk to chapters about BNI and about networking. Many people ask me how do you do a good 60-second presentation?

One of the first things that I say to people that actually surprises them is I wish we’d stop focusing so much on memory hooks. We spend way too much time on memory hooks, and I know I have talked about that in another podcast. Memory hooks are great techniques to use, maybe during visitor’s day. But the whole idea behind a memory hook is to have people remember who you are, but of course, in a BNI meeting, after a few weeks, people ought to remember who you are.

So you have to be really specific in your presentation. In last week’s podcast, I used the expression “specific is terrific.” That’s so true.

As I travel around, people ask me what are some examples of a great 60-second presentation? What I thought I would do, because I have never done that in my podcast, is share with the listeners the best 60-second presentation that I have ever heard. I’ll try to do it in real time, but he had visuals, so I have to describe the visuals that he had and that shortens it.

Basically, it was a florist that I saw do a 60-second intro or commercial in Chattanooga, TN. The florist stood up when it was his turn, he reached under the tanble, and pulled out a single rose. The rose was maybe 8-12” long, kind of small but it was in good shape. And it had cellophane around it.  You have seen roses in grocery stores, where they’ll sell a single rose, right, with cellophane around it?

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
It had a grocery store sticker on it. He’s a florist. It had a grocery store sticker on it. He held up the rose and said, “What do you guys think of this rose?”

Everybody looked at it, and they knew it came from a grocery store, but nobody would say anything because it looked really good. He said, “It’s okay. You can be honest. This is a pretty good looking rose, isn’t it? I bought it at the Winn Dixie grocery store right next door. They do a pretty nice job on their roses.” Then he said, “Let me show you my rose.”

He reached under the table, and he pulled out a rose. Priscilla, I swear, this thing had to be 18” to two feet long. It was gigantic. Huge. Really big. And the flower was two or three times the size of the flower from the grocery store. He held them both up by the bottom. He said, “Here is the my rose. Look at how thick the stem is from the roses that we sell in my store.

The stem was almost as thick as a pencil, very thick. He said, “The larger the stem, the thicker the stem, the more water it draws up into the stem and into the rose, so the rose can be much larger, and more importantly, it will live longer. A rose like this can live anywhere from three to five days longer and be in good shape than a small stemmed rose like this. Here’s the Winn Dixie rose.” He held it from the very tip- imagine pinching your fingers together and holding it from the very tip at the bottom- and was waving it around back and forth. So it was waving around like a dead fish, right? He said, “Here’s the Winn Dixie rose.”

Then he held his rose from the bottom and did the same thing. It didn’t budge. “Here’s the Winn Dixie rose. Here’s my rose. There’s only three cents difference in price. Theirs is more.”

Priscilla:
[laughs in surprise]

Ivan:
And that was the reaction from the audience. It was like, wow!

Now, it’s hard to do this in a recording, in a podcast, but visually, I want everyone to visualize seeing two different roses, substantially different. One is big and beautiful and one is small and very attractive. You know, he could have picked- look, he could have gone to the grocery store. We have all been to grocery stores. He could have picked some skankly old beat up rose and said,”Look. Here’s what the grocery store sells.” But he picked a good rose and tried to compare a good rose from there to a good rose from his store.

He said, “Here’s a grocery store rose. Here’s my rose. Look at the difference in the stems. They’re basically only three cents difference in price. Mine’s cheaper.” That was so powerful. I looked around the room, and everybody in that room was going, I’m an idiot if I buy roses at the grocery store. Not only am I getting a higher perceived value, but his costs me less. His looks better and costs less.

To me, that Priscilla, was probably one of the best examples of a 60-second introduction that I have ever heard in my life because he was truly training a sales force. He was being laser-specific. He spent that presentation strictly talking about a rose. However, I could see him at his floral shop behind the scenes training an employee on the difference between grocery store roses and their floral shop roses. I could see him teaching an employee that.

So for those of you listening, the more you can break your business down into small parts, least or lowest common denominator, small pieces and talk about those pieces- be specific. The more you can educate people about your products and services, the better the results that you  are going to get from your fellow members. It’s because you are giving them something they can really envision and remember when they are out buying something.

I guarantee you that everybody who went to the grocery store or went any place thought of his roses the next time they were thinking of buying flowers.

Priscilla:
I think it was so clever that his rose cost less. That is the last thing that you’d ever expect.

Ivan:
Yeah, you’re right. You are absolutely right. The funny thing is if he would have said, look, it’s only 5% more, 10% more, or even 20% more, I think people would have thought, yeah, that makes sense. For 20% more, look at how much better it is. But no, it was a few pennies less. I think everybody in there was shocked. It was such a powerful way of showing value.

Many of our members are selling services or products where we are not the low-cost leader. It is rare that a BNI member is the low-cost leader. We are not the Wal-Mart of products and services as a rule. BNI is made up of professionals and members who are selling a product or their time, that is not the cheapest. So you have to lead it with value. That’s what he did. He led it with value. In this particular case, it was less than a grocery store, but in any case, it’s all about the value. You have to focus on the value and what sets you apart from your competition. He did that just brilliantly.

Priscilla:
Oh that’s good. I like that.

Ivan:
That, Priscilla, is the best 60-second presentation I have ever heard in the more than two and a half decades of running BNI. The one thing that we can all learn from this- because we are not all in the flower business, but the one thing we can all learn from this is that specific is terrific. And if you teach people specific parts of your business and how to look for opportunities to refer you or to use your products and services, then you’re giving people something to hang their hat on, something to say, hey, I know a little bit about flowers and this is why this is better than that.

It’s very important to do, and the more you can educate your members as though you were training a sales force, the more successful you are going to be at this.

Priscilla:
Great. I am already thinking well, I could bring in a very badly recorded piece of music and then show them afterwards how wonderful it sounds when it has gone through my studio.

Ivan:
Yeah. Absolutely. That’s a great example. I have not seen that done with a recording. I would love to see how that plays out, no pun intended. That’s great. I have seen it done with commercial graphics, the same thing. Somebody in a chapter I went to many years ago brought in the hand drawing that the customer brought into her store. Then  she showed the first draft mock up of what they designed after the hand drawing. You were like, wow! What a difference. Then she had the final version, full color. It went from a pencil drawing to a black and white graphic, which looked really good, to a full color piece. It was like, wow! What an amazing difference!

So yeah, something recorded would be another great example of it.

Priscilla:
Those show and tell things are fantastically important.

Ivan:
Yep, they really are. You bring up another good point. He had somehting that he brought in, and the more you can bring something in and do a show and tell, the easier it is for people  to visualize what you are saying. That’s why having it there works better and is actually quicker than me trying to explain it in a recording.

Priscilla:
Yeah. That’s a great idea. Thank you, Ivan. Do you have anything else to add to that?

Ivan:
That’s it for today, but if you have listened to this podcast and you have seen or heard a great 60-second commercial that you think was very powerful, just in a few sentences, put it in the comments here in the podcast and let me know how you are going to apply it to your 60-second presentation. I would love to get the feedback from the listeners. Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Oh, you are so welcome. Well, I would like to just 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 for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.