Episode 238: Business Networking and Sex

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Synopsis

Dr. Misner is about to start his book tour for Business Networking and Sex—Not What You Think, which is about gender differences in networking. One of his co-authors focused on the man’s perspective, one on the woman’s perspective, while Dr. Misner took the networking expert’s perspective.

One of the important questions the book addresses is “Are men and women really so different?”

Both men and women want business from networking and both are willing to work hard to get it. But they approach it in different ways, and need to learn the style of the opposite sex.

Here are some tips for women dealing with men:

• When asking for help, communicate clearly what you want
• When speaking to men, try to impress them and share your accomplishments
• When spoken to inappropriately, speak up immediately. Don’t accept it.
• Convey an image that you’re a serious business person at all times.

For men dealing with women:

• Slow down. Build the relationship.
• Don’t assume that women don’t take their business seriously.
• Edit what you’re about to say. Filter out anything that’s not business-appropriate.
• Remember that women are at networking events for the same reason you are: to get business.

Find out more about the book here.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 238 -

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 Berkeley, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, how are you and where are you?

Ivan:
Hey, I am doing great. I wanted to remind everyone I did a podcast a few weeks back, #234, as to why I mention where I am. I think it’s really important for members around the world to know that I am out visiting you, visiting regions, talking to members. I am not sitting back at BNI HQ in an ivory tower. I am getting out there. It’s actually one of the fun things about what I get to do.

This week, I am in the Bay area for a conference and for the beginning of the Business Networking and Sex book tour.

Priscilla:
I am going to see you then.

Ivan:
That would be great because you are in that area.

Priscilla:
That’s right.

Ivan:
I would love to see you. Now, what I wanted to talk about this week was the title of the book: Business Networking and Sex. The subtitle is Not What You Think. I know a lot of people are going to be disappointed because it’s really not about sex. It’s about gender. It’s a really interesting book, and I think that this book is going to help give a lot of exposure to BNI (no pun intended), a lot of branding for the organization because this is one of the best books that I have done. What I wanted to do today is talk about some of the content.

There have been a lot of books written about business networking and referral marketing. I have written quite a few of those myself. There have also been a lot of books written about the difference between men and women, which is what this book is really about. However, it dawned on me and my co-authors a few years ago that no one has ever made the effort to combine the two subjects. So that is how this project got born. Business Networking and Sex, Not What You Think is all about the difference between men and women.

Over a 4 year period, we did a survey of more than 12,000 business people, including the analysis of it. We surveyed 12,000 business people and we asked a couple of dozen questions. After analyzing the results of the survey, which was open to the public and we had respondents from all over the world, every populated continent. We took these survey results and developed the book because of it. My fellow networking experts, Frank Girafle, he writes from the male perspective. Hazel Walker writes from the female perspective. I take the expert prospective. So every chapter is kind of split into three sections: The Survey Says, which is my content, which I try to do as much as possible in a gender-neutral way. Then Frank talks about the He Says. He does anything but gender neutral. He takes the male perspective. Then Hazel does the She Says. Again, it’s not gender neutral. She talks about it from the female perspective.

Priscilla:
What are some of the questions that you asked?

Ivan:
There were a lot of questions that we asked. Most of the questions really didn’t apply to gender so much. They were about basic networking. How much time do you spend networking? What kinds of organizations do you belong to? Where are you located? How many hours do you spend? How much business do you generate? Just basic networking questions that we wanted to compare and contrast the differences between men and women.

It was our desire to understand the communication issues that occur between men and women in the networking process. The three of us focused on combining our personal networking experiences and the data to interpret it in a way that gave meaning to the readers. One thing that we explored in depth was the following very basic question. This isn’t a question that we asked people but a question we went into the book with. Are men and women really so different? Or do we have a tendency to focus on what makes us different instead of how we are similar? Coming to an answer that we could all agree on probably became the foremost concept of the book.

As it turns out, men and women are alike in many ways, as it comes to business networking. They just seem to get to the same place using different roads. If men and women could just understand some basic fundamental points of their different styles, then they can certainly be more successfully when referring the opposite sex.

It’s interesting that our study revealed two very distinct facts, seemingly at odds with one another. The first is that men and women want to get business from networking and are willing to work hard to get it. The second is that they seem to make things so difficult for themselves by only networking in the style that their own gender prefers and understands. This is counterproductive as a professional relationship between a man and a woman based either on what the man wants and is looking for or what the woman wants or is looking for. If they both want to stay connected, they quickly figure out that it takes more to make the other person work effectively with them than what it would seem at first glance.

A lot of men need to get to the point where they no longer offend women. These are some of the things that we came up in the book with- or are no longer misunderstood. Until that happens, they will continue to miss out on the potential to do business with women. The fact that almost half of the world’s population obviously is women and more and more women own businesses and work in companies as sales people.

On the other hand, the guys may sometimes act offensive. Most women need to realize that they play a big part that enables men to continue that behavior without even realizing it. Here is where some of the stuff gets a little controversial with the he said/she said. They certainly play that part every time they have been offended by an off-color comment and yet said nothing and sulked away. They do it when they have been ignore, discounted or rudely referred to but instead of speaking their mind, they just vowed not to do business with that person any more. They do it every time they have ever worn an inappropriate outfit to a business function and then felt offended that no one was taking them seriously, or worse yet, people were asking them out on dates instead of listening to their business ideas.

These are some of the things that we talk about in the book, so it’s a little controversial. We started out with a warning that this book may push some buttons. I just did an interview with a newspaper and the reported said, “Wow. You have tackled issues head on and give a pretty unvarnished position on not only the survey results but the male and female perspective.

What I am sharing with you here, Priscilla, by the way, is not just my perspective. It is the perspective that Frank and Hazel bring to it. I actually have the easy stuff. I am just talking about the data. They get to talk about the more controversial things.

Here are some tips that we give in the book to help people in their networking with the opposite gender. Women, when asking for help, communicate clearly exactly what it is that you want. When speaking to men, try to impress them and share your accomplishments because men have a tendency to impress one another. We talk about that in the book. They start a conversation with what they do, who they are. Women don’t tend to do that, so to deal with men sometimes they need to do that a little more directly. When spoken to inappropriately, speak up immediately. Don’t accept it. Convey an image to others that you are a serious business person in all that you do.

For men, slow down. Build the relationship. Don’t assume that women don’t take their business seriously. Edit what you are about to say using filters to sift out what is not business-appropriate, and comments that aren’t business-appropriate just virtually never go over. It’s interesting that some guys just don’t get that. Remember that women are at networking events for business just as they are. They are looking to generate business just as men are, and they need to be treated the same way in terms of a networking perspective.

Those are a handful of the recommendations that we have. I would invite members listening to this podcast if you think the topic sounds of interest to you, take a look at BNI.com for the book, or Amazon or local book stores. It literally comes out this week, and I think this will be a huge brand builder for BNI because I will be, along with Frank and Hazel, doing literally hundreds of interviews over the next 6 months to a year. Anytime we do an interview, we’ll have an opportunity to mention BNI. This is going to be great exposure, no pun intended, for the book.

Priscilla:
That sounds great. What an interesting book. I am looking forward to reading it.

Ivan:
Thanks. We were pretty excited. It was a lot of fun to do. It was really interesting to do. Just interviewing people for the book was really so interesting. We interviewed John Gray, who wrote Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. He is in the book and also did an endorsement of the book. We have many other people, people who have been on my podcast and good friends of the organization, like Susan Roane. She contributed to the book. We interviewed her. She gives some great insights. One of the things that we put in the book from her was that women have a tendency to- she in particular reads the sports page everyday. I may have talked about this in a previous podcast, but she reads it everyday so that she can have a conversation with men. Men don’t do that kind of thing. We got that concept from Susan.

A lot of great stuff. We tried to integrate some data in there. For example, one bit of data that we think is really important is how much time should you spend networking? We found that people who are successful at networking spend an average of 6.5 hours a week. The people who are not successful in networking spend less than 2 hours per week. Men or women. It’s pretty consistent, although one gender spends a little more time than the other. I plan to talk to you about that in a future podcast. On average, it’s about 6.5 hours a week for people who are successful in networking.

There is a lot of great data in this book, integrated into it. We ended up taking on almost 90% of the tables that we had produced because we didn’t want it to be a book on just statistics. There is not a lot statistical stuff out there, but there is some and it really substantiates or supports the positions that both Frank and Hazel take in their gender perspectives.

That’ all I’ve got for today, Priscilla, other than I want to give a website out to the listeners: www.businessnetworkingandsex.com. If you want to get more information, a free chapter of the book, and listen to some of the stuff that Frank and Hazel say, go to that website. Thanks Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Thanks so much for sharing that. 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. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.