Episode 258: Ideas to Better Utilize the BNI Podcast

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Synopsis

Bill Ulvund from BNI Michigan joins Dr. Misner to offer some suggestions for ways to make use of this podcast. Members who invest time in the podcast will have stronger relationships because they focus on the fundamentals.

• Executive Directors: use the podcast to stimulate ideas at regional meetings for leadership team members.
• Leadership team: use the podcast as a resource for creating change. (Find answers to your questions.)
• Chapters: Set up podcast lunch-and-learn sessions to increase your Chapter Education Units.

Think about what works for you. How does your chapter use the podcast?

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 258 -

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?

Ivan:
I am doing great, Priscilla. I am also this week down under. I am in Australia visiting BNI groups.

Priscilla:
Fantastic.

Ivan:
I love coming to Australia. Amazing members here. As you may recall as a listener, I like to say where I am at so you know I’m not hung up in my ivory tower. I am out there visiting members and talking to regions; at least every other week I’m traveling and visiting. Here in Australia, I am going to be in Adelade. I am going to be in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Neusta, Margaret River. I am doing the whole tour and want to meet as many members as possible. If you are from Australia and you are listening to this. If you come to one of the events that I speak at, say hello. I would love to meet you personally.

We have got a really interesting topic today, Priscilla. I have as a guest Bill Ulvand. Bill is a Director Consultant with BNI Michigan. He has been with BNI as Director Consultant for 8 years. He is certified to teach all Michigan BNI trainings, like Member Success and Advanced Modules. He is the chair for the Director Support Team. He has authored three director success program modules and has presented with me at various BNI conferences. He is a really strong Director Consultant. It is a real pleasure having him on.

He shared with me one of his favorite stories about my travel was me trying to fly into Michigan and being bumped because of the snow storm- things get a little cold in Michigan. Being bumped and diverted to another location that was two hours away. I feel sorry for the person who had to come pick me up. But I can’t believe that you remember that, Bill. That’s funny. Were you the guy who picked me up?

Bill:
Yes, I was.

Ivan:
Ivan. That’s right. That’s why you remember it. Thank you again for driving two hours to pick me up. It’s great having you on. You’re going to talk about ideas to better utilize the BNI podcast. You are going to do this because I saw some of the stuff that you are going to talk about and I thought this is perfect. I need it on a podcast. You have three points. Let me turn it over to you.

Bill:
Alright. Thank you, Ivan. It is a pleasure to actually get to do the podcast with you. I’ve listened to almost every single one of them. One of the areas that I have thought over the years is that the podcasts are a great tool, but how can we get our members and also our Director Consultants to utilize them more effectively? One of the methods that we have utilized here in Michigan is – I called it Leadership Team Forum, where all the leaders of the chapters, the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer actually meet on a monthly basis and discuss things that are successful within the chapters. About a year ago, I had this thought of how can I get my members to start utilizing the podcast even more? The best way is to have the members hear it from the members that they are closest to. That being their leadership team.

So in one of the leadership team forums, we do the introductions and then immediately after that, we would select a podcast that would be relevant to the time period. Maybe it was going into support team training or leadership team training, or even visitor’s day. We would introduce the podcast. The entire team, which is about 20-30 people, would sit and listen to the podcast. As the Director Consultant and the facilitator, I would just ask them how is this relevant to your chapter? And then just turn it loose.

It was great because they would have all these ideas and some of them would all of a sudden be talking about how they could strategize using power teams and then they would start asking how to get more information on power teams. Of course, that way, I could suggest that they go back and listen to the podcast. That was one of the ways that we actually had implemented it. We actually, at the leadership team forums, had found that you had done a recording a while ago, Networking Resonance, and it was so powerful for us because the more that we could focus on the positive, the more the chapters are going to focus on their positive.

So what we started to do was we started reviewing the data such as chapters, their one to ones per member, the CEUs per member, visitors per member, referrals per member, and even perfect attendance. We came up with a top performer award. The chapters love it because they are anticipating to find out who is the winner and who outperformed the other chapter.

So we have incorporated that into the leadership team. It is the podcast that has really been able to help us with that because even now, these leadership teams will call up the Director Consultant and say, “Okay, we have this challenge in our chapter. What would you recommend?” Well, it’s great if they hear it from the master. We just send them to the podcast with your guests because they learn so much more.

Thank you for doing this. It hit me this last International Conference when I was talking to Art Guiles. He was saying how much he listens to the podcasts. That was the first thing to really impress me because not only did he know it by number, but he knew the title. It was very impressive.

Ivan:
We have over 250 podcasts, so there is a lot of content there for members to learn how to do this and improve their skill set at being a member at a chapter.

Bill:
Absolutely. That was one of the things. Even in one of our chapters- we measure our CEU’s, chapter education units. When you look at a chapter units and they have an average of 6.94 CEU points per member, you ask them how did you do that? The comment came up that they had been listening to a lot of podcasts. It’s amazing, but those chapters that listen to a lot of podcasts seem to outperform other chapters. There is definitely a reflection of the benefit of the chapters using the podcast.

Ivan:
Now, not everyone may know what the CEU is. We do have it in the BNIconnect. It’s there. Not all regions are using it. If you are a member and you hear about that, touch bases with your Director and ask them what it takes to start implementing that in your region. It’s a great concept. Clearly, Michigan is a master. They are masters at using education and training. Look into that more. Maybe I will do a podcast on that topic to help people out. Not everybody knows. Michigan is at the top of the game. As a matter of fact, I think I have said this many times, if Michigan were a country, you would be the second or third largest country for BNI. I think the the third largest country for BNI if Michigan were a country. What is your next point?

Bill:
Another point that I have is one of the members in one of these chapters, Ms. Joni Sandbourne, had the idea of doing a podcast lunch and learn. It was focused on how can we increase the CEU or chapter education units? What they actually ended up doing was they had lunch. There were about 8-12 members of the chapter who all meet at a designated location for lunch. They brought their brown bags and they sat around a big conference table. They played the podcast.

As one podcast would finish, they would have a group discussion over it and write down the points that were relevant and important to them. They would do that for an hour to an hour and a half. They have done this on a few occasions and that is really impressive. They are taking a group, listening to it and facilitating it themselves. That is a team that is really going places. Tomorrow, they will be having their visitor’s day extravaganza. It’s visitor’s day here in Michigan. They are really looking forward to that.

Ivan:
That is a brilliant idea. I like that idea a lot. I am impressed that chapters are doing that because that shows a real commitment to immerse and engage in a culture of learning that I always talk about. So let me recap the three that you gave. Then, if you have some other comments, I would love to have you share them and we’ll wrap up.

The first idea is to have semi-formal meetings on a regular basis to allow the leadership teams of chapters to share successes. That is generally done at a regional level, so that is where your Director or Director Consultant is doing it. If you are not doing it in your region, connect with your Director Consultant or Executive Director and ask, “What would it take to do that here? We would like to do that because we want to have more information and knowledge on how to make this work well.”

The next one is the leadership team uses the resource to create change. I think what you were talking about is that you took a look at specific issues and then went to the podcast to find things that would address that issue, right? And use that to help change.

And then a podcast lunch and learn. Brilliant idea. There is no reason why a chapter couldn’t do it, but a region could do it and get together and periodically have this lunch and learn. Listen to the podcast and then dialogue about it. Talk about it. Talk about how it fits your- one size doesn’t fit all. There are some applications to a concept. It’s the same concept. You apply it. A chapter is at a different place with 20 members than a chapter that has 50 members. So you have to apply it in a way that works for you.

Let me see if you have any closing comments and then I have some wrap up comments, Bill.

Bill:
The only closing comment I have, Ivan, is that members who actually invest in the podcasts will have stronger relationships because they focus on those fundamentals. They also learn more, which means they will earn more, is the term. This is like compounding interest on their relationships.

Ivan:
I couldn’t agree more. As you listen to these suggestions that Bill has given, think about what works for you in these ideas. Try to apply one or all of these concepts in a way that works for you and works for your chapter. One way that you can start to really engage with it is the podcast has a feature where you can sign up. There is a part where you see my photograph and below it you see “podcast email alerts” and you see email. Put in your email address there and every week you will get one email. I promise you we will not spam you. I promise you we will not spam you. We don’t sell our lists. We don’t give our lists away and we don’t spam people. You will get one email a week that says, here is what Ivan talked about this week. That’s one way to help you start to engage in the podcasts.

Bill, if you have anything else, I would love to hear it. Otherwise, time to wrap up.

Bill:
No, that’s fine, Ivan.

Ivan:
Bill, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We really appreciate it. You have some great concepts. I particularly love the podcast lunch and learn. I think it is really good. Thank you for being here and thanks for all the work you do with BNI. I will do my best the next time I come to Michigan to not make you drive two hours to get me.

Bill:
My pleasure.

Ivan:
Back to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay, great. Well, thanks, Bill, from my end, for sharing the podcast. I think that’s really great. 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. 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.