Episode 277: Boost Your ROI with BNI Connect

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Synopsis

This week Dr. Misner brings Jeremy Walsh of BNI Connect Global Support back to share 5 power tips to boost your ROI with BNI Connect.

1.  Update your profile. Make sure all the information is complete and correct. This makes it easier for people to pass referrals to you.
2. Print the Meeting Notes Report and take notes at your meetings about the kinds of referrals your fellow members are looking for.
3. Fill out your GAINS Exchange online. You can also pull up the GAINS Exchange report on other members before meeting them for one-to-ones.
4. Invite visitors to your chapter. Just fill in the name and e-mail address of the person and BNI Connect will send them an official invitation with all the information they need about the chapter.
5. Find out your personal ROI. Check your PALMS (Present, Absent, Late, Medical, Substitute) reports and all your referrals back to the beginning of your membership.

If you don’t have your BNI Connect username and password, go to your local director to get them. To learn more about BNI Connect, visit support.bniconnect.com.

Listen to Episode 275, Expanding Your Global Footprint.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 277 -

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:
I am doing great, Priscilla, and I like to tell members where I am at because I don’t want people to think that I am sitting in my ivory tower somewhere not doing anything. I want to let them know that I go out and visit regions all the time. This week, I am on my way to Las Vegas for the US Membership Extravaganza. Winners from the Extravaganza get to meet with me in Vegas and I’ll do a presentation. It’s really the fun part of my job. I get to meet as many members as possible. If you are one of the members who won.

Priscilla:
Great.

Ivan:
I have back from popular demand Jeremy Walsh, who is the Director of Support and Training for BNI Connect. He and his BNI Connect team help people get connected worldwide through BNI’s exclusive online social media platform. As you may recall, he was on the podcast just a couple of weeks ago. He has been a member of BNI in Rhode Island for more than 10 years. He has been a Director in the region and he’s the owner of Right Click, which is a computer support and networking company. Jeremy is outstanding in that field. Jeremy, it is great to have you back on the show.

Jeremy:
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here again.

Ivan:
Today we are going to talk about five power tips to boost your ROI with BNI Connect. If you don’t know that ROI stands for, it stands for return on investment. You may recall that just last week, I did a blog on why BNI, which is all about a survery that was done talking about what is your return on investment in BNI?

I think this is a great topic today, Jeremy, talking about your return on investment using BNI Connect. You have five tips. Share with us what those 5 tips are.

Jeremy:
Sure. In our previous podcast, we talked a lot about VCP. One of the first things that you should do as soon as you get on BNI Connect is update your profile. That is power tip number one. Get in there and update all the information about yourself so that when people find you, you actually have a public face to put out there.

A very quick story about that. I had a referral walk into my office a couple of months back. Literally, I was sitting here typing on my computer. He said, “Listen. I need a referral to a bookkeeper.” I said that is awesome. I have somebody in our chapter. I went to our website, pulled up this person’s profile and it was empty. There was no picture, no profile, nothing. So unfortunately, I really wanted to print that page out and hand it over to him with his social media links, his phone number, his address, information on his business, his picture- I couldn’t do that. I ended up having to get a yellow sticky note and write that information down.

So if you can get that information, people are looking online. They are looking to find you. They are looking to connect. They are looking to pass referrals. Get your information updated. You just have to click on the my account button and update the information in the fields on there. That’s tip number one.

Ivan:
Now, if you don’t have your user name and password, go to your local Director to get that information so you can put that in there. Okay? Go ahead, Jeremy.

Jeremy:
Alright. Tip number two: One of the things that we struggle with as members is really getting referrals for people. With BNI Connect, you can make that a little easier. There is a great report in there called the meeting notes report. You can find that by going to Reports>Chapter>Meeting Notes Reports. What that will do is list out all your current members, what their business is and a place for you to take notes during the meeting.

So as you are out there, you’re networking and doing your thing, talking to clients, you can be reminded of the things that people are asking for during their 60 second in the meeting. Pay attention, take notes and you can use the meeting notes report.

The third power tip is we are taught to go back to your member success program. One of the things that we are taught to do is to do a GAINS exchange before we go to a one to one with people.

Ivan:
For those people who don’t know what a GAINS exchange is, it’s an acronym. It was originally in my book, Business by Referral. It’s now available in leadership team manuals, and I think it’s also in the member success program material. It stands for Goals, Accomplishments, Interests, Network, and Skills. It’s a way to share information when you do a one to one so you can learn more about the other person and they can learn about you. Now, it’s on BNI Connect. Do you want to share with them how that is valuable?

Jeremy:
Go to the My Account button again and go to the Bio tab. You’ll see the place where you can fill out your GAINS exchange online. The great part about that is you don’t have to go searching on the computer for the last time you filled it out or for that piece of paper that might be floating around in the trunk of your car somewhere. You can get it and keep it stored and updated. Right in BNI Connect. Even better than that, before you do a one to one, go to the report for it. If you go to Reports>Chapter>Detail Report, you can pull up a GAINS exchange for another chapter member before you meet with them.

Ivan:
Excellent. Great. So that’s your third point. Tell us your fourth.

Jeremy:
Tip number four. Have you ever struggled to invite someone to come and visit your chapter. In this fast moving, fact paced day and age, to type out that big email, you have to go here to this address at this time and this place. There is now a function right in BNI Connect that allows you to send out a very quick email that invites somebody to your chapter.

If you go to Operations>Chapter>Email, you can email a visitor invitation. All you have to do is fill out their name, their email address, and a short note and we’ll do the rest for you. It will send them a nice BNI branded email message saying please come. It will give them the address of the chapter. It will give them the name of the chapter, the day and the time that you meet, a brief amount of information and all you have to do is fill out the name and email address.

Ivan:
Nice. Your fifth recommendation.

Jeremy:
The fifth recommendation is another report. We’re talking about ROI. If you want to see what your personal ROI is, there is an easy way to do that. As long as you have been a member, your chapter has been keeping a PALMS report Present, Absent, Leave, Medical and Substitute and all of your referrals that you have generated over the years. So going back historically, you can go and put your name on a personal PALMS report and see your activity week by week by week by week going back to when you first joined your chapter. Just go to Reports>Chapter>Personal PALMS Report and see what your personal ROI really is over the course of your membership.

Ivan:
Great advice. Five power tips to boost your ROI. Update your profiles, keep notes in the meetings, use the GAINS exchange, email invitations to visitors, and take a good look at your personal PALMS report. This is really great advice to give to people, Jeremy.

Let’s say that there are some listeners who don’t know about BNI Connect yet. Where can they learn more about this free program? It doesn’t cost members anything for the standard services on BNI Connect. Where can they learn more about how to make this tool work for them as part of their membership?

Jeremy:
If you are in BNI Connect already, just click on the little question mark in the upper right hand corner of the red box and it will take you to the support site, which is support.bniconnect.com. There you are going to find our list of webinars. We hold many webinars on a weekly and almost daily basis teaching you all aspects of the system. We have some self-help forms. If you need to, you can actually ask us a question right through that form.

On Facebook, you can go to facebook.com/BNIConnectGlobal. We put power tips up there on a regular basis, webinar announcements, and we’ll keep you informed about upgrades and new features and enchancements as they are coming out.

Ivan:
A majority of the organization is on BNI Connect now. So this is a global website. We do still have a few countries that have not yet made the transition. We hope to be doing that soon, but the majority of the world is on BNI Connect. If you don’t know how to access it, go to your local Director, get your user name and password, and get on there and visit.

We talked a few weeks ago, you and I, Jeremy, about the group notification. Get active in some of the groups and do some of these. These are great tools and they are- did I mention- all free, as part of your participation in BNI. I really believe this is one of the features of BNI, one of the benefits of BNI that sets our organization aside from all the competition out there. We are not only local meetings, but we also have this global network in place for members around the world.

Jeremy, anything you want to add to your message today?

Jeremy:
Just get connected and happy connecting, everyone!

Ivan:
Thank you, Jeremy. Local business, global network. You, as a BNI member can be a local business in your community and immediately have a global network of over 100,000 members. We currently have 145,000 members total in BNI. Immediately establish a global network of more than 100,000 members all around the world.

Jeremy, you have been great in support of BNI Connect. I appreciate everything you do. Thank you very much for helping to make BNI Connect evolve into the product and service that I have been hoping that it will be. Thank you very much. Back to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Thank you, Jeremy. I think it’s real interesting and great information for all of us.I think that’s it for this week. Thank you so much also, Dr. Misner. 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.