Small Business Trends Radio named The Official BNI Podcast to its 100 Best Small Business Podcasts of 2010. (We’re in the “Marketing and Sales” section.)

Dr. Misner would like to acknowledge the following people for their contribution to this podcast:

• Priscilla Rice, show host and owner of Live Oak Studio—and her brilliant sound engineer, James
• Sallie Goetsch of the Podcast Asylum, who handles all the geeky behind-the-scenes stuff
• Renee Snyder, who transcribes the podcasts so you can read the whole text of each episode
• Brady Vercher of Blazer Six, theme designer and web developer, who keeps the BNIpodcast.com infrastructure from coming apart.

Thanks for listening and see you next year!

Dr. Ivan Misner with Priscilla Rice at the BNI International Conference, November 7, 2009.

Ponder Pearls is a thought for the day program available free to BNI podcast listeners. Dr. Misner has been writing for this program. The program contains a remarkable array of positive quotes from well-known authors, sacred texts, public figures, and entrepreneurs. Examples of Dr. Misner’s quotes: “Success is the uncommon application of common knowledge” and “Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting.”

Go to the Ponder Pearls website and use the gift code “BNI” to register for free. Then leave a comment here to let Dr. Misner what you think about the service.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 113 -

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

Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you?

Ivan:
Doing great, Priscilla. Last week I was in Japan; this week I’m in Australia for the BNI conference in Australia, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s later this week, and I’m sure I’ll come back with lots of great stories about my visit Down Under; some really great chapters in Australia that have been operating for a long time.

Priscilla:
So what do you have to share with us?

Ivan:
Well, this week I want to talk about something that’s available to all BNI members; it’s called Ponder Pearls, and it’s all about a Thought for the Day program that I’m participating in, and I have a gift for all BNI members.

Priscilla:
What’s that?

Ivan:
Last year I started writing for a great company called Ponders and Principles, which publishes a thought a day software program called Ponder Pearls, and I’d like to offer all my podcast listeners a free Ponder Pearl subscription. That’s always a good price, isn’t it?

Priscilla:
Absolutely!

Ivan:
It is free, totally free. Ponder Pearls can be installed on any personal computer, and each day, a positive, entertaining, and inspiring thought is delivered to you, as an individual, via a small window that pops up on the bottom right-hand corner on your computer monitor when you download the program and participate in it.

The program contains really a remarkable array of categorized thought series ranging from content by best selling authors such as Brian Tracy and yours truly, number of my books are quoted, to sacred world texts. And you can also choose from a variety of themes such as innovators and entrepreneurs, sports coaches, athletes, public figures, and many, many more. They even have a program called Bafflers where they ask a question, and if you want to see the answer to it, you click onto it for the answer. Today’s Baffler was: What is the most plentiful metal in the earth’s crust? The answer is: aluminum.

So you can sign up for a Baffler, which is an unusual question. Or you can sign up for a Thought for the Day, which includes a number of quotes that I’ve done as well as many, many other people.

Priscilla:
Can you give us an example of one of the quotes?

Ivan:
Sure, a lot of the things I talk about from some of my books like: Success is the uncommon application of common knowledge. Or: Networking is more about farming that it is about hunting; it’s about cultivating relationships with other business professionals. Or: Its’ not what you know or who you know; it’s how well you know them that really counts in business.

These are some of my quotes that are on Ponder Pearls. And of course, there are many others including various religious texts as well as public figures and other people. You get to pick; you get to pick who you want to have the quote of the day come from. And you can change it up; it doesn’t have to be the same all the time. And did I mention it’s free!?

Priscilla:
Yeah. How long is it free for, Ivan?

Ivan:
Permanently.

Priscilla:
Really?

Ivan:
There are some more expanded programs that you can get, but the service, I do believe they have a fee for, but the service that I’m describing right now is completely free. I’ve been subscribed for more than a year, more than a year, and they’ve never asked me for any money whatsoever for this service. So it’s a great little service. And for BNI members, particularly leadership people who have to do quotes or asked to do quotes at the end of every BNI meeting, it’s a great little service to get various quotes to wrap up a BNI meeting.

So basically, there are hundreds of excerpt thoughts from my books and seminars as well as many other people, and I’m even in the process of sending in more content to be distributed over time.

So BNI directors and members who love this kind of concept should go to PonderPearls.com, PonderPearls.com. And I invite you to take advantage of the free subscription. Once you go to that Web site, PonderPearls.com, you want to enter this as the gift code. If you enter this code, you will get the service for free. The code is really complicated to remember: BNI. That’s it; just those three letters. Enter “BNI” in the gift code field under the blue Ponder Pearls logo banner, and then create your own free Ponder Pearls account following the prompts, which include downloading the software that will then, every morning, send you the quote of the day automatically. So when you start up your computer each day or first thing in the morning, it will just automatically pop up with your quote.

It’s a great little service. I really like it. Everybody who’s signed up for it has thanked me and really enjoyed it. And what I would love to put out to everyone is, when you’ve tried it, drop me a note here on BNIPodcast.com and let me know what you think about the service. And I hope BNI members all around the world enjoy it and use it.

Priscilla:
Great, Ivan. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else you’d like to share before we close this podcast?

Ivan:
Nope. I would just love to get comments from members. As you use this, just drop me a little note here and tell me what quote you liked and how you’re going to use this material, and that would be wonderful.

Thank you, Priscilla:

Priscilla:
Okay, good.

All right, listeners, I just want to remind you 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.

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Thanks for listening and see you next year!