Today’s topic is controversial: mobile phones in BNI meetings.

If you’re sitting in an important meeting with your biggest client, would you interrupt  it for a text message or phone call? Of course not. So why would you do that during a BNI meeting?

There’s no quicker way to undermine your own credibility than to pay attention to the phone and not your fellow BNI members.

“But what if my wife goes into labor?” people ask. Yes, you can make extraordinary exceptions, but in 50 years, Dr. Misner has never been in a room with someone whose wife has gone into labor during a meeting. And nothing less serious is an excuse.

So unless you have a family member about to be born or die, just turn off the phone before you go into a BNI meeting—or any other networking meeting.

Read Dr. Misner’s Business Networking blog post on this topic, and then come back and tell us your ideas for the best way to handle the cell phone plague.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 197 -

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. I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan.

Ivan:
I am doing great and I have a controversial topic today.

Priscilla:
Tell us about it.

Ivan:
This podcast, I know, is going to stir up a little bit of a hornet’s nest, but I think  it is an important one to cover. I think sometimes we have to take on the tough issues and deal with them as professionally as possible. It’s about mobile phones in BNI meetings.

I wrote a blog about this in my businessnetworking.com blog. Basically, what I said there I want to share here in the podcast. That is if you are sitting in an important meeting with your biggest client and you got a text message, would you stop listening to your client, tune them out and respond to the text message? If you got a phone call, would you stop mid-presentation with the client as you were pitching your most important client about a new product in order to answer the call?

Of course you wouldn’t. That would be, I think, blatantly rude. You don’t want to do that. So why in the world would anybody ever consider looking at their mobile phone during a networking meeting? Make no mistake, a good reason for looking at, picking up and using your mobile phone in any way during a networking meeting really just doesn’t exist as a rule.
I know there are always exceptions, and when I wrote this on my blog, for example, I had people say, “Oh my goodness! There is always an exception. What if your wife is in labor?” And some really crazy, wild stuff.

Beth Anderson responded on my blog. She said, “Yeah, okay, fine. If your wife is pregnant, that is one thing.” But that’s always the thing that is used as one of the possibilities, right? She said, “I am 50 years old. I have never been in a room with somebody whose wife has gone into  labor while they are in a meeting.”
So we are talking about an extraordinary exception. Of course, extraordinary exceptions are understood but what happens in the extraordinary exception becomes ordinary. People start coming up with lots of excuses to answer their phone.

I think one of the fastest ways to ruin your credibility and to earn a reputation as being a little unprofessional is to use your mobile phone during a networking meeting. In my opinion, it virtually screams to your networking partners- in BNI, these are your networking partners. I think it virtually screams to your networking partners that you don’t care what they have to say because you have better things to do right now and the meeting is not as valuable to you as it is maybe to them.
So if you want results from your networking efforts, which I am assuming most people do, then don’t use it during meetings- during networking meetings and certainly BNI meetings, and I would recommend at other networking meetings that you go to.

Do yourself a favor. Check your phone one last time before you go to a BNI meeting and then turn it off. I run a global organization and I shut my mobile phone off before I go to a BNI meeting. I don’t even put it on vibrate. I generally shut it off. If I can do that running a global  organization, I think most business people can probably do that. What are your thoughts, Priscilla?

Priscilla:
Well, I think that we have an addiction problem with wanting to know who is trying to reach us. I think you are right that you need to completely shut it off because I can tell you that if it vibrates and I see that there is something waiting for me, my curiosity gets the  best of me. I am like, “What is that?” I am distracted, you know. So I think that  maybe that is the solution, pretend that it doesn’t exist because if it is in front of you and it is drawing your attention away, you want to deal with it.

Ivan:
I think so. And I think it is very easy for people to say, “Yeah but…, yeah but…, yeah but I have this reason. I have that reason.” Look, there are times where I am sure that it is necessary to respond, but as a rule, I think it is a really bad idea. You should have your mobile phone on about as often as a solar eclipse at a BNI meeting because it is disruptive and it is rude. I don’t think you would generally have your phone on if you were at a client’s office and you were having a meeting.
Somebody said this to me: you have to view your BNI members as your best clients, your best customers, your best prospective referral sources- which they are. If that is the case, then you have to give them your complete, undivided attention.

That was, by the way, the overwhelming majority- I had a ton of responses on my blog and I’m guessing I am going to get a ton of responses on this podcast. The overwhelming majority of members really felt the same way. They felt that it was probably inappropriate to have your phone on during a meeting.

Priscilla:
It does seem to be a little bit rude. I think what it is is we kind of take each other for granted because we are there every week. So it just feels ordinary, and we normally check our phones. I think  it might be something like that.

Ivan:
Yeah. Some of the responses I got on my blog were that no good reason really ever exists. A lot of people have lost sight of what true professionalism is. Comments that it definitely stirs up a hornet’s nest but it’s inappropriate to have a phone on. It’s irritating and outright mannerless. These are some of the things that readers of my blog, many BNI members, said about having mobile phones at a meeting. One said it’s really just common courtesy.

So what I would ask for those  of you out there listening to this podcast is to give some serious thought to this. You know, again, I understand that there may be exceptions, but think about the rule and think about the impact. If you want to have a really effective meeting, I think you need to shut your phone off as a rule. Asking other people to do the same or at least put it on heavy stun, if not vibrate- stun them, you know.

Do something other than have that phone on. That’s my advice. I think this is a great topic of discussion for a leadership team of a BNI chapter.

Priscilla:
Just one last thing. Our president asks everybody to put their phone on vibrate, but I think it might be better just to ask everybody to turn their  phones completely off. I think that would be the right thing to do.

Ivan:
I think you are right and I have been in many meetings with people who run massive organizations. They somehow some way manage to run their organization with their phone off during a meeting. That is my advice for people in BNI. I think it’s the  best thing to do. I love to hear from you, the listeners. Feel free to comment here on this podcast. Thanks Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay, you are so welcome. 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 very much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope that you will join us again next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

This week, Dr. Misner wants to talk about the Fast Track program put together by Mark Taylor, Executive Director for the Houston East and South East Texas Area in conjunction with Del Fuego publishing. The program is based around the BNI Networking Secrets CDs that Del Fuego produced for Dr. Misner.

Everyone in the chapter buys the CDs and uses them like the required text for a college course. This ensures that everyone understands the fundamentals and works together. The result is 300% chapter growth.

Part of the program involves a live training session led by Ivan Misner on webcam.

If you’d like to see your chapter do the Fast Track Program, Dr. Misner will be happy to join you by webcam. To get started e-mail bnifastrack [at] delfuego [dot] com. (Just substitute the appropriate symbols for the words in brackets so it looks like a normal e-mail address. It’s written that way to prevent spammers from assaulting them with junk.)

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 108 -

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:
Hi, Priscilla. Doing great, and I’m really excited. I’m in Southern California, this week, and I’ll be headed to a local high school to give a scholarship, a leadership scholarship. It’ll be the tenth annual scholarship that BNI has given to this high school, and we have, as of this podcast, the BNI Foundation has given almost $800,000 in mini grants and scholarships to organizations all around the world, in many countries around the world. This is our tenth year with this particular one, and I’m headed out there right after this interview today.

Priscilla:
That’s great, really great.

Ivan:
Thanks. We’re really pleased. For any member that wants to know more about the BNI Foundation, go to BNIFoundation.org, BNIFoundation.org.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. Today I want to talk about quantum chapter growth and the program that was put together by Mark Taylor. Mark has been in the Houston area for 32 years. He’s been involved with BNI since 2001. He’s been an Executive Director with BNI since 2006, and he is the Executive Director for the Houston East and South East Texas area. He’s been doing a joint program with Del Fuego Publishing, and Del Fuego Publishing did a CD called BNI Networking Secrets. And he and the Del Fuego ladies had put together an incredible program that has made a huge difference with some of the chapters, and that’s what I wanted to talk about today.

And I wanted to welcome Mark Taylor as my guest. Mark.

Mark:
Thank you, Dr. Misner. Great to be here.

Ivan:
Well, it’s good to have you on board. Let me throw the first question at you.

What have you done to help your BNI chapters grow? What was the secret, in your mind, of taking some of the members, the growth of these chapters that were in this program, the BNI Networking Secrets Program, which, I think, you’re calling with the Del Fuego ladies, the Fast Track program. Is that correct?

Mark:
That is correct.

Ivan:
You took a few chapters and they had 25 percent growth in members. And here’s the part that blew me away. They have tripled their referrals. They have had as much, and in some cases more than, 300 percent growth in referrals. Is that true?

Mark:
That is exactly true, and it’s happened in more than one chapter. We’re noticing in every chapter who’s adopted the chapter wide practice of buying these CDs and listening to them, we’ve noticed that in every single chapter. It’s amazing.

Ivan:
So tell me, why do you think it’s worked. To me, it’s all about a team and knowing how to work it together. Would you agree?

Mark:
Yes. In fact, the reason it’s worked is because it is, as you say on the CDs, it’s all about the fundamentals, and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I came to realize that many of our chapter members were not fundamentally sound.

So I listened to the CD, and I knew that that was the answer if we had everybody purchase their own set and listen to their set, their own reference copy, if you will, then that was the fastest, simplest way to get everybody on the same page. And you, Ivan, you and Tom Fleming we doing the training for me, 24/7.

Ivan:
In one of the stories in the CD that really resonated for the Fundamentals was the wind sprints story. Is that right?

Mark:
Exactly, exactly. We got a lot of testimonials afterward and asked our members, “Why? Why was this meaningful to you? What did you gain from this?” Wind sprints was the overwhelming answer, the popular answer. They really related to that story.

Ivan:
So once they had the CD, what do you think was the secret in getting them to all play the same game as one team? Just listening to the CD?

Mark:
No, that was the start. It was the first step, but then once they listened to the CDs, I’m happy to tell you that most of the work is done there. They then began to understand. When the information was dug up from the CD and in their head, they began to have an appreciation for how this BNI thing really works. So it really was that simple. You and the Del Fuego ladies and Tom Fleming go the ball to the one yard line; we simply just decided for everybody to participate in that way, and we were delighted with the results.

Ivan:
I’ve taught colleges for many years as an adjunct faculty, and of course, whenever you teach a class, you have required texts. And if all of the students aren’t reading the text, you can’t have a dialogue, you can’t talk about the things. And so it was really brought to my attention by one of the members; this is just like having the required texts for a class, everybody has to be on the same page, be listening to the same material, dialoguing about the same material. And by everyone having the same verbiage and the same ideas and the same vision of the values of the organization that it’s much easier to accomplish what needs to be accomplished in the chapter if everybody’s on the same page, and that really resonated with me, everybody using the same curriculum basically.

Mark:
Exactly. And it’s one of those things where if you polled people, they tend to say, “Oh, yeah, yeah. We know the fundamentals,” just as you and your teammates did to your coach back when you were in high school. The fact is, we found that they simply were not well grounded in the fundamentals, but these CDs took care of that problem for us.

Ivan:
Here’s some of the fundamentals. And I’ve got to give my kudos to Del Fuego Publishing, because they really drew out of me and Tom Fleming some of the core fundamentals that I think are successful for a BNI chapters. Some of the things that we talked about on the CD were:

Setting Expectations
Why is BNI Important to Building Your Business?
What Can You Expect in Your First Year?
The Fundamentals, where I talked about the football story and the wind sprints.

Because our 60 second presentations are all about – just like those wind sprints, nobody likes doing them, but they’re core to being successful in a BNI chapter.

There was one thing in particular. You said “the fundamentals” when we talked about this, but there was another technique that you said was really important, from the members’ perspective, in achieving success.

Mark:
Oh, yeah, yeah. In fact, whether they were brand new members or they were our seasoned veterans, the VCP principle, Visibility, Credibility, and Profitability, that was what you call a BFO, blinding flash of the obvious. It was a real difference maker in our chapters. They went back and they did what you instructed them to do, they made a list of the people in the chapters and categorized them accordingly and began to see results from that point on.

Ivan:
And, of course, one of the things we did as a result of this, you asked would I be willing to do a webcam for your chapters if you had a handful of chapters that all listened to the CD, all basically did the homework, would I be willing to do a webcam. And I did, and we had a tremendous response. You had over 80 percent of all of your members who went through the program attend the event where I did the webcam, about a five, ten minute presentation and 20 minutes of Q&A. What was the result of that? They loved that event, did they not?

Mark:
Absolutely. In fact, that’s one of the challenges we had for them. We said, “Okay, our objective is for 100 percent of the chapter to have bought their own set of CDs and listened to them. And we’re going to track that, we’re going to track the numbers and so forth, but we are going to track that, and when we attain that, we’re going to contact you and see if you’d be willing to do a live webcam.” And that made a big difference to them.

Ivan:
And that’s the reason that I did this podcast with you today, because I’d like to make this offer to all BNI members all around the world. If you’re a BNI member and you’d like to see your chapters in your area do the Fast Track program, I’m willing to do the same thing for chapters all around the world. Get two or three chapters together who all commit to the Fast Track program, and I will do a live webcam with members all around the world, a special event.

In order to participate, we’re going to have a link for the BNI Networking Secrets CD that was published by the Del Fuego Publishing Company, and I’ll also include an e-mail where you can connect with one of the Del Fuego publishers, and they’ll work with your local director, like Mark, to see if we could do an event where I do a live webcam just like I did there in Houston.

Because your results were so impressive, I would just love to see that work all around the world, and that’s the reason why I invited you to be on this podcast today.

Mark:
I want to thank you, and really, the credit goes to you and Tom and Del Fuego because you made us look like heroes. We simply took the program that you had already prepared and implemented it, and thank you, Dr. Misner, for training our people for us.

Ivan:
Well, thank you, Mark. I appreciate you coming on. And I invite the listeners to this podcast, if you would like for me to do a live webcam, just connect with Flynn or Sara. I’ll have their e-mail address on this podcast. You can connect with them and ask what it takes to do a webcam. And all I ask is that you listen to the CD that was published by del Fuego Publishing so that we’re all on the same page and we’re teaching off the same content, and I’ll do a live webcam for the Fast Track program for BNI members anywhere in the world.

And I want to thank you, Mark, for working with del Fuego for putting this concept together. Tremendous results and kudos to your chapters; 300 percent increase in referrals; what a great job.

Mark:
Thank you. My pleasure.

Ivan:
Thank you very much.

I’ll turn it back over to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Well, I think that’s it for this week, and thank you so much, Mark, and thank you, Dr. Misner.

This podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, 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.

Congratulations to Dr. Misner and BNI on producing 100 episodes of this podcast!

Imagine being dropped off in the middle of a foreign city with only a handful of cash and being told you have to start a successful business before you can go home. That’s the premise of the BBC series “The Last Millionaire.”

What does this have to do with BNI? A recent winner of this show, Lucy, looked up BNI while in Hong Kong and used a visit to the Hong Kong Attraction Chapter to help her make four times as much money as the other contestant.

The Hong Kong BNI members showed how BNI can really work. BNI isn’t just a great way to get business, it’s an even better way to do business.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 100 -

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?

Ivan:
Doing great, and I think this is a tremendous topic for the 100th episode, and I’m glad we could put it in on this episode.

Priscilla:
Congratulations, by the way.

Ivan:
Thank you. One hundred episodes. That’s a lot of podcasts.

Priscilla:
That is!

Ivan:
We’ve got a lot of content for BNI members, and I know many of them are appreciating it. I get emails all the time thanking me for these podcasts.

This is a great topic. It’s about a television show that played in the United Kingdom called The Last Millionaire, and it was brought to my attention by Sam Schwarz, who’s an executive director in the U.S. and co-national director in Israel, Romania, and he travels in Europe a lot, and he came and told me all about this.

Imagine being dropped off – this is how the show operates – imagine being dropped off in the middle of a metropolitan area of a foreign city with absolutely nothing but a few hundred dollars. Then you’re told you have to start a successful business that beats out your competition before you can go home. That’s the premise of the BBC television show called The Last Millionaire.

Twelve of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs competed this year on the series, and each of those contestants lead very plush lives, very successful lives. Some of them actually live in castles, and they all live in mansions, they drive luxury cars, they dine at the finest restaurants. And on the show, their lives of luxury are left behind because they compete in the world’s toughest markets to build a business from scratch. They’re stripped of all their home comforts. The live in hostels. They have to make money, more money than their rivals, and the last contestant is named The Last Millionaire, which, of course, nobody wants to be. So it’s sort of a flip side of The Apprentice where everyone wants to be The Apprentice, here, nobody wants to be The Last Millionaire. And if you keep losing, you keep living in the hostels and you don’t get to go home to your mansion.

Priscilla:
Oh, I see. It’s not like a victory to be the last one left.

Ivan:
No, not at all. You don’t want to be The Last Millionaire.

So, okay, where does BNI come into this mix? Let me explain. The show is down to the last two contenders, Natalie and Lucy. And they were taken from the United Kingdom and dropped off in the middle of Hong Kong, where they were given the equivalent of a few hundred dollars and were told to create a product and sell it in five days. They could recruit student helpers from a list that they’ve both been given, but otherwise, they had to do it all on their own. Natalie started calling the student contacts for help. Lucy, however, went to an Internet café and Googled business networking.

Now, I invite BNI members to go Google and type in business networking, and you’re going to see, as one of the top two names up there, you’re going to see BNI, not under the advertised sponsors’ names, but as a search engine name, we will always be in one of those top names. And you’ll see sometimes 50 million hits, and BNI will be one of those first ones.

Priscilla:
Wow.

Ivan:
So take three guesses. She did this search and BNI came up as one of the top names.

So what the show didn’t highlight is that Lucy’s company had been a BNI member, and she had a great experience with the organization. I had an opportunity to speak to her just a couple of days ago, and she loved the organization. Her company is now franchised, and she’s telling the franchisees to go join BNI. So Lucy was a little bit familiar with BNI. She was able to find it on the Internet in Hong Kong; she’s from the United Kingdom. There, she’s dropped off in Hong Kong. She does a search. She calls the president of one of the BNI chapters in Hong Kong and asks if she can visit their next meeting.

Now, you cut away to the BBC narrator who says, “Lucy has discovered a business networking meeting taking place in two days’ time. It’s a high flying group of Hong Kong executives and company owners.”

Then you cut away back to Lucy, and she’s there visiting the Hong Kong Attraction Chapter of BNI, Hong Kong Attraction Chapter. I’ve met many of the people that were in that episode. I saw them, and I thought, “Oh, my goodness! I just saw them a few months ago during my visit to Hong Kong!”

Well, the president is shown on the episode in front talking about how the meeting runs and, I love it, right behind him is this great big BNI banner, right there in the background. Nice. It was really great to see that kind of exposure for the organization.

And again, cue announcer: Lucy is in her element with Hong Kong’s top entrepreneurs,” and it cuts away to scenes of Lucy networking with BNI members and getting referrals for contacts that will end up designing, producing, and selling her product. And these were great contacts. Some of them were the top manufacturers in Hong Kong. She decided to do a shirt, and the referrals that she got from that chapter led her to the largest merchandising agent in Asia, a designer, and one of the top manufacturers in Hong Kong came from BNI members at the meeting that she went to.

Now, when the contest was over just a few days later, she earned 16 times her startup capital in five days.

Priscilla:
Wow!

Ivan:
She earned 16 times her startup capital and made more than four times the amount of money that Natalie made.

Priscilla:
Wow, that’s great.

Ivan:
Come on; admit it, Priscilla. You thinking the same thing I am? BNI rocks!

Priscilla:
Absolutely.

Ivan:
That was just so amazing to me. What a testament, first of all, to the Hong Kong members. I’ve met many of these members; absolutely class acts in business. These are the kind of members that you want to bring into a BNI chapter. They are definitely movers and shakers in the community.

And what a testament to the BNI program. I cannot think of a better episode to have on this podcast for our 100th episode than this story.

Priscilla:
I would love to see this episode. Is it possible to view it?

Ivan:
I would so much love to have people see it. I did have an opportunity to see it. It is great. It is very difficult. The BBC won’t release the episode. Maybe someday they will, but at this time, at the time of this recording, they won’t release the episode, and you can’t view it at their Web site. You can get some information about the episode from their Web site, but you can’t actually view it. And that’s unfortunate, but I’ll tell you, if it’s ever available, I promise you, we will make that available to BNI members because I think it’s a real powerful story.

But you know what? I’d like us to consider the bigger picture in this great story for BNI.

Priscilla:
Yeah, how are you going to do that?

Ivan:
Time when many businesses are struggling, it’s a testament to the BNI way of networking that someone can be dropped into a foreign city, with a little help from BNI members, as a past BNI member, her company was a BNI member, as a fellow BNI member can win an entrepreneurial contest to build a business in less than a week. I think it’s a great example of the brand we have built showing up in one of the number one spots on an Internet search and an even better example of the power of the BNI program based on the great contacts that Lucy received.

Today more than ever business people need BNI. When times are difficult, referrals are king. We, as business people, can not only survive, we can thrive during difficult economic times if we strive to build our business based on personal contacts, relationships, and support of our fellow members. I am proud of the BNI members in Hong Kong.

They showed how networking can truly work, and I think it’s a testament of their commitment, their skills, and to the effective application of the BNI program.

Priscilla:
Well, that’s really a fun story. I really enjoyed it, and I’m sure the other listeners will love that.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

Ivan:
Sure. I think if I could add one thing to the actual episode, in my mind, I can visualize one more scene where it fads away to Lucy winning, not being The Last Millionaire, because of her work with BNI. When I spoke to her, she said she loves BNI, and it absolutely was instrumental in her winning that episode and was very grateful to the organization. I could see a cutaway, fade-away to Lucy sitting on her veranda overlooking her beautiful pool as she sips her morning mimosa with her butler, once again, at her beckoned call, and I can just see her smiling slyly to herself and saying, “BNI is not only a great way to get business, it’s an even better way to do business.” And I think that’s a powerful message for our members all around the world.

Priscilla:
That’s great. Well, thank you, Ivan. That was a wonderful story and a fantastic podcast for your 100th, so congratulations to the whole organization.

Ivan:
Thank you very much, Priscilla, and thank you for your part in that. It’s been great working with you, and we look forward to continuing to do these podcasts with you over the years.

Priscilla:
Oh, good. Well, thanks so much, and I just want 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. 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.

Ivan Misner and Bob Adelmann discuss ways to make your first 10-minute BNI presentation not just painless, but brilliant by providing an outline.

P: Point of the talk (the purpose, the premise, the promise)
S: Story from your own life experience to prove the point (2 minutes)
S: Story from your own life experience to prove the point (2 minutes)
S: Story from your own life experience to prove the point (2 minutes)
C: Call to action or challenge (“The best referral for me would be…”)
Q: Quotation to act as a memory hook.

Remember: Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance on the Part of the Person Putting on the Presentation.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 039 -

Priscilla Rice:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by networkingnow.com here, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables.. I’m Priscilla Rice coming from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California, and I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, as well as Bob Adelmann who is the BNI director from Colorado. How are you both?

Ivan Misner:
We’re doing great. How are you doing, Bob? Doing well?

Bob Adelmann:
Doing great, yes. Hi Priscilla.

Prescilla:
Hi Bob.

Ivan:
Thank you, Priscilla. I appreciate the introduction. We have here on the podcast today Bob Adelman. Bob is a director for BNI in the Colorado area. Bob is also a profession or trainer and speaker. Before we end today, Bob, I want to make sure and put out your website so that everyone can go there and get some more information about you. It is my pleasure.

The reason we have Bob on the podcast today is because he has a topic which I think is really important for you as BNI members. Each of us every 15 or 20 weeks has a chance to do the 10 minute presentation at our chapters. The more prepared we are to do effective presentations, the better.

Bob has some great material that he’s going to share with us today on making the next presentation sparkle. Bob, it starts with an interesting sort of metaphoric example. That is a tent pole example. Let me turn it over to you and you run with it.

Bob:
Okay Ivan. According to the book of lists, the fear of speaking in public is the number one fear of all fears. The fear of dying is number seven.

Ivan:
That’s amazing. That’s amazing.

Bob:
Mark Twain put it this way. He said there are two types of speakers. Those who were nervous and those who are liars. So this particular presentation is designed to reduce, not eliminate, the nerves of somebody, especially a newbie, in BNI who is facing his or her first 10 minute presentation.

This particular outline can be and is often used by speakers making a presentation anywhere from 10 minutes to 90 minutes. It’s an outline anybody can use. It’s elegant simplicity is very powerful. The best way to think about it that’s what happened here is stick out your right hand, Ivan, as though you were pushing against the door and spread your fingers and thumb as far apart as you can.

Ivan:
Right. I’ll do that but I’m hoping that nobody walks in the office while I’m doing it.

Bob:
On your thumb, put a P, the letter P. On the next three fingers put an S on each one.

Ivan:
S as in Sam.

Bob:
S as in Sam, as in story. Then the C is on your pinkie. That is the outline. That’s it. We are all done.

Ivan:
Okay. That’s good to know. Thanks very much. So what do they stand for?

Bob:
You know, when you put up a tent, if it has an internal poll, that is the P. I am into alliteration. That is the point of the talk, the purpose of the talk, the premise, the promise. That is, in your language, the LCD, the tiny little piece of business that we want to look at and examine closely. That is where most of the work will be done. Can we can put what we are looking at it 2 to 6 word sentence? That is why we are gathered here together and that is what we are going to hear. That is the purpose, the premise, promise, the point. And of course, but tent pole starts with a P.

As you know, I tent pole can hold up any size tent but it cannot stand up by itself. It has to be held down with three lines and pegs, not four. Human beings are wired together in a very strange way. We can remember threes. The telephone company has figured that out. A 10 digit telephone number is broken down into two sets of three and one set of fours. Past, present, future. ABCs, 123s. Solid, liquid, gas. We are just wired together to think in terms of threes.

We need the three Ss on your middle fingers which are stories to prove the point. Think of a peg that you are trying to drive into the ground. It goes a whole lot easier if the point of the peg is very very sharp. The sharpest point is a story that comes out of our own life experience to prove the premise. A story that comes from our own life experience — a customer, a client, or “let me tell you what happened in our office recently…” This is how to prove that particular point.

The example that I often use is when a realtor is trying to explain why staging a house is important, it’s important for three reasons. Then she would go on to tell a story of “let me tell you about a recent listing and we had at stage and we got a little more money for it than we would have otherwise” and that sort of thing. The more personal we get, the easier those stories go into our hearts to hold up the P, the tent pole, the premise, the promise, the purpose, the point.

The C is the call to action or the challenge [where you might say], “The perfect referral for me would be a family moving up, ” using the real estate example, “to a larger home and they want to be treated professionally. They want to be pampered and catered to. That would be a perfect referral for me.”

A call to action is to remind people to reconnect with the purpose, to redouble their efforts, to reinforce, to restate, to reaffirm. That word always seems to be starting with the Rs. That’s as simple as it is. We’re almost done. The final step to this thing is a quotation, something that is pithy, something that is memorable, perhaps a memory hook.

That’s as simple as it is. The tent pole is held up with three stories than the C is a call to action such as. “A perfect referral for me would be…” and then a quotation, normally a memory hook.

Ivan:
But you had at the end- wasn’t at a T that you said?

Bob:
A C.

Ivan:
A C. okay that makes sense.

Bob:
That is the challenge, a call to action. In the event that we are using this for the 10 minute presentation, as most of us on the call would be using, that would be, “Therefore a perfect referral for me would be…”

Ivan:
Right. So members who use this kind of a process planning out their speech are going to be able to cover a little more comprehensively because it 10 minutes, it is very difficult to be able to do a comprehensive presentation. They can say a little more comprehensively what it is that they do and then close it with something specific that will help people remember who they are and what they do.

Bob:
Yes. Normally most stories take two minutes. If we have three stories, that is six minutes. We have enough to get started, maybe a minute and a half to get people used to it. “You know that I am in this particular business. We are going to examine this particular piece of the business that helps you understand what we do. The title of my presentation is Why Is Staging Important in Selling Residential Real Estate?” for example. Then you are wrapping it up wit, ” A perfect referral for me would be a family moving on to a larger home wanting to be pampered and catered to the way only I can do”.

Ivan:
Talking about wrapping it up, we are just about at the end of our 10 minutes, Bob. Is there anything that you want to add or recommend to our members when they are going to do their 10 minute presentation?

Bob:
Yes. That is practice drill rehearse drill practice. Here are the nine Ps. We beat ourselves to death with Ps, Ivan. Prior proper preparation prevents poor performance of the person putting on a presentation.

Ivan:
I’m glad this is being scripted out so that people can actually read this on the podcast as well as listen to it. That is a great example. Give it to us one more time.

Bob:
Prior proper preparation prevents poor performance of the person putting on the presentation.

Ivan:
Bob, this is great information. I appreciate you sharing it with us today. One of the things I would like to add and that is what you are speaking at an BNI meeting, you really are speaking with a roomful of friends. It’s okay to make a mistake. It’s not the end of the world. These aren’t total strangers. These are people who are here to help you. They want to help you. They want to learn about your business, so by taking Bob’s ideas and putting them in the context that this is a room full of professional friends that are there to help you, I think you can be a lot more successful in getting the most out of your 10 minute presentation.

Bob:
I don’t think we ever get rid of the butterflies, Ivan.

Ivan:
It’s true. I don’t.

Bob:
But if we can get them to fly in formation a little bit, it is a little bit easier for the folks.

Ivan:
I like that example. It is a great example. For people that would like to see you more about what you do in terms of training, your website is www.BobAdelmann.com. For BNI members, feel free to go to Bob’s website. He is a director for BNI as well as a trainer and speaker. Bob, I thank you very much for your time today. Priscilla, I will turn it back over to you.

Bob:
Thanks Ivan. Thanks Priscilla.

Priscilla:
You are so welcome and thank you for sharing with us. That was really great. I think that’s it for this week. Thank you, Dr. Misner, for joining us. 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 look forward to having you join us again next week for another episode of the Official BNI Podcast.

Dr. Ivan Misner shares tips from Chapter 6 of his book Givers Gain, which covers the years 1990-1994. The one-to-one dance cards started at a conference during this time period. This was also when Dr. Misner developed his vision of an international organization and began working on the business instead of in it.

Some important points about how the BNI franchise works:

• 95% of all the revenue of every group stays within the country of that franchise.
• Franchise owners are all BNI members who work their way up.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 035 -

Priscilla Rice:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the official BNI podcast brought to you by networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice coming from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan Misner:
I am doing great, Priscilla. I am calling this week from BNI headquarters. I open up with that because Chapter 6 of Givers Gain is what our topic is for this week. We open up Chapter 6 by talking about the fact that the organization really grew a lot. We talk about going coast to coast. We cover the years 1990-1994.

We open up with the fact that it was during this period of time that we finally moved BNI headquarters out of my house. I ran BNI from my home until the early 1990′s. I had a house in Laverne and we ran it there. Since then, we have moved successively to larger buildings three times.

BNI now resides in a headquarters building of 33,000 square feet. It is a very large facility with a lot of offices and a lot of warehouse space. A lot of members just don’t know how much content we ship out around the world. We have a very large shipping favility here. Chapter 6 opens up with the fact tha we finally moved out of my house and into our first offices.

Priscilla:
Great. Tell us about that.

Ivan:
In the early 1990′s is when I had sold off my consulting practice. I had formed BNI as as separate company and it became a corporation. That was when we began to do the conferences, and I talk about this throughout this section of the book.

Just as a reminder for those of you who haven’t heard the previous chapters , Givers Gain is a book that is given to every new member when they go through MSP training. My goal here in doing this podcast is to walk you through the book. As you read it, maybe you can listen to this podcast at the same time. It helps bring the book alive as you are doing it.

The conferences took place during this period of time. The 1990′s is when we started doing them. The BNI conferences are all around the world. Every November, we do an international conference where we bring everyone together from around the world. In the middle of the year, we have national conferences that are done in many, many countries around the world.

If you ever hear about a conference in your area- one way to find out about them is to go to BNI.com- you should definitely attend the conferences. We have some excellent speakers from around the world.
It all started in 1990. The whole story about how it happened is there and it is kind of an interesting story.

The next part of the book that we talk about there is franchising. We explain to members that BNI is a franchise. We talk about how we started franchising in the early days and why. The bottom line is that we found that the program works much better when it is locally owned and operated. People right there locally own and manage the operation.

A lot of people don’t realize it, but 95% of all the revenue of every group stays within the country of that franchise. This is very much an international organization and it truly is locally owned and operated. The countries retain the majority of- memberships used to operate the program within that country.

Priscilla:
If somebody wanted to be a franchise owner, is it difficult to get started with BNI?

Ivan:
It depends on the country that one is in. In some countries, most of the franchise territories have been sold. In other countries, they have not. In the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, most of the territories are sold, so they are franchise resales, not new franchises that are available. In most of the other countries that we operate in, there still are open areas.

The interesting thing about BNI is that you can’t just call us and say that you would like to buy a franchise. You really have to be a member and work your way up in the organization to an assistant director or executive director. We don’t just sell and we don’t advertise franchises. Those are things that we have never done, which when you think about it, makes sense. We are a word of mouth marketing organization. We should be able to build our company through word of mouth. If you don’t walk the talk, you can’t be a world-leading networking organization. It is all through referrals.

Priscilla:
Great. So is there more to tell us about what happened?

Ivan:
A few more things we cover here in this chapter. We talk about the fact that we started doing one-to-one dance cards. The version of Givers Gain that you have right now might say one-on-one dance cards. Here is something interesting that we learned as we went around the world. One-on-one has a completely different connotation in some countries. It is something completely different from what we had in mind. So we had some people going, yeah, I want to have a one-on-one. We had to change that. You will see in a revised version of Givers Gain that they are now called one-to-one’s on the material that we have.

The one-to-one dance card came from the idea of setting up meetings to connect with one another and get to know each other. But it actually didn’t start with members. It started at a conference. We had a day where there were a lot of people. The conference was on Saturday night and on Sunday they were still around. Maybe they didn’t fly out right away. We wanted to find a mechanism whereby they could connect with each other and we designed these one-to-one dance cards as a result of the conference.

At some point after a few years, someone said gee wouldn’t these be good for chapter meetings! It was one of those BFO’s. Have you ever heard of a BFO, Priscilla?

Priscilla:
What does it stand for?

Ivan:
It’s a blinding flash of light. We realized that these would be great tools for a BNI meeting, and that is how the one-to-one dance cards got used. It was also during this time, just to wrap up the chapter, that I really started looking at BNI as possibly being an international organization, at the point which through 1994 the first nine years, we were just in the United States. It was at this point that I really started to get the vision of this being international.

The last chapter of it is where I talk about understanding that if I wanted to grow this company, I had to work more on the business than in the business- working in it being the day to day operations, working in it being creating the vision that can be carried out throughout the world. I talk a little bit about how I did that.

I think for any small business owner, this might be of interest to them because BNI is truly an example of a small operation that became global. It started with me and two part time people. We, now as of this recording, have almost 1,000 directors working for the company around the world. This chapter really talks about how I sat down and started to get that vision about where to go.

I think that any of the members will find this book to be valuable if they look at it and understand how this relates to them in BNI but also how it can relate to them as a business owner. They can take these ideas that I talk about to help build a global company and use some of those to help them in their local business.

Priscilla:
Do you know the expression hootspa?

Ivan:
Yes, I do.

Priscilla:
I think it took a lot of hootspa to think of taking your business and making this international as well as national.

Ivan:
I appreciate you saying that. I think that to me it was so clear that people around the world wanted to do business through referrals that I really felt that this would literally translate into other countries. I am really pleased to say that it has done so extremely well.

Priscilla:
Thank you, Dr. Misner. I think this is all we have time for today. This podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com. I want to thank you listeners for listening in again. This is Priscilla Rice and we will see you again next week on the official BNI podcast.

His October 8th Blog At www.NetworkingEntrepreneur.com

A Meeting He Had With Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup For The Soul) Where They Talked About The Idea Of An “Act As If. . . ” Party That A BNI Group Was Interested In Conducting

The Blog On This Topic Can Be Found At This Entrepreneur URL: Act As If Party Blog

BNI Chapters Should Try This Idea At Their Meetings!

Listen To This Podcast For Information On How Your BNI Group Can Do An Act As If.. Party!

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 028 -

Frank Felker:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the official BNI podcast, brought to you by networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I�m Frank Felker in Washington DC joined on the phone today by Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Where are you calling in from today?

Ivan Misner:
I am at BNI headquarters this week, Frank. Next week, I will be in Dallas Texas, but I am actually in town this week.

Frank:
That�s great. There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed. I understand you have a very interesting topic to talk to us about today. Just go for it. I�m fascinated by it.

Ivan:
Today, I want to talk about the blog article that I did at my blog site with entrepreneur.com. For the listeners, if you would like to see the entire blog go to www.networkingentrepreneur.com. That�s one word. You can see my entire blog. This is an entry that I did that on October 8.

In the transcript of this podcast, we will try to link straight to this article for this blog entry if it’s possible. The blog entry is all about the concept that Jack Canfield came up with in Success Principles. I just spent, last week, a couple of days in Jack Canfield�s home in southern California.

I was participating in a strategic planning session for an organization that I belong to called the Transformational Leadership Council. It�s an organization he founded about four years ago. It�s for trainers and what you call spot leaders, people who are changing or transforming the world in some way. He invited me to be a member of this organization.

One of my executive directors for BNI knew that I was going to be there and she asked me to talk to Jack and to give him a great question that I thought would make a great topic for this podcast and for the blog. In Jack�s latest book, Success Principles, one of the things that he recommends is that people create an event where they act “as if…”

It�s called an act as if party. The idea is that you act as if you are the person that you have aspired to be five years from now. It�s a great concept. You do this act as if party and you come to the party dressed the way you think you would be dressing five years from now and talking about the things that you believe you�ll be talking about five years from now, having accomplished things that you think you will have accomplished five years from now.

I think it is really powerful, and I talk about this on the blog, but what I thought I would do on this podcast is suggest to all of the listeners that you actually do this at BNI as a meeting stimulant at one of the BNI chapter meetings.

I would give them a week or two to prepare. Throw it out there and ask everyone to act as if it�s five years from now. Come to the next meeting and in your 60-second presentation, talk about where your business is today, i.e., five years from now. I think it�s powerful as a meeting stimulant.

Frank:
That�s a great idea. Let�s hope the five years from now hemlines go back to where they were in the sixties.

Ivan:
There may be some people who don�t agree with that, Frank, but I will give no comment. Let�s see. One of the things that I asked Jack when I saw him last week was if he had any comments on how to do this. What is the best way to do it?

He said that it�s really important to come dressed as the person that you want to be five years from now. And in making this idea work best, come with props. The more props you have, the better. Here is something that I thought was great. He suggested that you video record it.

Frank:
That�s a great idea. You almost “time capsule” it then.

Ivan:
Exactly. He said it is really powerful to video record it and then a year or two from now, look at it and ask if you�re making progress towards achieving this. You are really creating a vision of where you want to go so that five years from now, you watch that and see just how closely you came to achieving it.

He felt that by making sure that you envision it, you can more effectively attach it to where you are headed with your business. Create a story around the person that you want to be. Be sure to record the vision during the event so that you can strive to achieve that story that you created.

Frank:
That�s a great concept. I would love to do that. It�s almost like a costume party.

Ivan:
It is almost like a costume party, and I think it�s a fun exercise. On the blog, I just recommend that people do it as a party which is in his book. But for this podcast, I really urge the listeners to take this transcript back to their chapter and talk to the chapter members- particularly the chapter president- about doing a special meeting stimulant that is an act as if meeting.

Do that at one of the next meetings. This is really important � if you do it, please come back to the podcast under the bulletin board section and post what you thought of the idea and how it worked out for you chapter. We would really like to see your response.

Frank:
I would really like to both attend one and speak to someone who has been to one because it just sounds like such a great concept. Sounds to be a lot of fun, too.

Ivan:
It�s a lot of fun, and I think it will help members to get a sense not only of where they want to go as an individual and professionally but where their fellow members want to go. That is really powerful, I think, in building relationships with fellow BNI members.

Frank:
I do too. I think that�s a grand idea. I can�t wait to hear some postings from some people have done something about it.

Ivan:
If you come up with some great ideas, I promise you that I will tell Jack personally. I see him several times a year, and I�ll make sure that he knows about your success with it.

Frank:
Well, we�re just about out of time for this week�s podcast. Do you have any last pearl of wisdom about an act as if party?

Ivan:
Again, the more you can come with props, dress the part, and really speak as though you are where you are at, that�s the best way to make the act as if party work. We would love to hear your feedback from those of you listening to this by you posting up here at www.BNIpodcast.com. Thanks a lot, Frank.

Frank:
That�s great, great stuff, Ivan. Thank you. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I�m Frank Felker saying we�ll see you next week on the official BNI podcast.