Have you ever been solicited for business or for a referral by someone you didn’t even know? Asking for a referral before there’s a relationship is premature.

Someone Dr. Misner had never met once asked him for an introduction to Sir Richard Branson so he could market a product to the British entrepreneur.

Priscilla sometimes gets calls from aspiring musicians who want to be connected to multi-platinum performers who recorded at the studio years ago.

This is not networking. It’s direct selling. When you give a referral, you give part of yourself away. You don’t want to put your own reputation on the line for a stranger.

Dr. Misner would like to invite Education Coordinators to bring up this topic at their meetings.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 147 -

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

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. Well, thank you very much. I want to open up with a question.

Priscilla:
Okay.

Ivan:
Have you ever been solicited for a referral or for business by someone you didn’t even know?

Priscilla:
I have been solicited by people that I do know to refer them to somebody who’s kind of important and they didn’t know that person. It seemed inappropriate.

Ivan:
Yeah, but has anybody that you didn’t know them at all and they’ve asked you to give them business or give them a referral?

Priscilla:
I think I have in the past, yeah.

Ivan:
Yeah, most people have. And frankly, it’s a little bit annoying when somebody you don’t know is asking you for a good referral or for business; it’s very frustrating.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
Well, I met a BNI member in Miami, Michelle Villalobos, she’s a BNI member in Miami, and she calls this premature solicitation. Now you say that fast three times and you might get into a little trouble. But I love the expression, and I think it’s very apropos to some of the things that I’ve seen. I completely agree with Michelle with the idea that sometimes when you’re asking for referral before there’s a relationship, it’s absolutely premature, and I think many people have been a victim of this concept of premature solicitation.

I was recently speaking at a business networking event, and before my presentation, someone literally came up to me and said, “Hi. It’s a real pleasure to meet you. I understand that you know Richard Branson. I offer these really specialized marketing services, and I’m sure that his Virgin Enterprises could benefit from what I provide. Could you please introduce me to him so that I can show him how this would assist his companies?”

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
Okay, so I was thinking – now, what I was thinking was, “Are you completely insane? I’m going to introduce you, someone I don’t know and don’t have a relationship with, to Sir Richard, whom I’ve only met a few times.” I’ve talked about it in my blog if you’re interested in the story and how we connected, go to NetworkingNowBlog.com and look at the blog back in September 2007, or do a search on this podcast because I talk about it in a podcast here; just do a search on Richard Branson, and it will pop up.

“So I’m going to introduce you, somebody I don’t know,” this is what I’m thinking, “to Sir Richard so that you can proceed to attempt to sell him a product or service that I don’t know anything about and haven’t used myself? Yeah, right! That is never going to happen.”

Now, I’m really pleased to say that, with a lot of effort, I was able to keep that little monologue inside my own head as an internal dialogue.

Priscilla:
That’s good!

Ivan:
Instead, I had a little bit more subtle response to this guy. I looked at him and I said, “Hi. I’m Ivan. I’m sorry; I don’t think we’ve met before. What was your name again?”

Priscilla:
Yeah, right.

Ivan:
That surprised the guy so much that it made him realize that his solicitation might have been a little bit premature. I then went on to explain to him that I regularly refer people to my contacts, but only after I’ve established a long term, strong relationship with the service provider first. What was interesting was that he basically said, “Thanks,” and he moved on to his next victim. So I mean, I wasn’t even completely sure, at least at that point, that he even got it.

And so I just wanted to share that story in this podcast, because I’ve said many times that networking is not about hunting, it’s about farming, it’s about cultivating relationships with other business professionals. Don’t engage in premature solicitation. You’ll be a better networker if you remember that. And to me, this is a classic example of how somebody was hunting instead of farming, instead of trying to cultivate their relationships. This is not, in my mind, networking; this is direct selling, and I would argue that it’s bad direct selling.

Priscilla:
I totally agree with you. I sometimes get phone calls from people. This is a recording studio, and we’ve had some famous people here. And I’ll get a phone call from a songwriter or singer who wants to be connected to a multi-platinum artist that’s been here years ago, and it’s always very funny to me that they would even ask, but it’s similar to that.

Ivan:
You know, if it’s somebody you have a relationship with and you trust and you’ve done business with and you know them and they know you, I’m happy to put people together. That’s what my business is all about. That’s what much of my professional life has been about, is connecting people I know and trust with someone who needs a product or service. I’m all over that.

Priscilla:
Yeah.

Ivan:
What I’m not okay with is connecting people I don’t know, I don’t trust, I’ve never used their product, I’ve never used their service, I don’t know people very well that have used their product or service, and I’m being asked to connect them with other people who I do know well. I’ve often said when you give a referral, you give a little bit of your reputation away. If you give a good referral, it enhances your reputation. If you give a bad referral, it hurts your reputation, and so you don’t want to give those kinds of referrals away.

To be honest with you, I think BNI members get this more than the average person, because we meet every week, it’s all about building relationships. But I think a lot of people that haven’t engaged in the kind of networking that we do where you’re going deep in relationship building, they’re out there hunting, they’re out there looking to bag the big one, and they don’t understand how this process works. And it’s a numbers game, and they just keep hitting people until they hope to stumble on someone who’s willing to it. The thing is, most people aren’t willing to do it, so I don’t know why they try.

Priscilla:
Yeah. Well, I think that’s really great information, and I think it’s commonly done. I think that is happens often.

Ivan:
Yeah, it really does, so I’d love to have the Education Coordinators share this one at your chapter meetings. Be careful as you name the topic; don’t say it quickly. I think it’s a real hoot, and I want to thank Michelle Villalobos for the phrase, because I think it’s one of those things that really helps you remember something that you want to steer away from, that you don’t want to try to do.

Priscilla:
Okay, great.

Ivan:
Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
You’re welcome. Thank you, Dr. Misner.

I think that’s it for this week. I’d 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. 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.

A referral relationship is more than just doing business. You need to find common ground on a personal level.

One exercise that can help accomplish this in a BNI chapter is the GAINS Exchange, discussed in Episode 5 of this podcast.

Even though many members are reluctant to do this exercise, it has tremendous results.

Two guys who had barely spoken to each other in their first year in one chapter formed a relationship over their shared interest in soccer and began passing business to each other as a result.

Ivan encourages Priscilla to go back to her BNI chapter and propose a new GAINS Exchange exercise.

See Business by Referral for more on this topic.

Brought to you by Networking Now. Enter “freesixmonths” for a six-month free trial and get access to live teleconferences with Dr. Misner.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 126 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast which is 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.

Ivan:
Hi, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
What’s going on? How are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great. Today we’re going to be talking about, I think, a subject that, when I started BNI, I don’t think I fully understood how important this was.

Priscilla:
Great. What is it you’re going to share with us, then?

Ivan:
Well, the fact that networking is more than just talking business, and when I started BNI, my primary focus was, “Hey, it’s all about business; let’s focus on business.” I mean, even in the introduction of the weekly speaker, I talked about the fact that I trained people to talk about their education, talk about their background, talk about their experience. And I really didn’t suggest that you talk about some of your personal interests. And that, I found over the years, was a mistake. People often think that networking is talking about business and exchanging cards, and that’s definitely part of it, but it’s not all of it.

In a networking group, you should talk about more than just business with people. A referral relationship is more than just, “I do business; you do business; let’s do business.” A much better approach is when you find common ground on a personal level and then make these connections and build business with other people.

I think the longer I’ve been involved in networking, the more I’ve seen the power of those personal interests making connections with others. Networking is really about building those personal relationships, and if you remove the personal from the equation, you limit that amount of business that can happen.

I talk about this at length in a podcast a long time ago. The listeners might want to go back to that podcast. It’s podcast number 5, podcast number 5, 005, and I talk about the gains exchange. One BNI group that I worked with, I introduced the GAINS Exchange before it came out in my book, Business by Referral. The GAINS Exchange is an exercise that’s available in BNI. Any member can get it. It’s in Business by Referral, but go to your director and get the form if you want to try it out. It stands for Goals, Accomplishments, Interests, Networks, and Skills. The idea is that you have people share their personal and professional information about themselves in those areas, Goals, Accomplishments, Interests, Networks, and Skills.

Well, two of the participants, when I tested this out years ago, had not done any business with each other, and they’d been in the chapter for a year, hadn’t done any business with each other, really didn’t make a connection at all. It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other; they just didn’t have anything in common; their businesses were really different. And they found out by doing this GAINS Exchange – which, by the way, they dragged their feet, kicking and screaming into this exercise, did not want to do it. Once they did it, they found out that they were both coaches for their sons’ soccer teams, or football teams, as it’s called in some countries. And they quickly became close friends and started helping each other conduct certain aspects of the soccer practices. And they would share coaching techniques with each other, and eventually, they began to scout other teams for each other, so that they would scout the other team and report back what a team was like.

Guess what? After they started doing this for each other on a personal level, within a few months, they started passing business to each other. They began referring business to each other. Two guys who had barely spoken to each other in the first year, because they had so little in common, ended up doing business with each other because they built a relationship over soccer, over football. Go figure! Who would have thought that? I certainly didn’t. But when I saw that done, that nailed it for me, and I knew that that technique had to be put in Business by Referral, and that’s where it was first introduced, was in Business by Referral.

Priscilla:
Yeah, I think that’s a tremendous tool. I mean, knowing the other person on a personal level is exactly what’s it’s all about, I think.

Ivan:
That’s where you kind of make connections with people. If you can find a common interest and start with that, we can make connections and have a very good chance at turning into business. And I really recommend that BNI members experiment with this. I’ve seen chapters where they’ve had every single member complete a GAINS Exchange and come back to the chapter with 30 copies, or however many members were in the chapter, and hand that out to everybody.

I’ve even seen some chapters that have a running three-ring binder so that when a new member joins, they get a binder of all of the members GAINS Exchange, so they, at a glance, get information about that person’s Goals, Accomplishments, Interests, Networks, and Skills. I’ve even seen where maybe they don’t do it to that level of detail; I’ve seen chapters where that week’s speaker also completes a GAINS Exchange. Besides the speaker information for the secretary/treasurer, they also complete a GAINS Exchange. And the member makes 30 copies, or however many for the members, and passes that out at the beginning of the meeting to say, “Hey, here’s who our speaker is going to be later today. Glance at it so you have a little bit of background about this person when he or she speaks.” And it’s really interesting to see how personal interests, whether it be something like soccer or sewing or cooking or wine or chess or anything, between two people makes a personal connection, which makes them feel closer and more connected, which leads to business.

Priscilla:
That’s totally true. I remember when I had to fill mine out, because that was a requirement of our chapter, it doesn’t seem to be right, but it was when I first joined, and I was so stressed about it.

Ivan:
Why so? Why were you stressed out about it?

Priscilla:
Well, it seemed like it just took forever, and I was just agonizing over the format and putting it together. And I remember I stayed up really late doing it and getting it to print right. And it was just like a job, but it was a good thing. I was glad I’d done it.

Ivan:
Well, certainly, spending time and effort in doing it accurately is important, but I’m a real believer of the concept of – Tom Peters talked about it in In Search of Excellency – do it, fix it, try it. Do it, fix it, try it. Do something, lap it around a little bit, see how it works out in the marketplace, fix it, and then try it again. So take that GAINS Exchange that you write and put it out there, see what kind of response you get from people. And then bring it back in and redo it, hang onto it. Redo it; maybe do it digitally. And then every year or so, you revise it and redistribute it. And as you get it out there and you see what seems to connect with people and what doesn’t, then you emphasize some of those things and try it again.

It’s not a one-of-a-kind of deal; it’s a thing that the chapter should do regularly. So one of the things I’d suggest is go back to your chapter and say, “Hey, we haven’t done this for a while. Let’s listen to this podcast, and then let’s all incorporate the GAINS Exchange in some way that makes sense for us over the next two months.”

Priscilla:
Okay.

Ivan:
All right. So are you going to report back and let me know how that goes in a couple months?

Priscilla:
Okay. I just had an idea where if you had the person next to you with your GAINS Exchange and then they announce to the group some unusual fact or some unusual thing you were involved with, and then you kind of went around the table, that might make it fun.

Ivan:
It does make it fun. I’ve seen that done. I’ve also seen it where members had to do a one-to-one with somebody else, and they gave them two or three weeks to do it. You’ve got to do it one to one; you’ve got to take a half hour, do a one-to-one with somebody else, minimum half hour one-to-one with somebody else. And then, four weeks from now, everybody is going to stand up and they’re going to do a 60 second presentation on the other person and what they really found interesting about them from the GAINS Exchange.

Priscilla:
Okay. There’s a great idea.

Ivan:
Yeah, yeah. I love it. Give them enough time; give them three weeks or so. That gives everybody a chance to meet; they do their one-to-one; and then they meet four weeks from then. And I would stand up and I would say what I had learned that was really interesting about you from what you did in the GAINS Exchange and what I read. It’s a great technique. I highly recommend it, and it’s a great way to implement this concept.

Priscilla:
Okay. I’m going to take that one back.

Ivan:
Okay. And you’re going to report back in a few months as to how it’s gone, right?

Priscilla:
That’s right!

Ivan:
Okay, good.

Priscilla:
All right. Well, thank you, Dr. Misner. I think we’re kind of out of time today.

Ivan:
Yup! I do have a special offer on NetworkingNow.

Priscilla:
Oh, okay.

Ivan:
At the end of all of these podcasts, we talk about NetworkingNow and the downloadables. If you’re a BNI member and you would like to be involved in telebridges with me, every month I do a telebridge called the Networking Café, which is part of the NetworkingNow program. And NetworkingNow has tons of downloadable material, videos, audios, PDFs; there’s even some of my books. And so I’m going to give you a password right now that you can type in this password and get six months free in NetworkingNow, which is worth almost $70.

So the password is – it’s one word – freesixmonths. Spell it out; no number. So it’s F-R-E-E-S-I-X-M-O-N-T-H-S, freesixmonths, no spaces. That’s the password.

So when you go to NetworkingNow, you sign up, you punch that in, and you absolutely, positively, unequivocally will get six months free. And if you want to renew, then you can renew; or you can cancel it at six months, and you’ll never be charged anything.

But you’ll have access to tons of downloadable content, and you’ll get an e-mail from us every month saying, “Here’s when the Networking Café next one is, and you’re welcome to join Ivan, and here’s the subject.”

Priscilla:
And how does that work? I know we’re almost out of time, but what does it mean that you’re on this telebridge?

Ivan:
Well, I do a telebridge on subjects that – imagine that I did this topic that networking is more about talking business, but this is a podcast that is one-way communication. You can post a message, which is great. But what if you had a question? The same with the telebridge is that we open them up; we open up the lines and say, “Okay, what questions do you have?” And so it’s really a dialog with anybody as opposed to just a podcast or a one-way communication. If you have questions, you can chat with me directly on these telebridges which are done through NetworkingNow.

Priscilla:
That sounds great. Okay, well, thank you, Dr. Misner.

Ivan:
Thank you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
I just want 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.

This week Melinda McNeely and Mary Alice Griffin from the Golden Triangle Referral Group in Texas join Dr. Misner to share their experiences with the BNI Fast Track Program from del Fuego.

Here are some of the results the Golden Triangle chapter got from the 12-week Fast Track Program:

• Average number of referrals per week increased from 43 to 74
• Before Fast Track, 10 members were making 65% of the referrals. Now 96% of the members make at least one referral per week.
• Quality of referrals has increased.
• Accountability has increased.
• The number of members bringing visitors is increasing.
• Member report cards were an important part of this process.
• “VCP” and “Wind Sprints” are now staples in the chapter’s vocabulary.

To learn more about the BNI Fast Track program, listen to Episode 108: Quantum Chapter Growth. You can order the CDs for your own chapter at www.delfuego.com/bni or find a Fast Track coach.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 121 -

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:
I am doing great, Priscilla, and I have a couple of guests with me today on this podcast. They are Melinda and Mary Alice. Melinda is a chapter president of one of our groups, and Mary Alice is the education coordinator.

Melinda, what chapter are you with?

Melinda:
The Golden Triangle Referral Group in Beaumont, Texas.

Ivan:
Beaumont, Texas. My wife was born in Texas. There is something funny about that, the people born in Texas; it is like a country all to their own. She loves Texas, everything in Texas. I am up in Big Bear right now, and I have a pool table in my game room, and the billiard balls are a Texas Star. So you know she is a Texan when the cue ball is a Texas Star.

Texas is a great state, and we have Mary Alice here from the same chapter, right?

Mary Alice:
Yes, sir.

Ivan:
Great. You are a part of one of the first two groups that did the Fast Track Program for BNI Networking Secrets. And that is what we are going to be talking about today. Now that some time has passed since you first started the program in February of this year, what are some of the ongoing results for your chapter? Why don’t we start with Mary Alice.

Mary Alice:
Well, one of the most significant things that we have learned dong the Fast Track Program is that it is not what you expect but what you inspect that gets results. When we first started our benchmarking, members showed that we were averaging about 43 referrals per week, and after implementing the 12 week curriculum that reinforced the Networking Secrets, we improved our average number of referrals to 74 a week. Also, another important thing to note is that we had ten members that were doing about 65 percent of the referrals, and now, based on 96 percent of the group passing an average of at least one referral per week, the distribution of performance is much more balanced.

So we found that is it easier for everyone to do a little work rather than a few people to do most of the work. That is why our group is now much more productive and much more energized.

Ivan:
That is amazing, 43 to 74! That is 70 percent.

Mary Alice:
Yes, sir.

Ivan:
In what period of time?

Mary Alice:
It was the 12 week curriculum that Sarah and Flynn from del Fuego put together. We used the three, the Standard Learning, the BNI Nuggets, and the BNI Jeopardy game to reinforce the learning of the CDs.

Ivan:
I have done a podcast or two with them, so in this podcast, we will make sure to have a link to the other podcasts or two that I have done with them so people can go back and listen to that.

You said something I think is really key here. It is not what you expect but what you inspect that gets results. I think a lot of chapters really either forget that or they don’t understand that. It is the things that you focus on that are going to be where you have your results. That is clearly what has happened in your chapter.

Mary Alice:
Yes, sir. We actually started a new initiative today looking at visitors and how many visitors we have all invited individually since the beginning of the year. The numbers were quite shocking. That is our new initiative. Using the same principles that we tracked the referral piece, we are now using that to do visitors to improve our chapter size as well as, obviously, the referrals and the business that we are going to be getting.

Ivan:
Sure. And of course, the larger chapter, there is a direct relationship between the size of the chapter and the amount of referrals. No matter how good the chapter is at generating referrals, chapters that are great at generating referrals when they bring in new members, their referrals go up proportionately.

Chapters that are marginal at bringing in referrals but increase their number of visitors, their referrals go up proportionately. Wherever you are at in terms of the referrals development process, new members bring up the average number of chapters. Well, not the average, but the total number of referrals in the chapter. It is an important topic.

One suggestion for all the chapters out there that are focusing on bringing in visitors, just a warm body isn’t a qualified visitor. It is really important to bring in people that would be prospective members into the group, and that is what makes a good visitor. I am sure your chapter is focusing on that already.

Mary Alice:
Yes, sir.

Ivan:
Melinda, what are your thoughts about growth in your chapter in the last few months?

Melinda:
Well, just to reiterate, of course, the biggest result we have seen is an increase in quality referrals, which is a direct result of the information on Networking Secret CDs and accountability. It is all about accountability.

Ivan:
Yes, it really is about accountability. I wrote an article a few years back now, well, more than ten years back, called “Accountability and Friendship, the Paradox That Every Member Should Know.” It is at the Archives of Success, and I think it is May/June 1996 or 1997. It is really about accountability.

One of the strengths of a BNI group is that all the members are friends, but one of the weaknesses of a BNI group is that all of the members are friends, or many of the members are friends. It is both a strength and weakness.

The weakness is that friends don’t like to hold friends accountable, but chapters that really focus on accountability in the Networking Secrets 12 week program certainly do that, and it makes a real difference in the group.

Melinda:
Yes, it does.

Ivan:
Mary Alice, what is the role of the education coordinator, and how does the Fast Track Program really impact your role?

Melinda:
I am either the education coordinator or the coach of the chapter. In order to motivate people, you must help them understand or give them knowledge about the task at hand. I believe the key reason BNI works is because it is a performance driven organization. That is why it is extremely important to individualize targeted performance.

We believe, obviously, the chapter report cards are great, but an individual member report card is better. That is what we use when we track the 12 weeks of curriculum. There are many areas of performance that can be targeted for this type of coaching, like referrals, and now we are working on visitors one to one. Wherever you see that your chapter needs to grow, this method can be applied and used to motivate and improve performance for all the chapter. We did that with the Fast Track Program, and the expectations were clearly defined by a stretch objective. We shared information; we discussed information and, obviously, laughed when we celebrated our success. Without the celebration, you don’t know that you are really being successful.

I believe the Fast Track Program was a turning point for the education coordinator’s role. Again, like I said, we have already begun implementing and looking at areas of improvement utilizing the same principles that we did for the Fast Track Program.

Ivan:
How did the CDs and the curriculum work hand in hand with what you did in your chapter?

Melinda:
The Networking Secrets CDs presented a challenge and gave our members an opportunity to increase their knowledge of BNI while being recognized as top performers. The CDs are easy to listen to, and they can be reviewed at a member’s convenience, in the car, office, home. Also while insuring that all the members received and were listening to the Networking Secrets CDs, our leadership supportive efforts of the education coordinator. In coordination with the curriculum from Flynn and Sarah, our education coordinator was able to successfully implement a 12 week tracking system to hold members accountable for the number of referrals submitted. It is a win-win situation. Today, VCP is a staple in our vocabulary.

Ivan:
I was just going to ask you that. Do you find that your chapter is dialoguing with similar phrases and concepts so that they are all talking about the same thing and focusing on the same thing?

Mary Alice:
Yes, they are, and to hear people spit out VCP like they are making a CD is phenomenal. I absolutely love it, that and Windsprint. We all think we are professionals there. We love it. Before the BNI Networking Secrets, we came to BNI individually, and now we come as a team.

Ivan:
Oh, I love that. I love that. That is excellent. You came to BNI individually, and now you come to the meetings as a team. That is powerful.

Any other thoughts before we wrap up?

Mary Alice:
I would just like to say the three types of curriculum, The Standard Learning, The Nuggets, and The BNI Jeopardy game that Flynn and Sarah gave us were really helpful in making this fun and interesting because it reinforced the learning from the CDs. And because each chapter is unique and they have unique members and personalities, it allowed us to customize, if you will, what we did to make our group better. Every chapter can take that and customize it to what works in their chapter. The variety obviously helped us to do a better job of it and reinforce the learning of the CDs.

Ivan:
Well, excellent. The CDs we are talking about are the CDs produced by del Fuego, Sarah and Flynn are the owners of del Fuego, and they have really gone out of their way to help produce material for BNI that is outstanding.

For the members listening to this podcast, if you would like information on how your chapter can do the Fast Track Program, go to delfuego.com/BNI. That is delfuego.com/BNI, and you can get information on how you can do the Fast Track Program.

I love doing podcasts with BNI members. I definitely want to do more. Melinda, Mary Alice, you guys are pros. You did a great job on the podcast, and I really appreciate your efforts in your chapter. You have made a difference for a lot of people, and I appreciate what you do, and I thank you very much.

Mary Alice:
Thank you.

Melinda:
Thank you.

Ivan:
Priscilla, back to you.

Priscilla:
Okay, thank you, Dr. Misner. That was very, very interesting.

I just want 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.

This week Dr. Misner is beginning a 12-week course of BNI Fundamentals. If you’re a BNI Education Coordinator, you can download this information from the BNI website.

Here are the top ten ways to prevent other BNI members from giving you good referrals.

1. Show up late or multi-task during the meeting.
2. Be absent.
3. Don’t invite your own guests.
4. Use other people’s 60-second presentation time to think about what to say yourself.
5. Focus your efforts on selling your services to the members.
6. Don’t rush following up on a member referral.
7. Use one-to-one’s to talk about the chapter.
8. Wing it with your 60-second presentation.
9. Use your 10-minute presentation to explain minute details of how your business works.
10. Air your grievances among your table-mates and guests.

What are your suggestions for the top ways to waste time in BNI? Let us know here in the comments to the blog.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 115 -

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:
Well, this week I am actually in Southern California at a executive council retreat up at my lake home in Big Bear. We’ve got all of the top countries of BNI, U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, the Scandinavian countries, a couple of others that are all meeting up here to talk about the growth of BNI for 2010 and to prepare the organization for our ongoing growth. So we’re meeting up here, and that’s what we’re doing this week.

Priscilla:
That sounds like a lot of fun.

Ivan:
Yeah, it should be fun.

This week, however, on the podcast, I want to start a 12-week program for the podcasts. It’s called 12 Weeks of BNI Fundamentals, and this is content that is available to all education coordinators by going to BNI.com and going to the educational coordinator download section. If you’re an education coordinator and you don’t have that information, connect with your local director and get the user name and password so that you can have access to the information.

And what I want to do, Priscilla, over the next maybe more than three months, I might intersperse a few other podcasts in this content, but what I’d like to do is, certainly over the next 12 to 16 weeks, hit these 12 weeks of BNI fundamentals and have education coordinators hopefully coordinate their training with these podcasts.

Priscilla:
That sounds great. So what’s the first one?

Ivan:
Well, the first one is one that I find interesting. It’s called Top 10 Ways to Waste Your Time in BNI. Your BNI seat in this chapter, the chapter that you’re a member of, is worth a considerable amount of money. If you calculate the time you spend each week and the business value of your time, you don’t want to squander that money. Now, success in BNI comes when the rest of the chapter members trust you enough to open up their best referrals to you, not just their normal referrals, but their best referrals. And that comes when they have seen you work, when you have earned trust with them by demonstrating your professionalism at all times.

So here are what BNI directors and members around the world have come up with as the top ten ways to prevent gaining trust and delay your success in BNI, or the Top 10 Ways to Waste Your Time in BNI.

Are you ready for them?

Priscilla:
I’m ready.

Ivan:
Here we go.

Number 1: show up late or multitask during the meetings. Don’t be there on time and be texting while the meeting is going on or walk away for telephone calls. That’s a great waste of time in BNI.

You’ve never seen that, have you?

Priscilla:
I have, actually.

Ivan:
I know; so have I.

Number 2: be absent. No big deal, right? It doesn’t really make a difference if you’re there. One of the things I’ve always said to BNI members, “How many of you have ever gotten a haircut over the phone?” It’s one of those things where you’ve got to actually be there in order to make it work for you, so being absent is not going to generate referrals for you.

Number 3: why invite your own guests? Just focus on those who show up. It’s really interesting, the strongest chapters of BNI are chapters that have a lot of interrelated relationships in terms of business, people who know each other. Because when you bring in somebody that you know there’s a trust level that exists, and the more you have people that you know and that you’re meeting with regularly, the faster the confidence curve moves. And so you want to be bringing in your own people.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
Number 4: use other people’s 60-second presentation time to think about what referrals you should be giving or what presentation you’re going to be giving. That’s a great waste of BNI time. Don’t think about what referrals to give or what presentation to give while other people are doing their 60-second presentation. You want to focus on their 60-second presentation so that you can think of ways that you can actually refer them.

Number 5: focus your efforts on selling your services to the members. Now, that sounds counterintuitive. Isn’t that what this is all about, sell your products or services? No, it’s not. BNI is really about training a referral team, not closing a sale. And so if you come to the BNI meetings thinking that you’re just going to close sales, you’re missing a great opportunity, because the people in the room are not just prospective clients, they’re referral sources. If you can get them to refer you, that’s that classic way of farming and not hunting.

Number 6: don’t rush following up on a member referral. They know who you are; they know you’ll get back to them. Not true! When you get a referral, follow up on it immediately; that’s really important.

Number 7: use one-to-ones to talk about the chapter. How many times have you seen people doing one-to-ones, and what they do is they talk about the meeting, they talk about the chapter, they talk about somebody that drives them crazy, or they talk about how the meetings aren’t being run. You’ve got to use one-to-ones to educate people about your business and how they can refer you. That’s really important.

Top 10 Ways to Waste Your Time in BNI, number 8: wing it with your 60-second presentation. You’ve got plenty of chances anyway, right? So just wing it. That’s a total time waster. You do not want to wing it. One of the best examples, I know I’ve talked about it on the podcast before, is to schedule your educational 60-seconds for the next year. Sit down and create – right now, anyone listening to this podcast, schedule out the rest of the year with your 60-second presentations. Just have the topics every week throughout the rest of the year, and then what you want to do is, a day or two before, sit down and figure out what you want to say on that topics. But plan your 60-second presentations; don’t wing it.

Number 9: use your 10-minute presentation to explain minute details of how your business works. People don’t need to know the inner workings of your business, but they need to know how to refer you. So the more you can educate them on what a good referral is and how it works and what sets you aside from your competition, the better you’re going to be.

And number 10, the number 10 way of wasting your time in BNI is: go ahead and air your grievances among your table-mates and guests. After all, we’re all adults here. In other words, spend the time that you should be marketing complaining to people about life or the business or the chapter or whatever. You’re here to generate business. Focus on the business.

So these are the Top 10 Ways to Waste Your Time in BNI. Over the next 11 weeks, what I plan to do with you on these podcasts, Priscilla, is to address each of these areas in different ways. Next week’s topic will focus on how you can apply the Giver’s Gain principle to your attendance and to your participation in weekly meetings to accelerate the trust that others have in you and in your business.

Priscilla:
That’s great, Ivan. Well, thank you. I think that’s a wonderful list of ten ways. I’m trying to think of what number 11 might be. And I’m thinking number 11 might be getting into some kind of personal dispute with somebody in your chapter and letting that grab all of your energy and focus.

Ivan:
Wow, that’s a great one. It probably should be on the top ten. I think that’s a real good one, one that I’ve seen happen a lot. As a matter of fact, here’s what I would suggest for the members who listen to this podcast. We’d love to hear your suggestions on the top ways to waste your time in BNI. Give us a number 11 and a number 12 and a number 13, and share that with us. Because these are the things – it’s not only good to understand what you want to do; I think it’s important to understand what not to do. That’s what this podcast is about, is really understanding what not to do as well as what do to.

Priscilla:
Right. Okay, great. Well, I think we’ve come to the end of our time. Do you have anything else you’d like to add, Ivan?

Ivan:
No, that’ll do it for today, Priscilla. Thank you so much.

Priscilla:
Okay, great.

Well, 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.

Though listeners from all over the world tell Dr. Misner how helpful the podcast has been, many BNI members ask “What’s a podcast?”

Some important things to remember:

• All you need to listen to a podcast is a computer and an Internet connection. Just click on the triangle to listen.
• You can read the transcript or print it out for your chapter.
• Listening to this podcast (and others) is part of immersing yourself in a culture of learning.
• You can get an e-mail reminder to listen (sign up in the box to the right).
• You can subscribe and get new episodes automatically. (Click that big orange “subscribe” button.)

Action Item

Go to your chapter and share this information. Tell them how easy it is to listen to the Official BNI Podcast.

If you are doing something creative to get these podcasts heard in your chapter, please post a comment!

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 078 -

Priscilla:
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the Net for working downloadables.

I am Priscilla Rice, and I am 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:
I am doing great, and I am actually home. I have been traveling so much at BNI headquarters doing this recording today.

Priscilla:
Now, that must feel really good.

Ivan:
It is; it is. It’s really great to be back.

Priscilla:
So what is this topic on the baby boomer, and what’s a podcast?

Ivan:
Well, you know, this podcast has been great. I have members from all over the world talk to me about listening to it and leaving comments on it and telling me how it has helped them. But I still get a lot of people who don’t understand how a podcast works.

And so I found that when I go to speak in BNI regions and I am asked to talk about education and training and materials that are available, that is how I lead in, I say “Hey, I’m a baby boomer. What’s a podcast?” I talk about going to BNIpodcast.com, and a lot of people do not understand what a podcast is.

And still to this day, people go, “Well, don’t you need an iPod to do a podcast?”

I tell them, “Of course, no, you don’t need an iPod!”

If I am doing a presentation here at BNI headquarters, I will go down with a computer mouse and say, “Here’s what you need to listen to the BNI podcast.” And I will just hold up the mouse and say, “This is it! A mouse, a computer, and a speaker and you have everything you need to listen to the podcast. You don’t need an iPod; you don’t need any special equipment; just a computer and a screen, and you go there. And there is this incredible little thing, a triangle, laying on its side and all you have to do is take your mouse and click on it, the play button. Just play it. You don’t even have to play it. It has transcripts right there; you can read it!”

How great is this for education coordinators. They can listen to it, and they can print it out, and they have notes to do it. There is all of this that is so easy to do on the podcast, and you don’t need any special equipment. You don’t need iTunes.

You and I were talking about subscribing to iTunes at one point, and I think I shared with you that I had someone come in and they actually set up my iTunes so that everything would — I guess it’s like an RSS feed. It just kind of goes over to my iTunes account. They did it all. They spent 30 minutes setting it up. I still don’t know how to use the darn thing! I don’t know how to get to it; I don’t know how to listen to it; I don’t know how iTunes works. But guess what? It doesn’t matter! I can just go to BNI podcast and click on it. I think that is great.

Here is why we are doing this as a subject today. If you are in a chapter and you want that chapter to be the most successful chapter it can be, you have to immerse in a culture of learning.

One of the podcasts that I just did was a quote from Benjamin Franklin, “You have to empty your purse into your head. You have to commit time and money to knowledge.” Well, a podcast is free, so there is no money, but you do need to commit some time. And if you can get all of the other members in your chapter to also immerse in a culture of learning and to immerse in a culture of learning in the same subject, how much more powerful is that?

I had an education coordinator come to me with this great idea. He went to his chapter, and he said to everyone, “Look, I can come to each meeting and do a few minute lecture on a topic, or we can have a discussion on a topic. But in order to have a discussion on the topic, everyone needs to do the reading or listen to the podcast so that we can actually engage in a conversation as opposed to a lecture.”

And everyone went, “Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea.”

I said, “Super. Y’all agree?”

Everybody nodded just like those dogs on the back of the windows; their heads bounce up and down.

Everyone went, “Yeah, yeah, great idea.”

I said, “Great. I am going to pass out this handout. I need all of your e-mail addresses, and I am going to punch in your e-mail address on the weekly reminder of this week’s podcast. And every week, you are going to get a simple e-mail reminder that says, ‘Here’s what Ivan talked about on the podcast this week.’

“And you look at it and say, ‘Hey that sounds interesting. I’m going to click on it and listen to it’ or ‘What’s Ivan talking about this time? I don’t want to listen to that.’ And you don’t have to, but you don’t even have to go to BNI podcast. You will get the e-mail.”

I said, “You’re not going to get spam. They don’t sell the list. They don’t give away the list. You are just going to get one e-mail a week, and it is just going to be this topic. And all you need is a mouse, you click on it, you listen to it. Then, next week, you won’t get a lecture. We will have a dialogue.”

I thought that was such a brilliant way to get his chapter to immerse in a culture of learning, and so my recommendation, my request to everyone listening to this podcast is to do that with your chapter. Get everyone to hand in their e-mail address and give permission to get one e-mail a week so that the entire chapter can have a discussion about these topics as opposed to a lecture from the education coordinator or someone else who read it.

Priscilla:
So this is a direct link to the podcast?

Ivan:
Yeah, you get an e-mail that says “BNI podcast” it is sponsored by Constant Contact. They do the e-mail, so you will get one e-mail. It is usually after the podcast comes out on Wednesday, so it will be Wednesday or Thursday, and it will simply say, “Here is what the topic of the podcast was this week.”

And so, when you get the e-mail, you can say, “I know enough about that. I don’t need to listen to that one” or “Yeah, that would be interesting to listen to.” And you click on it, and it will take you right to that podcast, and then you can listen to it.

You don’t need an iPod. You just click the play button or you can read the transcript. Either are very easy. So you don’t need to remember. That is the problem if you have to remember to come to BNIpodcast.com every week. Look, we have a life; we have things to do. Without that reminder, it is easy to get sidetracked and be working in the business instead of spending a little time working on the business. That is what the podcast is all about, to help you as members, learn how to work on the business through networking and building your business referrals.

Priscilla:
I am going to add a little bit to this. If you are subscribed to the podcast through iTunes, you do not have to remember anything. As soon as the podcast is posted, it automatically downloads to your account on iTunes. So that is the advantage of iTunes, in that you don’t have to think about it; it just automatically comes to you.

Ivan:
And I have seen people do that, and I am really impressed with that. But unfortunately, I am a baby boomer, so I have struggled with that. But clearly, if you can move around in iTunes and that whole arena, it is a great thing to do, and it makes life really easy.

I wanted to talk about this from the perspective of those people who…

Priscilla:
Who don’t have it.

Ivan:
Yeah, they maybe aren’t as technologically savvy, and I consider myself reasonably technologically savvy. But I do not listen to a whole lot of music, so I do not get around iTunes that much. For those of us who haven’t worked with it, I just want to make sure everyone knows it is really simple, and you don’t even have to know iTunes, and you certainly don’t need an iPod.

I have a BNI director who downloads it. I have no idea how he does it. I am sure half the people listening to this will go, “Ivan, give me a break; it is easy.” But, he downloads it to his telephone.

Priscilla:
Oh, interesting.

Ivan:
He plays little segments of it when he goes around. He is a director, so he visits chapters. He might have a one minute segment, but he plays it for everybody right from his telephone. How smart is that? It is just brilliant. I have no idea how he does it, but he just does it. Simple things like that can be done, but again, I don’t want to scare people.

You don’t need to learn how to do this. All you need is a computer and a mouse. There is a little play button; just click play. It is that simple. The people who are listening to this know that. That is the problem. See, it is the people who aren’t listening to it who don’t know that. So you are listening to it, and you get it. Help us out. Go to your chapter and share this information. It is that simple. A button that they click, and they, too, can listen to this. And what is in it for you is that you can get your entire chapter immersed in this culture of learning so that you have real dialogues about the process rather than just passing on information in a one way communication.

Priscilla:
Great. Can I just share this story quickly about my chapter?

Ivan:
Absolutely.

Priscilla:
I had my ten minute presentation, and I did bring my iPod and some speakers, and I played your podcast on how to refer difficult professions for the whole chapter. And they loved it. They were taking notes and asking me where the links were and everything. It was very impressive.

Ivan:
First of all, I would like to thank you for doing that. I think it is a great way to show the kind of services that you can provide and that would be certainly beneficial for you, and that is good. But I think that education coordinators should be doing this at every chapter. I don’t recommend that they necessarily play a whole podcast; ten minutes of a recording doesn’t always work well. But segments, I have seen many education coordinators playing segments. I think it is a brilliant idea. I appreciate you doing it, and I would love to see more chapters doing it because this is a free service for BNI members that is really, really value added and helps people build their business.

Priscilla:
And it is a great way to get to know you.

Ivan:
That is really a good point. So many people around the world, and I have had a lot of them come up to me and say, “I feel like I know you.”

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
“I hear you every week,” in these short segments, ten minutes long. All of my podcasts are very conversational, and they say “I feel like I know you. I recognized your voice before I recognized you in person.” I think that is great, you know. I am running a networking organization. I want people to feel comfortable in talking to me and feel like they know me, and this is a great way to help that happen.

Priscilla:
Well, good. I think that is probably as much time as we have.

Ivan:
It is. Your action item, if you are listening to this, is to take it to your chapter and get your chapter to immerse in a culture of learning by getting them to sign up. It is right on the right-hand side of the official podcast. You will see a little thing that says, “Podcast e-mail alerts.” You just punch in the e-mail there. And of course, for those of you who aren’t baby boomers, who know how to get around the iTunes, the “Subscribe to iTunes” button is right below that a little bit.

Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Oh, you are so welcome. Thank you, Dr. Misner.

I want to just 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 for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

Dr. Misner wants to thank the BNI members in Hong Kong and Malaysia where he gave a number of presentations this past week.

At the global networking conference in Kuala Lumpur, Dr. Misner attended a presentation by Penny Power, the founder of Ecademy.com. Penny’s topic was the need for entrepreneurs to stay in their flame: doing what they truly enjoy doing. Then the work doesn’t really seem like work.

Business owners who get caught up in the aspects of the business that don’t come naturally to them are working in their wax and not nurturing their full potential.

The solution is to remember that your wax is someone else’s flame. There is another entrepreneur out there who loves to do the things you hate doing. Delegate the things you don’t like or aren’t good at to employees or outside contractors.

The more time you stay in your flame, the more successful you will be. Flame work is infectious. So find the people in your BNI group whose flame is your wax. It may take time, but stick to it. The key is to see progress.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 061 -

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 to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California.. 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. Thank you very much. Last week I talked about my visit to Kuala Lumpur and I have a follow-up to my last week’s podcast. First, I want to thank all the members in Hong Kong where I did several presentations and Malaysia where I did a number of presentations. It was really wonderful meeting so many members and doing those talks to people who were so receptive to the ideas that I had.

One of the things that I want to talk about is a presentation done by somebody else that resonated with me. It was at the Kuala Lumpur Malaysian conference for BNI. While I was attending the global networking conference in Malaysia, I heard a presentation but like I say, it really resonated with me. It was a presentation given by Penny Power, who is the founder of each ecademy, ecademy.com. That’s the ecademy with an e instead of academy with an a.

Penny was not only extremely knowledgeable and successful entrepreneur, she’s also a good friend of mine. I’ve known her and her husband, Thomas, very well over the last few years. Penny’s presentation focused on the concept of entrepreneurs staying in their flame. I thought that was an interesting thing that she was talking about. What are you talking about, I wondered.

She explained in her presentation that an entrepreneur’s flame is where he or she is the most passionate and excited about what their businesses. It’s where they are and what they truly enjoy doing. When an entrepreneur, she said in her presentation, is in his or her flame, the work doesn’t really seem like work. The entrepreneur perceives his or her tasks as effortless. If the business person is able to focus on aspects of business which keep them in their flame, it allows them to achieve their best.

She said on the flip side of that, when business people get caught up in aspects of the business that don’t come naturally to them, that they’re not good at or that they don’t like, working through these tasks takes away their energy and at least I’m exhausted and devoid of passion.

Business people stuck in a situation are working in their wax. I think that’s a great metaphor with a candle in the flame of the wax. Those people aren’t nurturing their full potential or two is what allowed them to thrive in business. She said the solution to the problem – and I love this – your wax is someone else’s flame. Your wax is someone else’s flame. In other words, in your weakness is someone else’s strength. It’s someone else’s passion.

As your business grows, the key to staying in your flame is to delegate the things that you don’t like or aren’t good at to employees or outside contractors, other people who actually enjoy doing these tasks and a really great at them.

The more skillful you are at recognizing the kinds of work that keeps you in your flame and the kind of work that keeps the people working with you in their flame, the more successful you are going to be and the less you are working in your wax, the more successful you are going to be.

She ended her presentation by saying that flame work is infectious. If you are doing what you love its infectious. What resonated with me is that I constantly hear people say that. “Your presentations are infectious. You seemed to love what you’re doing.” The reason for that is that I try to spend much of my time working in my flame.

Mind you, it took me years to get there to be able to do most of what I do being completely in my flame. I set a goal 10 years ago to be able to spend more time doing what I’m doing right now. Things like this podcast, speaking to members, doing presentations, writing and being a spokesperson for an organization. Without understanding this metaphor, I understood the concept of working on my business because I was excited about that aspect of it and working on it. Although I was good and have a doctorate degree in organizational behavior and management, that was my wax on my flame.

So I have worked hard at getting into my flame and do the things I love. The more we can do this in business, the more successful we are going to be. What a message, especially those of you who are education coordinators are wanting to bring this back to your chapter, you are in a room with a lot of BNI members and there are things that are your flame and things that are your wax. In that room, there are people whose flame is your wax.

If you can use some of the BNI members in that room at that meeting every week, and what’s their flame is your wax, you are using what they are excited about to do what you are not excited about. It’s a great way to start to use other BNI members to give you more time to be in your flame. That’s why I thought this fit into BNI so well. I want to thank Penny for that presentation. It was really great and I think it’s something that might resonate with many BNI members.

Priscilla:
It’s a great suggestion. Sometimes I think the hardest part, though, is being able to afford to outsource some of those tasks that are your wax. You know, it’s a lofty goal but it’s really important.

Ivan:
You bring up a good point and I’m glad she did, but I’m not sure. I’ve might take issue with you on it being a lofty goal. I think it may not be an immediate goal. And it may take time. I said to you it took me 10 years. I knew it would take a long time to do, but I never looked at it as being impossible.

It was gradual and so there was always progress. That is the key. I knew I was working with a very large organization even 10 years ago, that it would take time to get to where I needed to go. It could take 10 years or could take two or three years. The key is seeing progress. The more you can gradually be working in your flame and not in your wax and on your business and not in your business, the more you are doing the things that you love rather than the things you have to do, the more successful you are going to be.

I think in a previous podcast I talked about how years ago I created an organization chart. In the organization chart that I had, I had 15 different positions and I was doing 12 or 11 of the jobs. My goal over the next eight or 10 years was get myself into just one job. Every year there was progress. Every year I was doing one last job, one less huge job.

Over a period of time, over that ten year stretch, I got down to one position. I was doing one thing and that one thing was my passion. I think we can all do that. But if we do it gradually – I’m not suggesting that all of a sudden you job out everything. You can do it gradually, and look at this. You’re spending more time doing the things you love. Do you think if you’re spending more time doing the things you love that you could make more money?

Priscilla:
Definitely. I think it’s way more efficient.

Ivan:
Yeah. So if you’re making more money, paying somebody else for doing the stuff you hate is great. Life is perfect when that happens. Then in BNI, you have all of these other people do the things they’re doing is your wax but their flame. If you can bring them in to help you succeed, they will do that. You will be much more successful in business in the long run.

Priscilla:
Okay. Well that sounds like such a plan. I’m glad it took you a while. It gives me some encouragement to make my chart and see how many jobs I’m doing.

Ivan:
I may save us all the time Priscilla, but I’m a 20 year overnight success. It took me a long time to get there, and that the key is not are you where you want to go but the key is are you making progress? As long as you’re constantly making incremental progress, then you’re headed in the right direction.

Priscilla:
Thank you, Dr. Misner, and we’re out of time. That’s it for this week. This podcast has been brought to you by networking now.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of the Official BNI Podcast.

Synopsis

You can network anywhere, anytime—even at a funeral, but there are some things to remember:

• Honor the event: make sure your behavior is appropriate
• Network is about building social capital: finding ways to help others
• Example: telling a businessman at a church function about the California Community Foundation
• You have to have your wits about you and be there for the other person

This segment is based on a chapter in Dr. Misner’s book, Truth or Delusion.

Brought to you by Networking Now. Podcast produced by Live Oak Studio in conjunction with the Podcast Asylum.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 030 -

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 Berkeley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan.

Ivan Misner:
Hi Priscilla.

Priscilla:
How are you today?

Ivan:
I am doing outstanding. This week I am in San Diego for our BNI International Conference. We will have directors from all over the world for this conference, probably over 500 directors. Members are welcome. Members can always come to our conferences, so if you are listening to these podcasts, check on BNI.com.

Usually around May or June and November of every year, you can find out where our conferences are. We have a day for members. It’s an amazing event because it’s almost like going to a Uunited Nations meeting. You have flags from all of the countries and there will be over 40 countries represented.

Priscilla:
That is amazing.

Ivan:
It really is. We have all these accents and languages and flags everywhere. I really like talking about where I am, and one of the reasons that I do that on the podcast, is that I want BNI members to know that this truly is an international organization. That is why I’m always talking about where I am right now as I do this podcast. I travel a lot around the world because we are truly an international company. The I in international is truly representative of the international business.

Priscilla:
It’s exciting to think about that. Well this week, for this episode, the topic is you can network anywhere, anytime, on any occasion – even at a funeral. This is a chapter out of your book, Truth or Delusion. Is this a true statement or is it a delusion?

Ivan:
You know, it will surprise some people. BNI members tend to get this more than nonmembers, is it true that you can network anywhere anytime in any place even at a funeral? They will say goodness no, it is completely inappropriate. But the answer to the question is truth. You can. You can network anywhere anytime on any occasion, even at a funeral, but there are two caveats that are really, really important.

Priscilla:
What are they?

Ivan:
First is you must always honor the event. If you show up at a funeral and you’re passing out your business card, that’s probably not a good idea. It’s completely inappropriate. You can’t go to some things passing out your cards and marketing. It’s not the same as going to a chamber meeting.

And the second thing you have to understand is that my definition of what networking is and my co-authors, Mike Macedonio and Mike Garrison, agree that networking is about building your social capital. It’s about helping other people. If you really want to do business through referrals and networking, your first and primary focus in making a connection with somebody is finding ways to help them. So if your goal is to help them then the question is, is there really any place that is inappropriate to network? I don’t think so. I think you can network anywhere.

Let’s look at an example to put in perspective. Last year, I was at a church function and it was a beautiful sunny day in southern California. It was nice outside and we had a potluck. You may have seen one at a church function. We had a little pot luck and everybody got together afterwards.

Here at this lunch was a gentleman who I didn’t know. I wanted to get to know him. He was a very successful local businessman. I wanted to connect with him so I had someone introduce me. I started talking to him- and a good networker has two years and one mouth, and you should use both proportionately and pay attention.

I was asking him a series of questions. What I was looking for was something that he would say that would enable me to help him some way. So I asked him about his business and his target markets and how things were going. The minute that I got to a question that often leads me to that point of being able to help someone – I asked him what kind of challenges are you running into? He shared with me a great example of what I’m talking about.

He said, “You know, business is really good. My biggest challenge is I’m trying to create a foundation because we want to support charitable causes. We would like to create a foundation to have a legacy of our charitable giving. But it’s so expensive to do. I’m not quite there. My business isn’t there. We’re doing really well but not so well that we can create a foundation.”

I said I said, “Well, have you ever heard of a community foundation?”

He said, “No, what’s that?”

There are some all over the world. One of the biggest as right here in southern California is called the California Community Foundation. They create funds or accounts and you can have an account under the California Community Foundation for as little as $10,000.00. You can do owner-directed contributions where you are contributing to any charitable cause through them, and you don’t need your own foundation. Yet, you can have your own foundation name. So it looks and feels like its own foundation, a 501c3 or part of a 501c3 and it’s easy.

He said that had never heard of anything like that. Then he reaches into his pocket and hands me a card. He says, “Would you mind putting me in touch with someone there?”

I said absolutely. That’s what I’m talking about. I was looking for a way to help him not a way to do business with him. So of course first thing the next day, I called the development director for the foundation and I put the two of them together. Now here’s my question. If a day or two later I picked up the phone and called this guy, would he take my call?

Priscilla:
Absolutely would he take your call.

Ivan:
You bet he would. You bet he would. He would take anybody’s call, but I didn’t ask him for anything. I wasn’t trying to sell anything. I was looking for a way to help you and I found a way. That is what networking should really be about. The answer to that question to network anywhere, anytime, anyplace- even at a funeral- is absolute truth as long as you honor the event and understand the networking is really about, first and foremost, helping someone else. If you go into the process with that in mind, then it’s not only okay, it’s good to network anywhere.

Priscilla:
Right, because that’s an altruistic concept for networking which is all about givers game, which is what your organization is about.

Ivan:
It is. It’s based on the social capital law of reciprocity. If people help one another in business, you will all do better. BNI and the theory of the Givers Gain philosophy was that the sum of the whole is greater than the individual parts. We see it every week at BNI meetings. We have 20-50 people together on a weekly basis and they’re generating amongst each other much more business than they would do otherwise. They work together as a team helping each other.

Priscilla:
Absolutely. Well, it’s a beautiful concept and really when you think about it, if you are going to an event as sensitive as a funeral, you have to have your wits about you and you have to be there for the other person. That’s the important thing.

Ivan:
I agree completely. That is what good networking, relationship networking, is all about.

Priscilla:
Thank you, Dr. Ivan Misner. I think it’s really an important message that may encourage people to read your book, Truth or Delusion.

Ivan:
Truth or Delusion is available at most bookstores. It’s also available on our web site called truthordelusion.com. This is a great book. Just to wrap up, this is a great book for education coordinators. It’s great for every member of course, but if you’re an education coordinator, you have to pick up this book because I’ll tell you a secret that’s not in the book. It’s not in the book anywhere. We wrote this book with education coordinators in mine because we have 49 separate questions or statements. Guess how many weeks a year the average chapter meets?

Priscilla:
49?

Ivan:
Yes, the average chapter meets about 49 weeks of the year. It varies a little country to country but with holidays and what not, they take anywhere from three to four weeks off from the chapter a year. We wrote this totally with education coordinators in mind. If you’re an education coordinator, we hope this book will help you out.

Priscilla:
I will pass this along to the education coordinator of my chapter, and I’m sure she’ll be happy about that.

Okay, this is it for this week. This podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I want to thank Dr. Misner for this little bit of wisdom and thank all of you for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

Patti Has Built Over 100 Chapters With An Average Of 27 Members Each

Use The Practice of “Focused Inviting”

Only Invite People Who You Know Are The Best At What They Do

Ask Them To Do The Same In Turn

The Less You Say, The More People Will Participate

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 027 -

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 Dr. Ivan Misner who’s calling in from the crescent city, New Orleans, Louisiana. What are you doing down that way, Ivan?

Ivan Misner:
We had our membership drive earlier this year and this is the U.S. membership drive weekend. We’re having a wonderful in New Orleans this weekend.

Frank:
It’s one of my favorite cities. I’ve always enjoyed going there. I understand you also have a guest on the line with us today.

Ivan:
I do. I have with us Patti Salvucci. I have known Patti for more than a decade. She is one of the best BNI directors in the world and that’s why I have invited her to be on this podcast. Patti has under her management 100 chapters of BNI. That’s amazing to me and as if that isn’t amazing enough, she has one of the largest average number of members per chapter regions in the world with approximately 27 members on average – that’s a statistical mean – 27 members per chapter, which is just phenomenal. Patti, it is great to have you on this podcast.

Patti Salvucci:
Thank you, Ivan. Great to be here.

Ivan:
Talk a little bit about how you got started. I think the podcast is a great opportunity for people to talk directly to members and give them some of the dos and don’ts of being successful in BNI.

We’re going to talk about how you built chapters. Clearly, you have been brilliant at building strong groups. That is really the topic for today. You have had a lot of success in BNI in this area so I thought that you might start off by talking about some of our original conversations when we opened up in Massachusetts. I worked with you by phone before we actually kicked off. I thought maybe we could start with that.

Patti:
Actually, it was back in 1985, and I think BNI only had about 300 chapters at that point. Ivan was my coach and one of the things that really struck for me was that Ivan said that you want to only invite people that you would recommend in a heartbeat. It would be somebody who returns phone calls and you would be proud to recommend.

I had a lot of friends and business but I thought you know what – there were only eight that I could think of that were really the best at what they did. I really wanted a lot of people there, so I started to think how was I going to get 100 people to attend a meeting?

I went to some people that were in the community that were very influential. One was the director of the civic organization and I call that person and said, “Joan, I need your help. Will you help me?”

She said she would be more than happy to. I said we were having a networking breakfast in town and I was looking for people who were the best at what they do. I think that was the key. It really made her think. I think one of the keys is focused inviting.

When I actually went to see Joan the following day, she had pulled out only the people that she thought were the best at what they did. Interestingly enough, when I called those people I didn’t have to know them. I called and said, “My name is Patti. You don’t know me but you are highly recommended by Joan.”

Ivan:
You say you didn’t have to know them, but she knew them and that was the key. It was the third party connection that made that approach work for you. Is that correct?

Patti:
Actually, the rapport had already started to be built in the conversation. I think saying less is more. I only said just a few sentences on the phone and I asked for permission to be able to send them an invitation to a networking breakfast were everybody in town was going to be there. We were only looking for the people who are the best at what they did and Jones said that they were the best.

Ivan:
Saying less is more. I think that’s so important because sometimes members just try to talk someone into joining and try to give them almost too much information. The truth is that the best way to get people to participate in BNI is to see a well run meeting.

I can bring up to really good points. One is that members have a tendency to invite anyone with a pulse and not go for the best. The second is that they try to explain everything without the person seeing it. Would you not agree with that?

Patti:
I absolutely agree with that. I think that they try to think about everything they possibly can in order to invite them and give them as much information as they need. At that point, the person doesn’t need to go to the meeting. I think you just want to put out the bread crumbs, so to speak. Just give them a little bit of information so that they always want more. That is something that certainly always worked for me.

Ivan:
Talk a little bit more about why you think less is more. Do you have any other observations on why that is better than trying to give all the information? For example, a lot of the members will not only give all the information that have, but they will hand over fliers and materials. For some reason members think that by handing a lot of materials, people are going to join. My experience is that nobody joins from a brochure. They join because they experience the meeting and they like the people there.

Patti:
I totally agree, Ivan. I think actually when I started, we didn’t have brochures. We had the book of The World’s Best Known Marketing Secrets. You absolutely need to come and see the professionals that are involved in this organization. I think if they are not willing to do that, they’re probably not a good BNI prospect. It’s important to tell them just a little bit. We’re looking for somebody who is the best at what they do, and we have twenty people who are looking to give business to a plumber. Are you interested? Would you be interested in attending.?

Ivan:
And those should be either people that you know or people who have been referred to you by somebody you really trust which is the way that you did it.

Patti:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I didn’t know the person after I had exhausted the referrals that Joan had given me. I thought who else in the community is influential? I thought of a director of a YMCA. I didn’t actually know this person, but I did know somebody who was in the rotary with this gentleman for fifteen years.

I called her and said, “Can I use your name when I call him?” And she said absolutely. I called him and I said, “You don’t know me but you are highly recommended by Jackie Brighton.”

He said, “I’ve known her for fifteen years. How can I help you?”

It was wonderful. I went through the same exact script that I had when I called the director of the civic organization. And he referred me to many people.

Ivan:
That goes along with the phrase that you use a lot in our conversations about this podcast. That is it’s not who you know but who you meet through who you know. Talk more about that.

Patti:
Well, I just think that sometimes members get stuck on thinking that they’ve already invited everybody that they know. That’s not true because there are so many other people that you truly have not met yet that are good connections for you by the contacts that you already have.

Even if you are looking for a great landscaper and you don’t know one, think of who you know in town who has the best lawn. Pick up the phone and call them. And just say who cuts your lawn? Call the person and say that they were highly recommended by so and so.

Ivan:
That’s kind of an example of thinking out of the box. Any other examples of that concept of thinking outside the box?

Patti:
One time, a chapter was having a really difficult time finding people because they said that their town was different. I thought well I don’t know anybody in your town. But I m more than happy to try something out.

We had an invitation letter that they were going to send out to invite some folks. I took that letter and stapled my business card to twenty invitations. It took one hour’s time and I walked into the businesses in that town and said “Hi, my name is Patti. You don’t know me and I am not here to sell you anything, but what I am here to do is invite you to a networking breakfast that we have here in town. Everybody’s going to be there and I just wanted to give you an invitation.” And I walked out.

I took one hour to do that with twenty invitations and actually three people showed out of that. One of the invitations went to a woman who owned a bridal shop and she called me the night before and said, “Can I bring somebody with me?”

I said absolutely. So she brought a woman who was an event planner. Altogether, we had four people out of those twenty invitations. The event planner joined and so did the bridal shop owner and one other person. So three out of four joined, and the event planner actually brought seven people into the chapter the very first month in membership.

Ivan:
Well. That’s incredible. Listen Patti, we’re just about out of time. Is there anything else you want to add? This is great material for members to hear.

Patti:
Thank you very much. I just think that there are always more people that you can invite. There is an endless list. Don’t get discouraged. Just think of the people that you haven’t invited or people that you haven’t met yet. So it’s not who you know but who you meet through who you know.

Ivan:
I think that’s powerful. This whole idea of “we are different in this area”- I’ve always found it very interesting. I find that most people who say we’re different – it’s really an excuse not to do something that people feel uncomfortable with. They really just don’t want to do what’s been said, or they don’t know how to do it. It’s really easy to say we’re different in this area, but my experience has been that the challenges in the chapters all around the world are consistently similar whether you’re talking about one part of the country or another or completely different countries.

What you just described I think will work in every country of BNI. Patti, I really appreciate you being in our podcast for the listeners here. For the listeners, I’m speaking with Patti Salvucci one of the top BNI directors in the world. She handles our BNI chapters in the Massachusetts and has about 100 chapters with about 27 members per chapter. She knows what she’s doing. Take these ideas and please share some of them at your next chapter meeting.

Patti, thank you very much. Frank, back to you.

Frank:
Thank you, Dr. Misner. For Patti Salvucci Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

Ivan’s In New York City On His Book Tour

Masters Of Sales Has Just Hit #6 On The New York Times Bestsellers List

When Using Networking Marketing, Don’t Focus Just On The Sale Itself, Focus On How It Comes To You

Why “Fred” Left His BNI Chapter Even Though He Was Generating Tons Of Referrals

The “Randomness” Of Referrals

You Never Know Which Fish You’re Going To Catch – And Neither Do The Fish!

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 026 -

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 doctor by Ivan Misner, founder and chairman of BNI, calling in from New York City. I guess you are on your book tour today, Ivan?

Ivan Misner:
I am, in fact, in New York, for the book tour. I’m really pleased to announce that just last week, the less latest book from BNI, Masters of Sales, hit number six on the New York Times bestsellers list.

Frank:
Well. That’s awesome. You must be selling a lot of books.

Ivan:
We’re doing great with it. We hit the Wall Street Journal bestsellers list, we’ve hit number one on Amazon, we have hit the USA Today list. We have a quad effect of best sellers.

Frank:
That’s great. I understand that you have a message for us today about referral marketing and how it works in every type of business.

Ivan:
Yes, I do. I wanted to talk about an article that I published on entrepreneur.com in September of this year. It’s about why referral marketing works, and it has a great for BNI members or anyone who is networking to understand a little bit about why this works with the referral process.

With a fully functioning referral marketing strategy marketing operation, you can predict approximately how many referrals you can expect and what quality they’re likely to be. Now it’s true that you won’t know exactly who you will be selling to or how large the order will be, but that is really true of almost any marketing technique, wouldn’t you say? You don’t know exactly where it’s coming from.

One mistake to avoid is looking solely at the sale itself. When you do this, you’ll miss exactly how the sale opportunity came to you. In a way, it’s a little bit about the podcast that I talked about last week with a butterfly effect and how there are ripples.

Let me explain further. A few years ago, a member of the BNI group, let’s call him Fred, was a member of BNI and a well-liked business owner. He received lots of referrals. He decided to leave the group. When he was asked why, Fred explained that the referrals that he receives seem to be random coincidences. His clients can’t be replicated. He felt that the group wasn’t working for him in the way that it should, plus he’d been gaining some in a new clients and he didn’t see the need for the group anymore, which was ironic because many of these new clients had come from referrals. Fred left the BNI group.

Fred’s mistake was to evaluate his success against the abstract standard of repeatability. That’s where the issue of the butterfly effect comes in. You see these ripples may seem a random but they’re not. His professional training in sales taught him that he and his employees should call people from a list generated by the supposed demographics of his clientele to generate more business. This referral process seems sort of hard to replicate. It seems like there wasn’t a methodology that he could follow. Does that make sense?

Frank:
It was too random for him to believe in it?

Ivan:
That’s exactly it. It seemed almost too random. Each referral that he got had a unique story attached to it. It was random and something that couldn’t be repeated. That led him to believe that they were coincidental. It was a misconception because he focused on the referral itself rather than on the relationship that produced the referral. It is interesting.

In an article that I wrote on entrepreneur.com – and for any of the listeners who would like to see the article – I have over 60 articles there now. Go to BNI.com and on the right hand side you will see a little banner ad for Entrepreneur. Click on it and you’ll see all the articles that I’ve written.

In the article, I talk about the fact that referral marketing is kind of like fishing with a net. You think about how to cast the net in order to optimize your chances of getting a fish. You choose a likely spot and throw your net. You pull it in to find a number of fish. You have a pretty good idea of how many fish you are going to catch if you do this over and over overtime. But you don’t know which individual fish are going to end up in your net.

From the fish’s perspective, it’s total chance. Wow. I ended up in this net. How did that happen? But from a good fisherman’s perspective, it’s not a chance. Its ongoing hard work through consistent application of ideas and knowledge of the area that leads you to catch the fish that you’ve got.

I think that that’s a real important thing to understand in the referral process. It may look random but it’s not. Like the net fishermen, the referral marketer concentrates not on the individual fish but on the process. He knows the process will bring many referrals. He just doesn’t know who they will be our but I liked route they will get to him. I think that is what Fred really missed in his process. He didn’t see that it was a process that led to him getting their referrals. The random appearance of it is just the nature of the referral process.

Frank:
I was at Deep Creek Lake out in western Maryland with my nephew, Andy, one time and he put some bait on a hook and through the hook out into the water and he immediately caught a giant pike and pulled it in. Out in the lake, far out in the way has a single fisherman who hadn’t caught anything all day sitting in a john boat. I yelled out to the fishermen can you believe this kid’s luck? He yelled, what luck? I said well he just thrown his hook in and he caught a pike right away. The guy asked there was bait on the hook and I said yes. Then he said it wasn’t luck.

Ivan:
Good for him. He gets it he gets it. 5

Frank:
Even though he can’t catch a thing all day.

Ivan:
But that’s the way BNI members and people in networking groups are. It’s not repeatable. It’s not replicable- at least it doesn’t look like it, so they don’t think that it is a system when, in fact, it is a very, very valuable system. It is the process that leads you to the referrals. Every referral has its own story and the story may not be repeated, buy all of the process to get to that referral is in fact repeatable.

Frank:
That is very profound. Every referral is going to be different and they’re going to have all different types of aspects to them, but the system remains the same.

Ivan:
That’s it. You’ve got it.

Frank:
I think that is a great story and a great lesson for us today. We’re just about out of time for this week’s podcast. Any last pearl of wisdom for the listeners this week?

Ivan:
Referral marketing may seem a bit messy and random to those who have been trained to call a list of names in hopes of selling one in 100. But it is a system that works well because it ferrets out all of those unpredictable, hidden and complex connections that exist between people in everyday life. It allows you to make connections with people that you might not otherwise be able to connect with.

Frank:
And you just never know who that person might be.

Ivan:
That’s exactly right.

Frank:
Well, that’s it for this week. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I am Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

Ivan Has Just Returned From Five Days On Necker Island With Sir Richard Branson

Ivan Has Started A New Blog at Networking.Entrepreneur.com

The Butterfly Effect of Networking Is How An Unsolicited Phone Call Six Years Ago Lead to Ivan Being Invited to Necker Island Last Week

To Maximize The Effectiveness Of Networking You Must Make The Most of Each Relationship You Build Along The Way

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 025 -

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 the networking downloadables. I’m Frank Felker in Washington DC joined on the phone today by doctor Ivan Misner, calling in from BNI headquarters in southern California, but I understand that you just recently returned from Necker Island in the Caribbean.

Ivan Misner:
I certainly did. It was quite an experience. I was there for about five days.

Frank:
Isn’t that Sir Branson’s island?

Ivan:
It certainly is. Sir Richard Branson bought the island quite a few years ago and developed it into a hotel. It is actually his home about six months out of the year.

Frank:
Was he there while you were there?

Ivan:
He was there all five days and it was really an amazing experience. It was part of a business seminar that I was invited to with Sir Richard and a number of other really successful business professionals from all over the world. It was really quite exciting to meet him and spend time meeting and networking with these other business professionals.

Frank:
He is an amazing individual. It must have been a great experience for you to be able to spend time with him.

Ivan:
It was a great experience in that led me to write a Blog article or submission on a new blog that I wanted to talk about with the listeners of the podcast. It’s another great way for BNI members to hear directly from me on various issues and points and to post comments about different things. I just started writing a blog for Entrepreneur.com and the blog can be found by going to networking.entrepreneur.com. No WWW in front of it. It is just networking.entrepreneur.com.

Look for the blog that I did just recently called The Butterfly Effect of Networking. I bring that up because I want people to go to the Blog first of all. But it’s really all about my visit to Necker Island.

Frank:
What is the butterfly effect of networking?

Ivan:
You know, my journey to the island to Necker Island is a great example of the butterfly effect of networking. The butterfly effect is a theory that a small action in one place may have a ripple effect that creates a dramatic action in another place. It’s actually based on chaos theory and that the wings of a butterfly flapping can impact something that impacts something that impacts something that impacts something else far away.

This is a great story on this blog entry that I did from Necker Island about butterfly effect and it is almost like a pebble in a pond. Your networking efforts create ripples and they impact other things.

Frank:
How does it impact BNI members with referrals and networking?

Ivan:
I think it’s perfect for networking. For networking, it’s all about how seemingly minor connections or conversations with one person may after many ripples across the network end in a dramatic connection later in the process. I truly lived that out last week in Necker Island.

It all started actually several years ago when I received a phone call from a woman I didn’t know. She was a BNI member who has since become a good friend. Her name is Kim George. Kim asked me if I would be willing to help with the creation of an online networking and social capital community for a coaching organization.

It really took some work to put that together and I was a little hesitant to say yes, but it fir the vision of where I wanted to go in terms of my time. So I did it because it fit the values and direction of the company.

That is where the ripple began almost two and a half for three years ago. That relationship turned into a strategic alliance with a coaching organization which then turned into a speaking engagement for them, which then allowed me to make Jack Canfield at that speaking engagement. Jack, of course, is coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

That led to an invitation from Jack because I had an opportunity to talk to him at length to participate in an international organization that he created called the Transformational Leadership Council, which I have been involved in now for several years. That led me to meeting a woman by the name of Nancy Salzman was the owner of Nexium Training and getting to know Nancy lead to an invitation for my wife and I to spend five days on the breathtakingly beautiful Necker Island where we met with financial wizards, business and movie producers and people like Sir Richard. That is a great example of the butterfly effect.

Frank:
That is exactly what I was about to say. What a great example of the butterfly effect.

Ivan:
If you would’ve said to me Ivan, that call that you just hung up with from Kim George will lead you to get to know Jack Canfield really well and spend a lot of time in the Transformational Leadership Council, which will then lead you to spending a week with Sir Richard Branson, I would’ve said you were crazy. How is that going to happen?

The ripples that take place in the networking process that may not be clear when the pebble drops into the water, but the ripple begins when you first make that initial contact with someone. What is certain is that there is a ripple. If you follow that ripple and you make the most – here is the key. Make the most out of the contacts that you meet during each stage of the journey to lead you to making connections and relationships that may very well surprise you when you look back to see where you for started.

Frank:
We can only imagine what the ripples may be with your relationship with Sir Richard Branson. People listening may not know but he is the guy behind Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Records and everything else.

Ivan:
And now Virgin Galactic. In two to three years, he’s going to start taking people up into outer space.

Frank:
He is an amazing guy. Did you happen to see him on the Colbert Show?

Ivan:
No, I didn’t.

Frank:
That was a very funny thing. He got angry at Colbert because Colbert put his feet up on the table in a varied as follow just respectful way. So Sir Richard took his cup of ice water and threw it all over Cole Bearer’s face. It was pretty funny.

Ivan:
I didn’t see that. I have to tell you I saw a very humble side of the billionaire. He’s very well connected with his employees. The most amazing thing is what they said about him when he wasn’t in the room. It was all very positive. It’s one thing to have good things said about you by your employees, but especially when you are not in the room. I just thought him to be very down to earth, very connected, very concerned about the environment and about people. He is absolutely a consummate networker and visionary.

Frank:
Did you have any feeling that you and he specifically were going to have any future plans together?

Ivan:
Yes. And you’ll hear it right now on the BNI podcast. We’re not exactly sure where this will go, but one evening on the beach he had this barbecue for all of the visitors to his island. He asked me more about BNI and I explained it to him.

Then he shared with me his concept of the Council of Elders. It is an organization that he helped form with people on this council – there are about twelve like Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. He wants to create a council nationally, regionally and locally and he asked for advice that I might have on how that could be done since I run the world’s largest business network. So I just submitted some ideas to him just last night as a matter of fact. Who knows? We might see BNI involved in some way with this global movement of his.

Frank:
That is terribly profound, Ivan. That is really awesome.

Ivan:
The ripple hasn’t stopped. The ripple may still go on. But as of this moment this is where the ripple is.

Frank:
The butterfly effect continues on. Well, we’re just about out of time for this week’s podcast. Any last words of wisdom or pearls of wisdom for the listeners?

Ivan:
I think two lessons learned out of this is as you have opportunities come your way, ask yourself does this fit my vision? And if it does, consider it seriously. Second, as you proceed down that road, make sure to make the most out of the contacts that you have to lead to the next contact. Don’t ask for things. Try to help people. By doing that, the ripple continues to go/ This may be a long running ripple for me and for BNI, and I am really pleased to be part of it.

Frank:
Well that’s it for this week. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we’ll see you next time on the official BNI podcast.

Ivan Likes Speed Networking For Its Ability To Elevate Your Visibility But Believes It Is Not Sufficient To Complete The VCP Triad Which Also Includes Credibility and Profitablity

Start With The End In Mind: You’re Not Going To Bag The Big One Or Even Close A Small Sale At A Speed Networking Event – You Are There To Meet New People With Whom You May Eventually Do Referral Business

Conduct The Exercise As A Mini-Interview Where You Can Find Out How You Can Help The Other Person Build Their Business

Write Notes During Each Meeting (Perhaps Using A GAINS Profile Sheet) And Be Sure To Follow-Up With The Important New Contacts You Make

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 024 -

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 again by Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. How are you today Ivan? How is the weather out there?

Ivan Misner:
I’m doing great, Frank. The weather is always sunny in southern California.

Frank:
I’ve heard that. Isn’t there a song that goes something like that?

Ivan:
I think so.

Frank:
You have an interesting topic today. It’s speed networking. I have worked with speed networking in another type of organization that I had tested the waters in before I had gotten involved with BNI. To tell you the truth, I actually enjoyed it and felt that I had gotten a lot out of it. But I’ve never seen it in BNI. I’m curious to see what you have to say about speed networking in regards to BNI.

Ivan:
Speed working networks are showing up all over the world. They tend to be a fun, exciting initial way to make initial connections. It’s a very different environment from what we do at BNI.

Speed networking programs generally involve people meeting each other for a short interval and then moving on to the next person in line. They tend to be pretty structured in a way that people kind of queue up to meet. For example, one variation is to have two concentric circles of people who will sit across from one another and after a set period of time, perhaps one or two minutes, the outside circle of people gets up and moves one direction and the inside circle goes in the other direction or stays put. You go around and make sure that you meet everybody for couple of minutes. Is that similar to the kind of thing that you did?

Frank:
Yes that’s exactly what we did.

Ivan:
As the founder of the world’s largest business referral organization, you might be surprised to learn that I have some definite opinions. Or maybe you aren’t surprised to learn that.

Frank:
I thought you might.

Ivan:
I do. But it might surprise you as to what my opinion is. I think speed networking is a great way to meet other business professionals in a short period of time. It’s a good tool for business people to apply the visibility stage of the VCP process. I think I’ve talked about VCP and some other podcasts. VCP stands for visibility, credibility, profitability.

At first you establish visibility with people. Then you establish credibility and overtime, you get to a profitability stage where you are passing referrals back and forth. In a BNI context, we hope that most of the members are very soon having credibility and profitability where they’re passing referrals to each other.

As long as you understand that speed networking generally is aimed at the first stage which is creating visibility – meeting people and very briefly getting to know a little bit about them. If you understand that, then speed networking can be very effective because you’re focusing on an area of networking that BNI is not all about. You aren’t going to meet hundreds of people at a BNI meeting. But you are establishing credibility and you’re getting referrals.

Frank:
Sure. You’re getting a much more in depth level of credibility and relationship building with BNI than you do with speed networking.

Ivan:
Right. But if you want to be successful at networking, your network needs to be both broad and deep. BNI provides that in depth networking. Programs at the chambers of commerce and mixers help to provide breadth so you could meet many, many people. That’s why I like speed networking programs.

In BNI if you are going to do them, I recommend that you get them tie it into our GAINS meetings exchange. It is a form that we have about people’s goals, accomplishments, interests, networks and skills. When you tie that into a speed networking program, I think it can be really effective.

There are really four other things that I think make good a good speed networking program. Here’s the first one. You have to start at the end in mind. You’re not going there to bag the big one. You’re not there to close a deal on the spot. In a way, it’s kind of the opposite.

I don’t know if you know this but speed networking kind of came out of the speed dating arena. At least some people feel it has and have written about it. And in dating, it is done to eliminate potential suitors, whereas in speed networking it is the opposite. You are trying to find potential referral partners. Rather than meeting to eliminate, you are meeting to include.

Frank:
I am always reminded of that scene in the 40 Year Old Virgin – I’m not sure if you have seen that movie when they do the speed dating. But certainly it was the opportunity to eliminate suitors, no doubt about it.

Ivan:
So you want to start with that end in mind, and that and is that you want to find ways to make connections with people and not ways to eliminate connections with people.

The second one is to conduct the exercise as a mini interview. Think in terms of what you can find out about the person in the meeting that will allow you to help them in some way. Forget about mining their database or trying to determine how they can help you. Find ways the either you can help them or at least that it is mutually beneficial to one another to create a relationship.

Find ways to identify when and how you can have best help your new referral people. Otherwise, you’re just hunting. A lot of people believe that networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. If you make speed networking a hunting exercise, I don’t believe it’s going to be nearly as successful for you as a farming exercise, where you would actually start the process and cultivate the relationship.

The third thing is make some notes during the exercise. If you’re not provided with some type of contact card that you can jot notes on while the exercise is going on, be sure to have your own pad or paper to write down the information that you discover. Be sure to note the person’s interests and goals.

Remember that I said one thing that we use in BNI is the GAINS exchange form. If you are listening to this and you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to your BNI director and ask them what the GAINS exchange is and get that material from them. Your chapter leadership teams have it. You can also find it in the book Business by Referral. That will help you to make notes during the exercise.

The last of the four things to remember in speed networking is follow-up.

Frank:
The old FU

Ivan:
Yes, the old FU. If you don’t follow up with those that you meet during the speed networking exercise, you will only have succeeded in wasting your time.

Frank:
I find that that is something that people fall down on time and time again and sometimes in the worst case, it is after they’ve invested thousands of dollars in trade show exhibits and they never follow up on the people that visit.

Ivan:
Yes. Now here’s the best way to follow up: if you find out something that they need, want or are looking for – if they have a problem or a challenge, what a great way to follow up. You follow up and say, “Hey, you expressed this issue, concern or problem you had and it here’s your email link to where you can find a solution.” Or, “Here’s an article that might help. Would you like to meet and talk about it?” The key is to meet and follow up. If there’s any way that you can help them, that is the best way to start to develop credibility with someone that leads you through the VCP process.

Frank:
Excellent. That’s great. Could you please recap those four steps of successful speed networking for us again?

Ivan:
Sure. The first thing is to start with the end in mind. You’re not there to bag the big one. You are there to find connections and not eliminate connections.

The second is to conduct the exercise as a mini interview. Ask them questions. You are not there to mine their database.

Third is to make notes during the exercise. Write down some information. Use the GAINS exchange card if you don’t have anything else but at least have a notepad if you don’t have that.

And then of course, follow up. It is all a waste of time if you don’t follow up. If you are going at this as though it’s about helping other people, the follow-up part actually becomes the easiest part of the process. They are thankful for you to follow up, and that’s great at helping to establish credibility.

Frank:
That is wonderful, wonderful stuff. Well unfortunately again we’re just about out of time. Is there any last pearl of wisdom the you would like to share with us this week?

Ivan:
I believe that speed networking can work if it’s done right. It can be fun. It can be energetic. It can be a dynamic way to further your own coals of having a thriving successful-word-of- mouth-based business. I think BNI chapters can absolutely do this when they do an evening event of some kind or some mixer that they are sponsoring. They are a great exercise to use it within the BNI context.

Frank:
And they’re a lot of fun because they are fast and energetic.

Ivan:
Absolutely.

Frank:
Unfortunately, that’s it for this week. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we’ll see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

Every BNI Member Is A Salesperson – Whether They Know It Or Not

A Referral Is Not A Guaranteed Sale – You Must Follow-Through With Your Prospective Customer And Make Good On Your Promises In Every Transaction

Studies Have Shown That 34% Of BNI Referrals Convert To Sales. Some BNI Members Claim Closing Rates Of 90% Or More.

BNI Has Created A Strategic Alliance With Brian Tracy Sales University To Bring Sales Training Resources To BNI Members

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 022 -

Frank Felker:
Hello everybody in 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, doctor Ivan Misner, calling in today again from BNI headquarters in southern California. How are you today, Ivan?

Ivan Misner:
I’m doing great today, Frank. Thank you very much.

Frank:
I understand that you have some more information for salespeople relative to referral marketing today.

Ivan:
I do. I just came out with a book called Masters of Sales so I thought it would be good to talk a little bit about selling in sales and the fact that really every one in BNI at some level or another is a salesperson. Even if you are a banker, a contractor, an attorney – you are still selling your products or services. It’s important to understand a little bit about the sales process especially if you are a BNI number because you may get a referral, and you have to turn that referral into a client, patient or customer.

Frank:
So what is the best approach to doing that?

Ivan:
Anyone who is experienced and successful in referral marketing will tell you that sales skills are essential. They are needed in every part of the process and not just in the closing but throughout the entire process.

The referral in BNI is not a guaranteed sale. It’s the opportunity to do business with someone who has recommended you. You have to show that you can and will provide the expected products or services and that your customer, client or patient will be happy with the process and, of course, the result.

If you can’t make the first sale, your potential referral source will dry up. You have to follow through effectively with people who give you referrals to close those deals so that people who are referring you understand that you’re good at what you do.

In the early nineties I conducted a survey as part of my doctoral studies, and I found out that about 34% of all business referrals within BNI turn into sales. That is huge. That’s higher than most numbers. 34% of all business referrals we found in my doctoral studies turn into sales.

Another doctoral student, Julian Sharpe, who is a BNI member – she was a BNI member in Florida and she is now in BNI in New York. She replicated my original study last year in 2006 and her findings were nearly identical. She did the study ten or eleven years after mine. She found the approximately 34% of all the referrals turn into a sale.

That’s an outstanding number but it’s not 100%. There are certain skills that you need to have that are important in the networking process. I want to talk about them throughout this podcast. Having the knowledge and skill to generate the referral and then close the sale gives the person sort of a one two punch.

There are countless books and seminars and classes on how to close a sale. I highly recommend that members of BNI participate in some of those. There’s a really good one now that we have created a strategic alliance with BrianTracyuniversity.com. We just started to expand our alliance with Brian Tracy and we’re working extensively with them. Listeners to this podcast will see pretty soon some special offers that Brian is giving to BNI members and it is a direct results of a meeting I just had with him one on one last week to talk about BNI and Brian Tracy University. Our listeners are going to hear some special offers.

Frank:
That sounds great. I would love to hear Brian on the podcast.

Ivan:
As a matter of fact, you will. Brian agreed to do some podcasts with me and so probably within the next month or two, we will be doing so. The second thing that I wanted to point out is that while referrals help a great deal, convincing the prospect of making the first appointment is really very important.

You want to avoid being aggressive or indecisive. But you want to make sure that you get the appointment when you get a referral from someone. Be confident that a mutually beneficial deal is in the works and communicate this to the prospect. That’s really important.

The third point that I wanted to mention is that once you’ve made the appointment, it is important to persuade the prospect to buy your product or service. This part usually comes to mind when one hears the word sale, but in this particular case, integrity is paramount in the stage. The prospect should know exactly what to expect. No hidden charges no unexpected exceptions, no bait and switch. You have to walk the talk with the referrals that you get, particularly through BNI or otherwise your BNI members will never refer you again.

If you’ve created a highly efficient system of generating referrals for your business- and we believe BNI is one of those in getting a steady stream of referrals- this doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be capable closing any of them. It certainly takes sales skills to turn the prospects into new clients, customers and patients. We are not experts in sales techniques and that’s why we refer people to organizations like Brian Tracy and others who have contributed to the book – Tommy Hawkins and Zig Zigler, contributed to Masters of Sales.

You have to learn those techniques that apply. Getting the referral is only half the process. The other half is turning them into a sale – the client, customer or patient. That part of the process is something that the member has to do themselves.

Sometimes, Frank, people say why don’t we teach sales techniques in BNI? It’s an easy answer. I believe you can be all things to all people. We are the world’s leading networking organization. We are second to none. If we start trying to become the leading sales training organization, we’re not going to make that. There are already organizations out there that do that. It’s better that they focus on that.

Understand that the referral process is half the battle but closing the deal is the other half. Be thorough in taking care of your referral and dealing with them with integrity if you want to continue to get referrals.

Frank:
One thing I would say as an experienced salesperson is there is nothing better in terms –I know we don’t like to use the words leads or prospects within BNI – but in terms of a perspective buyer, nothing is stronger than a personal referral from somebody else, particularly from within the BNI context.

You’re almost halfway home because you know sees that person has a need and you’ve been recommended by somebody that both you and the other person trust. At that point, it is exactly what you’re saying. You make good on the promises and expectations that were created by the referrer and you try to find out what the best optimal solution for the buyer is. But of course, at some point, you have to ask for the sale.

Ivan:
That’s right. There is nothing stronger than a third party testimonial. I’ve met BNI members who said they have had 90% of the referrals turn into sales. You can spend all the time getting the referrals, but if you don’t know what you’re doing in terms of closing the customer, it’s not going to work for you.

Having the skills to take that referral and turn them into a client is a whole set of skills that are critical and important, and there are a lot of organizations out there who really teach that and teach it better than us. I really recommend that you take a look at programs like Brian Tracy University and we will get Brian in on the podcasts coming up soon. Zig Zigler has material and so does Tommy Hawkins. If you have a chance, look at the Masters of Sales. We have 80 contributing authors to that book to help you learn how to sell more effectively.

Frank:
One thing that I try to tell people who are shy of sales is that sales is not something that you do to someone but rather something that you do for someone. You’re not trying to jam something down their throat unless, of course, that your approach. You’re trying to listen to what they’re telling you their problem is and then bringing your specialized knowledge and resources to bear to solve the problem for them. You’re actually there to help them and benefit them. You’re not there to cheat them. Once you get that in your mind, if you believe in your product or service and you know it’s beneficial and that you can help people, your closing rate will go through the roof.

Ivan:
You’re absolutely right. You have to believe in your product. If you believe in your product and you show them how it solves problems, your closing ratio will go up substantially. This is one of those simple ideas that’s not always easily done.

Frank:
The difference between simple and easy. We’re just about out of time for this week’s podcast, is there any last pearl of wisdom that he would like to share with the listeners this week?

Ivan:
Well, if you have a chance go take a look at Masters of Sales. It’s available at mastersbooks.com and there are some excerpts in there that you might find a value. Pick up a copy of the book. I have a prediction for you, Frank, within three or four weeks after this podcast.

Frank:
That’s great, Ivan. Congratulations. That’s it for this week. For Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

Ivan Saw Amy’s Article And Loved It

Amy Based Her Piece on Jeff Foxworthy’s Famous Routine “You Might Be A Redneck If…”

The Podcast Didn’t Allow Time To List All 20 Ways

The Entire List Can Be Read And Printed Out from The September 2007 Edition of SuccessNet

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 021 -

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 am Frank Felker in Washington DC joined on the phone today by Founder and Chairman of BNI Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from BNI headquarters in sunny southern California. I understand you have a special guest on the line with us today, Ivan.

Ivan Misner:
I do, Frank, thank you. Her name is Amy Kilpatrick. She is a BNI Executive Director in Augusta, Georgia and she�s here with us. Good morning.

Amy Kilpatrick:
Good morning.

Ivan:
It is good to have you on board. The reason I have invited Amy- it was one of those things where I was sitting down and thinking about this podcast. I read some material that just went into the September 2007 issue of SuccessNet. I was laughing so hard when I read this material that I just had to connect with Amy and ask her to join me on this podcast.

Amy wrote a piece that you can find in the September 2007 issue of SuccessNet called �You Might Be a BNI Member If�� Some of this stuff is really funny and we�re going to walk through some of it right now. I have to ask you Amy- I�m guessing this came from Jeff Foxworthy�s �You Might Be a Redneck If��

Amy:
It did. It was one of those things where I was sitting down and I kept thinking — you know they just run through your mind. It definitely came from Jeff Foxworthy.

Ivan:
Now for our listeners who are around the world, a little over 30% of our members worldwide are outside the United States. For those outside the United States, Jeff Foxworthy is a comedian in the United States that has a whole stand up act on you might be a redneck if� He also has a book on that. We did a little variation or I should say that Amy did a little variation called You Might Be a BNI Member If�.Its covers some of those, Amy. I think our listeners will enjoy it. Let�s start with the first one. You might be at BNI member if�

Amy:
You sit down when your oven timer goes off.

Ivan:
Thatt was the one that caught me right there. That was hysterical. Now tell me Amy, you haven�t ever done that have you?

Amy:
No I haven�t. What happened was I was at a BNI meeting and a cash register dinger kept going off and I kept thinking that the tavern needed to work on their timer person. That is where that came from.

Ivan:
Good stuff. The next one is that you might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
Your personal address book looks like the yellow pages.

Ivan:
I love that. That is hysterical. You might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
Your family and friends call you instead of 411.

Ivan:
Isn�t that awesome? Even Frank liked that one. I love it. I think it is hysterical. Now, 411 I think is an international code for information. If not, for those around the world, when you need information in North America, you pick up the phone and you dial 411. At BNI, your friends call you instead of information. We�re going to skip ahead a couple to the eighth one. You might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
You practice your 60 seconds and the mirror.

Ivan:
OK. Now the follow-up one is what makes that one really funny. What is the follow-up to that?

Amy:
You time yourself practicing your 60 seconds in front of the mirror.

Ivan:
So you not only do your 60 seconds in front of the mirror, you�re timing yourself at the same time. I love it. You know I think almost all of us are guilty of it to some extent. If you don�t practice your 60 second presentation, it�s not going to be as good as it could be. Okay the next one. You might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
A group of business people are working to increase the number of pink slips they are given out in a single day.

Ivan:
What I liked about that is that appeal to the slip is kind of a double meaning because pink slips in the United States is often a term used to get fired. It�s kind of funny to talk about a group of business people trying to increase the number of pink slips that they get. You usually don�t want a pink slip. Okay, the next one. You might be a BNI member give�

Amy:
You recognize that white really means green. Again that goes back to those referrals slips.

Ivan:
Right. The top of the referrals slip is white and it really means green. Of course in the United States, we refer to currency as greenbacks so it is a good example there. All right the next one. You might be a BNI number if�

Amy:
You are eating lunch with your top sales rep and they don�t even work for your company.

Ivan:
I like that one. I love that one. I think that is right on the mark and a great example of this list. All right. Let�s go to your next one. It is number thirteen on your list. You might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
You start missing your fellow members while you are on vacation.

Ivan:
That is good stuff. Do the next one. You might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
If you look down your client list and it looks like you�re BNI roster.

Ivan:
I love that. I love that. I think anyone in BNI for any length of time has probably had that experience. Sixteenth on your list is that you might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
If you go to dinner and you don�t sit down for the first fifteen minutes.

Ivan:
That is good stuff. Open networking for the next fifteen minutes. Good. Okay number eighteen. You might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
If you say I need a good hook and it has nothing to do with fishing.

Ivan:
And you are referring to memory hooks. A memory hook is something in your mind�s eye that enables you to envision some product or service. Do you have a really good memory hook Amy? Or do you know somebody in your chapter who has a really good memory hook?

Amy:
Yes. In our chapter, the hooks have become the joke. Actually we had a member that was a member for over two years and at every meeting he came up with a different hook. His hook ended up being that he had a unique one every single week. That has probably been my favorite example of how the memory hooks have worked.

Ivan:
One of my favorites the really made me started thinking about and start writing about it was a dentist I saw in a group that once stood up and raised his right hand as though he were taking the oath of office and he said I am a dentist. I believe in the thooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth, so help me God. Everybody clearly remember who he was. On your list. Let�s see. Number nineteen on your list, you might be a BNI member if�

Amy:
You can write off lunch with 40 of your friends as if it was a business expense.

Ivan:
I love that one. That�s good stuff. Of course, always talk to your account before writing off anything. I think that�s awesome and clearly BNI is a business event. And your last one on you might be a BNI member, number twenty.

Amy:
If you look around the room and you see a bunch of givers gaining.

Ivan:
This is a great list and I really appreciate you putting it together. How long did it take you to write this?

Amy:
I got it done in one night.

Ivan:
You were just inspired one night and sat down?

Amy:
My area thinks I never sleep. That�s just one of those nights and something popped into my head and I decided to write it down.

Ivan:
This is awesome stuff. And how do you use it in your chapter? Did you print it out and pass it around and how do you recommend other chapters use it?

Amy:
I think it�s one of those things that as a director or regional director or even a president, you have to motivate your chapter members and some of the best chapters that I have seen have humor and they laugh a lot. It�s actually being introduced in this area at leadership training next week. So we�re actually going to use it just to put laughter in the chapter. If you have been in BNI for a long time you can identify with several these things that we�ve listed out here. It is just a camaraderie type thing.

Ivan:
Amy, thank you very much for sharing it with me. We shared about fourteen of the twenty that you have on your list and for the listeners who want to see the entire list, certainly the fourteen will be listed in the archive as well as on this podcast, and you can see the entire list on SuccessNet September, 2007. Amy, thank you again for sharing this with us. Frank, back to you.

Frank:
Thank you again also, Amy. I enjoyed it very much. Well, that�s it for this week. For Dr. Ivan Misner and Amy Kilpatrick, I am Frank Felker saying we�ll see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

This Is The Third In His “Masters” Series, Following Masters of Networking And Masters Of Success

Contributors Include Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins, Zig Ziglar, Martha Stewart, Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins and Many Others

How Ivan’s Books Promote and Brand BNI

Setting Both Sales Goals and Personal Goals

How To Speak Effectively About Your Product or Service

Masters Of Sales is Available Immediately at Amazon and All Major Bookstores

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 020 -

Frank Felker:
Hello everybody and welcome 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 again by Chairman and Founder of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from BNI headquarters in southern California. How are you today, Ivan?

Ivan:
I have been really excited because we have a new book from BNI coming up.

Frank:
That’s what I understand. You have your 10th book coming off the presses. Is that right?

Ivan:
Yes. The tenth book has just been released. It is called Masters of Sales. It is a sequel to the Masters series. The first one was Masters of Networking and second was Masters of Success. Masters of Networking was a New York Times bestseller. Masters of Success was the number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, and now we have the third in the series, Masters of Sales. We believe that it will hit the bestsellers list within the next month.

Frank:
So does the book talk about specific masters of sales – people who have mastered selling- or is it about the process of mastering sales?

Ivan:
The answer is yes. Both. We have about 80 contributing authors. Many of them talk of the process. A number of them also talk about specific people who were masterful in sales. The book is written by many, many well-known people as well as the average salesperson.

It has the trifecta of sales guys. Brian Tracy, Tony Hopkins and Zig Zigler. They all contributed to Masters of Sales. In addition to them, we have Martha Stewart, Harvey McKay, Cainfield, a good friend of mine contributed a story to the book,J. Conrad Livingston, Tony Robbins. We have a well known people in the field of selling like Tony Perenillo, who wrote Selling to Veto the Very Important Top Officer. And Keith Ferrarzi, a friend of mine who wrote Never Eat Alone.

So we have some really well-known people in the sales and marketing group who contributed to the book. There are dozens and dozens of other people. We might not know their names, but they are in the real world every single day selling. They truly are masters of the process.

Frank:
That’s great. So what can we learn from this book?

Ivan:
There are a lot of things, and I urge members to read it. I’ll answer that question directly but first I want to you know why we do these books because you mentioned that this is the tenth book that I have written and I’ve done them all for BNI.

There’s a really good reason why we do these books. I think this is a great opportunity to tell the average member why these books are so important. First of all, we started doing books to provide content for members at a chapter level to be better in marketing, selling and, of course, the networking and referral process. We don’t teach this in colleges and universities so there is a lot of content that will help people do that.

As the organization evolved we had education coordinators. We had others who had helped coordinate and many of them needed lesson plans to help do that. The books really provide lesson plans and that is the first reason that is not the dramatic reason.

One of the reasons that I think is radical and why we do these books is that it builds the name recognition and branding of BNI. If you open up one and look to the back, you’ll see our logo, the picture of the headquarters and description of BNI – our books are published by major publishers. Masters of Sales is published by Entrepreneur Magazine.

So it’s great media exposure for the organization. You know, Frank, if you go to the media and say you want to talk about BNI, you know what they would say to you? Take an ad out. The media doesn’t want to talk about your business, but the media will interview any idiot with a book. So I have lots of interviews. I’ve lost count. I have done over a thousand radio, TV and newspaper interviews.

That is why we do these books because they build the credibility and the recognition of the organization as well as the branding. If I go out and do an interview, they’ll say what led you to go out and write this book? And I get to take off talking about BNI. That builds the brand which builds the organization and members. At the same time, it provides content for education coordinators who can train members of the local level. It is a total win-win.

When you see these books coming out, that’s the reason we do it. If you look at our group, there’s no doubt that it has had a huge impact. The first book that I did came out at the end of 1994. In 1995, we had 350 chapters after first ten years. From 1995 to 2005, we opened an additional 3500 chapters. 350 chapters the first ten years. I first came out with a book at the end of the first ten years. And in six to seven other books came out over the next ten years. We went from 350 chapters to an additional 3500 chapters in the second ten years. Clearly, the books have added to the foundation.

Now mind you, if you don’t have a solid foundation, nothing will stand. Clearly we spent ten years building a foundation based on manuals, systems, procedures and processes that work. But the next ten years has really been spent in building up the brand. The books do that. That’s why we do that.

Frank:
I know that’s a lot of work writing books. I’m sure the book tours are lot of work for you also.

Ivan:
Yes. Certainly. But they’re very effective. Your question was what does the book cover? We go through lot of things here that I think are helpful for BNI members and it starts with understanding how to align yourself with your personal image in your business. How to set goals, both selling goals and life goals. The thing is that they are related. How to get clients prospecting. How to speak effectively about your product or service. How to go up to corporate clients.

We talk about a buyer’s perspective. We talk about sales systems, handling objections and of course one of the most important things that we talk about is relationship selling. That’s what BNI is all about. It is a really important chapter. And there’s no surprise that many of the contributions in that section come from BNI members and directors. We also talk about technology, what is helpful. All of these things are part of the Masters of Sales. It is the largest of the Masters series and we think it will be one of the successful.

Frank:
We’re just about out of time for this week’s podcast. Can you tell the listeners where they can pick this up? When will it be available on Amazon.com, in bookstores and so forth? How can they get it?

Ivan:
The book is available now from Amazon.com. It’s available at most major bookstores. It’s also available at BNI.com. There is a web site for the book, mastersbooks.com. It has Masters of Sales shown prominently, and of course, Masters of Networking and Masters of Success. We really believe that this book with all the contributing authors and many BNI members as well as other people, will help BNI members in particular to sell effectively.

Frank, sell is not a four letter word. Okay well, it is, but you know what I mean. It’s not a four letter word. People may not like to be sold to but they love to buy. If we can teach people how to sell particularly through relationships selling, we will make better BNI members because they get the referrals through BNI and then they have to close the deal. If they can’t close the sale, all of the work in BNI is really not as effective as it could be.

Frank:
Sure. You have to get to the goal line. I look forward to reading it myself, Ivan. And the fans to the sales process. It sounds like what you’ve done especially with all of those contributing authors is great. I can’t wait to read it. That’s it for this week’s episode of the official BNI podcast. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

Information in Ivan’s book: Truth or Delusion?

Question: You Have To Be A Great “People Person” to be a great networker – Truth or Delusion? DELUSION!

A Good Networker Is A Great Listener – Extroverts Often Dominate Conversations

Introverts Are Better At Carrying-On A Conversation Than They Are At Initiating One

Must Learn Techniques For Introducing Yourself And Getting The Other Person Talking

Volunteer To Be A Chamber Ambassador Or A BNI Visitor Host

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 018 -

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 Chairman and Founder of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from BNI headquarters in southern California. How is the weather, Ivan?

Ivan:
Everything is great here in southern California. It is a beautiful summer.

Frank:
Isn’t the rainy season like in January and February? I was out there one time in February for a big event that I was hosting and it did rain like heck.

Ivan:
Sometimes it does but it’s usually nice and sunny here. It certainly is now and it is hot.

Frank:
But there’s not much humidity, right? It isn’t the heat, it’s the humidty. So you want to talk to us today about why introverts can be great networkers. How does that work? I can’t quite get that.

Ivan:
You know, it’s really interesting and we talk about this in a couple places in BNI. Our stuff on it is in my book, Truth or Delusion. It’s also on entrepreneur.com in an article that I wrote called Why Introverts Can Be Great Networkers. It comes from some material that I wrote for Truth or Delusion where I ask the question is it truth or delusion that you have to be a real people person to be great with the networking? The answer is delusion. You don’t.

Mind you, you have to like people. You have to like working with people if you want to network, but you don’t have to be an extrovert. You don’t have to be really, really outgoing. It’s a common assumption that somebody who is an extrovert is the best type of networker. That’s not necessarily true. A good networker has two ears and one mouth and uses them both proportionately. So they listen to what people have to say.

Extroverts love talking about themselves. They are not really good about asking questions and finding out about other people. What we’ve learned is that oftentimes, introverts can, in fact, be better at networking because they are great at talking about you and asking questions about you. It’s really interesting because often, introverts eliminate themselves from the process because they think that they’re not good at networking because they can’t initialize a conversation. They’re not good at walking up to a stranger and starting a conversation.

That’s really unfortunate because I think, in many ways, they’re better at the second part of networking that the extrovert is. The extravert can just walk up to a stranger and start a conversation, but they’re not good about asking questions and finding out more about the other person. The introvert is not good at just walking up to a stranger in introducing themselves, but they’re much better at building the connection and the relationship.

I think it’s really important to understand that you have to have both parts of the process to be good at networking. You have to learn how to introduce yourself to people. There are ways introverts can do it, by the way. We can come back to that in a minute. You have to be good at introducing yourself, but then once you’ve done that, you really have to be good about pulling out of people information and learning about them so that you can network with them effectively of the over time.

Frank:
That’s interesting because most people prefer – their favorite topic of conversation is themselves, so if you just ask them an open question and let them go, you’ll find out a lot.

Ivan:
Especially with entrepreneurs. They love to talk about themselves. It’s easy and a lot of the entrepreneurs tend to be a little more on the extroverted side but not all of them. So if you are one of those who maybe isn’t an extrovert or maybe you are an extrovert but you’re just uncomfortable for some reason in the process or a setting that you’re not familiar with – what do you do?

One of the things that I recommend is to volunteer to be a role within whatever organization that you are in. That will get you out to introduce yourself to people. In the chamber of commerce, that would be the chamber ambassador. If you join a new chamber and you don’t know the people there and you want to get to know them, the best way to do it is to volunteer to be the investor so that when you go to chamber mixer, you are standing there and you meet people.

It’s so much easier to say,”Hi, my name is Ivan. I’m the chamber ambassador and I would like to welcome you to the chamber mixer this evening. Could you tell me a little bit about what you do? I’d love to put you in touch with some of the other people here.”

You act as a connector and it is much easier to play the role of host when you take on the role. Even if you’re an introvert, it’s easy to do because all you’re doing is saying, “ Hi. I am the ambassador and can I connect you with anyone here?” It’s a technique that introverts can use to make themselves feel a little more comfortable in the introduction, rather than walking up cold to a group of strangers and saying high my name is_________ and this is what I do.

Frank:
So they have to put themselves in a position to easily interact with people.

Ivan:
Yes. And this really stems from a book from Adele Scheele where she says if you’re going to be successful in networking, act like the host and not the guest. It’s a great story and it’s in her book, Skills for Success. I also talked about in The World’s Best Marketing Secret. The truth is that it’s easy to say to act like the host but it can be difficult to do. The best way to do it is to not act like to host but to be the host. You can be the host by volunteering to be the ambassador of the chamber or in BNI, what’s the role that is basically the same as the ambassador?

Frank:
The visitor host.

Ivan:
The visitor host – now that’s your job, to introduce yourself to every visitor of you who walks in. If you’re a little uncomfortable and an introvert, now you have a reason to do it and it’s a simple reason. Your goal is to introduce yourself to a visitor and walk around and introduce them. You’re a connector. That’s really the job of the visitor host. You stand there by the door and say, “Hi. My name is Frank. I am the visitor host for BNI. Welcome to the meeting today. I’ll be happy to answer the questions you have.”

What a great way to meet people and it makes it very smooth so that it’s not uncomfortable even for introverts to do.

Frank:
But I would be eating my breakfast during that time. You are going to interrupt my breakfast so that I can talk to them.

Ivan:
Yes, you’d have the first fifteen minutes of the open networking that you’d have to do before you could start eating your breakfast. Of course now, the extraverts, they’re pretty good about that. What they have a hard time doing is the second part of it and I’ve talked about the second part in some other material.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on it here but basically what you want to do is ask the who, what , when, where and why kinds of questions. Extroverts have to stop talking about themselves and start talking about the other person, and the best way to do that is to ask them questions and take information out so that you can learn more and help and support them.

There are two parts of the process. Extroverts are good at the first part, which is introducing themselves, and introverts are better at the second part of asking questions and getting to know each other. Both introverts and extroverts have something to learn. I have to tell you that I think it’s harder to learn how to ask questions and pull out information than it is to introduce yourself if you follow the methods that I talked about which is being a host. To tell you the truth, extraverts have more work to do than introverts because there are mechanisms that people can use to introduce themselves.

Frank:
That’s so funny. I never would have believed what you’re saying as far as why introverts can be great networkers until I heard what you just said. I think you’re absolutely right because the easiest way to network or get information out of somebody is just sit and listen to what they have to say. Obviously, extraverts tend to have a very hard time doing that. Well Dr. Misner, we’re just about at a time for this week’s podcast. Any last word or pearl of wisdom that you want to share with the listeners this week?

Ivan:
Networking is a skill that can be learned no matter what level of outgoing-ness. If you remain ill at ease in environments where you have to introduce yourself to people or are meet new people, take advantage training materials like this podcast. These podcasts really will help you become a better member. Listen to this material and take a look at the books and learn the skills of how to network more effectively.

One last thing Frank before I quit, I invite our listeners to comment up here at bnipodcast.com about things that they hear me and some of my guests talk about that resonate with them and has helped make them a better networker and how. This is the way other members will learn – if you members who are listening to this share what has worked for you. Post a message up BNI podcast.com. I invite you to do so.

Frank:
I agree. That’s great and I encourage everybody to do that. That’s it for this week’s episode of the BNI podcast. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I’m Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.