In this episode, Dr. Misner is joined by BNI director Asa Davis, who shares his experience using the Fast Track program with the BNI Leading Edge chapter in Michigan.

BNI Leading Edge was already a successful chapter, but still wanted to try Fast Track. In the first 3 months, their referral numbers went down by 15%, but close of business went up almost 100%.

These results demonstrate the value of the culture of learning in BNI. Fast Track is not a replacement for training, but a supplement. After Fast Track, many of the members of BNI Leading Edge went back through Member Success Training for a second time. Leading Edge is now the number one chapter in all of Michigan.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 157 -

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. Do you have somebody with you today?

Ivan:
I do, Priscilla. Thank you very much. I have on the line with us Asa Davis. Asa is an assistant director in BNI Michigan. BNI Michigan is one of the biggest regions for BNI. If BNI Michigan were a country for BNI, it would be something like the third largest country for the BNI organization. They have so many chapters, and their average number of members per chapter is very high.

Asa has been a member of BNI for six years and has been an assistant director for just under two years. And I think that’s a really good example of how directors almost always start as members, and so they have lots of experience with the organization. Asa certainly has that, and he represents a great region.

We’re here today to talk about instilling a culture of learning using the Fast Track program, which is a program I’ve recommended and have talked about, published by del Fuego. And he’s done a great job in instilling this with the chapter.

And so, Asa, welcome to the podcast.

Asa:
Well, thanks for having me, Ivan.

Ivan:
Let me start with my first question. Why Fast Track for the Leading Edge chapter, which is the chapter where you tried it out? Because I understand they were a pretty successful chapter to begin with, but you had them do this program. And maybe you could just mention what the Fast Track program is and then jump into my question.

Asa:
Yep. It’s the BNI Networking Secret CDs, the three CD set that you had recorded with Tom Fleming through del Fuego, and it just provides great learning opportunities for BNI members to listen to in their car, to put it on an iPod, some kind of portable listening device and really get a handle on the fundamentals of BNI. We had posed the question of having the whole chapter do the Fast Track after I went to the national conference last year in Wisconsin, and we posted it at a leadership team forum, so the leaders from all of the chapters were there, president, vice president, secretary, treasurer. And Leading Edge had a very strong leadership team and decided that that’s something that they wanted to do, to have all their members listen to it and see what kind of difference it would make, as a chapter.

Ivan:
Well, again, I think you just said something really key. They decided that they wanted to do it. One of the things I’ve learned is, when you’re talking about education and training, you can’t push a noodle, you can’t make people learn; they’ve got to really want to do it. And so here was a chapter that said, “Hey, that sounds interesting. We’d like to do this.” And so they ran with it, even though they were already a pretty good chapter. Is that a good assessment?

Asa:
Absolutely. Yeah, they were 26, 27 members at the time, very good chapter, passed about 40 referrals a week, and one of the selling points of the program was that they would increase the number of referrals that they passed. And I studied the chapter and followed to see they progress, and actually, their referrals went down.

Ivan:
The referrals went down?

Asa:
Yeah, the referrals went down.

Ivan:
In the beginning?

Asa:
In the beginning, yeah.

Ivan:
So explain that one. That’s surprising.

Asa:
Yeah, it was very interesting. The referral numbers went down about 15 percent, and that was over the first three months, and I was sort of feeling dejected. I was thinking I recommended this program to this chapter and then I actually looked at their closed business numbers, because I hadn’t looked at those before, and their –

Ivan:
Let’s talk about that for just one second, because not all chapters track closed business, but we do have the mechanisms for chapter to track closed business. And so this is a group that was not only tracking referrals, but they were tracking how much business was actually closed in the group as well. What happened to that number?

Asa:
Well, again, referrals went down about 15 percent, the closed business went up almost 100 percent.

Ivan:
You’re kidding me?!!

Asa:
No, it was huge. And the members, I went back and asked the members about it, and they said it’s really – really, people have made a commitment to passing better quality referrals, and that showed up right away in those closed business numbers.

Ivan:
So would you say, then, that they just slowed down in passing bad referrals and they improved their passing of really good referrals so that the actual number of referrals went down, but the referrals that turned into business went up dramatically?

Asa:
Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that helped is they said that the program gave them a playbook. And that term comes up a lot on the CD, having a playbook and a consistent language that all of them could use. And there’s one particular member who, on several occasions, was able to turn in a – well, it was really a cold lead or just a name into a true referral, and she was able to do that because of the common reference that people had in the CDs.

Ivan:
Yeah, you bring up another good point. One of the things that the CDs do is they help people operate with the same language, talking the same language and applying the same concepts, so that it’s kind of like if you don’t speak a language and you go to another country and people are talking, you just don’t know what’s going on. I know, I was just in Switzerland a few weeks ago. I only knew about half of what was being said, if that! And so it’s really a way of coming up with a dialog that everybody’s playing with and a language that everyone understands and is all working in the same direction.

So what do you think is the longer-term benefit for the chapter of this work?

Asa:
Well, Ivan, one thing I noticed you say consistently in your talks and on your CDs and in your writing is it’s important for chapters to really instill a culture of education and learning, and that’s one of the things that we’ve seen. Rather than this program being a replacement for our training, it’s really a great supplement. We have more of the members come back through the Members Success Program. They actually sent half of their members through Members Success Program over a two month period, and actually, all of those people had already been, they had already gone one time when they were members; they went again. We have more people going through our advanced training modules. We have people going through the Referral Institute. The chapter actually now does their referrals – and we’re still working on implementing, but a majority of the members now, when they stand up and have a referral, they actually say what level the referral is or the shade of the referral, level of referral from your most recent book, and so they can identify, “This is a Level 7; this is a Level 8; I have a meeting scheduled with somebody.” So not only do they pass better quality referrals, but they let everybody else know the quality of the referral as well.

Ivan:
Nice. Have you seen any other shifts in behavior with the group?

Asa:
They have more fun. They’re always fun chapter, but they have more fun together. They meet socially regularly. Their meetings not only are good business time, but it’s a fun time as well, so they’ve really found a great mix of the whole chapter being friends and still being good business partners. And they seem to have more of a culture of open, honest communication as well. That’s something that this program has fostered, because if something is not of the quality that they want, they seem to be more willing to go up and talk to people about it, help improve the quality of everyone’s referrals.

Ivan:
What you’re talking about is where I often say you have to really immerse and engage in that culture of learning. From what I’m hearing you say is that this is a group that fully immersed in it, improved their communication, decreased bad referrals, increased the quality referrals, and it led to great results. And I love stories like this. I think it’s just so powerful to show how, when you apply the concepts systematically, you get results.

Asa:
Yeah. And for a long time, the largest membership number they had was 31. This is a chapter that kicked off in April of ’03. The highest they ever got was 31 members. They recently broke through that and got up to 35. And then we have our Member Extravaganza, the visitors days, coming up in our region, and they’ve got a ton of momentum for that. So they’re excited about having some new quality members, and now they have a mentor program as well, which has helped – the Fast Track program has helped facilitate so they can help get the new members off the ground.

Ivan:
Well, let’s wrap up with one last question. Let’s go back to the long-term benefit. What do you think the long-term benefits would be for other groups that want to do something like what the Leading Edge chapter in Michigan did?

Asa:
Well, I’m somebody where I’ve got to see the results, and it’s one thing for me to walk into a chapter and say, “Yeah, it’s a good chapter” to a different chapter, but if I’ve got numbers to back it up, that helps me. We have, in the BNI Connect system, for chapters and for directors, and this may be more for the executive directors, a Traffic Light system to show where our chapters are in terms of chapter size, chapter growth, referrals passed per member, visitors, absentee rate, attendance rate, and then converting visitors to members. And prior to doing the Fast Track, they were a yellow light chapter. So there’s green light for really excelling chapters; the yellow light for sort of the middle of the road chapters; and red light, chapters that maybe need a little more help.

They were a yellow light; their score was 55, so they were right in the middle, pretty good chapter. Since doing the Fast Track, their average score went from a 55 to a 75, so on average, a green light chapter, a solid chapter. And actually for April and May, by those statistics, they were the number one chapter in all of Michigan.

Ivan:
Wow!

Asa:
175 chapters. So that, to me, said that there’s something going on here, there’s something that other chapters can benefit from, and it’s night and day difference, just looking at the numbers. Plus it’s just a great chapter to be at. The members like going there; I like visiting. Visitors are warmly received, so it’s good all around.

Ivan:
Well, just for the listeners, though, Traffic Light system that Asa is talking about isn’t implemented everywhere internationally, but you will be seeing it; it is part of the BNI Connect system. So as regions transition to BNI Connect, you’re going to see this Traffic Light system that he’s talking about, and it is a great way, and a quick way, [in] determining where you’re at in the whole system.

So, Asa, I think we’re out of time. I want to thank you very much for doing this today. Any closing comment that you had before I wrap up?

Asa:
I’ve just really enjoyed working with the chapter. It’s fun, as a director, to support a chapter who does immerse and engage in a culture of education and just encourage people, if they’re thinking about getting involved in the program, to listen to some of the other podcasts that have been done about it, definitely get in touch with Flynn and Sarah at del Fuego, who are fantastic, and they’ve got a good support team there to help people if they want to figure out how to get involved in the program.

Ivan:
Do you know the Web site for the Fast Track system?

Asa:
I know BNINetworkingSecrets.com.

Ivan:
So go to BNINetworkingSecrets.com. We put that link on this podcast.

Asa, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to do this with us today.

And I urge BNI members everywhere, go take a look at this. This is a tape series done by a third party, del Fuego, but what’s amazing about what they’re providing is coaching, actual coaching to go along with the CD. So it’s not just a CD, it’s a lot of support.

Asa, thank you so much. I appreciate your help.

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

Priscilla:
Great! Thank you both.

I think that’s it for this week. I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. 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.

The common denominator of successful people is continuous education. The average person’s salary barely keeps up with inflation. Top achievers, who are continually learning and growing, double their income every 3-5 years.

BNI has always immersed its members in a culture of learning. Dr. Misner is pleased to say that iLearning Global has an extremely strong networking curriculum, including many videos he has produced himself.

Even if you don’t want to take advantage of the videos yourself, having the networking videos available raises the visibility of BNI.

Check out the high-resolution 10-minute videos from Dr. Misner and other luminaries at http://www.ilearningglobal.tv/networking/. (This is an affiliate link. All proceeds go to the BNI Foundation.)

Unlimited access to all content on the site costs about $80/month.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 087 -

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’m doing great, Priscilla. We’re a couple of weeks into the new year, and BNI is up and running with many chapters meeting again and really doing well. Of course, you know some chapters don’t take the New Year’s holiday. Not all chapters not only don’t celebrate the various holidays over this time, but New Year’s is a different time of year for some groups.

Priscilla:
That’s right.

Ivan:
About 90 to 95 percent of the organization does celebrate the New Year holidays in one form or another, and so everybody’s pretty much back on track today.

Priscilla:
Well, great. So what do you have to share with us?

Ivan:
Well, I want to talk a little bit about iLearningGlobal.tv, BNI has partnered with iLearning Global to improve members’ lives with really the best professional and personal development education in the world, and it can be done right from members’ computers.

Throughout history, the number one common denominator among all successful people has its roots in continuous education and personal development. Those whose who constantly update their skills become better managers, communicators, sales leaders, negotiators, independent business people, as well as parents, spouses, children, and civic leaders. Continuous education really changes people’s lives.

Here’s a couple of interest facts that I learned recently. The average person will increase their salary by only two to three percent annually. Each year inflation increases by two to three percent, at least over the last ten years or so. Prior to that, it was even much more. That means that without lifelong learning, it’s virtually impossible for the average person to get ahead. Top achievers, people who are continually learning and growing double their income every three to five years. That’s way over the two to three percent a year. This is why the top 10 to 20 percent increase their incomes by an average of 11 percent annually and earn more than the bottom 80 percent of the population. So to separate yourself from the pack, you need to know just one additional skill a month. It’ll make all the difference in your pay scale.

And I’ve been talking about this a long time within BNI, to immerse and engage in a culture of learning. And of course, we primarily focus on networking. We don’t try to be experts on every subject, and iLearning Global does expand beyond networking. I’m pleased to say that they have a really strong networking curriculum. You’ve heard me talk in a number of podcasts that I’ve done and a lot of the articles that I’ve done that we don’t teach networking in college. But I’m really pleased to say that it’s part of the online curriculum at iLearning Global. I’ve recently been asked to join the faculty of iLearning Global, and I’m honored to announce that I now have many downloadable articles, audio recordings, and even several video presentations. The video presentations, in particular, were done specifically for iLearning Global.

So what iLearning Global has done is they’ve brought together top trainers and speakers in all areas of self-development, personal improvement, business training, life skills, tax and financial strategies, as well as many other areas. These are people that most of the listeners would recognize many of these names, Bob Proctor; Brian Tracy; Jay Abraham; John Gray, who wrote Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus; Mark Victor-Hansen, The Chicken Soup for the Soul series; Tony Alessandra, who’s done many books and materials on sales. These are just a few of the people who are on the faculty of iLearning Global, and I’m really, really pleased to say that Brian Tracy, who’s very active in the program, called me personally and asked me, invited me to participate in the faculty.

Now, here’s why that’s important to the members, even those members who say, “Yeah, yeah, that sounds good, but I don’t have time to do it.” Here’s why it’s so important to do it as a BNI member. It builds the BNI brand globally. So here’s an education training online program that people, non-BNI members, are going to go to, and when they go to the networking section, content on networking, BNI is really well represented. So you’re going to see many people who go there and learn about BNI by participating in this education program. But it’s a positive double-edged sword, because as the same time, it enables BNI members to participate and have access to some really good online content that I have done to support them and their BNI members. To me, this is a no-brainer for education coordinators. They really should take a good look at this.

And then beyond that, it also gives them the ability to look at programs for personal self-development as well as professional self-development in many other fields, which we don’t try to focus on. We can’t be all things to all people. Our focus is teaching people how to network, but here with this portal, members have access to many different types of training.

So to see a sample of one of the videos that I recorded for iLearning Global, just a sample, go to www.iLearningGlobal.tv/networking, iLearningGlobal.tv/networking, and you’ll see a splash page that iLearning Global produced for us, specifically for BNI. They produced it. And it is a splash page that explains the program, and you’ll see about a 10 minute video that I produced for iLearning Global, and it’s up there, and it will give you a sample of the kinds of content that is up there.

And then, if you’re interested in participating, you can sign up as a student; you can also sign up as a marketer there, either way. And it’s all right there on that page.

Priscilla:
Now, you said to me earlier that you can actually have a link to your own Web site?

Ivan:
Yes, you can add links, you can create links, you can become what’s called a marketer, and you do receive affiliate fees. To become a marketer is a one-time $20 fee. For that, you can refer people to the program and receive affiliate commission.

Priscilla:
You told me also that BNI has an affiliate connection.

Ivan:
We do, and we usually don’t do the affiliate commission thing, but we have a really important reason why we did it.

Priscilla:
What’s that?

Ivan:
We don’t usually accept affiliate fees on these programs, but we did on this one, and people who sign up either as a student or as a marketer – and to do it as a marketer so that you get affiliate fees cost a one-time $20 fee, and then you’re a marketer and you can refer and get affiliate fees. But the reason that we did it was we’ve decided to donate all the proceeds from our affiliate link to the BNI Foundation.

Priscilla:
Oh, that’s great.

Ivan:
So members who participate in iLearning Global by going to iLearningGlobal.tv/networking and sign up, all the proceeds will be donated to the BNI Foundation to support children in education. And we accepted this affiliate fee because we thought it would be a great opportunity to support the organization’s foundation, a real win-win situation.

Priscilla:
Can you tell us a little bit more about the actual programs? Do you read them, or do you watch them?

Ivan:
Yeah, there’s a little bit of both. I have contributed probably about 30 or 40 items so far. That’ll be tripled in the next six months. They are PDF articles; they are audio MP3s that you can listen to, and there are many, many high resolution, high definition videos. Most of the videos are done in ten minute segments; they’re short bite size kinds of videos that people can watch and learn very quickly. That’s not just with me; that’s with most of the faculty on iLearning Global. I’ve done ten minute segments about the book The 29% Solution, about my book Truth or Delusion, about material from my book The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret. And that’s what most of the other faculty have done as well, pieces from their books and their content.

So short clips of video and then longer audio and PDF articles. It’s a little bit of all of that. And when you sign up for their program, it is unlimited access to everything. The cost as of this date, January ’09, is about $80 a month, and you get unlimited access to all content on the iLearning Global, so there’s no restricted areas, there’s no limit on the number of things that you can look at or download.

And you can actually have more than one person on that account. Let’s say you sign up for your company, there is a limit on the number of people that can access it, but it’s pretty generous at this point where if you have a small company and you want all of your people to go through a training, you can have them access it and pick up content on sales and marketing and help your sales departments.

Priscilla:
That’s great. And if you have an iPhone, you can download it and watch it while you’re in line at the market, right?

Ivan:
Yes, I’m pretty sure that that’s downloadable to mobile devices. And it’s one of the things that was important to them. I haven’t actually tested it myself, but I’ve been told that if you have Internet access on your mobile device, you can view things right from there.

Priscilla:
Oh, great. Well, that sounds wonderful. Do you have anything else you’d like to share before we end this podcast?

Ivan:
Well, I believe iLearning Global has discovered the future of online self-development, education and training. I’m really pleased to be part of it. I’m honored to be on the faculty. This really, I think, dovetails well into BNI’s focus on education and training, and the more our BNI members immerse and engage in a culture of learning, starting with networking, which is our expertise, and in this program, expanded to other areas of self-development, I think the stronger the chapters will be.

Last week’s podcast, I talked about Raising the Bar in 2009. That’s our theme. And, to me, this goes hand in glove with that theme. Part of the way to Raise the Bar, part of the way to have a great year when everyone else is retrenching is to immerse and engage in that culture of learning. And iLearning Global, I think, is a great partner for the BNI system, and the money goes to the Foundation. It’s just a win-win-win all the way around.

Priscilla:
Well, that sounds just wonderful. Well, thank you, Dr. Misner.

I think that we’ve run out of time for this week, but I’d 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 will 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.

Ben Franklin once said, “If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the highest return.”

Most people only pay lip service to education. Dr. Misner is convinced this is the reason that 50% of businesses fail in their first three years. Success requires that you embrace a culture of learning and work on your business.

Action Item

Look at your financials. What have you spent for ongoing business education? How much time have you spent on free educational resources like this podcast?

If you don’t have a regular commitment to educational activities, go out and attend a seminar, subscribe to a podcast, or read a book.

If you go to Networking Now and enter the code “referralinstitute” you’ll get six months’ free membership.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 076 -

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 working dowloadables.

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, Priscilla. Thank you.

Priscilla:
Where are you today?

Ivan:
Well, I just got back from the U.S. membership drive. All of the winners from the membership drive got to go to Orlando, Florida, and I spent several days there. It was a great event. And this week I am visiting regions in Maryland and northern Virginia and other areas of Virginia as part of the book tour, and doing presentations regionally.

So, having a good time; having a chance to meet lots of BNI members. It’s great.

Priscilla:
It sounds like fun. Well, tell us about this Emptying Your Purse into Your Head.

Ivan:
It’s a great phrase, and actually, I’m quoting Ben Franklin with this. And Franklin once said that, “If a man empties his purse into his head” – I guess they had purses back in the 1700s – “If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the highest return.”

And I love that concept, and it really fits with what we’re doing with these podcasts.

Here’s the thing. Most business people that I have found pay lip service to education, maybe not the listeners to this podcast, because they’re actually taking the time to listen to the podcast and so they’re not paying lip service to it. But I think most people would agree that when you’re talking about education, everybody says, “Yeah, it’s real important,” but when people take the time consistently to listen to podcasts or to read blogs or to read books or listen to CDs, many people often don’t. So, I’m talking about the average business professionally. If you ask a group of business people if they’d be willing to attend a seminar on networking, three-quarters of the room would raise their hand and say, “Oh, yeah.” If you said, “Okay, it’s four weeks from tomorrow at 7:00 p.m.,” only a handful will actually sign up.

I teach management and business at local universities in Southern California, and it used to surprise me when I heard that 50 percent of all businesses fail in their first three years. Now that I have been in business for several decades and have seen a lot of entrepreneurs come and go, I’m a little surprised that 50 percent actually make it past three years, because many of them don’t spend time focusing on education for their business so that they improve.

Now, maybe I’m being a little harsh, but I don’t think too harsh. One thing that I’ve learned is that most successful business professionals embrace a culture of learning in order to excel. Personal and professional self-development is a journey, not a destination. It’s something that it’s always a work in progress. And oftentimes, business people get so caught up working in their business that the forget to spend time working on their business. Part of working on a business is one’s professional development.

With that in mind, here’s an action I would give to all the listeners of this podcast. Take a few minutes, look at your financials or your checkbook or your credit card statement for the last year. What have you spent for any type of ongoing business education? If you aren’t emptying some of your purse into your head, take a few minutes to think about what you need to learn to help build your business and sign up for something this week. Don’t put it off any longer. It doesn’t have to cost money. This podcast is free. I talk about this on one of my blogs at NetworkingEntrepreneur.com, I talk about emptying your purse into your head, and somebody got on and they left a message saying, “Well, you don’t have to actually empty your entire purse into your head. There’s material like this blog, and there’s other free stuff on the Internet.” Yeah, okay. Don’t take it literal.

Franklin didn’t mean to spend every penny you have on education, but he just meant if you spend money on education, it is money well spent. So I’m not suggesting you mortgage your house and go out and take programs. I’m suggesting you spend an appropriate amount of money learning how – and if you don’t have any budget at all today, there is so much free material on the Internet like this podcast and my blog and other things. But still, you’re going to have to take time. And guess what? Time is money.

Priscilla:
Exactly.

Ivan:
So one way or another, you are going to either spend money or spend time doing this. I think something that really successful business people understand is that if you want to earn more, you have to learn more. And, of course, reading or listening to this podcast regularly is a good start. It wouldn’t hurt.

Priscilla:
I think that’s true, and you don’t have to spend money. You can go to a library. There’s a library in our BNI group, actually, and we share books. You can share audio tapes. You can download podcasts, all kinds of things that are free.

Ivan:
There are a lot of things free. I’m going to do this right off the cuff. I hadn’t planned on doing this. But here’s a Web site that people can go to that I’m affiliated with, and it’s the one that sponsors this podcast, and it’s NetworkingNow.com. I’m going to give the listeners a code, and this code will give them six months free membership on NetworkingNow.com. They can get literally hundreds of PDF downloadables and audio presentations by me and other people. NetworkingNow.com. Here’s the free coupon code; it’s all one word: referralinstitute, all lowercase, one word, so no space in between; referralinstitute. So when they go to NetworkingNow.com, there’s a coupon code, punch that in, six months free. They will need to give a credit card to confirm they are who they are, but if they cancel at 5 months and 29 days, they’ll never, ever be billed. And tons of stuff that they can have for free at NetworkingNow.com, plus my blog at NetworkingEntrepreneur.com and, of course, this podcast, which they’re listening to now.

Priscilla:
That sounds great. Thank you, Ivan. That’s very generous.

Ivan:
My pleasure.

Priscilla:
I think we’ve almost run out of time. Do you have anything else you’d like to say?

Ivan:
No. If the listeners of the podcast want to read some more material about this, there’s a blog that I did at Networking Entrepreneur in September of ’08 that they can go listen to and comment on as well.

Priscilla:
Okay, great. Well, thank you.

I’d like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the Net for working 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.