International Networking Week will take place February 6-10, 2012. There are events around the world, focused on bringing people together to network with each other.

Visit www.internationalnetworkingweek.com to find out more or watch our YouTube video:

You don’t have to have a big event to recognize International Networking Week. We recommend Meeting Stimulant #41: Bring one of your best clients to a BNI meeting. This person doesn’t have to be a prospective BNI member. The idea is to strengthen relations between you and your client.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 240 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan. How are you and where are you?

Ivan:
Hi Priscilla. I am doing great. This week, I am with my Executive Management Team. I bring the Executive Management Team together from all over the world together a couple times a year to talk about where BNI is going. That’s what we are doing over the next several days. We’ll be doing strategic planning. Every company needs to spend time looking at what they as an organization want to do. This is one of those times that I do that with BNI.

Priscilla:
That’s great. So are you going to share with us?

Ivan:
Well, I would like to talk about International Networking Week. It’s a little bit early. It’s a couple of weeks before International Networking Week, but I wanted to give a heads up to all the BNI members. International Networking Week for 2012 is February 6-10. We are about a week and a half away, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up about it, so you can go into your BNI meetings prepared for International Networking Week.

For anyone who would like some additional information about it, there is a website, www.InternationalNetworkingWeek.com. International Networking Week will feature some events around the world. The goal for International Networking Week is to celebrate the key role that networking plays in the success and development of businesses around the world. The focus for these events will be to bring people together- business officials, even government officials, the community to network with each other and understand the benefits of good networking.

The big events will have speakers and International Networking Week is open to all people. It’s an initiative of BNI. IT’s our initiative, but it is open to all people. If you are not doing a big event in your region, we invite you to make sure that you are meeting the week of February 6 and that you talk about International Networking Week.

There is a video up on the BNI official channel of YouTube. You can also get to that video by going to InternationalNetworkingWeek.com. It’s about a 9 minute video. I would recommend if you have the ability to show the video at a meeting that would be great. If not, that’s fine. It’s a great concept. We talk about- I’ve got people on the video with me, Frank Giraffle and Hazel Walker, who co-wrote with me Business Networking and Sex, the book about gender. They talk about the material in there.

So this is a great opportunity. We would love for BNI chapters all around the world to make sure and recognize that week. One of the things that we are recommending you do for International Networking Week 2012 is to utilize meeting stimulant #41. That is bring one of your best clients to a BNI meeting. That’s why I wanted to do this podcast early. I wanted to just let everybody know that this is a great opportunity to bring clients to your meeting during International Networking Week.

We all know that it’s good to bring visitors because they add significant value to a chapter. We talkned about that, a little bit about that with the podcast we did with Linda Macedonio. So it’s very important to bring people in and it’s a great week to do it. We recommend that you find one of your best clients and invite them. They don’t have to be a prospective member. That’s important for this. Generally, visitors really should be prospective members. But here, they want you to bring in your best clients just to show another side of what you do. We want to give members an opportunity to show their clients how BNI networks.

We want to be able to strengthen the relationship between members and their clients. We want to create increased networking opportunities for everybody. That’s what this meeting stimulant is all about. It also gives members a way to say thanks to one of their best clients and publicly recognize them, so I would recommend that you bring in that client, and when you have a chance to introduce them, say, “This is my client. I love working with them. They are great and here is their business.” Then give them a chance to speak, just as a visitor would normally do.

Again, it’s meeting stimulant #41, so we can put an attachment in the podcast so you can see the whole meeting stimulant there. What I would suggest you do is take it to your chapter president and see if they would do that. You have enough time still before International Networking Week. Do that in your chapter.

We will literally have thousands of events all over the world. Big events and then regular chapter meetings where we are recognizing International Networking Week.

Priscilla:
Well, that sounds great. Dr. Misner, you are my best client, so I was wondering if you could come to my chapter that day.

Ivan:
I love it. I’ll tell you what, I’ll do a webcam with you.

Priscilla:
Really?

Ivan:
Absolutely. Any time

Priscilla:
Oh that would be very cool. Okay. I will have to see about that.

Ivan:
It would be my pleasure. A lot of regions are doing big events. We had over a hundred big events last year, where the region would do a big breakfast meeting or a lunch or evening meeting. We have had thousands and thousands of people go to the big events, and then, of course, thousands of regular BNI meetings. You don’t have to have a big event to recognize International Networking Week. I think a regular BNI meeting is great. Just do something special that week and bring in your best client.

Thank you for saying I am one of your best clients. I appreciate that.

Priscilla:
Definitely.

Ivan:
That’s all I have for today, Priscilla. Thank you.

Priscilla:
Okay good. Well, 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. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

Please take a look at the new video for International Networking Week, 2010. Make sure to share it with your Chapter. (You can get the HD version by going directly to YouTube.)

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.

Dr. Misner has just returned from BNI’s global conference in Malaysia to tell us about BNI’s traditions. In this episode, we hear about the first half of the chapter; the second have comes in Episode 59.

The Mission of BNI

Any discussion of BNI’s traditions has to begin with the mission: to help members increase their business through a structured, positive, and professional word-of-mouth program that enables them to develop long-term, meaningful relationships with quality business professionals. It’s important to remember that because people often suggest that BNI should be doing other things, which are good things, but not part of the mission.

The Philosophy

BNI accomplishes its mission through the philosophy of “Givers Gain:” when you contribute to the success of others, that will contribute to you. That’s why every new member gets a copy of the book. Dr. Misner illustrates this with a story of a prize-winning Nebraska farmer who won the State Fair four years in a row by giving away his specially developed seed to his neighbor.

Training and Education

This is one of the most important traditions of BNI. BNI spends hundreds of thousands of person-hours a year training members, and that’s one of the main reasons BNI is the world’s most successful networking association. Participate in as many trainings as possible.

Keeping the Fun in the Fundamentals

Never forget about having fun. Chapters that have fun are always the strongest. Meeting stimulants can really help with this. Try the NAT Radio exercise, or the candy bar exercise. Talk to your leadership team if you’re not familiar with these.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 058 -

Priscilla Rice:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the official BNI Podcast brought to you by Networkingnow.com the leading sight on the net for networking downloadables. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California. I’m joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, it’s so nice to have you on the phone today.

Ivan Misner:
Hi Priscilla, it’s great to be on. I just got back from BNI’s global conference in Malaysia, and what an incredible experience it was. Hundreds and hundreds of BNI members from dozens of countries from around the world were there. Members, whenever you see conferences like this, take a good look at them, because it’s a good way to network with people worldwide.

Priscilla:
Wow, you’ve been doing a lot of traveling.

Ivan:
Yes, it comes with the territory. We’re now in almost 40 countries.

Priscilla:
Wow! What are you going to share with us today?

Ivan:
Today I’m going to talk about my absolute favorite chapter in the book, Givers Gain. Listeners of the podcast know that I’ve been going through the book chapter by chapter, Givers Gain and talking about different elements of the book so that you have something to go along with as you’re reading it. My personal take on what’s in the book as you go through and read it. This one chapter 10, BNI Traditions, is really my favorite chapter. So much so that I’m going to take two episodes to cover this one. I’m going to go through the first half of chapter10, BNI Traditions, in this episode and then next week I’ll be covering the second half.

I want to talk a little about the basic culture of BNI, the philosophy, the mission. Then I want to talk about the philosophy, Givers Gain, and then I want to talk about training and education. If time permits, I would like to talk a little about keeping the fun in the fundamentals in this particular episode. Let’s get started with the mission of the organization. I think we keep the culture of BNI alive by constantly training and retraining members and leadership teams on the organization and the traditions. It is one of the things that really sets this organization aside from other companies. I think any discussion of the traditions has to begin with the mission of the organization. The mission of BNI is to help members increase their business through a structured, positive and professional word of mouth program that enables them to develop long term meaningful relationships with quality business professionals. I think that’s key. One of the reasons it’s important to know that is, often times many people think BNI should be doing this or should be doing that. For example, here’s one I get a lot. We should be teaching people how to be better speakers. That’s a great mission. But that’s Toastmasters mission. That’s not BNI’s mission. Toastmaster’s does it better than we do and they probably always will.

We’ve been very good about staying on mission. Our mission is to help people increase business through a structured word of mouth marketing program. That’s it. We do that with a philosophy that is really, really powerful, so powerful that we named this book by that philosophy. The central philosophy of BNI has pretty much from day one been the concept of Givers Gain. If I give you business, you’ll give me business and we’ll all do better as a result of it. It’s based on the social capital theory of the law of reciprocity, that by working together we all support and help one another. That philosophy pretty much evolved from the very beginning. The first year or so we didn’t use that expression. We have a corny saying, this unwritten loyalty of we promise that we would refer each other. It evolved into this idea of Giver’s Gain, that by giving to other people, by contributing to their success, they’ll contribute to you. This is a great story in Giver’s Gain and if you have a chance and you’re listening to this podcast, pick up the book. Any body who’s gone through MSP Training or the new member orientation training should get a copy of this book. See your director if you don’t not have one and you’ve gone through that training.

There’s a great story in there about a farmer in Nebraska. For those of you outside the United States, Nebraska is the heartland of the United States. There’s a lot of farming in Nebraska. He won the State Fair four times in a row. Priscilla, do you know, what’s Nebraska most well known for growing? Any guesses?

Priscilla:
I’m going to say cattle?

Ivan:
No, corn. Nebraska corn. Now, this particular guy won the State Fair in Nebraska four times in a row, which is unheard of. Nobody’s ever done that. The newspaper sent someone out to interview him. The reporter asked, ” What’s your secret, do you have any special corn seed?” The farmer said, “Absolutely, I develop my very own corn seed.” The reporter said ,” OK, so that’s your secret. You developed your own corn seed.” And the farmer said,” No, no not particularly.” The reporter said, “I don’t understand.” The farmer said, “Well, I develop my own seed and then I give it to my neighbors.” The reporter said, “Excuse me. You develop your own seed and you give it to your neighbors? Why would you give it to your neighbors?” The reporter was incredulous. Why in the world would you give your award winning corn seed to your neighbors? The farmer said,” You don’t understand how corn is pollinated. It’s pollinated from neighboring fields. And if you’ve got fields around you that don’t have top quality corn, then your fields not going to grow top quality corn. But if my neighbors field has really strong corn, then I will have awesome corn. That’s how I won the Nebraska State Fair four years in a row. ” I thought that was a powerful story, that by helping people around you do better, you will do better. That is the BNI story. It is a perfect metaphor for how this organization works. It is truly the power of the philosophy of Givers Gain. The building a business to referral networking is truly more about farming than it is hunting. You’ve heard me say that over and over again. But it’s very true and it’s a great story to go with it.

Let me jump into two other things quickly. One of the traditions of our organization is the tradition of training and education. One of the most important BNI traditions is our commitment to training. We spend hundreds of thousands of person hours a year, Priscilla. Literally, hundreds of thousands of person hours a year training leadership teams and directors, BNI staff, membership committee’s, visitor hosts…if you add up all the training we do for all the people in this organization every year, it adds up to hundreds of thousands of person hours. It’s really amazing and it’ one of the reasons why BNI is the worlds leading referral marketing organization. We are that because of the amount of training we do to tell people to learn how to do this, because this isn’t taught in college. Training in education is the key. If you’re in a leadership role in BNI, I know it’s a commitment to go to that training but listen, that’s what sets BNI aside from the other organizations. Participate in as many trainings as possible because it will make your chapter stronger.

Priscilla:
I agree. It’s good too. It’s very valuable information.

Ivan:
It really is. Virtually all the trainings we do are free other than the cost of the meeting location. So it’s a great way to learn how to do this better.

I want to give one more before I wrap up, and that’s the tradition of keeping the fun in the fundamentals. You’ve got to keep the fun in the fundamentals if you want to be successful. I’ve been a real believer in system and structure and following the program, but at one point in the process I looked back and I said you know what? I’ve been so focused on the system and structure and everybody following the program that I forgot to talk about having fun. What I’ve learned is, the chapters that learn how to have fun are the stronger chapters. I know I’m in a great group, when they run a BNI meeting, and they run it very well, and I walk out and my cheeks hurt from laughing so much. I know I’ve got a great group then. There a lot of ways you can do that., that you can have fun.

One of the ways I recommend are the meeting stimulants. We have some great meeting stimulants, and I’m not talking about good drugs. I’m talking about exercises that people can do like different ways of doing the sixty second introduction or different exercises before the meeting starts. One of my favorites is the talk show, NET Radio where the president is the DJ and all the members have a sixty second commercial. Not a fifty second commercial, not a minute and ten second commercial, but a sixty second commercial. So if they do thirty seconds, you have thirty seconds of dead air. OK, thirty seconds, now lets just pause. OK that was three seconds…so thirty seconds of dead air. I’ve never seen so many good sixty second commercials in my entire life. People will do the person on the street interview and they’ll interview other members, and they come in with jingles and bumper music. Wow, they have a lot of fun with that.

There’s so many others besides the NET Radio that are really strong. There’s the candy bar exercise where you actually come in with some candy bar and you do a presentation based on the candy bar. There’s the industry trends that’s a very interesting exercise. We have forty or fifty of these. And so if you’ve never heard of what I’m talking about, talk to your chapter leadership team. Talk to your BNI director and get a list of the meeting stimulants. One of the earliest ones, is a card in the basket, where everybody puts a card in. They reach in and pull a card out, and whomever’s card they pull out, they do that persons sixty second presentation. What a blast that is. I could spend an hour just talking about how to keep the fun in the fundamentals, but I don’t have it. Take a look at this chapter and really read this section on keeping the fun in the fundamentals, because the best BNI chapters not only have system and structure, but they’re having a blast.

OK, I’ve run out of time. Next week we’re going to cover Part 2 of chapter 10, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
OK, good. I think we have run out of time, otherwise I would tell you what my favorite meeting stimulant is.

Ivan:
Why not throw it in there. What is it, what’s your favorite one?

Priscilla:
OK. My favorite one is when you make up a family and each person who goes around the room has to describe their business as to how they can help that particular family. We’ve had so much fun with that.

Ivan:
I think it might be meeting stimulant #1 and it might be meeting stimulant #20. I’m going to tell you a secret here OK? I’ve never told this to, well, I’ve told individuals, but I’ve never publicly told this. It’s the Richard and Lynette story. The first one is they’re about to get married and the second version is they’re married and have three kids. Here’s something, a little point of interest, it’s the middle names of my whole family. Richard is my middle name, Lynette is Elizabeth, my wife’s middle name, who I met in BNI. And all the names of the kids in the stories are my kids middle names. We just threw that in there to have a little bit of fun. A little trivia for your best meeting stimulant. That is a great one by the way.

Priscilla:
Yes, it’s a really fun one. OK I think that’s it for this week. Thank you listeners for joining us. I just want to remind you that this podcast has been brought to you by Networkingnow.com which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we hope you’ll join us next week for another great episode of the Official BNI Podcast.

His October 8th Blog At www.NetworkingEntrepreneur.com

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

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

BNI Chapters Should Try This Idea At Their Meetings!

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

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 028 -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The Meaning of “Hidden Elements”

That The Term Actually Originated In The Martial Arts

The Visitor Host Position Was Not Dr. Misner’s Idea

How The Visitor Host Position Was Created

Why It Is So Important To Make Visitors Feel Welcome

More Hidden Elements To Come In Future Podcasts

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 016 -

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

Ivan Misner:
I am doing great. It is a great day at headquarters and I am really enjoying doing these podcasts with you, Frank. I think we’re covering a lot of good content that is helping members all over the world.

Frank:
I’m glad to hear it. I’m certainly enjoying it a great deal myself, and based on the feedback that we’ve been getting on the site, you and I are not alone. There are a lot of other people who are enjoying it as well all around the world.

Ivan:
All over the world. People from different countries. We had a posting from someone in Germany who said he has to play it slowly so that he can understand the English, but he is making it out and is using it in his chapter. That is really exciting to see.

Frank:
That will be our goal for next year. We will have it in French, German, Spanish, you name it.

Ivan:
It’s good to have goals.

Frank:
I understand that you have an important message for us today about hidden elements.

Ivan:
Hidden elements is actually a martial arts expression. It comes from katas. But it is a series of imaginary moves against one or more opponents. You go through these katas or forms- in the Chinese style they are called forms. You’ve probably seen tai chi, where people are doing these martial art forms out in a park somewhere. There are aspects of what they do in the form that are actually hidden. You don’t fully understand what it is they’re doing. I will explain this more in a future podcast.

What it amounts to is that what you are seeing may seem obvious but it’s not. Until you fully understand the moves, you don’t fully understand what is taking place. Something happened with me in martial arts a number of years ago, where I walked out of a private lesson and that really clicked with me, the fact that there are aspects of the martial arts you really don’t understand unless somebody points it out and shows you exactly how it’s supposed to be used.

I have seen that in BNI for many years where people thought that they knew what they were doing. They were going through the motions and they thought that they understood how a meeting was supposed to run, but the truth is they really didn’t understand it and master it until the process was explained to them fully.

Frank:
I knew that you practiced tai chi, but I didn’t realize that you are a martial artist.

Ivan:
I actually have a first degree black belt in karate and do a little bit of tai chi now. My wife is now studying tai chi and I’m learning it from her. The martial arts have these hidden elements.

I started thinking about when I saw chapters who really understood that it wasn’t just a matter of going through the motions. One of the first things in the BNI agenda that is part of the hidden elements is the visitor host. A visitor host is a great example of the power of this concept of the hidden elements.

If you’re just going through the motions with the visitor host, it’s not terribly effective. A lot of people may not know the history behind visitor hosts. I am not sure if you know the history or not. There’s a good story in the book, Givers Gain, that I recommend people take a look at.

The visitor host position was not created by me. When I started BNI in 1985, I figured if you invited somebody, you should be the host. Truth is that over time, I learned that if nobody was in charge, that is exactly who took charge. It was nobody. We had problems with visitors.

I found out about the visitor host when we had a woman who called BNI headquarters and we referred her to a chapter. I happen to be at that chapter that week and I had an opportunity to meet her and introduce her to a couple of members. Then I went to a membership committee problem that was going on and it turned out that nobody really connected with her very well. At the end of the meeting I went back into the membership committee issue and she left because no one was talking to her.

I ran into her a couple months later and asked her how BNI was going. She said she didn’t join the chapter. I was really surprised because she was so excited about joining. And I said I was really surprise that she didn’t join BNI. She said she joined BNI, but just didn’t join that chapter. And I thought why? I’m surprised. Why did she join another group? And I asked her which group.

She joined a group that was nearby that had half the number of members. The chapter that she was at the week that I was there had 32 members. The chapter that she joined had sixteen members. Does that seem odd to you? If you’re going to join a chapter, you think you would join the larger chapter. She joined a group that was only sixteen members. I asked her why and she said that nobody at the other group really reached out to her other than me and I wasn’t a member.

No one reached out to her. Those were the words that she used. I will never forget that. She went to a BNI meeting and says that nobody reached out to me? I said how did this group differ? She said, “Let me tell you how it differed. I walked into the room and there was this woman wearing this badge and below the badge was a ribbon that said visitor host.”

I said, “It said what?”

She said, “It said visitor host.”

I said I’m the Founder and I don’t know what that is. She described what the visitor host was and how she walked around and introduced her to everybody. There was another person with another badge that said visitor host and how they took her card and introduced her to the president, and the president knew who she was. Then the president introduced her in the meeting.

After that meeting, they met with her again and did a really good orientation and gave her an application and explained how BNI worked. They said, “Press firmly- there’s a copy.” and she said she did. She said they were so organized and the people were so nice.

Frank:
What a great story. It just makes so much sense that people said this is something we need to do so let’s do it ourselves.

Ivan:
Yes. There was a hole. There was something missing without someone being in charge. So they created this whole position called the visitor host and it was really effective. She told me that this chapter of sixteen members within six months was going to be larger than the 32 member group. I said I don’t know this other group has been around long time and they’re not going to go down in size.

Who you think is wrong six months later? The Founder was wrong six months later. She was absolutely right. The chapter that she had just joined had actually grown to over 30 members, and the group that she didn’t join because they didn’t reach out to her had dropped below twenty. I think that was because they weren’t connecting with people.

This is the first in the agenda of the hidden elements. If a chapter gets this right, if they just don’t go through the motions but they really understand that it’s all about making the visitor feel welcome and doing a thorough orientation, the results that they get are disproportionately positive. With just a little more effort, they get substantial results. It is the first of the many hidden elements that I would like to talk with you about, Frank. over the next year in the course of these podcasts.

Frank:
That’s just what I was about to say. We’re just about out of time in this podcast, but is this an ongoing theme that we can expect to hear more from you about going forward- hidden elements?

Ivan:
I would like to. There’s probably about six to ten hidden elements – if it’s possible to have something obvious and hidden. They are the more dramatic hidden elements in an agenda. I think over the next year, maybe once a month, I would like to talk touch upon one of the hidden elements in the meeting and go into more detail as to how to master that so that a little more effort yields huge results. I think it would make a great topic for education coordinators over the next year.

Frank:
I can see where the hidden elements become more obvious overtime, Grasshopper.

Ivan:
(laughing) Yeah, you’re not very good at that, Frank.

Frank:
You’re right. I will leave the Kung Fu analogies to you. For Dr. Ivan Misner, I am Frank Felker saying we will see you next week on the official BNI podcast.

1: Provide You With Referrals

2: Introduce You To Prospects

3: Endorse Your Products and Services with Testimonials

4: Display Your Literature and Products in Their Homes and Offices

5: Distribute Your Information

6: Publish Information About You

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 015 -

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 BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from BNI headquarters in sunny southern California. How are you, Ivan?

Ivan Misner:
Slugging through the heat here, Frank, but doing great.

Frank:
Actually, the weather here has just been unusually charming. Today is 72° with low humidity. It is hard to believe that I’m actually living here in the swamplands of the Potomic area.

Ivan:
Some people say that southern California doesn’t have four seasons, but we do. We have earthquakes, riots, mudslides and fires.

Frank:
Which one of those seasons do Christmas and the holidays fall into?

Ivan:
We are not experiencing any of those right now.

Frank:
Oh, that is good. I wanted to ask you a question today, Ivan. A lot of times, especially for small business owners, friends and family members will say what can I do to help you? How can I help you to provide your business? It’s often difficult for small business owners to know the answer is, other than hey come do some business with me. What would be your answer to that question?

Ivan:
There are six ways that others can help promote your business. Certainly this is good material for BNI of course, but I think it’s good for anyone in business at all. Here are the six ways, and if you have any comments along the way, please feel free to chime in.

First and foremost, they can provide you with referrals, the support we would like most from families, business associates and neighbors. That would be a referral. That is the best, but it is not the only way. We certainly talk about that in BNI a lot, but there are other ways that business associates or friends and family members can help.

Number one is referrals but number two is that they can introduce you to prospects. Your contacts can help you build new relationships faster by introducing you to people that they believe could use your services or think that they would make a good contact for you. This can be done easily at any business event that you might be at where they act as the connector and put you face to face with someone else. It doesn’t have to be for any specific purpose. They don’t have to say that I think this person could use your products or services. But it is a way of making an initial connection with somebody else.

They can endorse your products or services by telling others what they have gained from using your products or services at presentations or informal conversations. Or they could send endorsement letters of some sort that you can use in your marketing material or your website. I think that’s really positive.

Fourth, they can display your literature and products in their offices or their homes. This I think is a great idea that is not done very often. Items are displayed nicely on a counter or on a bulletin board in a waiting room. Here at BNI headquarters, we have a board of all of the contractors and people that we use a lot. We have all of their business cards right here as you walk in the front door.

Here is something a little crazy that I did. It was great. It was awesome. When I bought a new house a few years ago, we got a lot of work done on the house. Of course, it was the house that BNI did. All of the carpeting and contractor work – everything – was done by BNI members. The gardening, landscaping. When I did the open house, I did something probably a little unusual. I had a table out in the backyard with all of the contractors and people who helped – the painters, the people that we buy products from – I had all of their business cards and literature out on a table so that people who were at the open house could see who did a lot of the work of the house.

It was really funny, Frank. A guy told me about this later. His wife said to him –she wasn’t in BNI. Ashe was in a nonprofit organization. She said isn’t that a little unusual at an open house, to have business cards promotinh other people? He said, you don’t know this guy. He runs a networking organization so that is what he’s all about.

There’s nothing wrong with that. I think it’s great to help promote other people in that way. I know for a fact that I got some of those people business that day because of the work that they did. So displaying their literature is important. They can distribute your information. Your contacts can distribute your marketing materials, for instance. The dry cleaner can attach a coupon from the hair salon next door in the plastic bag that they are using to cover the customer’s clothes. There are many different ways of distributing someone else’s material along with yours that would help them.

The sixth is that they can publish information for you. Contacts may be able to get information about you and your business in publications they subscribe to. Here is one – a lot of people like to write articles. If they are able to find avenues for your articles, that is a way of helping to get you published.

There are six different ways that people can help you. To provide you with referrals is clearly number one. Number two is introduce you to prospects. Three is endorse your products and services. Four is display your literature and products in their offices and homes. Five is distribute your information for you. Six is publish your information.

Frank:
I have a couple of questions. First off, I think even Sam Schwartz in his recent podcast with touched on the idea that sometimes members of your family and close friends and so forth see you as whoever they knew you growing up as, whether it is their college beer party buddy or whatever. It’s more difficult for them to perceive you as a legitimate business person. The old saying the prophet is not without honor save in his own home type thing.

Do you ever run into a problem with that? Do you have a response to the idea that some people who are really close to you and know you very personally may be hesitant to refer business to you because they see you as a different person than you are as the owner of your business?

Ivan:
Absolutely. That is an appropriate concern. I believe that one of the best ways to get around that is to have an open house for your business at some point and invite people to your business. We were talking about an open house from my home, but here, I am talking about the business. You want to make sure that those people and family members are there who would be willing to support you in some way but they just don’t know how because it’s a little hard to see you as a professional that you have grown into.

That is probably one of the best things to do. Ironically, that kind of thing has led me to not only have some family members be able to refer me, but I have employees who are family members working in BNI headquarters. And I was the little kid! But the only way that that ever happened was for them to come to see the business and see the professional nature of it. That would be my recommendation.

Frank:
That makes a lot of sense. Another thing that I have learned various times in the past is that it’s sometimes difficult to do business with friends and family members. It almost seems like every time you do, that is the deal or the project that just blows up in everybody’s face for whatever reason.

Ivan:
You know, you hear that a lot. I have done business with a lot of family. I have family who work for me. I have always been really candid with family that you don’t get any special breaks just being family. As a matter of fact, my poor kids probably have it harder time than anybody who works here because I’ve had my kids work part time, especially over this summers. It is probably harder on them than on any one else because they have to work twice as hard to look just as good. I don’t cut any deals in terms of family working for me.

Regarding your question, if you are doing a job (that blows up) for someone in your family, that can be ugly. You are absolutely right, but that could be ugly for anyone that you’re close to whether its family or not. There is truly a good side and bad side of a referral. If you do a good job, people are going to talk about you, and if you do a bad job, it will be the worst. So you want to make sure that you do a great job whenever you are working through a referral, whether it be a family member or anyone else.

You have to do a good job for your referral partners because if you don’t do a good job for them, they’re not going to continue to refer you. You need to knock yourself out for referral partners in order for them to continue to refer you.

Frank:
That is a great, great point.

Ivan:
Well, if anything goes wrong and sometimes things do go wrong, then you have to make it right. That is really important. Listen. Mistakes happen. They occur. It’s how well you resolve the problem that makes the difference between marginal service and outstanding service.

Frank:
Well we’re just about out of time for this week’s podcast. Is there any last pearl of wisdom that you would like to share with the listeners this week?

Ivan:
Just one quick thing. It may take awhile, but if you select and train your referral sources well and you use the system to its best advantage in referral development, you will really speed up the process of turning those connections into referrals for your business. It’s not just the referral that is useful for your business but there are other things that people can do that can lead to business down the road.

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

• How the First BNI Chapter Was Founded
• The First Meeting Agenda Was Typed on An IBM Selectric
• Many of The 12 People Who Were At The First Meeting Are Still BNI Members
• BNI Was Originally Called “The Network”
• The Concept of “Contact Spheres”

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 014 -

Frank Felker:
Hello everybody and welcome back to the official BNI podcast brought to you by networkingnow.com, the networking downloadables. I’m Frank Felker in Washington DC joined on the phone today by Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner, calling in from Vancouver, British Columbia. How are you today, Ivan?

Ivan Misner:
If I were doing any better, Frank, it would be illegal.

Frank:
I don’t know how much better that would have to be or what that would entail so I will just leave that alone. You know, I was wondering-. All those years ago in 1985 – 22 years ago – could you imagine that BNI would come to be the size and scope that it is today?

Ivan:
I would like to tell you that I had this vision of an international organization with almost 5000 chapters in three dozen countries around the world, but the truth is I was looking for some referrals for my consulting practice and to help some friends and business associates of mine. That’s really how the organization got rolling. I think it’s a great medium for what I wanted to talk about today which is chapter two of the book, Givers Gain.

For the listeners and BNI members who are listening to this podcast, Givers Gain, the BNI story is given to every BNI member for free at the member success program training. It is called different things in different countries but generally it is orientation training, and new member training. Every member who attends that training gets a free copy of this book.

If you didn’t get a copy and you’ve been a member for a few years, that may be why. We started handing this out about two or three years ago in the United States and in some countries just this year. Go back to an MSP training and you’ll get a copy of the book.

I would like to talk about chapter two today if we can, Frank, which is really how the first chapter got started. Chapter one we talked about in a previous podcast and chapter two is about how the first group kicked off. It kicked off because I was a management consultant. My doctorate award is in organizational behavior.

I was working with companies in hiring training and evaluating employees and personal policy procedures- that kind of thing. I had a big client who was due to renew their contract and all of the sudden, I found myself with a very large contract not being renewed and a significant source of income lost. I was looking for ways to generate more business fairly quickly. I got most of my business through speaking engagements on the rubber chicken circuit and referrals.

The thing is I wanted to create something that was a little more structured in the process. And I had to do something very quickly. I sat down and tried to put together something that I felt was organized, structured, and had accountability (because that is important) but yet had some flexibility and focused on developing friendships.

That is how we put the first group together. We literally sat down together at an IBM electric typewriter and typed up the agenda if you can believe that. Frank, you’re probably too young to remember the IBM electric typewriter.

Frank:
No, I remember that. I remember them very well. They had that little ball in the middle.

Ivan:
Back then I typed Columbus style. Do you know what that is?

Frank:
No, I don’t.

Ivan:
It is to seek out and discover. I typed up this agenda and photocopied the agenda and that was the only material that we had. To date, a lot of members don’t know this, but we actually have a 900 page set volume of manuals for BNI directors. Of course, leadership teams get dozens of pages. Then, it was a one page agenda.

I really created a group that was built around the idea of mutual benefit. The concept that our first duty would really be to help other people in the group and by doing that, they helped us. That was what led to the phrase “givers gain” being used in BNI and of course is what we named the book. What I love about this philosophy of givers gain is that it is really been inculcated throughout the organization. It is understood and recognized in really good chapters throughout the world.

We got together and we started testing out ideas on how to run effective meetings. I have to tell you that the program that exists today is substantially different than what it was maybe fifteen or certainly twenty years ago. We learned through trial and error.

Some of the first people that were in the first meeting – there were about twelve of us – are still in BNI today. Carolyn Denny, a CPA has been a member now for over 22 years. She has transferred chapters as she has moved her practice. Lee Shipman, an insurance agent, is still involved on the board of advisors today. Mike Ryan, a financial planner, is still involved in the same chapter. Can you imagine, Frank, attending a meeting for 22 years at the same chapter?

Frank:
That is amazing. That is truly amazing.

Ivan:
It really is. They have become very good friends and outstanding members and participants of the organization. They have been involved in BNI for over twenty years.

There’s something in the book that a lot of people don’t know. When the organization started, our name was not BNI. It was The Network. We learned early on in the process that The Network is not very trademarkable. We attempted to get a trademark and could not do that. When we first started – this is in the book – The Network was an Aim Consulting affiliate. The logo for the network was actually my consulting company because it was connected to my consulting company.

That was stripped off pretty soon and we tried to get a trademark and we could not get a trademark on The Network. That led to the name BNI which was more trademarkable. We kicked off the first chapter in January of 1985 in Arcadia, California and the organization that you see today is an outgrowth from the organization.

I think the one thing that has carried over from day one has been the importance of system, the importance of structure, accountability and friendship. One other thing that was in the very first group that is still today is the whole idea of working contact spheres. I think to a large extent that BNI started from a big contact sphere, mine. I had people who have helped me in my consulting business who I referred to in symbiotic relationships.

The whole organization is really an outgrowth of the concept of business professions that have that symbiotic relationship. I think it’s one of the easiest ways to grow chapters today and to grow them around the concept of contact spheres.

Frank:
When you say contact spheres, do you mean the same ideas as power teams or certain occupations that have natural affiliations?

Ivan:
You know, I think that would make a great podcast down the road- to talk about the difference between power teams and contact spheres because they are really concentric circles of each other. The contact sphere is a group of business professionals that have a symbiotic relationship. The power team is the professions that you actually have the connection with. So the potential strategic alliance partners and then actual strategic alliance partners might be a way of describing it. I think we should probably hit that as a separate podcast because it’s important want to talk about.

Anyway, what I didn’t realize in starting BNI was that this would grow like crazy and the next time I talk about chapter three, I will give a little bit of a history of how it just grew so rapidly almost like Jack’s magic beanstalk. I was really about to shoot skyward and at that point had no idea.

Just this week, I think it’s a great chapter to talk about because we actually crossed the 100,000 member mark in the organization. So a big applause to members all around the world. Our current chapter count as of today is about 4830 chapters in over three dozen countries. And for the first time we have over 100,000 members.

I have to tell you, 22 years ago, I did not have any idea how big this organization would get. I think it took a couple of years before I had any sense for what was possible. I like to talk about this here on the podcast because sometimes members only see the tip of the iceberg. They only see what’s going on within their chapter. But this is really an organization that is truly global.

Frank:
You are certainly to be congratulated for the success that the organization has had and it is obvious that it just means that you really caught lightning in a bottle and came up with an idea whose time had come, and the structure and the accountability and everything else that you’ve spoken about that makes BNI different from other networking organizations ob have contributed to the growth and success.

Ivan:
You know, one thing that is not in the book here that we can touch on if you don’t mind – I think this is really important. You say that I caught lightning in a bottle, but the truth is, I kind of fell upon it and grabbed it. I didn’t really see it coming.

I know it sounds crazy, but back then I thought I was the only person that had this problem with referrals. I kind of thought that everybody else had this figured out. They knew how to generate referrals. I created a referral system that fit my personality of having accountability and developing friendships, so I kind of created it in my own image in effect and what I thought would make a good networking group. It was based on trial and error.

What I discovered is that very few people have this whole thing about referral development understood because we don’t teach it in college and because it’s not taught and trained by companies. I think the idea resonates was so many people because they really need to build their business through referrals and nobody else has really captured it in the way that we have.

I think that’s a real testament to all the members listening to this program and being willing to follow the system. When you think about it, we have almost 5000 meetings every week all over the world. It’s really powerful.

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