This week Dr. Misner wants to talk about the “Yeah, But” syndrome, which is really just an excuse to avoid doing something we don’t want to do. When it comes to ourselves, we’re always the exception. We think rules are for other people. But there’s no good excuse for avoiding personal development.

Stop trying to avoid the proven methods. The basics work. No exception. BNI operates in 44 countries. Your chapter, your profession, can succeed if you’re willing to put in the effort. We’ll all be better off if we stop hiding behind our differences and look for the similarities.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 178 -

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

Ivan:
Hi Priscilla. Doing great. I wanted to talk about something I call the Yeah But Factor. The Yeah But Factor goes something like, “Yeah, but I’m different than the situation. My area is different.” It is something I have seen for many, many years and I thought it would make for great conversation after last week’s podcast with Tom Fleming, where Tom is in a region in Florida where his predicessor could not get chapters going.

The thing I kept hearing was, “Yeah, but we’re different here in Florida.” Listen, the more we say we are different, the truth is the more there are similarities. Tom has proven that. He is running a tremendous region. I thought it would be good to talk about this concept today, “Yeah, I’m different.”

I’d like to begin with some information about an old friend of mine, Don Osbourne, who many years ago shared with me some material that he wrote about being different, what he called the “I am different” sydrome, which is basically just a syndrome avoid doing something that we really just don’t want to do. I have revised it a bit and am sharing it in this podcast because I think people will find it interesting, especially after Tom’s podcast last week, where he talked about systems,following the program, and goals.

When it comes to ourselves, we are always the exception. Everybody else should do what has been proven to work, but self development works once we stop treating ourselves as the exception. It’s true that everyone is unique, but it is not different when it comes to self development. Perhaps it’s only procrastination that leads us to declare that we are all different or that our circumstances prevent us from agreeing to follow proven methods of self improvement. Maybe it’s the fear of success or fear of failure- all kinds of legitimate concerns. But none is an adequate excuse for not engaging in self development activities. There is no good excuse for not following the basics.

I, for one, believe that activiites like BNI are all about self development. It’s all about building a personal network. Everybody who ever achieved success has succumed to the basics. In fact- I saw this when I was writing the book, Masters of Success- many success stories include fighting the urge to reinvent the wheel and sticking with what has been proven to work. Why we fight City Hall on I’ll succeed without doing what has been proved, I’ll just never know. But it’s a fight you are going to have to lose if you want to win the battle for improved lifestyle.

I think that is really true when you are talking about business networking. It shouldn’t take a tragedy or a major event to send you down the road of self-development. True, most success stories we hear about, or those that grab the headlines are like that. You could wait for or create a spectacular situation to spur you on, but most stories of success really go untold because they weren’tborn out of tragedy. They were born out of frustration and bing sick and tired of just being sick and tired.

I see it today in the economy, the global recession. People are sick and tired of just being sick and tired. The reality is that most of us are living out our own sort of story of quiet desperation, and that is enough, really, to make you different, but the kindof different that qualifies you as unique and therefore a candidate of the tried and true methods of self development.

I love this concept that Don wrote about and I have taken some liberties with. He was focusing on self development, but I really believe that what we teach in BNI- these podcasts are all about self development. They are all about improving your skillset and developing your personal network. I think the real irony of these podcasts, or any education that is out there, is that the people who need it most often don’t listen to the podcast.

Those people who are engaged in self development, they are the ones listening to this. The more we can get our fellow members also engaged in the process, the more successful I believe our chapters will be. So I would echo Don’s comments and I’d love to hear what you think of this, Priscilla. Don ended what he wrote many years ago- and by the way, I put this on our BNI Directors Manual because I loved it so much. It said, “Stop hiding behind this excuse of ‘I’m different.’ Accept what all who have succeeded know. The basics work, no exception.”

Tom Fleming talked about baking a cake but changing the recipe and expecting the same result. You’re expecting a certain cake, but your’re not going to get that when you are changing the recipe. That is what BNI is all about. I thought this would be a great follow through from Tom’s podcast last week.

Priscilla:
Well, if you want me to comment, I’m going to say that my chapter is called “No Ordinary Chapter.” So we have a culture of wanting to be different. I think that part of it comes from not wanting to be too rigid and so it’s difficult to follow all of your policies if you kind of have a culture of wanting to be a little bit looser, more creative and so forth. But you know, I really hear what you are saying and it really makes sense. You have proven certain policies work, and so then it just behooves us to follow them, improve upon them, and make them even better.

Ivan:
I really do believe that many times, people use “Yeah, but I’m different” approach because the truth is they just don’t like the idea. It’s hard work. They don’t want to do some of the things that we’ve talked about or the tried and true things to be successful. It’s easier to just say that it’s different here, we’re different, the community is different, or the city is different, or the country is different- when in fact, BNI operates in 44 countries. And it’s the same program in all 44 countries.

Priscilla:
That is amazing in itself.

Ivan:
That is amazing to me. And it goes back to a concept. Years ago, I had lunch with Brian Tracy, a well known expert on management and sales. I had lunch with him and I asked him whether he did training a differently- I think we may have talked about this in our podcast a long time ago- if he did training differently in other countries, multilingual. He said that no, he does his sales training the same. I said yeah, but those other countries have a different culture. He said yeah, but if you can teach people how to do things more efficiently or effectively, they are going to do it.

Then I started to think about the fact that we all live in an entrepreneurial culture and that transcends our cultural differences because we all want to do things more efficiently or effectively. If we can teach people how to do things more efficiently or effectively, that transcends what differences there are. We have to focus on our similarities as opposed to our differences.

That’s all I have today, and I know we are out of time, Pricsilla. Thanks a lot.

Priscilla:
Okay great, Ivan. Thank you so much. That’s it for this week, and I’d just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

Tom Fleming, Executive Director for West Central Florida, joins Dr. Misner for a second time (the first time was in Episode 168) to talk about how to get an average membership of 39.2 in his forty-chapter region.

It’s called the Double Triple Effect because doubling the number of members can triple the number of referrals. Here’s how to make it work.

• Start with a vision of what you want.
• Run the chapter like a business.
• Have goals and mechanisms.
• Put systems in writing and follow them.
• Celebrate successes.

Interested in how to run a 60-member BNI chapter? Leave a comment here, and if enough people are interested, we’ll bring Tom back a third time.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 177 -

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

Ivan:I am doing great, Priscilla. Thank you very much. I have with us a gentleman who I am going to introduce in just a moment, Tom Fleming. Tom, I believe, is the only guest I have ever had on the podcast twice so far. So congratulations to Tom for that.

Tom has been a member of BNI- he joined in 1996 as a member. In 2003, he became the Executive director and is now the Executive Director in Tampa and West Central Florida. 13 of his 40 chapters in that region have more than 45 members. He has an average member size, with 40 chapters, of 39.2 members per chapter. His largest chapter is 70 members with a number of chapters in the 60′S. That is just amazing to me. That has absolutely created a new paradigm in my mind as to what is possible. I just want to welcome Tom to the podcast and turn it over to him. Tell me, Tom, how in the worlddo you get an average member size of 39.2? What is your secret?

Tom:
Thank you first and foremost, for having me back on again, Ivan. I think the secret is really creating the intention that we want to maximize members’ value and have the value of their seats be worth the most amount of money possible. That is why the title of this podcast is called “The Double Triple Effect.” I think we are all familiar with the concept that when you double the size of the chapter, you triple the amount of  referrals.

Ivan:
Right. So where do you begin?

Tom:
I think you begin with vision. A leadership team begins with vision. Whether you are a part of a startup chapter or an existing chapter, you have to ask yourself where do we want to go, first and foremost. We want the average revenue per seat to be worth in the chapter? How tmany referrals do we need to be passing to hit those members? It’s  not about just having a number of chapters. It’s about having a productive chapter. You’re just not going to be a three million dollar or four million  dollar chapter per year with unproductive members, if that makes sense.

Ivan:
Good point. So you begin with the very end in mind.

Tom:
Absolutely. I  think the balance of the secret, in terms of increasing the number of members to take advantage of the double triple effect has to do with the leadership teams- how they manage the chapters, with the directors supporting their efforts. In fact, one of the first things the leadership team needs to embrace is what to we want the culture of this chapter to be? Do we want it to be a business culture or a club culture? Obviously, if it is run like a business, everyone is going to make money, but if it’s run like a club, they are going to make friends.

Ivan:
Good point. I have often said that one of the strengths of a good BNI chapter is that many of the members are friends, and one of the weaknesses of a good BNI chapter is many of the members are friends. It’s both a strength and a weakness.

Tom:
It does present a challenge, but I think in order to take advantage of being the money making machine that any BNI chapter can be, it needs to embrace a culture of business. From there, it is basically a matter of implementation of different Management 101 principles, in terms of executing that vision.

Ivan:
So give me some examples.

Tom:
I think any successful business has a set of goals and a set of mechanisms or strategies that support the business heading towards those goals. Therefore, I think chapters need to have goals and mechanisms.

Ivan:
Right. You hit what you aim at, don’t you?

Tom:
Absolutely. I like to say what gets measured gets done. From there, once we set goals and strategies to make those things happen, I think businesses do an effective job of tracking and communicating the results. So many organizations go through this goal setting exercise and say to themselves, phew, glad that’s over with! Then they set the documentation aside, never to be looked at again.

Ivan:
Right. So what else?

Tom:
One of the things that we do in terms of maximizing the average chapter size in pursuit of making the most money possible-  we then need to keep that documentation alive. Presidents and vice presidents jump on it three times during their weekly call with directors so that, really, the conversation can be centered around what are your goals? Where are you headed? Really the focus of that  conversation is do we have our mechanisms in place now, over the next few months, so that we hit our intended goals.

Ivan:
What do you mean by mechanisms?

Tom:
Strategies. Are we going to have a BNI game put in place over the next few months? Are we going to do a visitor’s day? Are we going to have a  bring your substitute day? Those sort of strategies might stimulate either attendance, one-to-ones, referrals, or thank yous for closed business.

Ivan:
All the things you mentioned we have systems for in writing that they can follow. I think sometimes people follow the program that we’ve got, but sometimes do a “visitor’s day lite” without really  following the system. What you are talking about is really following the the program that we have and  implementing it fully as opposed to just kind of winging it.

Tom:
Flawless execution is the secret to success.  I often analogize BNI with baking a cake. When the recipe says one and a half cups of flour and two cups of sugar,or whatever, you can’t change that or you are not going to get the desired results. It is the same way with BNI.

Ivan:
That is a great analogy. What else?

Tom:
The other thing, one of the last key components that we do in terms of the members making more money and the chapter succeeding in growth, is we celebrate our successes.  How we do this is we bring our presidents, vice presidents, and directors from 8-12 chapters together on a monthly basis. Literally, the chapters share successes. “Wow. Look at the one-to-ones per member that your chapter is doing. How did you do it? Look at the closed business per member your chapter is doing.” Literally, we have chapters here where the average revenue per seat per year per member is in the $50,000 range. There was one chapter that did $65,000 per member last year.

Ivan:
Wow. That is amazing.

Tom:
As we pointed out earlier, it’s not just about quantity. It’s about quality. How do we train the members to be passing out referrals? How do we inspire them to  engage in the relationship development process, do one-to-ones, build that trusting?

Ivan:
The idea of a large group in and of itself is not critical. It’s the large group that is high quality. That is what is critical. I get members who say to me all the time, “50 members? I don’t want 50 members because they are not all good and it’s going to take up time.” The idea is to be good at screening the members. If you have 50, 60 or 70 great members, you are going  to be passing a ton of referrals. What are some of the high numbers? You are talking about millions of dollars a chapter that they are generating?

Tom:
Absolutely. We have chapters that are doing 2.8, 3 million, 3.1 million dollars per year. I don’t think a chapter needs to be 50 members in order for the average value per seat to be $50,000 – $60,000 per year, but I do truly believe that under the auspices of the double triple effect, that it increases the likelihood of a chapter doing those numbers per member when you are up at the 40, 50 or 60 member range because the referral  opportunities are exponential then.

Ivan:
Absolutely. We have seen that from day one, that when a chapter doubles its  size, it triples its referrals. It’s a common characteristic of the successful group. We are almost out of time. Priscilla, did you have a question?

Priscilla:
Yeah. When you say that you have each member receiving $40,000 or $50,000 per seat, does that include the members that are harder to refer? I know that, for example in our chapter, the construction contractor has really high numbers, so it skews the average- and the lawyers.

Ivan:
I am sure I can answer that. Tell me if I’m wrong. When you are talking about an average, it’s just that. It’s an average, which means especially if you are talking about the mean.  About half, roughly, of the people are going to be  doing more than that and half are going to be doing less than that. Nobody is doing that. It’s all more or less, but the statistical mean averages out at that number. Would you agree, Tom? Some are way over that and some are under that.

Tom:
Absolutely. As an executive director, I have trouble managing down to each individual member in a 1,600 member region. I need to find some way to measure success, and I have chosen average revenue per seat member per year.

Ivan:
Certainly from a chapter perspective, it gives you a real sense of the health of the chapter. If you have one chapter doing $10,000 per member, you can clearly see that they are struggling. If you have a chapter running $40,000 to $50,000 per member, that is huge, way on the high end of what we see.

Tom:
At BNI, our intention is to maximize the value of a member’s membership. Happy members don’t leave. If you have someone in the chapter who is making $30,000, $60,000 or $90,000 per year, I would think that they wouldn’t be leaving the chapter anytime soon.

Ivan:
Absolutely. Any closing comments before we wrap up?

Tom:
I think my closing comment goes back to something that we talked about earlier, and that is the power of following the recipe. I think whether as a member or a leadership team member that learns part of a success system out of BNI and then they can apply that to their own business, I think that is part of the value of BNI.

As I have talked to members who are seasoned in the system and asked them, what have you gotten out of BNI? They always share with me that the referrals and the increased revenue has been great, but the communication,  the leadership, the management skills, the personal development they have picked up and applied to their own company, those are the things that are so valuable. If people are following this system, embracing it, for five, 10, 15 years, as I have here, I don’t know  how they could go wrong, to be honest with you.

Ivan:
Tom, you and your region are a real inspiration to the organization. I appreciate what you do, and please pass on my congratulations to your groups for really being, I think, a standout region for this organization. I greatly appreciate it. I know that when chapters get to 40, 50, 60 members, that it’s very difficult to get the meetings over on time.

Priscilla, you wanted at one point for us to talk about what do you do when you get groups that size? I was thinking- you suggested before we started recording, Tom, that if our members are interested in that topic, to leave a message up on the podcast to say, “Hey, I’d like to know. How do you run a 50-member chapter? How do you squeeze it in?”

 If you are listening to this podcast and you want to do the types of things that Tom is talking about, but you want to know how to squeeze it in, leave a message on this podcast. Type us a message. If we get enough people saying they’d like to know, we’ll bring you back a third time, Tom, and we’ll have another conversation about how you run the meetings when there are that many members.

Tom:
It’s a true honor. I thank you, and thank you for your leadership.

Ivan:
Thanks Tom. I appreciate that. Priscilla, great question. I’ll turn it back over to you.

Priscilla:
Okay. Great. Thank you, Tom. I personally am looking forward to hearing that particular topic discussed. I think that’s it for this week. I’d just like to thank  both of you and remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

The national directors of BNI in the UK and Ireland surveyed 4785 members and came up with some great information.

• 44% of BNI members had been in their business for more than 5 years. 70% had been in business for more than 2 years. (Most businesses fail within their first 3 years.)
• 25% of BNI members are one-person-businesses; 54% have 2-10 employees; 22% represent companies of up to 50 employees. 75% of our members have employees who work for their companies.
• 89.3% of the members felt that camaraderie was important to their participation in BNI, and 90.3% were satisfied or extremely satisfied in this area.
• Based on the survey, 15% received more than £25,000 (US $34,000) in business in the last 12 months, and of those 6% received £50,0000 or $69,000, and 80% received at least £2000 in business just from BNI.
• 86% of all BNI members were likely to renew their membership. In actual fact, about 20% don’t renew because of factors beyond their control, so the average renewal rate is about 60%.
• 70% of the people who do not renew made less than £2000 in referral business. This shouldn’t be a shock, but it’s powerful evidence that the amount of business you generate affects your attitude about BNI.

You can read more details in SuccessNet Online, including the graphs that go with the statistics.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 102 -

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

I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

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

Ivan:
I’m doing great. This week I’m at the U.S. BNI Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We’re expecting a great turnout of members, and we have a fantastic turnout of directors. This week I’m at the conference in Milwaukee.

Priscilla:
Well, that sounds good.

Ivan:
The topic this week is an unusual title, And the Survey Says. You made me say it twice because it was like, “What is the title?” Well, the reason for that is there is a game show that has been on for many, many years, and it plays around the world, Family Feud, and the host always says, “And the survey says.” And then you listen for what people have to say about the survey.

This is based on a survey that was done on BNI, and I thought that I would like to talk about this topic on this podcast because there’s some great content that came out of this survey. And I want to thank the national directors for the United Kingdom for having put this together as a wonderful survey. There was about 4,785 BNI members that were part of this survey in the U.K. and Ireland, and some really interesting results were discovered.

The first topic relates to the length of time members have been in business. From previous studies, which I quoted in my book, Truth or Delusion, Busting Networking Biggest Myths, we knew that BNI have a substantial number of mature and successful businesses in it. But this study further supports those findings. Based on one of the questions, they found that 44 percent of BNI members in the study had been in business for more than five years, 44 percent of BNI members had been in their business for more than five years. And a whopping combined total of 70 percent were in business for more than two years; 70 percent of BNI members, based on this study, were in for more than two years.

Most businesses fail within their first three years. That holds true worldwide, and yet, we see a large percentage of our members having been in business for more than two, and many more than five years, which is a real testament to the fact that we have matured, seasoned, successful business professionals in here. Only 15 percent of our membership has been in business for less than one year. That’s really critical. Only 15 percent of our membership, based on this study, have been in business less than one year.

So this really, truly puts to rest the myth that BNI is made up mostly of new businesses. These results dramatically show that BNI is made up of members who beat most of the national averages for length of time in business.

Second question that I wanted to talk about is the average size of the business that’s represented in BNI. This topic covered in the survey really was asking how many employees work for the company, and the results in this area closely track previous results from the St. Thomas University study that was conducted a number of years ago about BNI. The current survey showed that 25 percent of the membership was a one person operation and that 54 percent had between two and ten employees and that another 22 percent of BNI members represented companies of up to 50 employees with 6 percent being over 50 employees. So again, BNI is not made up of just “Mom and Pop” operations. 75 percent of our organization has employees who work for the company, and as much as almost 30 percent have more than 11 people and over 50 employees working for the company.

The next question that was in the survey, at least that I’m covering today – the survey was much more comprehensive, but I only have time for a handful of the questions – that was the importance of comradery. That shouldn’t be a particular surprise. Comradery, or friendship, based on the survey, 89.3 percent of the members felt that this factor was important to extremely important in their participation. I was really pleased to see that 90.3 percent were satisfied or extremely satisfied with the results in this area. Relationships are clearly an important factor in the organization, that’s not a surprise, and that part of it is absolutely working in the organization.

Now we get into probably some of the most important topics, and that’s the value of BNI members’ businesses. What’s the value of the business that’s generated in BNI. It’s probably the more important topic, and it’s very interesting. Based on the survey, 15 percent of the respondents received over 25,000 pounds sterling, remember this was done in the U.K. and Ireland, which is equal today to about $34,000 U.S., so about 15 percent made over $34,000 U.S. with 6 percent of that number receiving over 50,000 pounds sterling, or $69,000 U.S. in business for the last 12 months.

About 23 percent of the members generated between 10,000 and 25,000 pounds sterling, which is the equivalent of roughly $14,000 to $34,000 U.S. So it’s 23 percent got between roughly $14,000 and $34,000 U.S.

21 percent stated that they had received between 5,000 and 10,000 pounds sterling, or approximately $7,000 to $14,000 U.S. And another 21 percent generated over 2,000 to 5,000 pounds sterling, or roughly $3,000 to $7,000 U.S.

A total of 80 percent of all the members surveyed received more than 2,000 pounds sterling in business, or more than $3,000 U.S. in revenue. So for a few hundred dollars in membership, virtually everyone had received at least, at least $3,000 U.S. in business, and some, much, much more, some as much as $69,000 or more in business.

Now, this is really important when it’s cross tabulated against another factor that we’re going to look at in just a moment. Let’s talk about membership renewal trends. The question about renewal was one that was very interesting. Based on the survey results, 86 percent of all BNI members were likely to renew their membership; 86 percent said they were likely to renew their membership. However, what we know from previous studies conducted in the United States, as much as 20 percent of our members don’t renew membership for reasons that are beyond our control. For example, they’re promoted, they move, they’re ill, they change jobs.

So if you reduce the 86 percent of members who absolutely plan on renewing their membership by the 20 percent that don’t for reasons that are beyond their control and our control, that leaves roughly 66 percent renewal rate in an average BNI group. That’s an important number because even if 86 percent of your members are happy, which is a great number, you’re still going to have roughly 20 percent not renew because of variables beyond the control of their chapter. When you add to that, surprises, issues, or people who change their mind, it’s not uncommon to see about a 60 percent renewal rate in a chapter.

So consider this when planning chapter growth, that even if 86 percent of your members say they’re going renew, you know that at least 20 won’t because of factors that are beyond our control, illness, promotion, moving, those kinds of things.

All right. So here’s that last topic that I want to touch upon. It’s a real important one. And that’s the characteristics of people who do not renew. This is so important, and it’s the most important part of this podcast. If you take the 14 percent of the people who are not going to renew, likely not to renew, you discover that 70 percent of them made less than $3,000 in business. This means that if we can help – and this is the really important part of this podcast. If we can help struggling members in the referral process generate more referrals, it is likely that we can reduce the number of members who feel that it’s unlikely that they’re going to renew their membership.

This study that was conducted shows that people who are not planning on renewing rank towards the bottom in the amount of revenue earned during their participation. Now this shouldn’t be a shock to anybody, but it’s powerful evidence that the amount of business that people generate is going to determine whether they stay in the group. Chapters that begin working with low earning members six months before their renewal date might, in fact, make an impact relating to this segment of the membership. So if our leadership teams do nothing else with these findings when you’re listening to this podcast – talk to your chapter members and your leadership teams. If they do nothing else with these findings, focusing on the members who are not generating 2,000 in pounds sterling business or more is an important factor in increasing in the renewals of your chapter members.

For those of you listening to the podcast, this was an article that you can find in SuccessNetOnline. You can find this article in SuccessNetOnline. It was published in April on 2009, and the title is And the Survey Says, and you can see the graphs that go with the topics that I’ve been talking about here.

So that’s the content that I wanted to talk about today.

Priscilla, any thoughts on what I just described?

Priscilla:
I think it’s very interesting, and I’m hoping you will do a podcast on how to help those members that are not being able to earn the income that they would like to.

Ivan:
Well, that’s a great topic, and yeah, let me put together some material, and we’ll cover that in a future podcast. Because clearly, it’s a way that dramatically can impact those individuals. When 70 percent of the people who say they’re not going to renew are making less than $3,000 in referrals in a BNI chapter, then clearly, there’s a statistical significance there. And if we could just affect those people, we’re going to have, right off the top, 10 percent of our members renewing that weren’t renewing before. I think that’s a powerful thing to know.

Priscilla:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Dr. Misner. That was a very interesting topic, and I like that survey.

I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

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

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

Action Item

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

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

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

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 076 -

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

I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I am doing great, Priscilla. Thank you.

Priscilla:
Where are you today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Priscilla:
Exactly.

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

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

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

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

Ivan:
My pleasure.

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

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

Priscilla:
Okay, great. Well, thank you.

I’d like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the Net for working downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

This week Dr. Misner is preparing for the book tour for The 29% Solution. Today’s podcast focuses on ways to grow a chapter, divided into “Referrals,” “Light Contacts,” and “Cold Contacts.”

It’s important to remember that cold contacts are not the best way to build a referral network—but feel free to invite anyone who calls you to visit your BNI chapter.

Member Development Handout

Suggestions for generating new members to a new or, existing BNI chapter—ranked in descending order based on perceived value.

Referrals

• Ask Influencers
• Ask BNI members (for core groups)
• Mail or e-mail people that you know personally
• 3^rd party invite
• Personal contact
• Ask clients

Light Contacts

• Present the opportunity during a speaking engagement
• Present the opportunity to those you meet at networking events or trade shows
• Ask somebody who is cold calling you

Cold Contacts

• Create a website
• Make cold calls
• Mail or e-mail people you don’t know
• Put out an ad

Download a printable copy of these tips for your own chapter.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

View the entire transcript of this episode.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 075 -

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

Priscilla:
I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio, which is 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. I’ve got an interesting topic today I think that every member of BNI is going to be interested in.

Priscilla:
Great. And where are you?

Ivan:
Today, I am at BNI headquarters. We’re about to start the book tour for The 29% Solution, which, by the way, hit Number 1 on Amazon.com in September and Number 3 on the Wall Street Bestsellers list, so it was a good month for the good guys. And I’m about to hit the road starting next week for the book tour.

Priscilla:
Are you coming to Berkley, California?

Ivan:
I’m afraid I won’t be in Berkley this time, but maybe next time.

Priscilla:
Okay. All right. Well, why don’t you share with us what you have for us this time.

Ivan:
Well, I want to talk about Member Development 101. And I’ve got to tell you, this presentation came almost completely ad hoc. I was speaking at a conference in Canada and I was doing an Ask the Founder session for BNI directors, and one of the directors stood up and said that they’re really having some problems with a chapter. It’s in core group development, it was just getting started, and they’re having a hard time kicking off.

Now, I just want to say, what I’m going to talk about today is not just for core groups; it’s for existing chapters and new chapters. But the question stemmed from a new chapter that was having a difficult time getting started. And I said, “Okay, well, fair enough. What are the challenges? What are you doing to try and get the chapter going?”

They said, “Well, we’re really struggling right now, so we thought we would create a Web site for the chapter. We’re making a lot of cold calls. We’re going to send out a mailing list to a Chamber mailing list. We have some e-mails that we’re sending out to people that we have – you know, contacts that we have, but we basically don’t know them, but we’re sending out basically cold call e-mailing lists. And we’re thinking about maybe taking out an ad to get this chapter off the ground.”

And I heard that, and it just hit me right between the eyes. These were probably not the strongest things to do to build a referral organization.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
But I didn’t want to say that to him, so I said, “Okay. Let’s think for a moment. Let’s brainstorm; no dumb answer; any suggestion is fine. Throw out all of the different things that we can do to grow a chapter.”

And I got probably 20 different suggestions on how to grow a chapter. And you’re going to see a little over a dozen of them in this podcast on the transcript of the podcast. We’re going to cut and paste the items; there are three categories, and it’ll be right there. So if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re on the Web, go to the transcript and look at this so you can eyeball them as I’m talking.

And I said to everybody, “Give me all of them.” There was about 20. We merged a few together that were somewhat related. And then I split them up into three categories. Actually, what I did is I wrote next to them whether this was a referral, whether this recommendation that they said as a way of growing a chapter was a referral, that is, there’s somebody who you know that you’re making a connection with; whether it was a light contact, that is, you know them, but maybe you just met them, but it’s a personal contact, it’s not just a cold call; or whether it was really just a contact, you didn’t have any relationship with the person at all.

So we split them up into those three categories. Well, guess what? Every single one of the suggestions the director said that this chapter was about to do all fell into the last category. They were all cold contacts.

And that made my response really easy, because I said, “Can you see how building a referral organization through cold contacts might not work?” And the light bulb totally went on.

So, for members who are listening to this podcast, look at this list. And I’ll give you some of the other items.

Some of the light contacts would be things like inviting people during a speaking engagement. Let’s say you’re doing a presentation somewhere and you talk about the fact that a referral group is starting up and that you’re involved in, and if they’re interested in, you’d love to see them. That’s a light contact. They’ll have met you. Hopefully, you do a good presentation, they’re impressed, they might participate. You’re at a networking event and you meet somebody or you’re at a trade show and you meet somebody. I have found that technique worked very well.

Here’s one of my favorite ones, and I see chapters who do this all the time, members who do this all the time. You invite somebody who’s cold calling you. I love that technique. You know, they cold call you to do business, and one guy I met, he always won for the highest number of visitors being brought into a chapter because somebody would cold call him and he told his secretary, “Put every cold call through.” And what would happen is he said, “Yeah, I’d be glad to meet you next Tuesday morning, 7 a.m. at such-and-such restaurant. I have a networking meeting. If you come, I’ll stay afterwards, and we can talk.” And they come. Of course, many of them joined the group. But that’s how he handled cold calls. So that’s a light contact.

But here are the really, really important, strong referral contacts, things like mailing or e-mailing people that you know personally. These are people who, when they get something from you, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s so-and-so,” and they read it because they knew it was from you.

Personal contacts. Somebody that you know. You pick up the phone and you call somebody that you know. Asking your clients. Now this works really well, this next one, for core groups, chapters that are getting started. Go to some of the local BNI groups that are not far away and ask them if they have business associates in their office that they would like to come into this chapter. Now, frankly, that technique works for existing chapters as well.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
Nothing wrong with that as well, but really well for core groups. And bring in people, and you can not only start a chapter, but you can also fill an existing chapter by going to and creating – let’s say you’re an existing chapter. One of the things you can do is create sister chapter relationships where you say, “Look, if I have somebody who comes to our group but can’t join, we’ll refer them to your chapter. Would you do the same for us?” And you use that as a way of building the chapter.

And then, the last one was asking influencers, that is, asking people you know are movers and shakers in the town. And we talked about this. We have a whole podcast devoted substantially to this topic. In one of the first – it’s probably the first two or three months of our podcasts, there was a recording with Patty Salvucci, so if you are listening, you go back, I think it’s the Core Group Development podcast. And she talks about how she used influencers to kick off what is now one of the largest regions of BNI in the greater Boston area.

So, if you look at those, those are all direct connection second- or third-party invites; you are inviting somebody you know or you’re asking somebody you know to invite somebody they know. And that is also known as a referral. What better way to build a referral organization than through referrals. What a thought.

Priscilla:
Exactly.

Ivan:
And I’ve got to tell you that’s the way I opened 20 chapters in the first year of BNI, and that’s the way I opened 20 groups, was predominately through referrals, the first category, and the light contacts. I did virtually none of the cold contacts, and that, I think, is the way most groups will be successful.

I’d love to see chapters go back and have a dialog within the chapter about these, and here’s what I’d really like. If one of the members listening to this podcast comes up with another idea that’s completely off this list, I’d love to get their comment under the Comments section of the podcast so that I could add things to this. I’d like to see it as a living document that I add to and do presentations on.

Priscilla:
Great. Well, you know, there’s another aspect to getting somebody by referral versus cold calling, because by referral, you’re hearing that they’re a reputable person and that you can trust them. But if they’re a cold call, then you have no idea what their work is like.

Ivan:
You know, you’re absolutely right, and you bring up a really, really important topic. I have found that chapters that start predominately from people who don’t know each other take a lot longer to be developing referrals than when there’s a core group of people in that chapter who know each other, that there are a lot of overlapping relationships. Because when there are a lot of those overlapping relationships, the trust factor grows quicker, and when the trust factor grows quicker, the referrals grow quicker. So, it’s not only better to actually get the chapter going or to get it to grow quickly, it’s also better to get the referrals to grow quickly.

So, you hit that one right on the head. I agree completely.

Priscilla:
And you also don’t want to populate your group with people that aren’t of the highest quality.

Ivan:
You’re right. And, of course, if you know somebody, chances are pretty good that they are good at what they do because, again, there’s that third-party referral. So those are all of the right reasons. It works better; it brings you more referrals; and you have higher quality. So, why exactly are we thinking about sending out the bulk e-mail?

Priscilla:
Or putting out an ad.

Ivan:
Or putting out an ad? And you gave one before we started the podcast. You were talking about picking up cards off a bulletin board and giving them a call, and I think you tried that once. How did it work out?

Priscilla:
The guy thought I was crazy, and he got very defensive. Especially when I called back to encourage him to come, he got suspicious and defensive; and it was really did not work.

Ivan:
Yes, it doesn’t because there’s no trust factor; and when there’s a trust factor, it’s so much easier to build a chapter.

So, for those of you listening to the podcast, just to wrap up, go through this list. You’ll find the list on the transcript, print it out, and have a discussion with your chapter. If you come up with some that aren’t on this list, tell me which of the three categories they should go in and give me the item, and I’ll add it to this list over time.

Priscilla:
Great. Well, I think we might be out of time.

Ivan:
We are. Thank you very much, Priscilla. I appreciate it.

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

Well, I think that’s it, and I just want to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope that you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.