Everyone has heard motivational speakers like Jack Canfield and Brian Tracy. The hidden element behind a motivational speaker is passion, and that’s the most important element you can bring to your 60-second commercial and your 10-minute presentation. You can’t afford to be ordinary, and if you’re not excited about what you do, no one else will be, either.

To become a motivational speaker, answer the following questions from your heart.

1. What can you say about yourself that your competition can’t?
2. How does your work fulfill you?
3. What do you most enjoy about your work and why?

Never forget that one of the top ten traits of the master networker is enthusiasm.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 089 -

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

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

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. Thank you.

Priscilla:
Where are you today?

Ivan:
Well, I’m at BNI headquarters this week. I’ve got my top management team for the organization. A lot of members may not know this, but there’s actually over a thousand BNI directors who work for the organization worldwide, and we have good representation of directors around the world in our top management team. Europe is represented and Australia, Asia, and of course, North America is in the top management team. We get together a couple times a year to just guide the organization and keep things going on track. And so this week is our executive management meeting.

Priscilla:
Cool. So what are you going to share with us?

Ivan:
I want to talk about becoming a motivational speaker for your business. Now, I’m sure you’ve listened to motivational speakers like Jack Canfield and Brian Tracy, both good friends of mine, great speakers, absolutely very effective at motivating an audience. And when you listen to any of them, you feel the passion that’s flowing through their words, their actions and the images that they show.

The hidden element behind a motivational speaker is passion. And what I want to suggest to BNI members is that the most important element they can bring to their 60 Second Presentations and to their Ten Minute Presentations is an element of passion. Think about that, passion. Passion really helps to add enthusiasm to the message that you’re delivering. Your personal challenge in networking is having an extraordinary message that not only captures the educational content that you want to get across but highlights your unique selling proposition. It’s called the USP.

The USP is what sets you apart from your competition, and you can’t afford to be ordinary like your competition. You need to do it with passion, so your message needs to be filled with that. If you’re not excited about what you do, no one else in the room will be either. In word of mouth marketing, that’s not a good thing. If you’re passionate about what you do, you draw people in.

So how do you tap into your passion and tie it into your daily message or, in BNI, your weekly message about your business. Well, you can capitalize on your passion and spotlight your uniqueness by specifically answering the following questions, and you have to do it really from your heart, not your head.

Here’s the first one. What can you say about yourself or your business that your competition cannot say? What sets you aside from your competition?

Now, I’m not suggesting your stand up and beat up your competition. That’s a bad idea, as a rule. I’ve seen it done where people stood up and said, “My competition does this and that, and I don’t do those things.” I think that’s a bad idea.

Instead, what you want to do is you want to focus on what you do by simply saying, “Here’s how I stand out from what my competitors do. This is what I focus on. This is what my vision is. This is how we practice customer service.” Focus on what you are doing that your competition is not doing without saying anything negative about your competition.

Here’s one that I see a lot of people wouldn’t think about, and that is: How does your work fulfill you; what does it do for you; how are you excited about what you do?

And oftentimes, I think that members don’t really think about that. I had an attorney in one group who was really stuck in this area, and he was saying, “Well, I don’t know. I can’t say anything…” And he was a divorce lawyer, so all he’s dealing with is just one problem after another problem and their personal issues with the families that he’s working with. And he said, “I don’t know what I can say that’s positive.”

And one of the members, who was a client of his, said “You know, Mark, you know you do for me? You have enabled me to sleep easy at night by helping me solve some of the legal issues that I’ve had.” That’s powerful. “You have really helped me feel at ease with the problems, the serious problems I have.”

And he said, “Wow, you know, I never really thought about that.”

And so his presentation started talking about, “Look, you don’t have to worry as much about these things. That’s what my job is.” And he said that’s what fulfills him, being able to do that, but he never thought anybody would be interested in hearing that.

So I thought that was a powerful ticket.

The third is: What element of your work do you most enjoy and why? What do you really enjoy doing? What’s fun for you to do?

And if you do those three things, you’re going to be able to get across the passion of your business. Never forget that one of the top ten traits of a master networker is enthusiasm and motivation. And that’s based on a study that we did a few years back that was published in my book, Masters of Networking, were the top ten traits of a master networker, and we interviewed 2,000 business professionals in a dozen countries around the world. And we found that one of the top ten traits was enthusiasm and motivation. People want to do business with people who are motivated and enthusiastic.

So you, your sales force, and your word-of-mouth marketing team are the motivational speakers for your business, but that message begins with you, and you’ve got to have passion for what you do.

Priscilla:
Great. Do you have more to share with us?

Ivan:
Well, that’s it. I think the last thing that I would say is, talk about, focus on the parts of your business that you’re passionate about, because the more you can convey that to your fellow members of BNI, the more excited that they’re going to be. When you think about it, if you’re listening to this podcast now, think back to times when you’ve heard speakers who’ve just stood up and said, “My name is so-and-so, and this is what I do, and here’s how you can give me a referral.” Then think about some of the members who’ve stood up and oftentimes, they may sometimes not even be the most slick presenter, but they stand up and they’re really passionate about what it is that they’re doing, and they’re excited, and they get you excited.

Those are the people that other people remember and think about when it comes time to give the referrals, and it’s important for you, the listener, to become one of those people, to be passionate about what you’re doing. So focus on those things that you’re excited about, share that with BNI members, and that passion will spread to the members in the group in the interest in passing you referrals.

That’s it for today.

Priscilla:
Okay, that’s great. I think you’re right. I just want to say it’s infectious and that it draws people to you and so I think you’re really right about all that.

Ivan:
Thank you.

Priscilla:
Okay, well, thank you, Dr. Misner. And that’s it for this week.

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

This week Dr. Misner describes a unique experience: a meeting about storytelling. Academy Award-winning movie producer Peter Guber invited about 16 people, including Dr. Misner and individuals such as Warren Bennis, one of the world’s foremost experts on leadership; Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone; and Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, as well as many other “storytellers” from various businesses, backgrounds and areas of expertise.

One lesson particularly appropriate to BNI is that “What if?” is more powerful in a story than “How to.” Make your messages personal and concrete. Think about this next time you give a presentation at a BNI meeting.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 065 -

Priscilla Rice:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast brought to you by networkingnow.com, 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 Berkeley, California. I’m joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, how are you doing?

Ivan Misner:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. I went to a meeting just recently, that I’m going to be talking about in this podcast. It was one of the most unusual meetings I’ve ever been to. This being said by the founder of an organization that meets every week and has 5000 groups around the world. That says a lot — to go to a meeting that’s one of the most unique I’ve ever been to.

Priscilla:
What was so unique about it?

Ivan:
It was a meeting about story telling. When I got invited, I wrote back and I said, “Tell me a little more about what this is.” I was invited by Peter Guber who is the CEO of Mandalay Entertainment. He’s the past CEO of Sony Corporation and he hosted this event. Peter is an Academy Award winning producer of movies including Rain Man, The Color Purple, and Bat Man. He wanted to put together a day about story telling and how story telling makes an impact not only in peoples personal life through movies, but also in peoples professional lives through business. The person who was facilitating the process is a good friend of mine, Keith Ferrazzi. Keith wrote the book, Never Eat Alone, who I talk about in my latest book, 29 Percent Solution, which is going to come out in a couple of months. Keith was facilitating it and he recommended to Peter that I come to this. So I attended this meeting recently, which was amazing.

Peter Guber is clearly passionate about the power of story telling and considers it the ‘secret sauce’ that has enabled him to achieve his success in life. He decided to create this opportunity for a diverse group of experts to come together to exchange ideas, and be inspired and enlightened. He invited about 16 people including yours truly, myself, along with people like Warren Bennis. Warren is one of the world’s foremost experts on leadership. When we get towards the end, I would love to talk some more about Warren, an amazing man who I haven’t seen in a long time. A great guy. If you pick up any book on leadership, any major book on leadership, and look in the index, you will see his name in it. He’s an amazing guy. Of course Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, and Mark Victor Hansen who was a co-author of Chicken Soup For The Soul, as well as more than a dozen other story tellers from various businesses, backgrounds and areas of expertise.

Basically, this group found that, or talked about the fact that, effective story telling is an important part of one’s emotional intelligence– emotional intelligence. I’ve always believed in using stories to make a point, but I’ve never really given a lot of thought, of some of the how’s and why’s of their effectiveness. There were a number of take aways for me from this meeting that I want to share with BNI members around the world. Here are a couple. Storytelling is about tapping into a passion about some topic. It’s about taking the listener to a place that is visceral, visual, concrete, emotional and possibly unexpected. Now this is important for members to understand when they’re doing their 60 second presentations, and when they’re doing their 10 minute presentations. If they can make those presentations more visceral, visual, concrete, emotional and unexpected, they’re going to be a lot more effective.

One of the participants, a gentleman who I’m getting to know really well, a great guy, Dr. Mark Goulston, said that a story is a portable storage unit for one’s dreams, fears, hopes, humor and sorrows that people visit or visits people from time to time, for them to stay in contact with their humanity. The group loved that definition and I really love it too. A story is a portable storage unit for one’s dreams, fears, hopes, humor and sorrows that people visit or visits people from time to time, for them to stay in contact with their humanity.

Mark Victor Hansen, who’s one of the co-authors for Chicken Soup Of The Soul, said that when the authors were working on the Chicken Soup series, they were looking for stories that gave people God-bumps or goose-bumps. I love that– God-bumps or goose-bumps, happy tears, a change in perception, weakness in the knees, or a change in your life. I think one of the best comments of the day came from Peter Guber who said, ” ‘What if ‘ is more powerful than ‘how to’ in a story”. Now that is really appropriate to BNI. ‘ What if ‘ is more powerful than ‘how to’. If BNI members can talk about ‘what if ‘ rather than ‘how to’ they’re really going to connect with other members more effectively. I think that’s very true indeed.

Priscilla:
Can you give us an example of that?

Ivan:
Well, it’s really an example of benefits versus features. I once was talking to an attorney in a chapter. We were having a little brainstorming session, and the attorney said, “I don’t know what to talk about. I’m an attorney. I’m a divorce lawyer. What can I talk about? I help people get divorced.” One of the members said, “You know what? You helped me sleep better at night. I knew that my life was going to be OK because of you.” That’s a ‘what if ‘ rather than a ‘how to’. He could talk about the specifics of what he does, but to talk about how he can help people get through difficult times, through the services he provided, was much more powerful than talking about the details of the process. Just off the top of my head, that ‘s one that jumps out at me, ‘what if’ rather than ‘how to’. There are so many examples. Anybody who sits down and thinks about what’s the benefit of what I do rather than the features of what I do. I think you can come up with a great example of what I’m talking about.

After we spent an entire day talking about what it takes to make a good story, I think I verified the fact, that it’s really difficult to describe to someone how to tell a good story. But, when you hear a good story, you sure know it. The more you can build into your presentation examples that are, as they talk about, visceral and concrete and personal, the more powerful your message is. I urge members to make their messages personal and to tell good stories when they’re doing their presentation.

Priscilla:
I think that’s great advice. Maybe you could do a whole podcast on story telling in itself, like how you put together a good story.

Ivan:
Yes, we should probably do that. I mentioned Warren Bennis earlier. Let me give just one last thing to talk about before we wrap up. Professor Bennis was actually on my doctoral committee when I was a doctoral student at the University of Southern California. It was awesome to see Professor Bennis again. What was really amazing, I have to tell you, it felt really good to see him in a completely different context. Because, when I was a doctoral student, I have to tell you, he was tough. Here’s a bit of advice for anyone whoever goes on to do a graduate degree. If you’re going to do a graduate degree, and one of your areas of specialty, (one of my areas of specialty was leadership), never put one of the world’s leading experts in the field on the doctoral committee. No matter what you say, you’ll never be anywhere near as good as they were. Professor Bennis was tough on me when I was a student. It was really incredible to go back to this event, meet him again more as peer than a student. What a wonderful human being this guy is. He’s very giving, very interesting and absolutely one of the world’s experts on leadership. It was a pleasure to see him again and to talk to him in a different context.

Priscilla:
Great. Well, Dr. Misner, we may have come to the end of this podcast. Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

Ivan:
Just that, BNI members, think about how you can address some of these concepts that I gave here today in making your stories interesting. I truly believe that it’s not about the ‘how to” in your business, I really think it’s the ‘what if ‘. It’s what you have to offer and the stories that carry along, particularly case studies that you might be able to give about how you can help other people. I think that’s what makes anything powerful. For any of the listeners who have heard me do a presentation, I always integrate stories into my talk. That’s what really carries the message to other people. Think about that as you do your presentations, because it will make a huge difference.

Priscilla:
Okay great. I just want 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 will join us next week for another exciting episode of the Official BNI Podcast.

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

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

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

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

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

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 061 -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even though BNI wasn’t founded to train people to speak in public, participating in a BNI group builds self-confidence in front of groups. Many people fear public speaking more than death.

One early BNI member threatened to quit rather than give a 10-minute presentation. Dr. Misner suggested that she make up questions to ask the group and have members guess whether the answer was “True” or “False.” Because she didn’t think of herself as “speaking,” she was able to be humorous and informative and give a great presentation.

Five suggestions:

1. Prepare, prepare, prepare. Don’t wing it, and don’t read a script. Practice in front of a mirror.
2. Be specific and talk about the things you know best. Focus on 2 or 3 areas.
3. Use handouts, visuals, or PowerPoint slides to support your presentation.
4. Remember: you’re the expert.
5. Be creative. Think of some way to communicate this information in a way that you feel comfortable.

If you want additional information on this subject, check out the article on page 103 of Dr. Misner’s book Masters of Networking.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 049 -

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

Ivan Misner:
I am doing great, Priscilla. I have an interesting topic today.

Priscilla:
Oh, what are you going to talk to us about?

Ivan:
I am going to talk about conquering your fear of public speaking. You know, BNI wasn’t really created to be a training organization for speaking, but one of the things that I hear over and over again from BNI members is how much they have gained in terms of feeling confident in standing up in front of groups. We are not a Toastmasters. That is a great organization to teach people how to speak. But that said, we do really help train people on how to speak by having them do it week in and week out.

I don’t know if you know this, but you probably do. It has been published in many places. In many of the surveys that I have read over the years, people have ranked their fear of public speaking higher than the fear of dying, which amazes me. So standing there talking to an audience can be really frightening, especially if it is more than just a minute, more than just 60 seconds.

I first really got a handle on this years ago in BNI. I met a CPA who was deathly afraid of public speaking. We knew she was afraid. She was always nervous just to do her 60-second presentation. One week we told her – this was in the early, early days of BNI. We told her that she was scheduled to speak six weeks out. She looked at me and the Secretary who was there and said, “If I have to speak, I quit.”

I said, “No, no seriously. You are scheduled to speak six weeks out.”

She said, “No joke. If I have to do a ten minute talk, I quit.”

I said, “You are kidding!”

She said, “Come on, you guys. Don’t you see it takes all my willpower just to stand up and give the 60-second presentation? I am just deathly afraid of doing a presentation.”

We said, “Don’t quit but you don’t want to lose this opportunity. This is a great opportunity to train and teach people about what you do.”

She said, “Okay, I understand. I quit.”

I said, “No, don’t quit, but you have to come up with something.” She, in no uncertain terms, informed me that if she was required to speak for ten minutes, she would have to quit because it was just so stressful for her.

We told her not to quit and we wouldn’t make her speak if she didn’t want to. That seemed to alleviate some of her anxiety. We continued talking. I told her that she didn’t have to do the presentation but it is unfortunate to eliminate an opportunity to educate members. She acknowledged that but still said that she wasn’t going to speak.

I said, “Well, what if, instead of speaking, you just read a test, read questions?”

She said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Give the members a test. Don’t do a speech. Just give them a test. You read the question and let them answer it. Then you tell them whether it is true or false.” I asked her whether she could come up with ten true or false questions about tax law and asked her if she could just read the questions. How many of you say true? How many of you say false? Do that kind of thing.

She thought for a moment and she said, “I don’t have to speak. I just read the questions and say true or false.”

I said, “That’s it.”

She said, “Alright, I can probably do that.”

When the day came, the test was absolutely hysterical. It was just so funny because she was a little nervous but was okay. She didn’t have to speak. She stood up and started reading it. She really worded the questions well. She asked us some tough questions. Half the audience was saying true and half the audience was saying false. Some of the people we saying they were going to go to San Quinton because they missed all three of these questions so far.

At about the third question through, she kind of got off script and she stared speaking extemporaneously. The further she got into it, the more she was comfortable. She was very professional, but she was humorous and informative. And at about 12 minutes, the President had to have her sit down. She was absolutely shocked that she went over time. It was great because she just did a “test”.

I think the bottom line with this is that you should do a presentation that you feel comfortable with but think creatively about what you know and find a way to do it in a way that expresses your knowledge and allows you to be comfortable. You will discover that you don’t have to pass up an opportunity to talk longer to the networking groups that you belong to if you just get creative on how you do it.

Priscilla:
Do you have any specifics on getting creative?

Ivan:
I can give you five points, five suggestions that I have for people who are nervous about doing presentations at their networking groups. First is prepare, prepare, prepare. Don’t wing it. Prepare an outline of what you want to say and practice it. Don’t read it. The idea is to have at least bullet points that you can touch upon. Don’t read it. Be prepared.

There are is nothing wrong with standing in front of a mirror and testing out your presentation. Here is a little secret. I have been speaking for decades. I still do that. I stand in front of a mirror and work out my material on the toughest audience — myself. It helps. It gives you a sense of timing. Then I will practice it with my wife. My wife, God bless her, she hears the first version of every speech I do. You know, practice it a little. Be prepared and you don’t have to wing it. That is number one.

Two, be specific and talk about the things you know best. To teach people they do. Focus on one to three areas because 10 minutes isn’t a lifetime. Cover the topics you feel you understand the best. That will reduce some of your stress because if it’s an area of your business that you know forwards and backwards, you know what? You are the expert. Nobody in the audience is as expert on that topic as you are. Show them your expertise. Prepare, be specific.

Three, use handouts, visuals or PowerPoint slides to support your presentation. For people who are worried about stage fright, these products can help carry them through. When making keynotes, I don’t usually use those things. But if I am trying to teach somebody something, then I use those things. I like visuals or PowerPoint’s. I don’t often use handouts. You can use handouts. The only problem with handouts is that people do get ahead of themselves. That is one reason to use PowerPoint because it keeps them on track. Use anything that helps you reduce some of your stress.

Four, remember you are the expert. And think about ways to help show them that that is not threatening to you. You are the expert as I have talked about before.

Five, be creative. Think of some way to communicate this information that you feel comfortable with. For the CPA, it was doing a test. See if you can find something like that. Feel free to try that. If you are afraid to speak, just write up a test. If 10 questions is too much, knock it down to five. You can get through five questions and open it up and it will easily take a 10 minute.

Those are the five things. Prepare, that is number one. Two, be specific. Three, use handouts, visuals or PowerPoint slides. Four, remember you are the expert. Number five, be creative. Those are the five suggestions that I would recommend, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
That is great. I think that might be all the time we have.

Ivan:
Let me leave the listeners with just one other thing. If people want additional information on the subject, I really recommend taking a look at the many books and tapes that specifically talk about public speaking. In one of my books, Masters of Networking, there is a contribution on the subject of public speaking in a networking context written by Joe McBride. I think that starts on page 103. For the listeners, Masters of Networking, one of the books I wrote, on page 103 is a great article by Joe McBride. I recommend you read that article. It helps support this material a lot.

Priscilla:
That sounds good. All right. Well thank you so much, Dr. Misner. That was really good information.

Ivan:
Thank you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
This podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another episode of the Official BNI Podcast.

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

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

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

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 039 -

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

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

Bob Adelmann:
Doing great, yes. Hi Priscilla.

Prescilla:
Hi Bob.

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

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

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

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

Ivan:
That’s amazing. That’s amazing.

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

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

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

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

Ivan:
S as in Sam.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bob:
A C.

Ivan:
A C. okay that makes sense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ivan:
It’s true. I don’t.

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

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

Bob:
Thanks Ivan. Thanks Priscilla.

Priscilla:
You are so welcome and thank you for sharing with us. That was really great. I think that’s it for this week. Thank you, Dr. Misner, for joining us. This podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another episode of the Official BNI Podcast.