Synopsis

This week Brian Buffini joins Dr. Misner to discuss creating a proactive system for referrals. You need a systematic approach to cultivate referrals on a daily basis. The essence of it is:

• Build relationships
• Provide value
• Remind the people in your database that you’re looking for referrals

This requires sorting your database by your most valuable customers and who is most likely to refer you. Then you take a three-step approach to dealing with those people, and set aside time for it every day.

1. Contact
2. Care
3. Community

For more information about Brian Buffini’s trainings, go to the Buffini and Company website. You’ll find live seminars and coaching and mentoring programs. Dr. Misner endorses this system wholeheartedly, and Priscilla is an active client.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 165 -

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

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

Hello, Ivan. How are you today?

Ivan:
I am doing great, Priscilla. And I’m really excited because I have a guest on the line. He is a friend, a friend of BNI. His name is Brian Buffini. Brian is one of those who is extremely knowledgeable about referral marketing and, here’s where you find people who are knowledgeable, but they’re not really good at the second part, Brian walks the talk. He has been a huge supporter of BNI for many, many years. We have really appreciated his support of our organization and I highly recommend the training program that Brian does, and I’m really excited to have him on our podcast today.

Brian, do you want to say “Hi”?

Brian:
Well, hello, Ivan. Great to be with you here today. The feelings are mutual; we’ve been very excited to endorse BNI to the people we coach and the people we have in our live events over the years. And we have such great, great results with that. We have some of the folks we coach who talk about 50 percent of their income comes from the referrals they get from Business Network International. So we keep referring you, and they keep being more successful, so it’s a win-win situation.

Ivan:
Well, I’ll tell you something that I said when we first met years ago, and that is, I can walk into a BNI meeting and I can immediately tell when somebody has been trained in your training program. They absolutely stand out as a superior member in our program, because they go deeper in the process, and it’s not as superficial as some people. Some people – I hate to say it, but some people come to BNI and their only networking is what they do at that meeting, and I can always tell when there’s somebody who’s been through your training, because they’re all about building relationships and drilling deep for the referrals.

So it’s great to have you on the podcast. Let me ask you this question.

Brian:
Well, it’s great to be with you.

Ivan:
Thanks.

Tell me about the referrals. What is the power of referral marketing? And you are absolutely one of the world’s experts in this, and I think my members get benefit from hearing it from you.

Brian:
Well, no doubt. I think the big difference for me is, my dad would have been a classic BNI member. He was a house painter in Dublin, Ireland, and my father always used to say, “The work will speak for itself.” So my father was committed to doing a great job. In fact, all of us kids, we grew up in the family painting business, and every day my grandfather, who was kind of the Mr. Miyagi of our family; he mentored you and trained you in the business, and every day he’d ask you, “Can you put your name to the work you did?” And if you didn’t put your name to the work you’d done, you had to do it over, whether the customer saw it or not.

So doing a great job for people was imperative, and that’s where my father and grandfather knew their future business would come from. So they were very, very committed to what you would call a word-of-mouth business. And so I was raised in that, so that’s what I knew.

Now, when I immigrated to America and got into the real estate business, I was looking for referrals, but I found that the rhythm of waiting for referral, like the way my father and grandfather had, wasn’t working for me. So I had to go and cultivate it on purpose, and that’s where over a period of a number of years I developed a proactive system to cultivate referrals. And that’s really where it goes from word-of-mouth to working by referral, is that you have a systematic approach to intentionally cultivate referrals on a daily basis.

As we’ve talked about, Ivan, the people in our coaching program from real estate and lending side, for example, they earn seven times that of the national average. And it’s not that they’re any smarter or work any harder, they actually do it typically with less advertising budgets, but it’s done in regards to a systematic approach to your database and building relationships, providing value, and reminding those people that you’re looking for referrals. And so I think this is a big thing where a lot of folks, they do a great job, they’re committed to customer service, and they get the occasional referral, but you can’t count on it; you don’t know when the next referral is coming in, you can’t predict it.

And so our system is that you build, sort, and qualify your database. The database isn’t just something on a computer; it’s a list of relationships. And you have some business relationships that are closer than others. And in our system, we encourage you to spend more time, more energy, more effort with those clients that are the better clients, the most likely to refer you, those who have referred you in the past, those who’ve done the most business with you. So instead of the squeaky wheel getting the grease, in this system, the squeaky wheel really doesn’t get any of your time at all. So we’re investing time, energy, and resources in building relationships with our best customers and our best referral advocates.

So the first thing you have to really get familiar with your database, know who you have, know who they are, and then know a little bit about them. And many of your books go into great detail about how to do that. Where we, then, go is providing systematic approach, and we have a thing we call the Three Cs, which is Contact, Care, and Community. So you want to contact these folks. You’ve got to be seeing them in person, you’ve got to be calling them, you’ve got to be connecting with them. We believe in marketing to folks proactively, so providing something of value.

So rather than a Realtor who traditionally sends out a note pad with their picture on it or a football schedule or a recipe card for potpies, we’re providing something of value. So for example, here’s how to raise your credit score; here’s how to protect yourself from identity theft; here’s the 15 new laws, the tax laws that just came down that can help you with your tax burdens for real estate and other things. So practical, tactical things that are items of value.

Sometimes it’s a little more fun. The postage rate changes by a couple of cents, and you’ll send your customers 20 two-cent stamps in the mail. And just little tokens, little items of value that give you a chance to build the relationship deeper with the customer.

Then we recommend you go see them, you go have coffee with them, you build relationships, and then you systematically ask people for referrals. And this is something that we’ve done in our own coaching program. You talk about walking the talk; we’ve been doing this for years ourselves where our company grew on average by 49 percent a year for ten years by generating referrals from our customer base.

So it just flat out works; it just flat out works. It’s a systematic approach to a dedicated group of people familiarizing yourself with the database, building relationships with them, providing something of value, then you’ve got to go out and see them.

And then, I guess, the last little piece to this puzzle here, just in giving an overview, is just having a daily set of activities set aside. So for us, we have a little process we call the Win the Day Formula. And it basically is two hours of cultivating leads, of generating leads, of spending time with your database, talking to your database, connecting with your database, and letting them know that you’re never too busy for their referrals, and actually, kind of going from schmoozing to cultivating, and I think that’s really a key component here.

And so the number one thing, and I think you’ve seen this probably throughout BNI, Ivan, is that the people who do well in business are people who are committed to generating leads. So many people are dealing with the symptoms of a lack of leads, inconsistent income, poor quality customer, or you end up dealing with the high maintenance customer. Well, if you’re generating – in my business in real estate, I was averaging 35 referrals a month. Well, when you’re generating 35 referrals a month, you’re going to get a couple of bad apples.

Ivan:
Yeah.

Brian:
You’re going to get people that, “Hey, I want you to do this for almost free; I want you this;” they’re high maintenance; they’re after you all the time.

And you go, “You know what, I just don’t think we’re a good fit for one another.”

Well, you can say that when you have a bunch of lead. That’s hard to say that when you don’t have any leads.

Ivan:
Yeah, when you feel that the pipeline is full and there’s a lot of business coming, then it’s easier to say that, no question about it.

Brian:
Right, right. So, Ben Franklin said, “Tis hard for an empty purse to stand upright.” So we all tend to fold when the bank account’s empty, when we need food with our meals.

Ivan:
Well, you know what else Franklin said, and I talked about this in one of my previous podcasts, is that – he seemed to have a thing with purses – he said, “If you empty your purse into your head, you’re gaining something that no one can ever take away and that’s knowledge.”

Brian:
Yeah, best investment of all time.

Ivan:
Absolutely, and that’s exactly what you’re doing, what BNI is all about. And we do training in BNI, but there’s only so deep we can go in our weekly meetings. So your program’s all about really going deep with people and giving them systems. I love systems. That’s what BNI is all about, is a system.

Brian:
Right.

Ivan:
But it’s those systems for following up, and I think that’s what’s made your students sell much better, BNI members is that the system that they have they employ, they employ not only in BNI but in their business, as a rule.

Well, listen, tell us briefly, because we’re almost out of time, tell us about your trainings and where people can get information. There’s very few podcasts – and listeners, you know this is true – very few podcasts that I recommend go to a training or read a book. This is one of the few ones, and the reason for that is I so believe in the kind of training Brian does.

And so tell them a little bit about where they can go, Brian.

Brian:
We appreciate that, Ivan. BuffiniAndCompany.com is – my name, Buffini, B-U-F-F-I-N-I, AndCompany.com, has a lot of layout of where we do our live events, where we do our systematic training called 100 Days to Greatness, and then ultimately, our coaching programs. And it’s a wonderful thing. We have, obviously, a number of mutual members where we have a number of BNI folks we’ve been able to kind of help get to the next level by coaching them one on one in an in-depth capacity.

We have kind of an unusual setup in that we have like a 90,000 square foot headquarters in Carlsbad in California where we have a highly skilled, trained staff of coaches that coach people one on one, a lot of Realtors, a lot of lenders, but we also have about 15 percent of our business is general market folks in many walks of life.

So we get a great opportunity to coach folks one on one in the systematic approach of generating leads, holding folks accountable, teaching them these systems, bringing them to our live events, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun to see people grow and prosper. And yours is an organization right now that’s doing very well and continues to prosper because of the value you provide, and then we try to do the same in the coaching side of the business in helping folks grow their business, run their business like a business, and then holding them accountable, and it seems to work very well.

Ivan:
Well, I’ve been to your facilities. I was very impressed. You have an amazing team there and a great operation. And I think it’s interesting that Priscilla, who’s our host on these shows.

Priscilla, you’ve been to Brian’s program.

Priscilla:
Yeah, I’m an active client. I get all his materials. I send them out. I did my first client party this year, and that’s something that Brian has been promoting and telling us to do forever and the coaches tell you to do. And I discovered why it’s so magical to do that, and I’m a great believer in that. I love his system.

Ivan:
Well, Brian, thank you so much for your comments.

Priscilla, I appreciate your endorsement, your testimonial.

We do testimonials in BNI, so it’s a perfect segue into this.

And listeners, if you have a chance, go to BuffiniAndCompany, that’s A-N-D, BuffiniAndCompany.com to take a look at what Brian and his team have put together. It’s one of the few training programs that I recommend in networking.

So Brian, thank you so much.

Priscilla, back to you.

Priscilla:
Okay, great! Thank you both very much.

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.

Today’s special guests are BNI Director Deanna Tucci-Schmitt from BNI Western PA and Brian Smith of Foulk’s Flooring America from the BNI Eagles chapter.

The carpet cleaner in Brian’s chapter suggested to a mutual customer that she visit Brian’s company to replace her carpet, but she expressed dissatisfaction with their previous work. Brian contacted the customer to find out what the problems were and fix them, and repair the relationship.

Without knowing about the problem, Brian would have lost this client’s business. His fellow BNI member did him a real service by coming to him with the client’s concerns. Clear, open, honest, direct communication can really help solve problems.

If you can address problems in your chapter the way Brian has here, you’ll have a stronger chapter.

Brought to you by Ask Ivan Misner.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 160 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com, which is a Web site where you can ask Ivan any question you have about networking.

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

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

Ivan:
I am doing great, and this week I am in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom doing an event in London. Last week I was in Ireland having a great opportunity to meet BNI members in Ireland and the United Kingdom. I always get a really great reception here, and we’re doing a little bit of vacation time and doing a number of BNI meetings where I have a chance to meet a lot of great BNI members, and so I’m really excited to be here.

Today I have on the call a couple of people who are with BNI; first, Deanna Tucci-Schmitt. Deanna has been a BNI director in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area, my home town where I was born. She’s been a director now for 13 years. She’s one of our strongest BNI directors, and it’s a real pleasure to have her on this call. And I’m going to turn it over to her in just a second.

We also have with us Brian Smith. Brian’s been a member of BNI now for two years. Brian runs a company called Foulk’s Flooring. And this is BNI, so you’ve got to do a little plug. His Web site is www.FlooringAmerica.com.

And I want to welcome both Brian and Deanna to this call. They have a great story. And Deanna is going to start us off by telling us a little bit about it.

Over to you, Deanna.

Deanna:
Well, thank you. Brian actually hails from the Meadville portion, up north of Western Pennsylvania region here, and Brian’s a great member and has a lot of great insight. And I was talking to him one day about BNI – actually Brian offered up this information, and we called it – I called it Spinach in Your Teeth because sometimes when you have spinach in your teeth, you wish someone would tell you, and Brian got that opportunity and just really – it’s just a great story.

Brian, why don’t you go ahead, set it up and tell the story.

Brian:
Well, thank you very much, Deanna.

I am holding the flooring chapter, as Ivan said – or the flooring position in our chapter. The other person in our chapter that this story pertains to is the carpet cleaner in our chapter who is part of my Contact Sphere as well as my Power Group in the chapter. We share a mutual customer. We actually didn’t know this before this story, but while the carpet cleaner was there cleaning up the business, he mentioned that the carpet was nearing the end of its life and that the customer should consider coming out and taking a look at my store and taking a look at what I had to offer to replace the bad areas in her business. She had mentioned that she had actually done work with our company in the past, and the last time that we did work with her, she was disappointed with the service and the installation. And there was some communication errors that took place while we were doing this job.

The fellow member, he made a choice in a one-to-one that we had had to tell me that even though she expressed concern, that he didn’t want his name brought up in it or anything else, but that it may jeopardize the rapport that he had with the customer, but he had told me what she had said, that the installation wasn’t what she’d expected and there was just some service issues that she was disappointed that our company had done for her.

So after the one-on-one with that client, I proceeded to call the customer as if I were making a follow-up call or just a call for satisfaction, that it had been a number of months since we’d done any work at her facility and just kind of played it as if I didn’t know anything ahead of time. But she did open up and she proceeded to tell me that the issues that she had with the installation as well as the communication errors, which most problems do come down to communication problems. So I was prepared before that call for her to tell me what I already knew, and through that I was able to restore our relationship and really mended the service on the last one and was able to go out and fix under warranty some of the problems that she had, which were somewhat out of our control, but she blamed us for.

And since that position on – I’ve been able to hold a relationship with this customer, and she actually built a new house and we were able to help her out with that as well as some different things with her business. It’s provided for a substantial income source over the past couple of years that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, that had I not known to make this satisfaction call, because it’s not typically the same time frame that I would do them, but because I had this inside information, that I was able to call her and mend this relationship.

And even though the carpet cleaner didn’t gain anything from telling me about this problem, the relationships that we had mended – or that we had gained through BNI through our Power Group, that he cared enough about my business to speak up and tell me what the issue was. And that way, I was able to mend it and I was able to create more business through an existing client. It’s really about the relationship.

Deanna:
That’s what I was thinking.

He knew enough about you to know that you were a professional, that he could come to you and tell you that, what was going on. Whereas, I think most people would run away and hide. They’d be scared to bring it up or they’d feel funny bringing it up. And I just think it speaks a lot about Jeff – that’s who it was, right, Jeff in your chapter?

Brian:
Yes.

Deanna:
And I think it speaks a lot about you, that you actually – A, he came to you and talked to you about it, and B, you didn’t get all defensive and just put down the customer and blah, blah, blah. But then you were able to restore that relationship with the customer.

I just think that that is something that people don’t think about in BNI that your members have your back; they tell you when you’ve got spinach in your teeth. So I just thought it was a great story, and it says a lot about you, Brian, that he felt comfortable coming to you.

And Ivan, I was just wondering, that’s something that comes out of BNI, out of the relationships in BNI that you don’t really think about when you come into it, and I was just curious if you had any other situations like that. I know that you’ve talked a lot about people telling you what they’ve received as a result of having better presentation skills, for example.

Ivan:
Well, true, but I think that there’s almost an even deeper issue here, and that is a clear, open, honest, direct communication really can help resolve problems. I’ve situations like Brian’s described here where somebody wasn’t willing to go to the other person and say, “Hey, you have a problem,” because they didn’t want to rock the boat, they didn’t know what to do, they just didn’t want to say anything, so they say nothing, and the problem festers. My has been, overwhelmingly, that when people actually sit down and talk, amazing things happen and you get to the problem and you resolve it.

And the other thing is – and Brian, listen, you dealt with that really well, because a lot of times – you said something, it was beyond your control, and I’ve seen people say, “Hey, it’s not my fault! Out of my control; it’s not my fault!” And they get very reactive.

A great technique that people can use when they run into, and they may be dealing with somebody who’s not as receptive as Brian was in this case, is to say to them, “You have a PR problem here,” because feelings are as good as reality. This is a great way to open up the same dialog with somebody, especially if you think they’re not going to be as receptive to taking the concern and issues as Brian was. I mean, you handled it really well. But sometimes people get defensive, and so when you say to them, “Hey, you’ve got a PR problem. This person feels like they weren’t taken care of well,” feelings are as good as reality. Most people will respond to that better, because, you know, “Oh, okay, a PR problem. I can recognize that. I recognize that I have a PR problem. It’s not really my fault. I didn’t do anything, but I recognize that I have a PR problem.”

And that’s a really good technique to use when you run into that as well.

Deanna:
I like that.

Ivan:
Well, Brian, well done. And I think you really bring up a lesson. You see, the kinds of conversations that I like to have on these podcasts are really meaningful conversations and dialogs that would resonate with members and that they can use with the chapter. And you’ve probably given one of the better examples of how to address something when there’s a challenge in your chapter. Because if you can address it like Brian has here, you can have a stronger chapter where you have clear, open, honest, direct communication and people addressing the issues in a professional and positive way.

So, kudos, Brian! Well done!

Deanna:
Thanks, Brian.

Brian:
Thank you.

Ivan:
Thanks, everybody. Thank you so much for both of you being on my podcast. Any last comment before I wrap it up?

Brian:
It’s all about relationships.

Ivan:
Yep, you’re absolutely right, it’s all about the relationships. And the more you can go into it understanding that you want to build that relationship and enhance it and make it better, then people being honest with each other and saying, “You’ve got spinach in your teeth,” is good for the relationship.

So Deanna, thanks for bringing the story to me. And Brian, well done. I appreciate the message.

Priscilla, back to you.

Priscilla:
Thanks so much.

Well, I think that’s it for this week. I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com. 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.

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

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

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

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 157 -

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

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

Hello, Ivan. Do you have somebody with you today?

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

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

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

And so, Asa, welcome to the podcast.

Asa:
Well, thanks for having me, Ivan.

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

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

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

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

Ivan:
The referrals went down?

Asa:
Yeah, the referrals went down.

Ivan:
In the beginning?

Asa:
In the beginning, yeah.

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

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

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

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

Ivan:
You’re kidding me?!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ivan:
Wow!

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

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

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

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

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

Asa:
I know BNINetworkingSecrets.com.

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

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

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

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

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

Priscilla:
Great! Thank you both.

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

Today Dr. Misner is joined by Harvey Mackay, author of Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, who has a new book for job seekers, Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door.

He has a 66-question customer profile all his sales reps have to fill out. The questions in the Mackay 66™ are aimed at making a human connection. This is similar to the GAINS Exchange at BNI.

One of the topics addressed in Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door is how to handle rejection. Here are some things to say to a client who chooses to leave:

1. Thank you for giving your business to us all these years.
2. What can we do to make an easy transition for you?
3. If things don’t work out, we’re ready, willing and able to consider stepping right back in.
4. We sure would love to keep in touch with you over time.

The book comes with a money-back guarantee: if you don’t have a job within 6 months of applying the techniques in it, Harvey will give you your money back. Go to Mackaybook.com to buy the book and get some great free gifts.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 149 -

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

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

Hello, Ivan. How are you doing?

Ivan:
I am doing great, Priscilla. And I have on the line with me on the line Harvey Mackay. Harvey is the author of five New York Times Bestsellers, including his Number 1 book, Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. And the New York Times also named that book and Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt as two of the fifteen most inspirational books of all time. Harvey has written a new book. It’s a runaway bestseller. I have a copy of it with me right here. It’s called Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door, and Harvey is the only contributing author that has contributed to all three of my Masters books, Masters of Networking book, the Masters of Sales book, and the Masters of Success book. All three of them, Harvey has contributed to it.

Harvey, I want to thank you, first of all, for being willing to contribute to all three of those books, and I want go congratulate you on your latest book. It’s a bestseller, as well it should be. It’s a great book.

Harvey:
Ivan, thank you very much. I’ve been looking forward to coming out with you. I appreciate it very much. I’m in the middle of a 30 city book tour, 5 cities down, 24 to go. So happy to be with you.

Ivan:
Well, you know what? Thank you. I don’t bring very many people on the podcast, so I’m very selective about who I bring on, but you’ve got great material, and I think it’s material that’s going to really help our BNI members. So let me jump in and ask you a couple of questions.

First of all, share with the BNI members about the Mackay 66 and how it relates to sales and job seeking.

Harvey:
Well, surely when I wrote Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, I put in there, my sales force almost pushed me over the cliff. They said, “Don’t do that!” I said, “Don’t worry.” I said, “We’ve been doing this for 20 years.”

I came up at age 21, and I was peddling selling envelopes, a 66 question customer profile we require all of our sales people to fill out. We have $100 million company, Ivan, about 600 people, 35 sales people, and we’ve been at it for, you know, four-and-a-half decades. But you wouldn’t believe how much we know about our customers. The IRS wouldn’t believe how much we know about our customers. And I’m not talking about their taste in envelopes either. We want to know, based on routine conversation and observation, what a customer is like as a human being, what he or she feels strongly about, what he’s most proud of having achieved. In other words, we want to humanize, we want to humanize our sales strategy, and so therefore, we’ve been doing that. That’s how I built my business. That’s how I’ve built about five others that I’ve been involved with, and that’s what I’ve got a course in the book scattered throughout the book here, because there is really truly not much of a difference between selling widgets, envelopes, nuts and bolts, doesn’t matter what your product is, or getting a job.

You see, when you get a job, and of course, the subtitle is Job Search Secrets No One Else Will Tell You, when you get a job, you have to humanize your selling experience, you have to humanize your job search. And by that, what do I mean? Well, people buy from other people because of likeability, because of people skills, because of chemistry. Yes, you have to perform; yes, you have to be confident; yes, you have to be able to do the job you’re interviewing for; okay, or the product that you’re selling. But once you’ve done that and now you build the relationship long term, and I know we’re talking to a lot of people, sales people, entrepreneurs out there, professional people. The professional people, they have to bring the business through the front door. How do they do that? Well, you have to humanize your selling strategy. So that’s what the Mackay 66 is.

There’s a huge mistake that people make when they go out looking for a job, incidentally, and there’s a lot of questions in there. I don’t think you can be successful at all in the three areas, and the people that are listening right now, without one word, and certainly the entrepreneurs for sure. The hiring is so very important, and if you have to hire for success, you have to know what you’re doing, and there’s 20 fabulous questions in the back of the book. I’ve been hiring for 45 years; I’ve had 1,000 people through the front door; I’ve mentored maybe 500 of them to get jobs, 1,000 interviews. And so as I travel around the United States, people want to know how did I build my business. One word: hiring.

Ivan:
And that’s important. Many of my BNI members have employees who work for them, so that’s really important.

But I like you content about making that connection and building the relationship. For the BNI members here, let’s see if we can make a connection to what Harvey is describing here. We use the GAINS Exchange, and the GAINS Exchange, Harvey, is something that we ask our members to fill out. It’s an acronym; it stands for Goals, Accomplishments, Interests, Networks, and Skills. And we ask our members to fill that out and give to each other for the very thing that you’re describing, because the more you learn about somebody else, the more connected your feel to them, the better the relationship you have.

I had a BNI member once say, just recently, that “In these tough times, a client may leave you, but friend probably won’t.” If you have that relationship with somebody, they’re less likely to leave your business.

Harvey:
I love it, and I have a little piggy back on that, too, where I’ve said in this book, “You can take all my factories from me, I’ve got about four or five, you can take all my people, employees from me, you can take all my machinery and equipment, but leave me my name, leave me my reputation, and I’ll be back where I was today in two or three years.” And so I think with all the goals that you just happened to mention and the networking and the people, you have to have that trust, and that’s where the friendship comes in. So I agree with you 100 percent.

I’ve never told this story, but very, very briefly, I would not be here probably if it weren’t for Larry King. I was lucky enough to be on his show a few nights ago, which, of course, helped me immensely, but I had a chance to meet him, and, boom, I have five minutes in a car. He invited me into his stretch limousine. We were both standing on the corner. And he said, “Where are you going, kid?” He called me “Kid.”

And I said, “I’m headed for the Parklane Hotel.”

“Jump in. I’ll take you.”

I’ve got 300 seconds to get on Larry King. Is that high soprano, Ivan?!

Ivan:
Absolutely.

Harvey:
That’s really pressure, but to make a long story short, my father taught me was, if I ever headed the Associated Press, every person I meet as long as I live, when the hand goes out and I introduce myself, right to my brain bank, “What can I do for Ivan Misner?” That’s what I’m thinking about and “Expect nothing in return.”

If you can do that all your life, you’ll never have to worry.

Ivan:
Well, you’re absolutely speaking to the choir here with BNI, Harvey. We have a philosophy in the organization called Givers Gain. If you want to get business from people, you have to be willing to help them, support them, and it will come back around to you. So we’re definitely singing the same tune.

Harvey:
That’s why you’re so successful. And you know what? Tell the listeners out there, you just can’t hear it enough. It’s so easy, you know, to forget. It has to become a part of you. That’s all. You have to be just almost born with it, engrained in it. That’s what my father taught me, and that’s the reason why I’ve had a lot of luck over a long period of time.

Ivan:
Well, let’s switch gears just a little bit. Tell me about rejection. That was something that you talked about in the book and elsewhere, about rejection. And I particularly like the material about getting canned, whether you’re talking about in a business, a job or as a client, if a client cans you. I love the content you have in there, so give us a comment on that.

Harvey:
That happens all of the time. People have to understand, and again, you should know and I should tell your listeners the following. This is not just a jobs book; this is a book for every CEO, entrepreneur; it’s got it all in there, marketing, Mackay 66, how to sell, same thing on how to sell yourself.

But back to your question about rejection, it’s something I call it the A to Z Career Resource Book, is what I kind of think of that road here in the last couple years, but it’s only been out there a week in the marketplace.

But back to rejection. Every listener has to know that failure is not permanent; it’s only temporary. Your attitude determines your altitude. My last book was We Got Fired and It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us, and I had ten famous Americans on there. One of them was my closest friend, he’s my brother, we’re joined at the hip. His name is Lou Holtz, and he’s the Notre Dame coach for 11 years, the Hall of Famer, now with ESPN, but he got fired at Arkansas. Frank Broyles, the athletic director, fired him. He was a successful coach; comes home to his wife, Bev; said he’s going to sue the school, sue Broyles; he’s just livid. And his wife, fabulous, smart, bright, Bev, talks him out of it. He goes back. And what does he do? He makes friends with Frank Broyles. A few years later, he’s the head coach at Notre Dame. He wouldn’t have gotten the job if he hadn’t learned something from that firing experience. And that’s what rejection is.

When you get rejected, when you lose an order, when you lose an account, you have to, number one, not take it personally. That’s just key. Number two, you must learn from that experience. And number three, that if you’re going to burn your bridges, you better be a doggone good swimmer. So you can’t go out like Lou Holtz almost did. Those are the things that conquer the rejection.

And then, of course, what really helps is to have a kitchen cabinet. What’s a kitchen cabinet? Two or three or four trusted friends who care about you. And so when things aren’t going well and you want to bounce back – you know, people remember two things in life, who kicked you when you were down and who helped you on the way up. So that kitchen cabinet can be very important, too, to overcome rejection.

I don’t go around, incidentally, Ivan, with negative people. All positive people have no negative friends whatsoever.

Ivan:
Yeah, you’ve got to surround yourself with positive people, and, I think, in many ways you become, you know, the five or six people you hang around the most with. The people that you’re around are, in many ways, what you become.

Harvey:
Without question. And this is a University of Michigan study. This is fascinating. It’s conversely what we’re talking about that just proves the point in reverse, very, very much nails it on the head. University of Michigan study, they picked out a particular student, he was a male, he had two friends, and they drove to school every day. And so one day, the two friends, and this was all planned, he gets in the car and they said, “You sleep well last night?”

He said, “Yeah, of course.”

They said, “Oh, we thought you had some bags under your eyes.”

The second hour, he goes to class, and a girl comes up to him, a student, and says, “You lose some weight?”

“No, no. I feel fine.”

Third hour, another person with a negative comment comes up and says, “You worried about something?” By the fifth hour that kid, student, has checked himself into the hospital, total wreck. And that’s what negativism can do to you, and that’s why you must have positive friends.

Ivan:
I agree completely. And don’t complain to people, because half the people you tell don’t care and the other half are glad you’re worse off than they are.

There’s four or five statements that you make in the book in Chapter Nine, and we’re almost out of time, and I just want to mention them. If you lose a client, and I think this is really relevant in BNI, here’s four or five questions you list that I just love.

One is, the first thing you say is, “Thank you for giving your business to us all these years.” You’ve got to say it with sincerity, you say.

The next thing you say is, “What can we do to make an easy transition for you?” Wow! What a great question that is. Nobody ever asks that.

The next couple things are: “If things don’t work out, we’re ready, willing, and able to consider stepping right back in, and we sure would love to keep in touch with you over time.”

What great questions to ask, and I appreciate you sharing them in the book, and I think that’s positive stuff for our BNI members. Anything you’d add to those questions?

Harvey:
It’s kind of you and I, Ivan, we’re dating the same woman for two years, we’re both madly in love with her, and she decides to marry you. And I see you on the street three, five days later, whatever, after the decision, my hand goes out, big smile, “Okay, Ivan, congratulations; hope you’re happy.” You know, I’m burning inside, but you have to do the right thing. And the funny part about it is, not only is it the right thing, but it’s amazing when you lose – when you lose a client, it’s amazing how much business you’re going to get over a period of a lifetime back because of the way you made the exits.

Ivan:
And you didn’t burn bridges. Just like you said there, by not burning those bridges, you still leave the door open to do business with them down the road. That’s so important.

Harvey:
Um-hmm. It’s taking a lemon and doing lemonade. It happens every single day, but I’ll tell you, a lot of short-sighted people out there, and they certainly don’t think that way.

Ivan:
Right. Well, listen, we’re out of time. There’s a couple of things that I want to mention. You’ve got something that I just almost never see on a book, and that’s a money back guarantee on the book. Is that right?

Harvey:
Well, on the back of the book, it says, I think I can almost quote it verbatim, “Do not read this book; study it, underline it, highlight it, use Post-It notes. And if you don’t have a job after six months,” and in this case, anybody that’s listening, they’ll like the book, “I, personally, Harvey Mackay, will give you your money back.”

Now, I’m on this 30 city tour, 5 cities down, 25 to go, and 25 TV interviews, 35 radio, almost everybody asks me that question. “How can you make a statement like that?”

And I say, “Look, I’ve been doing this 45 years. I’ve had 500 people in Minneapolis, where one of my major plants is, the home office, through the front door, and they’ve gotten everything they’ve wanted. And so, therefore, when I wrote Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, my publisher gave me a three week fight. I said, “Please,” I begged with them, I said, “put on the back page,” I was the first author in the United States to do this, “put on the back page, ‘Money back guarantee if you don’t like this book.’” Five million, Ivan, five million copies have been sold as Swim With the Sharks; eighteen, eighteen people have asked for their money back and seven of them were my best friends.

Ivan:
Well, listen, that is amazing, Harvey. I am so impressed. You’ve got a Web site where people can go, pick up the book, and there’s a lot of other free gifts as well, I believe. Mackaybook.com; that’s Mackay, spelled M-A-C-K-A-Y, book.com. What are a couple of the gifts? We’re over time, but tell us exactly –

Harvey:
Well, they’re called my mini gold mine, and that is it’s a Harvey Mackay Rolodex Network Builder. That’s what I grew up with, the Rolodex, of course, now the computer. The $12.95 book that sells to other corporations all over the world, they can download that in seconds. If they purchase the book, it’s got 20 pages of my MBA at the Harvard MBA program, which is my whole life. It’s pages 63-84 in that book, about 120 pages. So if they just do that, the rest of their lives, they will be enormously successful. They have the 66 question customer profile on there. We’ve got 16 ways to prepare again for an interview. We’ve got all different kinds of strategies, negotiation strategies in there, 20 questions, toughest questions that you want to ask someone if you’re doing the hiring. All those things are all, of course, at no charge, just gratis with the book.

So I guess my last word would be, I honestly believe that this book will be around 25 years just like Swim With the Sharks, proud that it’s a Wall Street Journal, after the first week, Bestseller, and I think there’s a lot of take-home value in there for every listener.

So I appreciate you having me on.

Ivan:
I agree, Harvey. I don’t recommend a whole lot of books, there’s not a whole lot that I recommend to my members on the BNI podcast, but this is one of the few ones.

And although it’s about job searches, it’s also about networking, and there’s a ton of material that you, as BNI members, can get out of the book that will help you be better BNI members and better professionals.

Harvey Mackay, thank you so much. You’re the only contributing author that’s been in all three of our Masters books. I really appreciate that, that giving and willingness to do that. Great content, and I appreciate you being on our podcast.

Harvey:
I love being with you, and thanks again, Ivan.

Ivan:
Thank you.

Pricilla, I’ll turn it back over to you.

Priscilla:
Okay, great.

Ivan:
Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay. Thank you so much, both of you. That was very interesting.

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

Dr. Misner is joined today by special guest Rick Itzkowich, who specializes in helping BNI members triple their referrals using LinkedIn to complement their offline networking.

Here are some facts and figures behind Rick’s “QuoteActions” program.

• Only 3-10% of people are ready to buy now.
• People need to be touched 5-12 times before they buy.
• You need a system that helps you build relationships by touching people on a regular basis with content they want to receive.

You can use a newsletter to create these touchpoints, but that’s a lot of work. “QuoteActions” sends a short inspirational quotation to your mailing list, with no sales pitch—and you don’t have to do anything after you set it up.

You can try “QuoteActions” free for 30 days at www.quoteactions.com.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 146 -

Brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com, where you can ask Ivan Misner any question you ever had about networking.

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com, a Web site where you can ask any question you have ever had about networking.

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

Hello, Ivan. Where are you, and who’s with you?

Ivan:
Well, today I’m in Sacramento for BNI. We’ve got a big event up in the Sacramento area, and we have some great members, and I’m looking forward to doing a presentation for them up here this week.

I have with me a guest on the podcast today. His name is Rick Itzkowich, and Rick is a good friend of mine and a friend of BNI. He’s the co-founder and vice president of Productive Learning & Leisure, which is an organization that offers courses in training on learning adventures and products that promote self-development. He’s also creator of the QuoteActions, which I’m sure we’ll talk about here sometime today, and the LinkedIn referral process program. So Rick is a very creative guy. He’s got lots of good stuff, and he’s really got some good content in terms of touchpoints in connecting with people and staying in touch with them.

So Rick, welcome to the podcast.

Rick:
Dr. Misner, thank you for having me here.

Ivan:
Well, it’s great to have you on board. And there’s really three things that I’d like to touch upon today in this podcast, and the first one is about having the system in place to follow up. I think that’s one of the major challenges for anybody in networking, certainly for BNI members. We just completed a study of about 12,000 business professionals, and one of the questions we asked them, “What are some of the challenges you have in networking,” and follow-up was one of the big ones. So what are your thoughts about that in terms of the kinds of things that you recommend for BNI people?

Rick:
Well, first of all, people will buy when they are ready to buy and not when we are ready to sell to them. And that’s a key point to remember, because most of us in BNI are in sales of some sort or another, and the statistics – I got these from Chet Holmes in his book, The Ultimate Sales Machine. He talks that only between 3 and 10 percent of the people that are interested in a product or service will be buying right now, with the rest of them doing it at a later time.

Ivan:
That’s an important statistic, Rick. Do you want to repeat that.

Rick:
Yes. Only between 3 and 10 percent of the people who are interested in a product or service will buy from us right now. The rest of them will do it at a later date.

Furthermore, 81 percent of the people buy after the fifth to the twelfth contact. That means they need to be touched at least five times, if not twelve, before they buy. And most people give up way before that, leaving a lot of money on the table.

So a couple of examples I can give you also. In networking events, people who go to Chambers and other events where they collect business cards, well, people typically do three things with a business card: they put them in a rubber band and stick them in a drawer; they add them to an e-mail list and they start sending unsolicited e-mail; or –

Ivan:
Which everybody loves, right?

Rick:
Oh, yes! And the third one is they pick up the phone and they start selling, which everybody loves, too!

Ivan:
Yeah, right!

Rick:
So none of these, in any way, build a relationship, which is what BNI is always talking about, that people need to like you and trust you before they will do business with you. So many BNI members who are sole-preneurs without the staff, the time, or the money to extend marketing campaigns to stay in touch with their databases have a system in place to be able to contact people on a regular basis. And furthermore, the trend is that today people want short and sweet communications, McBites if you want to. We have USA to thank for all of this. But many of the long pieces that we are used to sending are just not being read nearly with the frequency than shorter communications.

Ivan:
You mentioned something about building relationships, so that’s really important. How do you do that? And do you do that prior to focusing on doing business? I mean, I think I know the answer to that, but I’d like to hear your perspective on it.

Rick:
Sure. Well, the Referral Institute, which again you’re a part of, has taught me the VCP model, and for many BNI members who are familiar with this, is Visibility, Credibility, and Profitability. People need to know who you are, then they need to trust you, and then, and only then, will they do business directly with you or refer business to you.

So in BNI, we use a one-on-ones and the power groups to build our relationships. The weekly presence, it’s all about building relationships. So we know that the more frequent we attend the meetings, the more we build that trust, that likeability, so we need to have a system in place that will allow us to do that in a time efficient manner and with many, many more people than just the people in our chapter. So having a system in place that allows you to touch people on a regular basis with content that they want to receive starts building your bond and your relationship with the people, so that when the time is right for them to want to use your product or service, they will, a, think of you first, and more importantly, think fondly of you.

Ivan:
Yeah. You know, a lot of people do this, and some use a newsletter as a way of staying in touch, but putting together a newsletter is really an immense about of work. Now, you’re talking to somebody who’s done it for 25 years, and it’s just an immense amount of work, and I know you guys have something that you use that I love that is a touchpoint; it’s a way to stay in contact that doesn’t require that you have to be constantly producing a newsletter. And I hope I’m not jumping the gun here, but I love your QuoteActions program, and that’s exactly what you’re talking about in terms of staying in touch with people without trying to sell. Would you agree?

Rick:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And yes, I created QuoteActions as a way for me to stay in more frequent communication with my clients, because I also produce newsletters, and I know the amount of work that they take, and I wanted to do something that was far more frequent than that. So we created this internally, and quotes is one of those things that people love receiving. They use them all the time, but there was already a lot of quotes out there. This was a stroke of inspiration that came up where we added an action to the quote to make the quote come to life and basically personalize it to the person, so that instead of being just something that was nice or interesting, it was something that people could do with this. Because the action part of it is what we strongly believe makes a difference in people’s lives.

So we created a system that not only allows for regular content to be delivered, but it’s already preprogrammed so that the individuals can simply just make it available as a gift to somebody and then all the work is being taken care of for them.

Ivan:
And the QuoteActions, what I like about it is you can get it on a daily basis or you can get it, I think, also two or three times a week as well as on a daily basis?

Rick:
Yes, the recipient of the QuoteActions chooses to get it either once a week, twice a week, or five days a week.

Ivan:
Give us an example of the kinds of things that people would actually receive. I know some of my quotes are in there. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. But there’s some other people and other kinds of things as well.

Rick:
Yeah, here’s one, and it just came to mind. It says, “A true measure of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your success,” and that is by Cullen Hightower, a writer, and says, “Your action for today is to think of three people who have benefited from your success and thank them.” So it’s something that is short and it’s sweet, and more importantly, the quotes are delivered from you or whoever sends them with their e-mail address and their contact information at the bottom. And because you’re not selling anything, all you’re doing is you’re offering something that is very short and sweet but it reminds people of you, it builds up good will and it’s totally automated without you having to do anything other than make the initial offer, a gift, that people accept by clicking on link when they opt in.

Ivan:
Yeah, and it doesn’t look like it’s coming from QuoteActions; it looks like it’s coming from you as an individual, whoever you are, an individual member of BNI or someone else. It looks like it’s coming from them, and so what I like about the concept, and this is how it ties in and the reason why I wanted you on the podcast, is that I have always said that if you find ways to help people, if you can finds ways to give information to people, to stay in touch with them other than to try to sell them something, you are much more likely to build a relationship to the point where they’re willing to do business with you and willing to refer you.

And this is a great example of that. I get QuoteActions on a regular basis from Betty Jo, and I’ve loved it.

Rick:
Yeah, well, it does also let you form a bond in a relationship with many of the people that you just recently met, a lot of the prospects that you’ve just recently met. It’s a great way to get back in touch with former clients who, instead of sending them an offer to buy something from you, instead what you do is you send them a gift which is “I’d like to offer you this gift. If you’d like to receive it, here it is,” which is a much more elegant way to get back in touch with people using the Givers Gain mentality that we’re all very familiar with BNI.

Ivan:
So, Rick, the Web site, QuoteActions.com, is that right?

Rick:
That is correct. People can go there and they can take a 30 day free trial so they can experience it and try it out for themselves.

Ivan:
Yeah. Any closing thought or comment, Rick?

Rick:
Well, I think that we all agree that BNI secrets of success lie in its proven system of bringing professionals together to give and receive word-of-mouth referrals on a consistent basis. So as we’ve covered in today’s podcast, people need systems to stay connected with people, the touchpoints and have them first, and we believe that QuoteActions would be a great tool for people, that it’s very cost and time effective for them to do this.

Ivan:
You know, I don’t recommend a lot of systems on these podcasts. There’s just a handful of things that I recommend, and this is absolutely one of them. I think it’s good because it is a touchpoint; it is a way to stay in touch regularly with people that you want to do business with or that you are doing business with, and it’s a very subtle technique to stay in touch with them providing them valuable information. And whether you use QuoteActions or any other kind of system, you need to have a system to stay in touch with people with content that they want to have, and I love this content, and that’s why I’ve recommended it. If you’re listening to the podcast, go take a look at the Web site. I think it’s a great way to maintain touchpoints with your fellow BNI members and with your clients and prospective clients.

Rick, thank you very much for being on the show.

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

Priscilla:
Okay, great. Thank you so much.

I think that’s it for this week, and I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com. 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.

Today’s special guest is infographics specialist Steven Lin, who created a series of visual tools called “BNI Visualized” to help new members understand the value of BNI. These are on BNI’s main website, but we’re also going to put the Flash animations and the PDF notes here on the podcast site.

BNI members at every level can use “BNI Visualized” to benefit themselves, their guests, their chapter, and BNI as a whole.

• New members see the benefit of BNI and invite more guests
• Guests will join BNI because they see the benefits
• BNI directors can educate the leadership team more easily and train members who want to start new chapters
• Expands knowledge of directors so they can make their chapters stronger

The “Why Join BNI?” animation includes 4 reasons to join BNI:

1. World’s largest networking organization
2. Lock out competition
3. Mandate is to give referrals
4. Best marketing tools for your business

There’s also a second Flash animation called “How BNI Works” that explains the concept of Givers Gain.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 142 -

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’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. I hear you have a guest today.

Ivan:
I do. I have a very talented young man. His name is Steven Lin. Steven does a lot of work with art. He does icon creation and visual story creation and brand management, infographic creation, all kinds of very creative things. I met Steven originally in Vancouver, Canada, at a presentation I did, and he did a couple of drawings of me that show up on BNI SuccessNet every now and then with me as a magician, me with the black belt, the martial arts. I’m sitting here looking at it right now.

Steven, you’re really very creative, and you did something for BNI recently that I really liked. It’s a BNI Visualized which can be found on our Web site, and we’re also going to try and put it up on this podcast. It’s a live file that you’ll be able to see some of the things we’re talking about, and it is, right now, up at BNI.com under Why Join BNI.

And with no further ado, let me introduce Steven Lin. Steven, you’re really a creative guy. Thanks for sharing all of this. Tell us about this BNI Visualized that you put together.

Steven:
Thank you, Ivan, for having me on the air today. So as a longtime member of BNI, I’ve been with BNI for four years, and I have worked as Secretary/Treasurer in my leadership in my chapter as well, so I saw the value of BNI. And as a creative director that specializes in process of visualization, I want to create something that going to benefit all the members in the BNI organization. So what BNI Visualized is a set of processed diagrams that explain how BNI works and why BNI is the best marketing tool for businesses. So the whole objective behind it is it’s a time saving tool and it allows new members to quickly understand the value of BNI.

So in my note that I put down, BNI could be benefit to people at different levels. So at the bottom, it’s intended for members who are looking for a better way to invite guests to be part of their local chapter.

Ivan:
If I may, Steven, you’re referring to the handwritten notes, the PDF file, correct?

Steven:
Yes, yes, I am.

Ivan:
So if you’re listening to this podcast, we’re going to put this PDF up there. You ought to have it up in front of you as we’re discussing it and Steven’s explaining how the live – it’s not an executable file; it’s a – what is it called?

Steven:
PDF.

Ivan:
Yeah, this is a PDF, but you have another file that we’re going to try to put up here that is actually –

Steven:
Flash animation.

Ivan:
Flash animation. So the PDF is sort of a description of what’s going on with the flash animation. Is that correct, Steven?

Steven:
Yes, it’s how this would actually benefit the members.

Ivan:
Great. So you should have the PDF up looking at it while Steven’s describing it, and then when we’re all done, run the flash animation so you can see how it works. If we can’t get it up on BNI Podcast, go to BNI.com and look under Why BNI and you’ll see the flash animation we’re talking about.

Sorry, Steven. Go ahead.

Steven:
No problem.

So the first step for members is we’re always looking for a better way to enhance our guest invitation process, so with BNI Visualization, it allows guests to convince that BNI is a great marketing tool for them and remove some of the skepticism about BNI.

So the next level up is the chapter leadership team. It allows the leadership team to educate the chapter members or potential members about the benefit of BNI. For new members, they see the benefit of BNI so they will invite more guests into their BNI chapter. For guests that attended, they will join BNI because now they see the benefit of how BNI could do for their business. And at the director’s level, it’s twofold. Number one, it allows them to educate the leadership team so they will educate the chapter members and grow the membership that way. And also, it’s a great recruiting tool, because there’s a lot of guests come and visit my chapter, and because there’s already a conflict of interest, so they would start their own chapter. So this will be a great tool for the director to train them, for someone who wants to start their own chapter.

The last level is at the BNI level. If we can incorporate more visualization into our training material and this will allow the director to expend their knowledge so they can help to build a stronger chapter.

So these are the four reasons I believe how people could potentially benefit from the BNI Visualizer.

Back to you, Ivan.

Ivan:
This is really great flash animation, and I’m looking at the flash animation as we’re talking. Do you want to talk a little bit about what it is. And again, if we don’t have it up at BNI Podcast, go to BNI.com and look at Why Join and you’ll see the actual flash animation that we’ve just talked about in a PDF that you’re looking at, or should have on BNI Podcast, the PDF describes how to use this flash animation. But do you want to talk a little bit about what they can expect when they see this flash animation. It has four separate reasons.

Steven:
Yes, there’s four separate reasons of joining BNI, and that’s what we try to teach people at the Secretary/Treasurer report at the end of the meeting is the four reasons of joining BNI.

Number one, BNI is the world’s largest organization.

Number two, you get to lock out your competition.

And Number three, our mandate to join BNI is to give referrals to our members.

And last reason is it’s the best marketing tool for my business and for a lot of my colleagues’ business.

As a matter of fact, in BNI.com, there’s a section called How BNI Works. There’s another set of animation that we have created that really explains the I HAVE portion of the meeting, and that goes through – it’s a five step process that explains how BNI really works. And that’s where people can really understand the whole concept behind BNI of Givers Gain.

Ivan:
We really like this flash animation, and again, if you go to Why Join BNI, you see the four reasons. When you click on it, you’ll get the information in writing, but also, that’s your voice I believe, Steven, basically describing what they’re reading, correct?

Steven:
Um-hmm, that’s right, that’s right.

Ivan:
So the four reasons are:

It’s a professional organization; it’s one of the world’s largest networking organizations.

The second reason, we only take one person per profession.

The third reason is that giving referrals is really the cornerstone of the program, and you create a virtual sales team in BNI.

And the fourth reason in the flash animation is that it provides you with increased exposure.

I love this material. Let’s say somebody wanted to put on their Web site, let’s say their chapter Web site, or maybe even their individual Web site, because a lot of members say on their Web site “Proud member of BNI,” what do you think? You would be good with them linking back to this flash animation, wouldn’t you?

Steven:
Yes, the best way is to contact me by SLIN@2QCreations.com. Send me a quick e-mail, and I will send you the flash animation file so you can incorporate that into your chapter’s Web site, or I can send you a PDF version of that so you can print it out as a poster that you can use during your BNI meeting.

Ivan:
That’s very gracious of you. Let’s make sure we get that e-mail right. It’s SLin, SLIN@2QCreations.com.

Steven:
Yes.

Ivan:
And your Web site is, obviously, 2QCreations.com, and I urge members, if you don’t have anyone who does what Steven does in your chapter, give Steven a call, go to his Web site, take a look at he does. It’s very creative. You’re very talented, Steven. People who have no artistic talent whatsoever are always blown away by people like you, who can just put together stuff in a visual way that’s very interesting and visually attractive.

Steven:
Thank you, thank you, Ivan.

Ivan:
Really well done.

Steven:
Thank you, thank you.

Ivan:
All right. So if somebody would like to put this up on their Web site, they can contact you. You can also link to it either on this podcast or at BNI.com.

Anything else you want to leave them with, Steven?

Steven:
The other thing is I can also provide – I know SendACard is very popular among the BNI world, so I have also incorporated into SendACard format so you can actually send it out to your colleague as well or someone you’d like to invite into your BNI chapter.

And last thing I want to add is the whole point of visualization is people are just bombarded with too much information, and most information is disregarded. So with visualization, the more you can do is really help them to cut through the clutter and create a better understanding, and that’s how we specialize.

Ivan:
And that’s what you do professionally?

Steven:
Yes, exactly.

Ivan:
So if somebody could use your services, they know how to reach you, and they certainly have seen the kind of work you do. Steven, I really appreciate what you’ve put together for BNI, and as you can see, we’re using it in multiple locations. And I want to just thank you very much for your offering to do this for the organization.

Steven:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity, Ivan.

Ivan:
Great! And again, Steven’s Web site is 2QCreations.com, and if you’d like to connect with him directly, either get that or you can talk to him about the services that he has, please feel free to do that. Steven is a member of BNI and has been for a number of years.

Thank you very much, Steven. It’s been great having you on the show.

Priscilla, back to you.

Priscilla:
Thank you, Ivan and Steven. That was very interesting.

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

Today Dr. Misner is joined by BNI Hall of Fame Director Dawn Lyons from Northern California. Dawn trains people how to be proactive rather than reactive about making referrals.

Here’s the technique:

• Toward the end of a meeting with a new client, tell them that you’re part of a referral network that allows you to offer additional services.
• Then offer them your card file and walk away.
• When you come back, ask whether the client needs the services of any of these people.
• If they do, provide specific recommendations for that persons.

To make this work, you have to know your fellow BNI members and their work well.

Card File Challenge

Run a contest in your chapter to see who can do “The Card File Thingy” the most in a month, and what results you get. Leave a comment here on the blog to let us know what you think of the idea and how your chapter’s Card File Challenge turned out.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 135 -

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:
Hi, Priscilla. I’m doing great. It was really nice meeting you at our International Directors Conference last month. We’ve done these podcasts all these many months now, a year-and-a-half, and it was a pleasure to finally meet you.

Priscilla:
I know. I just enjoyed it so much; it was just great! Thank you for inviting me.

Ivan:
Yeah. Listen, talking about directors, I have with us today an executive director who’s going to be doing this podcast with me. Her name is Dawn Lyons. She is a BNI executive director up in Northern California, and she’s been an executive director since 2000. She’s also a partner in the Referral Institute, and I think most notably, she’s a Hall of Fame director for BNI, having opened up a large number of chapters in one year, 20 chapters in one year. And she’s one of only five or six directors in the world who’ve ever done that, the only woman who has done it, so I’m really pleased to have on the podcast with us Dawn Lyon.

Hi, Dawn.

Dawn:
Hi, Ivan. Hi, Priscilla. How are you?

Priscilla:
Very good, thank you.

Ivan:
You’re on the podcast today to talk about the card file thingy that BNI has and really how to use the BNI card file, and you train your members to do referrals proactively instead of reactively. And I thought maybe this would be great material for our BNI members, so let me turn it over to you.

Dawn:
Okay. One of the things that we see a lot is that people actually are in a reactive mode when they’re trying to generate a referral. Someone will literally say, “Gosh, I’m having problems with my Web site. Do you know a Web site designer?” And they will literally ask you and, therefore, now, all of a sudden, you’re excited because you have a referral.

Well, what we want to train people on is how to do referrals proactively, literally being out there working on our chapter members’ behalf so that we can generate more referrals for the entire chapter. And Priscilla knows this because we actually train this in our region. Our members all across the world have the tool that they can be using more effectively.

We haven’t come up with a very fancy name, so we do call it The Card File Thingy because it’s just this approach that if we use this approach, we had one gentleman, whose name is Brian Johnson, he got seven referrals from one person in about five to eight minutes.

Priscilla:
Wow!

Ivan:
That’s amazing!

Dawn:
Yeah, just using this technique. So if I can, I’ll just kind of role play it a little bit and have people understand a little script that we utilize, because the script is actually very, very crucial to the success of the outcome of using The Card File Thingy. So we all have our burgundy card file holders, we all have our members’ cards in there, but if we carry it around with us and we use it at our appointments, this is when it become proactive referral marketing.

So let’s say that I am in Web site development and I’m working with one of my clients or I’m on a customer service call, I may be out and about, I may be meeting with friends or even working with co-workers, but if I say something to a client that’s really specific, this is the script that we find, used well, works incredibly well.

I do my appointments, and towards the end of the appointment, I’m going to say something to the effect of, “You know, I don’t know if you know this or not, but as an added service to all of my clients, I actually belong to a referral organization which allows me to help you with more than just your Web site needs. I happen to know 35 or more local business people that I know, like, and trust would do a great job for you if you ever needed any of their services. So I’ll tell you what, I have some paperwork that I need to go grab. Why don’t you look through here, and I’ll be right back.”

Well, what do you think happens as soon as you walk away?

Ivan:
They always open up the card file.

Dawn:
Yeah, they’re always going to open up the card file. And here I am sitting there asking them questions about their Web site needs, I have no idea if they want to get their carpets cleaned or if they’ve been thinking about doing some landscaping or they want to get some new blinds in their home. I don’t ask questions about that type of stuff, but I definitely have members in my chapter that are looking for those kinds of client referrals. And so the key is, and there’s a couple secrets to this technique, you absolutely have to walk away from the person that has the card file in their hands. Could you imagine if you were standing over their shoulder watching them?

Ivan:
Yeah. No, that doesn’t work. But what are they going to do? Open it up.

Dawn:
Yeah, you just want them to open it up and then they flip through it and they know what services they might be needing in the next couple of months.

When you come back, there’s another key step. So when you come back, you simply say something like, “So, gosh, do you or your family need any of the services of all these folks that I know?” They’re either going to say yes or no, and either one is okay. And the reason for that is, as a business person, you just made yourself more likeable and more appropriate to them as far as them wanting to come back to you later, because you have shown them that you know these 35-plus local business people.

So if they say, “Yes, you know, gosh, I didn’t know that you knew someone who was in financial advising, or “Gosh, we were looking for a new chiropractor.”

The key here is you’ve got to be able to promote your member really, really well. You can’t just say, “Oh, you should go see Joe because he’s a really nice guy.” You need more information than that. For instance, if someone came back to my card holder and said, “Well, I was really looking at this CPA; we’re not real happy with our CPA,” I would want to be able to say, “My CPA, Tim, has literally saved two of my dear friends; one of them $1200 and the other one over $6,000, and he only looked at their tax returns for less than ten minutes.”

Ivan:
Wow, that’s amazing! And this is similar conceptually to what I’ve talked about in a previous podcast as being a gatekeeper, that you want to be in a position where you’re referring people, particularly to your clients and customers and associates because it builds your credibility with them as well as enabling you to pass referrals.

Dawn:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the real key is compelling the person to want to take the members’ phone call, and just letting them know that they’re a nice guy or they have a great personality is kind of like the blind date. If they have a great personality, what do you normally think of?

Priscilla:
They don’t look good.

Ivan:
I don’t want to say!

Dawn:
So here, you really want some really good information, so always have a couple of your BNI members’ best stories, how have they helped someone. Because now the person is looking for those services, you tell a great story about your member and say, “Is this the kind of expert you’d like to talk with? I can get you that personal introduction.”

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
That’s great. What kind of results? You mentioned one, but can you give us a couple of other examples of results people have had using this technique.

Dawn:
Yeah, absolutely. My first ever experience with this was probably four or so years ago. I had a gal come up to me at a Members Success Program, and she said, “You know what? This is my second time through Members Success, and the reason why is because I am the lowest referral giver in the chapter, and I want to do something about it.” We showed her this technique. It was kind of off to the side, it wasn’t even in the big presentation, and she e-mailed me the following weeks and said, “By the way, just be using that technique, I generated 11 referrals for my chapter members this week.”

Ivan:
Wow!

Dawn:
In one week’s time, just by doing The Card File Thingy, walking away from her clients or anyone that she had that appointment with, letting them look through the book and see what services they needed, she was able to do that.

I also just had a gal by the name of Mylie Colmer, who is a Realtor, she showed the book 29 times and got 16 referrals.

Ivan:
Wow, that’s amazing! It’s amazing how simple techniques like this can really make a difference. I tell people all the time, a lot of what we talk about is simple but not easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it. And the hard part about this is remembering to do it consistently. And if you do it consistently, it’s a simple idea that can make you one of the top referral givers in the chapter, can’t it?

Dawn:
Um-hmm, absolutely.

Priscilla:
I have a question.

Ivan:
Sure, go ahead, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
In my chapter, we have a brochure that’s written, it’s a handout really, with everybody’s name and information and Web sites on it, telephone numbers. Do you think it’s as effective to give them the brochure as it is to show them the card file?

Dawn:
Personally, I don’t, and here’s why. Even though the cards have all of the person’s information on it, I think the brochure is almost a way that they could just contact the person alone. And what we always want to do in referrals is make the connection.

Priscilla:
Um-hmm, right.

Dawn:
We want to make sure that the BNI member has the availability and the expectation that they can make that phone call and talk to that prospect.

Ivan:
You know, I agree. I certainly don’t think it’s a bad idea to have some kind of flyer with the different businesses on it, but to be honest with you, nothing beats the person’s business card. I think it’s more effective, and that card file is a great way to get people to do that. I saw it done many, many years ago with somebody who would take orders. He would be filling out the paperwork, and he would hand the file to them. Now, he didn’t leave the room, but he was busy filling out paperwork. His head was down and he’s writing stuff out while the person was going through it, and it was a effective way to generate referrals. That was the first time I ever saw.

Well, we’re just about out of time, Dawn. I think you’ve got an assignment for everyone, don’t you?

Dawn:
Well, you know, we were thinking that it would be kind of fun to have people in the chapters actually create a challenge around this. Who could just do The Card File Thingy approach however many times in maybe a month? And so if all the chapters want to get on board with this and really proactively market their chapter members, this would be the easiest way to create a habit. It makes them look good, and they’re offering an additional service to their clients to really be that contact person that can connect them with anyone they need to in the community.

So my challenge is why not run a challenge in the chapter and see who can do The Card File Thingy the most amount of times in a month!

Ivan:
I love it! So there’s the challenge. Everyone listening to this podcast, take it back to your chapter, explain the program, and let’s see what kind of results your chapter can get. And by all means, leave a message here on this podcast where you can leave comments about what you think of the idea and how it worked out, if you did it.

Dawn, thank you so much. You’re a great director for BNI, and we appreciate your idea here today.

Back to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay, great! Thank you, Dawn, and thank you, Ivan.

I think 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. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

This week Ed Wallace, author of Business Relationships That Last, joins Dr. Misner to explain that there’s a system to the “soft skill” of relationships. Here are the five rungs on Ed’s ladder:

1. Establishing Common Ground
2. Displaying Integrity and Trust
3. Using Time Purposefully
4. Offering Help
5. Asking for Help

Dr. Misner sees this ladder as a microcosm of the BNI program. The book is available from Greenleaf, the same publisher that produced The 29% Solution.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 131 -

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. I hear you have a guest today.

Ivan:
I do, Priscilla. I have a good guest, great book. His name is Ed Wallace, and Ed’s book is called Business Relationships That Last. And I don’t bring on a lot of guests with books on the podcasts, but this one is right up the alley of BNI, and I just wanted to welcome Ed chat a little bit about his book.

Ed, hi.

Ed:
Hi, Ivan. Hi, Priscilla. How are you today?

Priscilla:
Hi, Ed. Great.

Ivan:
We’re doing great, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to jump right in and ask you a question. You’ve got this great model in your book, Business Relationships That Last, and first of all, the topic is perfect for BNI members, because I talk to them all the time about that this is all about relationships. That’s what networking is all about. And you’ve got this relationship ladder that I really like, and in the ladder, the sides of the ladder, the forms of the ladder talk about two things; one side is the soft skills, or the art; and the other is the hard skills, or the science. And then you have a number of rungs that go up.

But that really resonated with me because I’ve talked on this podcast and in a lot of my material about the fact that we don’t teach this stuff in colleges and universities and that most colleges and professors think that relationship marketing is a soft science, and it just drives me crazy. I think that’s what I loved about your book is that it really focuses on this soft skill that is so very important.

Do you want to talk about that and then jump into your five rungs?

Ed:
Oh, I’d love to, Ivan. Thank you for teeing that up.

When we talk about relationships as a soft skill, it’s really the hard stuff. It really is because we’re all getting, in our formal education, we’re all getting the hard skills, and then we get more of those when we join corporations. But the soft skills, the art, of how we communicate, how we listen, how we pay attention, how we ask questions and care about the answers, that’s what the soft skills are all about. So when I created the relational model, first of all, I wanted a vision or a model that everyone could understand, and a ladder is very simple. But speaking about the frame, a ladder has to be sturdy; it has to be in balance.

Sometimes we get stereotyped as a hard skill person. Believe it or not, Ivan, I’m a CPA, and that’s my formal education. But I’ve always leaned more to the soft side. And we can get stereotyped one way or the other, and I think that really limits our ability to develop our careers and to advance our relationships. So I set the frame up so that we could demonstrate and model the balance that we have to have between our hard and our soft skills, and that’s one thing that great relationships helps us to do.

Ivan:
Well, let’s tackle it from the bottom line up starting with Establishing Common Ground. Do you want to talk about that and the next several levels above it. And the listeners need to visualize literally a ladder with each rung of the ladder, and it starts with Establishing Common Ground, which is basically with acquaintances.

Ed:
I will, Ivan, and you notice on the ladder, it’s wider at the bottom because that first step, it’s the hardest step for us to take. It represents when we’re acquaintances in our business relationships. And Establishing Common Ground is when we really need to put ourselves out there, and I know with BNI, that’s what that’s all about. We’ve got to put ourselves out there, go out to meetings, meet people. Use social networking to set those meetings up. And Establishing Common Ground is really finding a way into the business relationship or the conversation, finding a way in to what that person is trying to accomplish in life or their career or whatever they’re trying to do.

So Establishing Common Ground is the first step, and it’s more or less a giant leap, because once you establish common ground, and I suggest we do that by asking great questions that make us credible, that make us believable.

Ivan:
Okay. So, Ed, once you’ve established the credibility, the next rung is Displaying Integrity and Trust. Do you want to run with it from there?

Ed:
Absolutely. Once we’re deemed credible, that’s when our colleague, our clients, our peers, whoever it is, that’s when they believe we might be able to help them with their goal, their passion, or their struggle, which I call their Relational GPS. And when we start hearing questions like, “Can you help us with this,” or they start asking us to do things, that’s when we get a chance to move to the second rung of the ladder, which is Displaying Integrity and Trust.

Then there’s two sides to that, Ivan. There’s the public side, which is keeping our promises, and there’s the private side, which is doing the right thing when nobody’s watching. Once we continue to live up to those commitments, continue to fulfill those promises, then we move into another dimension on ladder. We move from Acquaintances to what I call Professional Peers. And that’s where there is an hierarchy in the relationship. You’re working on a totally professional level, and you are really concerned about each other’s time, not as a cost, but as an investment in the relationship.

Hence, the third rung is the Purposeful Use of Time. And that’s where we plan our meetings our effectively, we think about who we’re bringing together, etc.

As you continue to move up the ladder, the fourth rung is Offering Help. When you first started off on the first rung, they really don’t want your help yet because they haven’t deemed your credible enough to see whether you can help them with their issues or their problems, their goals, passions, and struggles. But this point, your colleague or client, they’re looking for your help, they’re looking for your unsolicited offers of help.

And then finally, the fifth rung is Asking for Help. And that’s when you’re brave enough to say, “I don’t know,” that you don’t have all the answers.

So there’s your five steps.

Ivan:
Well, I love that, and I’ve got to tell you, one of the reasons I really like these steps is I think, in a way, this is much of the process that takes place within the BNI context. People who join the organization first have to Establish Common Ground; you’ve got to make connection with other people. They’ve got to Display Integrity and Trust, and if they don’t, they’re never going to get anywhere within the group. One of the ways to do that is through our endorsements and our testimonials that we do at chapter meetings. Using time purposefully, well, that’s what really the BNI program is all about, is trying to create that structure and use your time effectively with each other. Offering Help, one of the philosophies of BNI is Givers Gain, if you want to get business, you have to be willing to give business. So you start off by trying to help other people. And you’ve got to ask for referrals, which is Asking for Help. And I saw this ladder as really a microcosm of the BNI program, in a way, and that’s what resonated with me, and that’s why I recommend this book to my BNI members worldwide.

Ed, where can people get the book? Is it available at book stores?

Ed:
It’s available in all the bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Borders. It’s also available on all the online outlets, Amazon, BNI Online, etc. So anywhere you click, you should be able to find Business Relationships That Last.

Thanks for asking, Ivan.

Ivan:
Yeah, my pleasure. We have the same publisher, Greenleaf, that did 20% Solution.

And for the members listening to this podcast, I really do recommend Ed’s book. I think it really resonates with BNI members in terms of the relationship aspect of what we do.

Ed, before we close up, any closing comments or thoughts that you think people who want to build their business through referrals and relationships would like to know?

Ed:
Well, Ivan, I think we’re both on the same page with this, and that is we really need to consider thinking about relationships first. Before we think about anything else, think relationships first, and it’s something that you can do immediately. You don’t have to sit around and grind on it or anything like that; you can think about it and say, “You know what? I’m going to create a strategy. These are the five people I’m going to go meet at this conference or this BNI meeting, and I’m going to move forward from there.”

Ivan:
Yeah, I agree. One of the things that we try to teach is that networking is more about farming than it is about hunting; it’s about cultivating those relationships. And so that’s why I really enjoyed this book. I thank you very much for your time today, Ed.

BNI members, I urge you to go out and take a look at it. The book is called Business Relationships That Last by Ed Wallace, and it’s available at most major bookstores and, of course, Amazon.

Ed, thank you very much.

Priscilla, back to you.

Priscilla:
Great! Well, thank you both.

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

This week Dr. Misner continues his discussion with Dr. Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen.

The topic for this week is how to take listening from being transactional to being transformational. To do this, you need to get them to uncross their arms—literally and figuratively—by getting them to talk about their passion.

One question you can ask is “Imagine you wake up five years from now and life is perfect. What do you see in your career? What are you doing?” That conversation can transport people into a future that they’ve never thought about. It’s amazing how you will bond with that person.

That’s the kind of question that would be perfect for a one-to-one in BNI.

For some great free resources, including questions to ask in order to delegate more effectively, visit JustListentheBook.com.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 128 -

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

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

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

Ivan:
Hi, Priscilla. I’m doing great. This week I’m in Michigan. I’m doing presentations throughout Michigan. I love visiting this region of BNI. It has hundreds of BNI chapters throughout Michigan. BNI has hundreds of chapters and quite a few members. As a matter of fact, you’ll love this, if Michigan were a country for BNI, Michigan would be the third largest country for the BNI program.

Priscilla:
Wow! That’s interesting.

Ivan:
It’s huge. They bleed burgundy here in Michigan. It’s really a pleasure to be here speaking to a lot of the BNI members. And we’ve done something unusual for this podcast. We’ve carried over the speaker that we had, the guest that we had last week into this week. A good friend of mine, Dr. Mark Goulston. Mark is a psychiatrist and business consultant. He’s been an FBI and police hostage negotiator. And we were talking about his book that just came out recently, within the last month, called Just Listen, and the Web site for the book is JustListenTheBook.com. Lots of free resources there for BNI members. I don’t promote a lot of books on the podcasts, but I really loved this book, and Mark is a good friend. We talked last week about some material from the book.

But there is something that I really wanted to talk about, didn’t get a chance to last week, and that was the idea of how you take listening from being transactional to transformational, which is, in a way, a lot of what we try to do in BNI, to try to take the relationships from being transactional to transformational.

And you’ve got a great story for that, Mark. Do you want to share that with us?

Mark:
Absolutely. I was actually giving a talk to a networking organization, not as well run and I don’t think as productive as BNI. And what I did is I had people introduce themselves to each other, and I said, “Pair up with someone that you don’t know, so this will be very good for the one-to-ones that BNI suggests after meetings. And introduce yourself, what do you do, and who do you do it for, maybe when you do it, etc., etc.” And people did that, and I gave them five minutes to do that and made sure that they changed after two-and-a-half minutes.

And then I said, “I’d like you to try something else. I would like you now to each take the same two-and-a-half minutes and talk about the benefits that your service or product provided to a customer or client. So tell a story of something that totally made that person’s life better and you were associated with by offering them your services or product.”

So what happened is the conversation was totally different, much more animated, much more passionate, much less selling. It was really tough getting them to let go of the conversation and come back to my talk. And afterwards, I said, “What did you notice?”

And they said, “Geez, we didn’t feel like we were selling. We felt more spontaneous. We felt more comfortable. We felt closer.”

And I said, “Well, I noticed that, but I noticed something else. And what I noticed is that you all used your hands a lot more. The reason you used your hands is because the passion you felt when you were talking from the value of your service or product instead of trying to sell people, the passion you felt was so strong that the words were not enough to communicate it, and so you started to use your hands to do that.”

So here’s the take-all, because I’m a neuroscientist. When you’re dealing with skeptical clients or customers or maybe other networkers, when they’re feeling skeptical, their arms are crossed in their mind, and if you can get them to actually uncross their arms literally in front of you to communicate with their arms and hands as well as their words, they will uncross their arms and hands in their mind and be open to you. And you can do that by asking something they’re passionate about or something that they’re really scared about. So you can take either route. The key is as you begin to feel this and you feel them uncrossing their arms, you actually feel them opening up to you, the key is to be of service to them, to actually give to get and focus much more on the giving whether you get or not. As opposed to opening them up and then doing a bait-and-switch or maneuvering them, which I think is out of integrity and not in alignment, actually, with the spirit of BNI. But it’s amazing how it transformed the conversation.

And regarding transformation versus transactional, transactional conversations are eye to eye, toe to toe, and what you have is commodity versus commodity, and people will try and cheap date you and will decide things on price. When you can ask people questions that cause them to break the conversation and look up to the ceiling because they want to think more about what you’ve asked them, when they come down with their eyes to look at you again, you’re not in a transaction anymore; it’s been transformed into a relationship, because you have added relating to the conversation.

Ivan:
I think that’s really powerful. A lot of what we try to teach is that when you come to a BNI meeting and you’re telling people what you do, you’re not trying to close a sale; you’re trying to train a referral team, you’re trying to teach them about what you do. And that, to me, is not transactional. We talk about transactional networking to be a sort of coin operated networking, where you put the coin in and you expect results right now.

But transformational networking is really about going deep and building that relationship. Wouldn’t you agree?

Mark:
Absolutely. And I think building on that, I think a good thing to also get from people that go with passion, but find out what their core of excellence is, because when I discover what people’s core of excellence is, I feel it behooves me to go out to people, and the way I’ll make a referral is I’ll say, “Have you ever met someone who is so excellent in their service or product when you experience it that you just had to tell others?”

And everyone says yes.

I said, “Well, I need to tell you about someone I just met, what they do, and what they did for me so that you can experience it on your own.”

And I think when people can pause and talk about their core of excellence, what you’ll see happen is instead of being a sales mode, you’ll see confidence, you’ll see them actually re-experience their competence so they’ll feel much better. It will be a wonderful conversation, and then you can actually follow it up in that way I just suggested.

Ivan:
You know, in BNI, when we do the one-to-ones, and what you’re suggesting here would be something great to try out on the one-to-ones to see how they’re responding to what you have to say. We do what we call the GAINS Exchange, where people share their Goals, their Accomplishments, their Interests, their Networks, and their Skills, as a way of getting them to open up about – a little bit of personal information about themselves rather than transactional, “Hey, here’s how you can give me a referral.” And we find that going a little bit deeper and sharing with each other a little bit more about each other that it creates connections for people to build upon.

Have you seen that with your networking efforts?

Mark:
Not as much as what you do. You deserve – you especially, Ivan; you’ve created an amazing organization that’s really about productivity and results, but it’s also about building a community. You have a caring community, but one of the things they want to share is help each other be successful.

One of the questions I’ll ask people, by the way, to deepen the value is – sometimes people who are in transactional professions just see themselves going and improving their business by just doing more and bigger deals. If you ask someone this question, “I would like you to imagine that in five years from now and you wake up, it’s a Monday morning, and life is perfect. What do you see in your career? What are you doing?”

And what’s fascinating is a lot of time, people will, instead of breaking from the future they’re living into now, which they may not be that keen about other than making more money, that kind of conversation will transport them into a future that they’ve never thought about, like “Well, you know what I’d like to see? I’d like to see myself doing this, which is very different than what I’m doing now.” And then if you help them work backwards. “Well, what would be the steps between now and then to make that future a reality?”

Talk about transforming a conversation from transactional, it’s amazing how you will bond with that person.

Ivan:
Great example. And these kinds of questions, I think, are perfect for the one-to-ones, and I urge members listening to this podcast to try out some of the things that Mark’s been talking about here.

And, Mark, you’ve got a Web site, JustListenTheBook.com, that has a ton of free resources. Do you want to give my members a couple of the examples of the free resources they can get from your Web site?

Mark:
Well, there’s a list of things called Two Questions that are exclusive to the site, and I think in a prior podcast, we talked about two questions to gain people’s respect and have them treat you better. One of the other two questions is how to delegate more effectively, and I need to give credit to a friend of mine, Stan Barkey, who is a senior executive at State Farm for many years, and he said whenever you’re delegating something, the first question is to tell people what you want them to do; but then instead of saying, “Do you understand?” you said, “What do you understand that I’ve asked you to do, and why it’s important for us to do that?” When you do that, they feel, actually, more than a function.

But the second question, which he feels is the best question he’s ever asked in his career, is, you said, “In the event that, for any reason, you’re not able to do what you just agreed to, how do you want me to react to you? If what I care most about is just getting the work done, I have no interest in being punitive, and all that kind of stuff, but going forward, what shall I do?”

And that’s what I talk about a lot in the book, Just Listen; if you can talk about the future that nobody has messed up yet, it’s amazing how open people are, whereas if you talk about something that’s already happened, even in the best of conversations, you’re going to get people that are defensive, justifying their position. And so I thought that was amazing advice when you’re delegating to someone. And then you repeat it back to them, “So what you’ve said is, if you don’t follow through, what you’d like me to do is to never tell you about it in front of other people, but just take you into the office and be firm with you and tell you it needs to be done by today, etc.” Then you repeat it back to them and you wait for them to get what I call the confirmatory yes. And when they say yes, then you have your way of dealing with them instead of fuming about them when they drop the ball.

Ivan:
Well, Mark, great content. Your book called Just Listen, our members can go there, to JustListenTheBook.com. I highly recommend this book and free resources at the Web site. Dr. Mark Goulston, thank you so much for being on two of my podcasts. You’re the first guest back to back like that, I think, so thank you so much.

Mark:
Thank you, Ivan.

Ivan:
Back to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay. Thank you both. That was great.

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

This week Dr. Misner talks to Mark Goulston, MD, the author of Just Listen.

Here are some of the tips Dr. Goulston offers about listening:

• Listening reduces anxiety—for the listener as well as the speaker.
• Instead of interrupting, say “Tell me more about that.” You’ll get a better result.
• World-class listeners care less about being right than about helping people.
• Not managing your own anxiety makes it hard to listen—and hard for people to listen to you.
• Instead of interrogating people, invite them into a conversation by letting them fill in the blanks in statements.

You can sign up to get free resources, including the first chapter of the book and the Two Questions series at http://www.justlistenthebook.com/resources/.

Tune in next week for a second interview with Mark Goulston.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 127 -

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

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

Hello, Ivan. How are you? And who do you have with us today?

Ivan:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. Thank you very much, and I have a good friend of mine, Dr. Mark Goulston. Mark is a psychiatrist, business consultant, executive coach, and, believe it or not, an FBI and police hostage negotiator. He’s done a number of best selling books. And Mark and I met each other a little over a year ago at a very unusual event, a storytelling event, and have gotten to be friends and really love his latest book called Just Listen. And I just want to welcome Mark to the podcast.

Dr. Goulston, great to have you.

Mark:
Well, glad to be hear, and before we get started, something I want you to listen to and something that I think people on the call can use as long as they use it earnestly. And it’s called the Power Thank You. And the Power Thank You has three parts, and it’s a way of helping people actually feel how much you are grateful to them in this “everyone feels taken for granted” world. And the three parts are:

Thank someone specifically for what they did or maybe a negative thing that they refrained from doing, the effort it took for them to do that, and what it personally means to you. So, Ivan and BNI, here it goes. You reserved time for me to do a podcast especially, really, within a couple weeks of the release of my new book, Just Listen. So that’s very special in terms of getting the word out. In terms of the effort it took, I think that you’re protective of your audience. You want to give them things that are valuable, and so you actually trust that I’ll be able to serve your audience as opposed to wasting their valuable time. And then the third thing, what it personally means to me is, when you’re pursuing ideas and you’re forging new journeys in your life, you hope they’ll help people, but they’re kind of like when you give birth to a baby; you hope it’s intelligent and beautiful, but you just don’t know. And so just the fact that you have this confidence in me really empowers me and emboldens me to keep doing that. So use those power thank you’s in your life, and it will only enhance it.

Ivan:
And it’s something, I think, perfect for a BNI member, because we really talk a lot about the importance of positive reinforcement in the relationships, and I appreciate your comments. Thank you very much. You’re right, the content in these podcasts has to really serve BNI members, and I love your material, and I’m sure that they will feel the same way after they get exposed to it.

So if you don’t mind, let me jump in and ask you, I think, a really good opening question, and that is, why do you thinks it’s so important to listen in order to build a powerful personal network? One of the things I say is that a good networker has two good ears and one mouth, and uses them both proportionately. But you really talk about an active listening process, not just listening, but really connecting with people.

Mark:
Well, I think the reason being is that, let’s face it, we’re all anxious, and we’re getting even more so, given the current financial climate. And whenever people are anxious, they don’t listen, they shut down, and the problem is anxiety is contagious. And so when you’re coming from anxiety and desperately wanting to make a sale, it triggers anxiety in the other person. And if you ask yourself, “What are two things that lessen anxiety?” Well, when you are listened to, when someone lets you get something off your chest and then doesn’t get impatient with you and doesn’t shut you down, that reduces your anxiety when people listen and care. The second thing is, when you can let go of yourself and being preoccupied and listen to your customer or client for what’s really important to them and serving them, that will not only lessen their anxiety, but it will lessen your anxiety, because instead of coming from a position of selling and being afraid that you’ll lose the sale, you actually come from a position of serving them.

If people go to JustListenTheBook.com, there’s something called Free Resources. This is actually a video clip. It’s kind of funny. I talk about meeting with the CO, who actually was really right on target and needing my services. And what I talk about in the video clip is that there were ten times when I wanted to interrupt him to say something utterly brilliant, but that wouldn’t have served him at all. It would have just been to impress him. And I had this inner conflict, and I can see you chuckling, Ivan, as a kindred spirit, and I said to myself, “Ooh, if I don’t tell him this brilliant thing, I’m going to lose it, even if it ruins the conversation.” And on ten occasions, at the moment I wanted to interrupt him, instead of doing that, I said, “Hey, tell me more about what you just said.”

What was fascinating is every time I said that, it’s almost like he picked up that I was just about to compete with him and chose not to; he went deeper into the conversation and deeper and deeper about what he really needed. And then at the end of those ten times, I just reviewed what he said, and I said, “Is that right?”

And he said, “Yes.” And then he looked at me, and he said, “When can you start?”

Ivan:
Nice, nice. Well done. I wanted to interrupt you two or three times myself, so I’m not going to do that.

Mark:
Okay.

Ivan:
Let me ask you a question. What distinguishes world class listeners from the average listener out there?

Mark:
Well, I think world class listeners realize that they can’t succeed by themselves, and so world class listeners have less of a need to be right and less of a need to win than to move the process of the conversation forward to something that has a mutually satisfying, productive end. So I think they come from a position of literally caring instead of winning, and they’ve had enough experiences that caring in the end will help them win.

It’s interesting. I wanted to call the book Just Care, because a number of people said, “You know, Mark, this isn’t just a book about listening; it’s a book about caring.” And then my publisher said, “Hey, Mark, if you write Just Care, there’s a lot of people who don’t care, and they’re not going to read it. You might be able to get in under the radar if you say Just Listen, and what people will discover in your book is, they’ll discover ways to actually show caring, not only in their business but in their personal life. What they’re going to actually experience is greater success, greater success and fulfillment and satisfaction, and be able to get to the end of their life and say that was a life well lived.

Ivan:
For the listeners here, we’re talking about Mark’s latest book called Just Listen. The forward was by Keith Ferrazzi. It’s a great book. I have it sitting right in front of me, and I really try to limit the number of books I talk about on these podcasts, because I don’t use these podcasts just to go out and market books. I think this book is perfect for BNI members because it fits our philosophy of Givers Gain, caring, and about the importance of listening.

So the Web site that Mark mentioned was JustListenTheBook.com, and there’s a lot of free stuff of there that our members can go to.

We’re running out of time, and I’ve got so many questions for you, Mark. Can you tell me, what do you think are the biggest mistakes that a networker can do regarding listening?

Mark:
Well, I think the biggest mistake is they don’t manage their anxiety, meaning your anxiety causes you to become pushy, causes you to sort of smile insincerely, and causes you to not listen. I think if you can have the experience of getting where the other person is coming from and caring about them when you get there, what you’re going to feel is they’re more likely to listen to you and let you take them to where you’d like them to go.

Ivan:
In your book, you talk about some tips, like the power of hmmm and fill in the blanks or the impossibility question. What are you talking about? I think those were really interesting. I think the members might find them of value.

Mark:
Well, in the interest of time, and then people can certainly look and find more, the fill in the blank one is, when you talk to people, when you ask people a question, even if it’s a question as simple like, “What are your goals,” people get flashbacks of being put on the spot about “What was the capital of North Dakota.” By the way, I was told in a talk it’s Bismarck; I didn’t know that. But people will get a flashback of having been interrogated. And if you change the question from “What are your goals for this year; what are you trying to accomplish” to “Your goals for this year are” and then you invite them with your hand as if to invite them to fill in the sentence with you. What you will feel is a different energy as if you’re inviting them into a conversation with you as opposed to interrogating them, where even though it’s a reasonable question, they’re likely to get defensive.

So in your store, if you’re talking to a customer or client who’s looking around, say, “What you’re looking for today is…” And you’ll see they will naturally fill in what that word is, and then you keep leading with that. “And the reason you’re looking for that today…the reason you were thinking of purchasing that today was…” “Oh, I see.” “And the things that you’re looking for, the qualities that are most important about that service or product to you are…” “Oh, I see that also.”

Can you see how that has a different energy feel than just machine gunning people with questions?

Ivan:
Absolutely. Nice. And I talk a lot about the importance of questions when you’re meeting people. Especially meeting them the first time or you want to go deeper in the relationship, learn how to refer them, and the questions are really, really important. So I love this content.

We’re almost out of time. On the Web site that we mentioned, JustListenTheBook.com, you’ve got a lot of free resources that BNI members can use. Two of them were really intriguing, and I wonder if you could just maybe summarize them quickly. Two questions to gain people’s respect and have them treat you better, and two questions to delegate effectively. The first one, in particular, I think may be relevant to BNI. Do you want to explain that?

Mark:
Yeah, because I’ll tell you, when people trust you, they’ll listen to you, but when people respect you, they’ll trust you and do what you ask them to do. So this is especially helpful in the service business. What you say to the other person is, and you don’t say it out of the gate, but in your conversation, say, “Do I have your permission to step in and protect you from anything or anyone that might do you harm financially?” or whatever service you’re providing.

Most people will say yes; 50% of people will laugh and say, “Thank you.”

And then what you say is, “In the event that the person I most need to protect you from is you, how shall I go about doing that?”

And most people, again, just like you do, because you probably need some protection, Ivan, will say, “Take me aside because I am capable of shooting myself in the foot and all the toes go all over the room. So take me aside because I don’t want to make some of the mistakes I’m capable of making.” And so you repeat that back to them, but can you see the power of that?

Ivan:
I can, absolutely, yeah. No question about that.

Listen, Mark, we’ve gone over time. I’d really like to talk to you more. Can we do a second podcast next week to cover a little bit more material? I particularly want to talk about the transactional versus transformational material you have in the book.

Mark:
Let’s do that. I’d love to do that.

Ivan:
All right. So for the BNI members listening today, we’re going to continue this conversation in our podcast next week.

Mark, thank you so much for coming on.

Dr. Mark Goulston, author of the book Just Listen. I don’t recommend very many books on BNI podcast. I really recommend this. A lot of free resources. Go to JustListenTheBook.com.

Priscilla, back to you. Thank you very much.

Priscilla:
Thank you both very much. That was really interesting. I look forward to next week.

I’d like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thank you 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.