Today we’re talking about a face-to-face word-of-mouth checklist of credibility-enhancing materials you need to have available.

1. Testimonial letters from satisfied clients
2. Photos (of yourself, your office, your products)
3. Logos of your key customers
4. List of memberships and affiliations
5. A question-and-answer sheet (FAQ)
6. Photos of awards or certificates you and your staff have earned
7. Articles that you’ve published or been mentioned in
8. Brochures, circulars, datasheets, product catalogues
9. Items that help you explain your business, e.g. annual report
10. Articles about trends affecting your business

You should have these materials available both in hard copy, to bring with you, and on your website.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 209 -

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

Ivan:
I’ve got a checklist today and the checklist is your face-to-face word of mouth checklist. I want to talk about it in the context of BNI, that you are trying to build a referral-based business or word of mouth-based business. You really need to have a checklist of items that you have available. So in effect, if you want to create a word of mouth campaign for your business, there are things that you need to have available to help do that.

One important part of running a successful referral or word of mouth campaign is to build an arsenal of credibility building materials. You should always have these materials at your disposal, both in printed version and digital version when possible. I am going to give you ten items to create a checklist of things that you should have or you should be working at having to help support your referral or word of mouth campaign.

First is a set of testimonial letters from satisfied clients. Testimonials are one of the most effective ways to showcase the quality of the products or services that you have. You could put them in a binder or you could post them to your website. If you have a LinkedIn profile, you could have people recommend you. I recommend a combination of all of that. Not just one, but all of it. The printed ones are valuable for when you are doing those face-to-face visits. That’s first.

Second, photos. Photos of yourself, your office, your product. A professional headshot is really important for promotional opportunities. In this digital age, I see people stand up against the wall and have their spouse take a picture. That’s what they use. I am not quite sure that’s the ideal photo. You want professional photos taken, not only of you but of your products or services. Your office. We have a photo of BNI HQ that we use to show this is where the international HQ is. There is some value to that because oftentimes at BNI chapters, they only see the tip of the iceberg. They only see what happens at their meeting. So to see a 33,000 sq. ft. building where BNI operates out of is a value sometimes.

Here’s an interesting one. Logos of your customers. With their permission, use these in your websites or printed material to show some of the types of clients that you successful serve and support.

A list of professional affiliations. This is helpful when you meet someone for the first time and talk about over the years and do a GAINS exchange. It’s important to share interests and networks that you belong to. BNI would be great to list in there. I’ll tell you, there are some countries in BNI, particularly some of the Asian countries- Japan, Malaysia. Wow. They are really good about listing BNI as an affiliate. They list it on their materials. They oftentimes put on their cards that they are a proud member of BNI. I see that quite a bit there. It is a great way to start a dialogue with somebody when you see that someone else is a member.

Number five. A question and answer sheet. One of the quickest ways to learn about a person’s business or for them to learn about yours is to have some Q and A, some frequently asked questions. They may be on your website, but nobody ever has that with them when they are talking to people. Something like that, I think, is valuable for you to have.

Photos of awards or certificates that you or your staff have earned. That is really good for PR or for credibility. BNI has a foundation, so when we give a big check, we make sure to take a photograph for a couple of reasons. We gave a check for $50,000 to the Red Cross for the Japan relief effort a month or so ago. Since then, by the way, we have gotten an additional $10,000 and probably, I don’t know, $10,000 or $15,000 for the hurricane efforts that we are working on now in the U.S. So when we do this, we take photographs and we do that to show members what we are doing but also to build brand recognition and build credibility as a stable organization that has been around a long time and is giving back to the community. Things like that are of value.

Number seven, articles that you have published or been mentioned in. I think that is really important. That is a credibility builder.

Brochures is an obvious one. Brochures, circulars, data sheets, product catalogs. This is a no brainer. This is something that you have to have when you are talking to people who want to look at something that you have.

Number nine, items that help you explain your business to your network, to your personal network. Particularly in groups like BNI, it might be an annual report, a capability statement, prospectus, could be a mission statement, a service pledge, a written history, anything that you might have that could explain what you do a little better.

Number ten checklist item is articles that are on trends affecting your business. Keeping up with issue and news items that are important to people helps you be able to target your conversation and show people that you know what is going in in your industry.

Listen, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. As a matter of fact, I have written this kind of checklist a number of times and there are many, many more things. These are what I would consider to be the top ten things to have available and accessible. You don’t have to carry a briefcase of this stuff everywhere you go, but different things at different times in different situations. This is the kind of stuff that you want to have available for your networking efforts.

Priscilla:
That’s great. There are some unusual things on there.

Ivan:
I tried to think out of the box a little bit with some of the things and things that I’ve seen, things that I’ve seen people have or things that I’ve done, so that you can be thinking a little bit out of the box. Of course, most of this should be available one way or another on your website always.

Priscilla:
Exactly. Okay. Great.

Ivan:
That’s all I have for today.

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

The BNI Testimonial is fundamental to chapter meetings. Here are some guidelines for giving a good one.

1. Focus on one person. A good testimonial is about one other member. Go into detail about how good they are.
2. Be specific. Talking in generalities does little or no good. “Specific is terrific in BNI.”
3. Whenever possible, make it a first-person testimonial. Even with an outside referral, you can say “My client/friend/colleague told me…”

It’s great to put your testimonial in writing, but that’s not a requirement of BNI. Go ahead and give your testimonial, and make it personal.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 176 -

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

Ivan:
Hi Priscilla. I am doing great and this week I am on my way to New Orleans for the US Member Extravaganza trip. All of the winners get together in New Orleans. We have done that a few times over the last couple of years – to New Orleans- to try to support them after all of the crazy things they have had to go through over the last five or six years- Katrina, then the oil spill, and the economy. We are trying to help them out and are doing our Member Extravaganza there this week. I look forward to seeing any member listening to this podcast later this week. It’s going to be in New Orleans.

Priscilla:
How many people go to that?

Ivan:
We usually have from 200 to 300 people. They are amazing. A lot of fun.

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

Ivan:
Well, today I want to talk about what makes a good BNI member testimonial. A BNI testimonial is fundamental to chapter meetings. You would think that it is a finely honed strategy that started from day one, but its origins are a little more of happen stance. We kind of fell into it. I want to talk a little bit about the history of it. But before I tell you the history of why we started doing testimonials, and what I am talking about is at the end of the meetings, if you have a referral, you give it and if you don’t, you give a testimonial for one of the members.

I’ll talk about the history of that, but before I do, I want to give a break down of what I think a good testimonial is. There are three really specific elements that you can focus on making a BNI testimonial work in your chapter. The first is to focus on one person. One person. A good testimonial should be about just one other BNI member. Don’t give a laundry list of who you have been using. Talk about one member and go into detail regarding how good they are in providing their products or service. That’s the first thing.

Second, be specific. Talking in generalities does little or no good. Talk specifically about what makes the member’s services good. What did the member do right? The more specific you are, the better. We’ll remember it much easier. Remember this:the specific is terrific in BNI. Specific is terrific. That counts not only with your 60-second introductions, but it also counts with testimonials. Use up your allotted time to share how good this person’s work is. Really, this comes right from the One Minute Manager, where they talk about an effective praising has to be specific. That really applies to the testimonial.

Third, whenever possible- and it’s not always possible to do this. Whenever possible, give it or try to make it a first person testimonial. Tell people how good you feel about what they did, how it helps the organization, BNI, when good service supports good referrals. Whenever possible, make the testimonial a first person endorsement. Tell the members what you thought of their service if you used them.

Now sometimes you don’t want every referral to be an inside referral. You want outside referrals. But you can even make an outside referral into a good testimonial. When you give the referral to a member, it’s an outside person, talk to that outside person. How did that referral work out? Did my BNI member do a good job?

When that person days they really did a good job and this is what they did, you can turn that into a first person endorsement. It’s a third person endorsement, but you can turn it into a first person endorsement by going there and saying, “My client (or my friend, or my associate) told me that this person did this work, and they did it really well. This is what they had to say.”Be really specific. You make it first person. When you give a referral, say you give a little of your reputation away and he just enhanced my reputation with my client because he did such a good job.

If you can make it first person, it makes it stronger. You can’t do it every time, but it’s a powerful one to remember. So focus on one person, be specific, and give a first person testimonial.

Now, there is a real history to the testimonials because when I started BNI, we did not have that in the agenda. I don’t know if you knew that or not, but it was not part of the agenda.

Priscilla:
I didn’t know that.

Ivan:
When BNI was only one chapter, we followed an agenda that is pretty similar to what we use today, but there were a number of differences. First, we gave our 60-second commercial and then we introduced our visitors, then the main speaker, and after that we passed referrals. Now, this last part, if you had a referral, you stood up and when it came to your turn, you’d say, “I have referrals. One is for so-and-so. One is for someone else.” But if you didn’t have a referral, you simply said “pass.” Then the next person would take his or her turn.

So we went around the room and people would say,”I have one referral.” “ I have two referrals.” “Pass.” We’d pass if you didn’t have a referral. We had been meeting about two months and at the end of one of the meetings, a chiropractor in our group came to me and said, “I haven’t gotten a single referral yet. Not a single referral.”

Now, he understood that it takes time, but he said, “Here is where my concern is: Nobody has even come up to me to talk to me about chiropractic. How can they refer me if they have never even talked about chiropractic?”

I told him, “You are absolutely right. You’ve got to get them to use you if you want them to refer you.” You have to remember, Priscilla, that this is 25 years ago in 1985, when chiropractic wasn’t quite as well-known and respected then as it is even now. So people were really hesitant. So I said to this chiropracter, I thought this was a great idea, you know, “Why don’t you offer a free initial consultation to get them to come and see what you do and how it works? Then they will be able to refer you. So at the next meeting, just stand up and offer everyone who is a member a free first visit. Do an x-ray or an adjustment so they know what chiropractic care is all about.”

He said, “ That’s a great idea. I’ll do it.” So he stood up at the next meeting and made the offer. There were like two dozen members. Do you know how many people took him up on the offer?

Priscilla:
All of them.

Ivan:
Only one.

Priscilla:
Oh, really?

Ivan:
Yeah. Yeah. I was really surprised. Only one guy took him up on the offer. The chiropractor came up to me afterwards and he looked at me and said, “Brilliant idea, Ivan. They didn’t exactly flock to me, did they?”

I felt really bad and I said, “ You tried it. Let’s see how it goes.” Here is the interesting thing, and this is the power of the firsthand, first person testimonial.

The following week the meeting was moving along nicely and we were passing referrals. It came around to this guy who said he would see the chiropractor the previous week. He stood up, looked at me and said, “Ivan, I don’t have a referral today, but I don’t want to pass.”

I said, “Okay, what do you want to do?”

He said, “I’d like to say a few words.”

I said, ”Okay. What do you want to say?”

He said, “I want to talk about the chiropractor. I went to see Dr. Reuben. Wow. It was amazing! I had an x-ray done. He showed me all around his facility. He explained all the things that he did and then he did an adjustment. I had this lower back pain for years- nothing incapacitating, but just this nagging ache that bothers me when I stand too long. He showed me his facility- did you know he does sports medicine? I had no idea he did sports medicine. He did deep tissue massage to help with the adjustment.”

He went through this who litany of things that the doctor did, and he said, “He did an adjustment on me. Then I came back a couple days later and he did another adjustment. For the first time in seven years, my lower back doesn’t hurt me.” He looked at the members and he said, “You are all crazy if you don’t take him up on this offer! That’s all I wanted to say, Ivan. I hope you don’t mind.”

I looked around the room, and Priscilla, I saw about a dozen people picking up their pens and filling out referral slips for the chiropractor.

Priscilla:
That’s great.

Ivan:
I thought, wow, my agenda- what I wrote- doesn’t work. It’s efficient. You know, if you have a referral, give it and if you don’t, pass. But it’s not effective. You can’t just tell people to pass. You have to give them a chance to talk about the business they have done with other people. It’s critical. And that’s why when I started the BNI testimonial process, it’s really the very first thing that we changed in the agenda. I literally- I am going to really date myself here. I pulled out the White-Out and I Whited-Out that part of the agenda and typed it over on my IBM electric typewriter the add-on if you don’t have a referral, give a brief testimonial about the business you have done with another member. Now we talk about testimonials in another way. If you don’t have a testimonial for a member, give a testimonial for BNI.

It was really an instant referral multiplier that we discovered by accident. When I designed the original agenda, I set up the process efficiently but not effectively. That is why we made that change. I learned that it was more important to be effective and really focus on giving information about each other. I think without testimonials, we were missing a great opportunity to generate referrals.

If you as a member, keep this in mind when you are doing your testimonial- be specific. Be excited. Try to make it first person in any way you can. You are going to give a great testimonial. I say to people, and they don’t always believe me, is that sometimes a really good testimonial is better than a single referral. For this chiropractor, Priscilla, that is exactly the case because one person standing up and giving a testimonial got ten people to use him. What was amazing was one week later, he had his first outside referral. One of the people who had just seen him brought him a referral outside of BNI. From there on out, most of the referrals were from outside of BNI for this individual. And that is the power of a really good testimonial.

Priscilla:
It’s so true because we trust the other members of the group. We know them. We have solid relationships with them. If they think this particular person is incredible, then that’s good enough. Then you feel very comfortable referring them, and it really works. In our chapter, we love testimonials so much, that not only do we give them when we don’t have a referral, but we give them when we do have a referral. Our problem is to reign in the testimonials, you know.

Ivan:
Right. And here is something else. I know some countries have gotten in the habit of only doing testimonials when they are in writing. That is not a requirement of the organization. We do recommend that your testimonials be in writing if they can because that makes it much more powerful. But a testimonial does not have to be written to be given at a BNI meeting. I think that is really important to note. That was a big topic of discussion recently on a SuccessNet article that I wrote. I had to clarify that it doesn’t have to be in writing. But you want to make it personal because it makes a difference in people’s lives.

Priscilla:
Absolutely. Okay that’s great.

Ivan:
Thanks Priscilla. Great podcast for today.

Priscilla:
That is 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 will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

Dr. Misner just finished surveying 12,000 business people from every populated continent. He asked which of these four things was most important when making a referral:

1. Knowing a person’s character
2. Knowing a person’s level of competency
3. Using the person’s product or service myself
4. Knowing a person’s success

Not surprisingly, knowing a person’s character number one. What did surprise Dr. Misner was that neither using a person’s product or service yourself nor knowing a person’s level of success mattered very much.

This means that many of your referrals will come from people who have not actually used your products or services—if they have reason to believe in your character and competency.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 145 -

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, and what do you have for us today?

Ivan:
I am doing great, and today I want to talk about a survey that I’ve completed. It’s actually part of a survey for a new book I’m working on about gender, the difference between men and women and how they network. But we have a lot of basic questions about business networking that we ask, and so I’m starting to compile some of the data. So I just finished this survey of more than 12,000 business people from every populated continent of the world. And one of the questions we asked the respondents was, “Which of the following is more important to you when referring business to others? Which of the following is more important to you when referring business to others?” We gave them four choices. One, knowing a person’s character; two, knowing a person’s level of competency; three, using the person’s product or service myself; and four, knowing a person’s success. So those are the four things that we asking them to pick from, which one was most important.

Now, not surprisingly, knowing a person’s character ranked number one in the survey, and I wasn’t surprised by that. But interestingly, using the product or service myself ranked third out of the four choices. So knowing a person’s character was number one, knowing a person’s level of competency was number two, using a product or service themself was number three, and knowing a person’s level of success was a very distant fourth.

But I was a little surprised about using the product or service myself ranking so low, because it was kind of a distant third. And if the listeners are interested in seeing a graph of this, they can go to my blog, NetworkingNowBlog.com, NetworkingNowBlog, com and take a look at the February 4th article there, and you’ll see this graph that’s there. It think it’s important to know that when people are referring you, that knowing your level of character is important, but having actually used your products or services turns out not to be as important as I would have thought. Often, we think that the best source of referrals must be our clients, our customers, our patients, and although they’re definitely a good source, they’re not always our only source. In fact, based on this survey, personally using and experiencing another person’s products or services before referring that business to the person was not nearly as important as their character and their competency. And this really is valuable in BNI.

Now, granted, we recommend you use a BNI member before you refer them, but based on this, you don’t necessarily have to use them before you refer them. This is why testimonials and endorsements in the chapter are so important, because if you hear somebody say over and over and over again, “I’ve used this person. I’ve used this person,” then you start to be comfortable with their products or service. What this basically means is that you need to build your credibility with people who know you. Whether they’ve used your business or not, if people trust your character and competency, they are likely to refer you regardless of whether they’ve actually used your products or services.

This is an important paradigm shift. For a lot of people, it means that many of your referrals may actually come from people other than your clients. If you learn how to network effectively, particularly in groups like BNI, you can use this to your benefit.

That’s all I’ve got for today, Priscilla. Any questions before we close up?

Priscilla:
Well, I just want to say that I think you hit upon with the testimonials is what would make somebody feel comfortable referring someone they haven’t used, and that’s why I think it’s so important in the meeting.

Ivan:
Yeah, the testimonial portion of a BNI meeting is really critical, and I think that the testimonials are what helps build your character and your competency. When somebody stands up and says, “Wow, they did what they said they would do, they did a good job,” then that applies to somebody’s character and competency, and I’d be willing to refer someone, even if I hadn’t used them, if I’ve heard many people say, “They did a great job. They charged what they said they would charge.” I feel comfortable referring them, and I think that’s one of the reasons why BNI works as well as it does, is that it’s not required that you use the members, although it is recommended.

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t understate that. It is recommended; it’s not required. You can absolutely refer people that you haven’t actually done business with yet, and most of that happens because of the credibility that’s built during the testimonial portion of the meetings. That’s why the testimonial portion is so important.

Priscilla:
Yeah, I totally agree. Okay, Ivan, well, that’s great! Thank you so much.

Ivan:
Thank you.

Priscilla:
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.

Dr. Misner calls in from Hawaii to talk about how to share your success stories without bragging. Telling your success stories is vital to the growth of your business. Here are five ways to do this.

1. Ask for written testimonials. (Write samples to help clients get started.)
2. Write down two success stories that represent your preferred client and your strongest work.
3. Write a personal introduction for your network to use when making referrals.
4. Toot your own horn. Tell people about the good things your business does.
5. When someone gives you a testimonial at a BNI meeting, write it down and ask them for permission to use it.

Feel free to tell us which of these you’ve done, and how they worked.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 088 -

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.

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

Ivan:
I’m doing great. I’m in Hawaii this week, first, going to a conference for the Transformational Leadership Council that’s run by Jack Canfield, and he has spoken at a number of our conferences and written for us at SuccessNet. I’ll be visiting some BNI chapters this week here in Hawaii.

Priscilla:
That sounds great. So what are you going to share with us?

Ivan:
Well, I’m going to talk a little bit about Capturing Your Success Stories. I’ve talked about this in some of my books and on my blogs, and I think this is a great topic for the podcast.

Many of us are taught as kids that we should refrain from bragging about our successes, but there’s a real caveat to those rules that our parents usually didn’t teach us, and it’s important to understand that it really helps our business to do certain things that capture our success stories. Now, success stories about businesses and entrepreneurs are really vital for those who are dedicated to learning all we can in order to make our own enterprise as successful as possible.

There are four approaches that I want to mention to capture your success stories. One is to ask for written testimonials. Get satisfied customers or colleagues, certainly fellow BNI members who’ve used your services to write letters on their own letterhead to spotlight their positive experiences with you and your business. Here’s a recommendation that I have. If you are looking for a testimonial from somebody who is really successful, they will be a crown jewel in your list of testimonials. I recommend that you ask them if it’s okay if you write a couple of sample testimonials that they could look from, edit, and use themselves.

Now, that sounds kinds of crazy, but the truth is, if you’re going after really, really, really busy business people and really successful business people – and let’s assume they’re happy with your services – they’d be glad to do you a testimony. The problem is they just don’t have the time to do it, so giving them a starting point that they can edit really helps a great deal.

And it’s something that I’m often asked to write endorsements for books, and I’m always willing to do it, but last year we did almost 60 endorsements. And that can be almost a full-time job just doing endorsements. I’m exaggerating a little, but that’s a lot of work. And many of them gave me drafts to work from and then I added my own flavor to it, and it really helped expedite the process. And I think it works really well with testimonials. So that’s my first recommendation.

Second one is a little briefer. Write down two success stories; highlight your successes to help your network; understand who best represents your preferred client. These stories should clearly emphasize what you do better than anyone else and use those success stories as examples, particularly in BNI, for people to understand the types of products or services that you offer so that they can better refer you.

Third is to write a personal introduction. Provide your network with material that they can use when talking about you and your business with people who fit your preferred client profile. You don’t want your referral sales force making stuff up about you, and this really simplifies their task and ensures accuracy. So if you can write up a little brief statement, “Here’s what you can say about me when you meet someone who might be able to use my products or services.” For those people who are serious about trying to help you, it’s a great tool; it’s a great benefit. For BNI members, I’d recommend you definitely do that during your ten minute presentation. If you’re giving the Ten Minute Talk, here’s a great opportunity for you to give them something to walk away with to help them remember what you talked about.

And number four, the last one, is toot your own horn. Tell people about the good things your business does. This isn’t about crowing over your amazing golf handicap or admitting your own fine taste in wine. It’s about spotlighting your business strengths as well as it being about the legitimate good works that you do in the community. There’s nothing wrong with letting people know some of the projects that you’ve worked on and your success with it. You can do it without being boastful. There are ways that you can do it. For example, if you’re the Ten Minute speaker, you have in your introduction some of that, so somebody else is talking about some of your successes rather than you, personally.

But the more you can communicate your success stories to others, the more they will be confident in your ability to provide quality products or services. I think these are some really tangible techniques that BNI members can use to help increase their credibility at the chapter level.

Priscilla:
I think one of the real advantages to BNI is that you don’t actually have to say all that about yourself; you can get somebody who’s used the services to stand up in the meeting and give you a testimonial at that time.

Ivan:
You bring up a great point, and I’ve never really thought about this. Here’s a fifth one. As people are giving you testimonials at a BNI meeting, jot it down. Try to capture the essence of what someone is saying. Type it up, e-mail it back to them, and say, “Thank you so much for the testimonial today. I really, really appreciate what you said. This is the essence of what I heard you say. Could you edit it, make any changes you want to make to it, and may I use it in my testimonial folder?”

You just gave me a great idea. I think that’s a super technique to do, because I’ve never really thought about writing it down as you’re hearing it. But you’re right, and you want to capture those testimonials as much as possible.

Priscilla:
There’s also another way to record people’s testimonials and put it on an MP3, if you have a Web site.

Ivan:
Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. I think maybe having a combination on your Web site of some written testimonials as well as a few audio versions of it, or even video versions of it, are great suggestions, good stuff.

Priscilla:
Yeah. Well, have we come to the end? Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

Ivan:
No, I think that’s it for today. And what I’d love the BNI members to try some of these four and the fifth one that we added on; that’s a brand new idea, never tested it, love to hear how it works. So those of you who listen to this podcast, please feel free to give us some feedback, tell us what you like, and if you’ve done the fifth one, or when you’ve done the fifth one, get back on the podcast and post a message here on the bulletin board, because we’d love to hear how it works out.

Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Oh, you’re so welcome.

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