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.