Dr. Misner is taking a week off from podcasting and will return on January 4th with Episode 237.
Episode 236: Behaviors & Credibility
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Synopsis
Scott Simon returns this week to talk about how to cultivate business relationships in your BNI group.
To paraphrase Stephen Covey, you cannot talk yourself out of a situation you behave yourself into without far greater consequences. So here are some guidelines for behaving your way into visibility and credibility in BNI.
- Showing up early
- Being prepared
- Dressing professionally
- Talking about business during open networking
- Passing quality referrals
- Following up on referrals you receive
- Attending Member Success Program and advanced training
- Givers Gain mindset
- Inviting visitors
- Productive one-to-ones
Many people don’t understand how important the MSP training and the one-to-ones are. The people who do the most one-to-ones are the ones who are making the most money. (See episode 191.) But the most-overlooked behavior is probably showing up early, which shows how much you care.
Nine behaviors that destroy your credibility are
- Arriving late, leaving early, or not showing up at all
- Unprofessional or unprepared sales presentation
- Wearing yesterday’s clothes
- Airing your grievances during open networking
- Wasting your referral partners’ time with leads instead of quality referrals
- Not following up on referrals
- Poor service quality
- Having no visitors
- Trying to sell to members and guests
Too many people use networking as a face-to-face cold-calling opportunity, and that is not the way to build a powerful personal network. Remember that even though everyone wants to buy, nobody likes to be sold to.
The most surprising behavior among BNI members is not following up on referrals.
Brought to you by Networking Now.
Episode 235: Working Smarter, Not Harder
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Synopsis
Scott Simon of the Metropolitan St. Louis BNI, who manages more than 100 BNI groups, joins Dr. Misner to help show BNI members how to work smarter, not harder.
Here’s some important background information:
- According to Stephen Covey, who spoke at the BNI International conference this year, trust is an economic driver. It speeds up the sales process. (See the book The Speed of Trust for examples.)
- Most companies spend almost all their money on traditional marketing and advertising when a small fraction of that money spent on networking would get the same results. (It takes 200 cold calls to get an appointment.)
- 98% of businesses rely on referrals, but only 3% have a strategy to get them.
- Since most people know about 1000 people, joining a BNI group with 24 members is like having access to 24,000 people.
An examination of chapters in Scott’s region showed that participation in BNI yields an average of 1 new customer per 5 hours invested versus 1 new customer for every 32 hours expended using traditional methods.That makes BNI membership 6 times as efficient as cold-calling—and a lot more fun, too.
Brought to you by Networking Now.
Episode 234: Transactional vs. Relational
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Synopsis
A survey of 12,000 businesspeople that Dr. Misner conducted for his upcoming book, Business Networking and Sex (Not What You Think), showed that people who focused first on relationship and then on business scored much higher in success than those who focused first on business and then on the relationship.
Also according to this survey, men are much more transactional than women are, which is why women are usually more successful at networking. This is part of why Dr. Misner created the GAINS Exchange: because he’s not good at being relational. And the reason Dr. Misner starts each episode by saying where he is that week is to show members that he takes meeting BNI members in different chapters seriously.
Networking expert Susan RoAne reads the sports page every day in order to be able to start conversations with men—even though she hates sports. How many men read Cosmopolitan or Home and Garden in order to be able to talk to women? But if you make an effort to be more relational, it will pay off in your networking.
Brought to you by Networking Now.
Episode 233: Don’t Wait for that Class Reunion
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Synopsis
There’s no need to wait for a class reunion to network with your former classmates. Admittedly Dr. Misner has never passed a referral to any of the other 9 people in his first graduate school class, but he’s more connected to his high school classmates today than he was 10 years ago, thanks to Facebook and Twitter.
Here are three steps to help you reconnect to old school friends.
- Contact your school’s alumni services department
- Reconnect using online networks (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook)
- Seek referrals GENTLY. People will un-friend you if you adopt a pushy, hard-sell approach. It’s usually safe to announce a special event occasionally.
Brought to you by Networking Now.
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