Summary: This is a rebroadcast of Episode 130. Synopsis This week Dr. Misner wants to expose three common delusions about referrals and referral sources. You should always get a referral when you’re in front of the referral source. To maximize your chances of getting good referrals, it’s best to move from one networking group to another networking group at regular intervals. Your best source of referrals is your customer. Dr. Misner recommends creating a curriculum for your referral sources, breaking what you do down into 30-second or 60-second highly-focused sound bites that others in your BNI chapter or any other networking group can use to refer you to others. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 130 - 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? Ivan: Doing great, Priscilla, and I’ve got an interesting topic today, Three Common Delusions About Referral Sources. Priscilla: Great! Well, tell us all about it. Ivan: Here’s number 1, Delusion Number 1. You should always get a referral when you’re in front of the referral source. That’s one that you know seems counterintuitive. Many of these delusions kind of do. But the truth is, if your referral strategy requires you to be present in order to get a referral, you’re putting severe limits on your potential business. Referrals happen when you’re in front of the referral source only if your system is dependent on you asking for the referral and getting it at the same time. So what that means to BNI members is that it’s very important to remember that you are trying to train that referral team, not close a sale or not just get a referral as you’re standing in front of them, but teaching them how to go out and listen for referrals so that they can bring them back to you. You don’t need to be in front of your referral source every time you get a referral; it’s a delusion. Priscilla: Okay. Ivan: Delusion Number 2. To maximize your chances of getting good referrals, it’s best to move from one networking group to another networking group on regular intervals. This is what I call “scorched earth networking,” and it’s about as friendly as it sounds. And I think in BNI, a lot of people, they get that, they understand that it’s about the relationship building. But there’s still sometimes new people into BNI are coming in thinking, “Well, I’ll be in for six months or a year and get all of the business I can, and then I’ll try something else out; or I’ll do this or I’ll do that.” I see it in Chambers, where somebody will join a local Chamber and they’re in for a little while, and they work it for a year and they kind of move on to the next Chamber. I think I may have used this analogy a couple years ago on one of the podcasts, but it’s like planting a citrus tree, and you wait for a year, of course, you care for it and take really good care and fertilize it and water it. At the end of a year, how much fruit are you going to get out of the tree you plant, Priscilla? Priscilla: Not much. I have one, and it’s . . . Ivan: Yeah, and so it’s like you plant it, you care for it for year, you don’t get a whole lot, and you go, “Well, you know what? It’s not working so well here, so I’m going to rip it up from the roots, and I’m going to plant it over there instead, because if it didn’t grow well here or give me much fruit here, it’s bound to grow more fruit over there.” And then you replant it someplace else, and you let it sit there for a year, you take good care of it, but how much fruit are you going to get that second year? Priscilla: Right. None.
