The Official BNI Podcast

Do you have a burning question for Dr. Misner? He's looking for educational questions that he can answer on the podcast. Send your burning educational questions to askivan@bni.com.

Any business coach or entrepreneur would tell you the business model of BNI doesn’t make sense, but BNI gets results. Sam Schwartz joins Dr. Misner to explain why this model works all over the world.

Synopsis About a year ago, Dr. Misner was walking along a crowded street in Paris. One pedestrian really stood out to him: she was walking directly toward him with her head down, focused on her mobile phone. She was on an obvious collision course, and Dr. Misner thought "Look up. Look up! Look up!" At the very last moment, she did, and appeared completely shocked that she was about to walk into someone. This encounter is a perfect illustration of the way that we can be physically present but not mentally present. And though mobile phones are a huge distraction, this is about more than turning your phone off in a BNI meeting. If you are not completely present, not just in BNI meetings but in all areas of your life, you are doing yourself a disservice. Engage fully with everything you do when you are doing it. When you're at BNI, set aside work and family. When you're with your family, set aside your work. When you're at work, set aside other things. The things you set aside will be there when you come back to them. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of Episode 425 - 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, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you? Ivan: Hi Priscilla. This week, I am in Omaha, Nebraska for a BNI chapter. Actually, I have a key note presentation for an insurance organization and then I am visiting with local members here in Omaha, Nebraska, so it is a great region. It is fun to be here. Priscilla: Oh good. Tell me, what is this about? Looking up. Ivan: Look up. I love the way you did it, too because the way you said it, it was exactly the way it was going through my mind when something happened. It was about a year ago and I was in Paris. I was walking along a really crowded street in Paris and people were walking in both directions and they were walking with purpose and direction. There were families and business professionals. There were tourists. One pedestrian really stood out for me because she was right in front of me, a little ways in front. She was in front of me and walking directly at me. She was kind of walking at a little bit of an uneven, irregular pace. She had her head down. She wasn't looking to the left and she wasn't looking to the right. She wasn't looking around. She wasn't even looking at the sidewalk or at her feet. She was looking at her mobile phone. Priscilla: Right. Ivan: She was texting while she was walking on this really crowded sidewalk. It was really interesting because there was no one between her and I but other that that, the sidewalk was packed with people. She was on this direct trajectory to collide with me. I remember she was far enough away. I was walking towards her and there were people behind me walking so I couldn't just stop. Have you ever just stopped at an airport and people bumped into you? Priscilla: Yeah. Ivan: It would have been that on the sidewalk. So I am walking but I am kind of going slow and I am thinking, "Look up. Look up. Look up." I was saying this softly, repeating it under my breath as she approached me directly. She was about to run smack into me. The sidewalk was so full to the left, to the right and behind me that I couldn't step to the left of the right and I couldn't stop without colliding into other people. I was really on the verge of crashing into her when I was about to say something- although, I was in Europe and I may have spoken in English. She may not have even known what I was saying. At the very last moment before she crashed into me, she looked up.

Thoughtful engagement is the answer to a return on your investment in BNI. Engagement is a critical step in the networking process. It involves a promise to support one another, and action to fulfill that promise. The law of attraction only works if you take action.

Synopsis When the was writing Masters of Success, Dr. Misner asked thousands of BNI members what they felt the secret to success was. They mentioned factors like vision, goals, systems, passion, and persistence. Then he asked several highly successful people what they thought it took to be successful. They provided the same list. So did a number of undergraduates studying business--except that the college students also mentioned luck. So if we all know what it takes to be successful, why is it that we're not all as successful as we'd like to be? There is no secret to success. Success is simply the uncommon application of common knowledge.  When you ask people the secret to their success, you rarely hear a secret. What you hear about is unwavering adherence to a system or a plan. Successful people focus on the goal and work through or around everything else. Success requires not just knowing what you need to do, but doing it--over and over again. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of Episode 423 - 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, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you? Ivan: I am in Europe this week for a quick trip for BNI and will be leaving here today. Priscilla: That sounds fun. Was it fun? Ivan: It is a necessary business trip. Priscilla: Well, I hope you got a lot done. Ivan: Yep. Wherever I go, I try to get as much done as I can. You know, I like- we have talked about this before on the podcast, that I try to tell roughly where I am at and what I am doing so that members understand that I am not just sitting out, or as someone in an email once said to me, hanging out at the beach with a margarita. Priscilla: Although that sounds good also. Ivan: It sounds good. I have been known to do it, but I am generally traveling a lot for BNI and meeting members all over the world, which is what I really love doing. Priscilla: Great. So are you going to tell us what is success today? Ivan: Yes. I am going to tell you what is success. Over my career, I have observed people with different personality profiles, backgrounds and different approaches to business achieve success in life. A lot of times, I have wondered if there were any recurring themes running through their success stories if they could clearly illustrate what creates success. A number of years ago, when I was interviewing BNI members for a book I was writing called Masters of Success, I asked thousands of BNI members what they felt the secret of success was. You know, they generally told me things like vision, goals, passion, persistence, systems. These were the things that they said it took to be successful. I thought that was really interesting, so I did ask really highly successful people who had attained great wealth or personal success in business or science what it took to be successful. These were people who were in the book like Erin Brockovich, Buzz Aldrin the astronaut, and many other successful people. They generally told me that success involved things like vision, goals, passion, persistence, systems. Sound familiar at all? It was the same list. This made me really curious, so much so that I was teaching at the time at a state university in southern California. I asked hundreds of college students over the few years that I was working on this book what they thought was the secret to success, what did it take to be successful. These were all undergraduates in business with little or no real world business experience. What I found amazing was that they also said success involved things like visi...

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 231. Synopsis Exceptional performance is not achieved by looking for exceptions. You won’t get great results without great effort. You can’t win the Tour de France without riding a bike, or the Nobel Peace Prize without changing the world. Musicians and athletes need to practice. So do businesspeople. Without discipline and a focus on the fundamentals, you won’t achieve success. There are no shortcuts. Have you run into people like this, either in BNI or elsewhere in business? The ones who want to read advice on how to be successful, but not to follow it? What has your experience been like. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 231 - 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 where are you? Ivan: Hi Priscilla. I am actually at BNI headquarters this week training National Directors for BNI. I have some National Directors from around the world here at BNI. They are going through some training to open up new countries. We are in almost 50 countries now and we'll be opening up more countries next year, too. Priscilla: That is amazing. Ivan: Yeah. It really is. It's very exciting. Priscilla: So what do you have to share with us? Ivan: Well, the topic for today is You Don't Become Exceptional by Looking for Exceptions. I have touched upon this some in other podcasts, but I have additional information that I think is of value because over and over again in my life, I am reminded that exceptional performance is not achieved by looking for exceptions. I'll be really honest. I don't feel very diplomatic today so I am just going to say it like it is. I am really tired of dealing with people who want great results but they don't want to put any great effort. I honestly think that if people spent half as much time focusing on the fundamentals of success in the area they are interested in, they would get twice the results of what they are actually getting. I am not aiming this message at BNI members. I am aiming this message at business owners worldwide, any business professional. This isn't just BNI. In fact, I think in many ways, BNI members are better at this than the average person. But I do find over and over way too many people around the world that I talk to who are searching for ideas and then arguing with people about what works. So they will ask for an opinion and then argue with people who have been successful in that area. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Earlier this year, I read an article by a really good friend of mine, Tony Alessandra. Dr. Alessandra. He wrote the material on the “platinum rule.” The platinum rule talks about the fact that you treat people the way that they want to be treated, not the way that you want to be treated. It's not quite the golden rule, which is treat others the way that you want to be treated. You treat others the way that they want to be treated. It's an important concept and his piece was well-written, Tony's material. It explains that especially when it comes to business, it's not about how you want to be treated. It's how they want to be treated. They have needs, desires and wants that may be different from yours. So understanding them is very important. He did a very non-controversial posting, this friend of mine who posted on Tony's material. He caught some guy- this was on an online network. He got some guy who posted a comment that this was a horrible idea because people don't ...

Synopsis At the last conference of the Transformational Leadership Council,someone told Dr. Misner an incredible story about making a tough decision about whether to move. Dr. Misner and Priscilla are both people who make lists of pros and cons when they can't decide, but sometimes that's not enough. In this case, the pros and cons came out equal, and it was hard to know what to do. This person invited her financial planner to help her make the decision. He suggested flipping a coin. If your response to the coin flip is "Oh, no," what you really wanted was the other outcome. If it's "Oh, great," then that's what you really wanted to do. Remember this when someone needs help making a decision. (It may not work for your own decisions now that you know the trick.) Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of Episode 421 - 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, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you? Ivan: This week, I am at BNI headquarters in southern California. We are doing training Director Consultant orientation. We have people from all over North America coming into headquarters and I am training them. I love going to headquarters and doing the orientation. It is a lot of fun. Priscilla: I am glad you like it. You probably have to do it quite often. Ivan: I do, but you know, you have heard me talking about working in your wax and working in your flame. When entrepreneurs work in their flame, they are on fire. They are excited. Doing things like training, orientation, and the podcast- these are my flame. These are the things I love doing and I am happy to do them. Priscilla: Tell us, Ivan. What is this topic of "Can't Decide". What is this about? Ivan: I am a member of the organization called the Transformational Leadership Council started by Jack Canfield. I was in Tecate, Mexico for the last conference. One of the members there is Barnet Bain. He and I are good friends. He and his wife and my wife and I are very good friends. His wife's name is Sandy Stuart. Sandy, in this offhanded discussion that we were having- they were planning on moving. I have been to their home in Malibu. It is a beautiful home. They were thinking about moving. She told me this incredible story about a tough decision they were making about whether they should move or not. At one point, they didn't know whether they wanted to leave this house because it was beautiful and right on the beach. But they needed more room and they just couldn't make a decision. Have you ever been in a situation like that when you have a big decision to make and you just couldn't decide what to do? Priscilla: Of course. Ivan: Everybody has. What are some of the things that you did to help make a decision? Priscilla: I am kind of a listmaker, so I do the pro and con list and then I try very hard to listen to my inner voice, my intuition. Ivan: That is fantastic advice, and that is exactly what I do. I make a list. Pros and cons. I may do a secondary list of financial pros and cons- a personal, how it plays out individually and then a financial pro and con. And then I try to listen to my inner voice as well. You are absolutely correct. She told me she did all that and just couldn't make a decision. She said it was one of those situations where she was so entrenched, enmeshed with the issue that she had a hard time figuring out what she really, really wanted. I don't know if you have been in that, but I have been there. So she called their financial planner and asked him to come over and give them some advice.

Synopsis Lately Dr. Misner has seen a lot of people who have been using VCP like it's a formula: Visibility + Credibility = Profitability. VCP is a referral process, not a sales process. If the majority of your clients aren't giving you referrals, then you are only at Credibility with your clients, not at Profitability. It's possible that you can have a lot of Visibility and a lot of Credibility, but NOT have Profitability. Rather than a formula, VCP is a continuum. Once you achieve Credibility (and not before), you have to start asking for referrals in order to achieve Profitability. Profitability does not result automatically from Visibility and Profitability. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of Episode 420 - 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, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you today? Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla. I have, I think, an interesting topic for today. Priscilla: Yeah. What does that mean? Ivan: V+C does not equal P. It is about the VCP process. Before you go, oh gosh, Ivan is talking about VCP, hear me out. I have been seeing a lot of people- members and Director Consultants who have been using VCP like it is a formula. "Visibility plus credibility equals profitability." Let me give you 30 seconds, no more than 60 seconds, of what VCP is just in case you are listening and you are new member and you haven;t heard me talk about this. VCP is the foundation of everything that I teach. If you don't get this right, nothing else you do in BNI will work. VCP stands for visibility, credibility, and profitability. You first have to be visible in the community. That is when people know who you are and what you do. Over time, you establish credibility. Credibility is when people know who you are, what you do, and they know that you are good at it. And then and only then can you get to profitability. People know who you are, what you do, that you are good at it, and they are willing to pass you referrals on an ongoing reciprocal basis. Now it is important to note that it is a referral process, not a sales. process. When I ask audiences, "Where are you with your clients?" They almost always say, " I am at profitability because they are my clients." Not true. Not true at all because it is a referral process. Are the majority of your clients giving you referrals? Most people will be honest and say no, not a majority of them. Well, you are only at credibility with your own clients because this is a referral process, not a sales process. Alright. You have just gotten a one minute lesson on the VCP process. What I want to talk about is the fact that VCP is not a formula. VCP is not a formula. It is a process. VCP is a continium. A process is a systematic series of actions that are directed to some end. A continuous action or operation or a series of changes. That is different from a formula. You know, one plus two equals three. Well, in VCP, even if it were a mathematical formula, that wouldn't be the formula. One plus two equals three. No, actually, with VCP, if it were a mathematical formula, it would be more like one plus two equals 10 because the return on investment of time really kicks in when you get to the profitability. It is not about visibility and then adding credibility. And then when you add credibility, you get profitability. It doesn't work that way. You can have a lot visibility and a lot of credibility and have no profitability at the end of that. For example, your clients, just as we were saying. You have visibility with your clients.

Dr. Misner explains the four things you need to keep in mind to make the Law of Reciprocity (a.k.a. Givers Gain) work in BNI.

Most people only pay lip service to education. Dr. Misner is convinced this is the reason that 50% of businesses fail in their first three years. Success requires that you embrace a culture of learning and work on your business.

Sometimes good referrals come from completely unexpected sources. If you develop a powerful personal network, you can increase the volume of your business. You don't need a room full of CEOs to network with. You need to network with people who care about you.

Dr. Misner leads an exercise to demonstrate how important it is to be specific in referral marketing. You need to tell people precisely how to refer you.

This week, Brennan Scanlon, Chapter Director Consultant of the Commonwealth Chapter of BNI joins Dr. Misner to talk about the topic "Don't Promise, Just Deliver."

When you're generating referrals for your business, you want to spend less time with the frogs and more time with the princes and princesses. And you want to be a prince(ss) rather than a frog, too. Here are some keys to identifying members of each networking species.

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 243. Synopsis In the course of research for his book Business Networking and Sex (Not What You Think), Dr. Misner found that people who had a system for tracking the money they generated were more likely to feel that ...