The Official BNI Podcast

Synopsis Susan Goodsell, BNI Executive Director for BNI Riverside and San Bernardino Counties (and also a BNI employee who works on branding), joins Dr. Misner to explain why a good referral is in the eye of the beholder. All BNI members understand that a referral is the opportunity to do business, not a guarantee of business. But not everyone educates their fellow members with enough specifics about what's required for a good referral. The first time I give a poor referral, it's my fault. But the second time I give a poor referral, it's probably the receiver's fault. Each of us has a different definition of what counts as a referral. Listen to what counts as a referral for your fellow members. Don't try to define referrals for other members. If you're a printer and you don't want referrals for business cards because you don't make much money from them, stop mentioning them in your 60-second spot. Talk about the products that do make money for you. Mention the price point for referrals. If you get an off-target referral, go to the member who made the referral, thank them for thinking of you, and educate them on the kinds of referrals you do want. As long as you are laser-specific, you'll get good referrals. Wherever you set the bar is the level of referrals you'll get. Brought to you by Networking Now. Podcast intro recorded by Tony Wolfe. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 303 - 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 who do you have as a guest today? Ivan: Hi Priscilla. I am doing great and I have Susan Goodsell as my guest today. Susan is a BNI Executive Director. She also works at BNI Headquarters. So I see her all the time. She does a great job for the organization. She actually studied broadcast journalism in school. She worked 26 years, traveling the street at many levels: counselor, manager, trainer, seminar presenter. You have now been a BNI member and Director for many years. You joined the support services team here at BNI Headquarters in 2001 at the old office. You are now managing the branding project. You are the Branding Coordinator. You becam Regional Director for BNI in 2007 and an Executive Director after that. You handle BNI Riverside and San Bernadino counties here in California. Yeah? Susan: Correct. Ivan: Susan, it's great having you on the podcast. You are going to talk today about a referral being in the eye of the beholder. I think that is a great way to put it. Tell everybody what that means. What do you mean by a referral is in the eye of the beholder? Susan: Firstly, thank you for having me. I have a lot of passion behind this topic. The point of a good referral is it is in the eye of the beholder and the eye of the person who is receiving that referral. It's up to us to define what a good referral is. Going back to the basics, we are really clear in BNI the definition of a referral is the opportunity to do business with someone in the market for your product or service. Not a guaranteed sale. I think we always get that part of it, but what sometimes maybe gets lost is that there is a second part of that. That is that we have to be very, very specific in defining what a referral is for each of us as individuals. The importance of that is so that we can get more effective in getting quality, prequalified referrals. It's up to us to define what level of a referral, right? It's about educating chapter members. One that pops up quite frequently is with our realtor friends because most of our chapters have realtors. Does your realtor do a for sale by owner? Some do. Some don't.

Synopsis Andrew Hall from BNI Sussex, who brought BNI to Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, joins Dr. Misner on this week's podcast. You need to have a rota of one-to-one meetings of your members. Your 60-second intro is static. A one-to-one is a conversation. It's dynamic. Nothing opens out your business to your fellow members as effectively as one-to-ones. Here's a story to illustrate this: when Ken Wilkie was writing The Van Gogh File, instead of just reading all the other books about Vincent Van Gogh, Wilkie interviewed everyone who was still alive who had ever known van Gogh. In doing this, he discovered that Van Gogh had once been in love with his landlady's daughter Eugenie. He visited Eugenie's granddaughter and discovered a heretofore unknown sketch that Van Gogh had made of Eugenie. If you make one-to-one appointments with your fellow BNI members, you might not discover a Van Gogh sketch, but you will discover things and make connections you couldn't without those in-person meetings. Brought to you by Networking Now. Podcast intro recorded by Tony Wolfe.   Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 302 - 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 who do you have with you today?? Ivan: Hi Priscilla. I have a good friend and BNI Director, Andrew Hall, with me today. Andrew has been an entrepreneur most of his life. He left Cambridge University and went straight into business. Throughout the 1990's, Andrew ran a series of art galleries, which is perfect for the story that he is going to share today. He was in London when he did the art galleries and it was a new venture after the art galleries that brought him into BNI. He has launched some of the very, very first chapters of BNI in the UK and in 2000, he helped take BNI outside of the Western world for the very first time, helping to open up our first chapters in Malaysia. His wife, Jung, and he have gone on to assist in opening chapters in Taiwan and Hong Kong and just opened their first chapter on mainland, China. I visited the Hong Kong region again just recently and got an amazing warm welcome from his team and Jung's team there in Hong Kong. I would urge members if you are ever visiting in Hong Kong to drop in on one of the chapters. They always roll out the red carpet for people. Andrew, thank you very much for being on the podcast today. Andrew: Thank you. It is an absolute pleasure. You are right. There are some tremendous members in Hong Kong. I am just in Taiwan at the moment and we just had a great Directors meeting here, so things are pretty good at the moment. Ivan: I am looking forward to visiting Taiwan one day. I haven't been there, but I have been to Hong Kong a couple of times. It's a truly amazing experience. We even had a television show, which was out of the UK, filmed in Hong Kong chapters, The Last Millionaire, which in and of itself an interesting story. For anyone who is interested in it, go to “Pick Up Networking Like a Pro” and you will see it there. Andrew: It's a pretty good watch if you get a chance to see it. It's a good program. Ivan: Andew, today we are going to be talking about one-to-ones and Van Gogh. I know the answer to this but my listeners don't. What in the world do one-to-ones and Van Gogh . Andrew: Well, let me tell you. I am delighted at the chance to speak to you today because I wanted to talk about this because I know that many people who listen to this podcast will be fairly new members. I wanted you to know that when you join BNI, the meeting, the 60 seconds, the ten minute slot, is so large in what we do,

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 88. Synopsis 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. Ask for written testimonials. (Write samples to help clients get started.) Write down two success stories that represent your preferred client and your strongest work. Write a personal introduction for your network to use when making referrals. Toot your own horn. Tell people about the good things your business does. 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. Podcast intro recorded by Tony Wolfe. 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.

Synopsis Visitors' Days are an outstanding way to bring measurable growth to a chapter. They are not the only way, but as a single technique, they can be one of the best. But don't wing it. Use the BNI Visitors' Day Handbook. Your local BNI director w...

Synopsis Dr. Misner received this question from a BNI member. (Keep those questions coming!) "I've reached out to my group to make a connection with the CEO of a startup company that I know I can help. So far, my members don't have a connection inside the company. Other than a cold call, what would you suggest is the best way to contact the CEO?" Cold calls are definitely not recommended. Keep plugging away with your chapter and also connect with your own personal network and with BNI Connect. Be laser specific about who you want to meet when you give your 30-second infomercial: "I am looking to meet Sam Smith at XYZ company. Does anyone know Sam? Does anyone know someone who works at XYZ company?" Ask your leadership team about doing the Reciprocity Ring exercise. This may take time. It took Dr. Misner the better part of a year to connect with Harvey Mackay. Finally one day a BNI member who was driving Dr. Misner to the airport said "I know Harvey. In fact, I know his assistant very well. I'd be glad to make an introduction." That was all it took to get in the door. Just a reminder that you never know who they know. Be specific and be persistent, and eventually you'll succeed. Brought to you by Networking Now. Podcast intro recorded by Tony Wolfe. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 299 - 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: Hello, Priscilla. I am doing great, and this week, I am in Scandinavia for BNI, visiting chapters throughout the Scandinavian regions of the organization. I love coming back to visit. As a matter of fact, I will be spending some time at the Ice Hotel. Priscilla: Oh, I remember last year, you shared pictures, I think it was on Facebook, and I got to see you in the Ice Hotel. Ivan: Yep, and I will be there again. This time, however, the Ice Hotel is actually a member of BNI. Priscilla: Wow. Really? Cool. That's neat. So what do you have to share with us today? Ivan: This week, I have another question from a BNI member. By the way, I love the questions on various topics. This one is really a good one. Here, the member is asking me the following question: “I have reached out to my group to help me make a connection with the CEO of a start-up company that I know I can help. So far, members don't have a connection inside the company. Other than a cold call, what would you suggest is the best way to contact the CEO?” The short answer is a cold call is not worth it. Do cold calls work? Yeah, sometimes if you are really good at it. But it's not the way I would prefer to do business. My advice is keep plugging away with the chapter. The more ways that you can ask the question and periodically bring it up to your group, the better. Of course, you know, reconnect with your own personal network, as well as your BNI group.Here is the key: you want to be laser-specific about who you are connecting with. So you want to specifically say, “I am looking to find someone who knows _________ (fill in the blank) with XYZ company. If there is anyone in the group who knows someone who might know them- does anyone know someone that might work at XYZ company? That is a great referral for me if I can have a lead in the door.” I discovered this with an exercise that we have in BNI. If you have a chance, ask your BNI Director to do the reciprocity ring exercise. If they don't know what I am referring to, it is available from BNI headquarters for Directors to do. The reciprocity ring exercise. Basically, members stand up and say, “This is a referral I am looking for.

Synopsis A BNI member named Gary asked Dr. Misner the following question: I have passed a referral to someone on two occasions and they have not followed up on either. This happens to be someone in my own chapter. I am now wondering whether they actually want me to pass them more referrals or don't want the work. Following up on referrals is part of BNI's Code of Ethics. The first thing to do is talk to the member you gave the referral to. Clear, open, honest, communication is generally the best way to address a problem like this. It doesn't have to be a confrontation. Some of the possiblities are: It wasn't a good referral, even though you thought it was. They lost the contact information or dialed the wrong number. They're disorganized and haven't followed through. If it's not a good referral, find out why. If the person hasn't gotten around to following through, explain that when you give a referral, you give away part of your reputation. If the member still doesn't follow up, you can contact the membership committee. Don't complain about this member to anyone BUT the membership committee, and don't talk to the membership committee UNTIL you talk to the other member. Gossip will destroy the morale of a BNI chapter. Remember: clear, open, honest communication. Brought to you by Networking Now. Podcast intro recorded by Tony Wolfe. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 298 - 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 doing? Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla, and I am at my office this week, sort of catching my breath from all my travels. Priscilla: That is nice. Ivan: I have an interesting topic this week. I had a BNI member some time ago, by the name of Gary, ask me a question which I am going to answer today on this podcast. I think it's a question that's really important and a lot of members run into this. Priscilla: Okay. What is it? Ivan: His question was, “I have passed a referral to someone on two occasions and they have not followed up on the referral. It happens to be someone in my own chapter. I am now wondering do they actually want me to pass them more referrals or do they not want the work?” I left a comment and told him I would do a podcast because I think this is really important question for many members to hear. You remember, Priscilla. Can you imagine getting a referral- you join an organization that is about referrals. Can you imagine being part of an organization that is all about referrals and then not following up on a referral? Priscilla: It doesn't make sense, does it? You are there to get the referrals. That is the whole point. Ivan: It doesn't make sense. As a matter of fact, it is so obvious that members need to follow up on referrals- it is actually in our code of ethics. Number four of BNI's Code of Ethics states, “I will take responsibility for following up on the referrals that I receive.” It is a core piece of the BNI program to follow up on referrals. So what if a member doesn't? As Gary points out, he has a member in his group who has not responded to two referrals. Here are my suggestions, and then, Priscilla, I would love to dialogue with you if you have any thoughts or questions. The first thing you should do, Gary, and for anybody who is listening to this and you get a referral and the person doesn't follow up on it, the first thing to do is to talk to the person you gave the referral to. Clear, open, honest and direct communication is almost always the best way to address problems in a group- and this sounds like a problem when somebody doesn't reply or doesn't respond.

Synopsis Dawn Lyons, co-author with Dr. Misner of the new book Room Full of Referrals, joins him on the podcast today to talk about assessing the value of your BNI Membership. BNI members get more from their membership besides referrals and business. This assessment tool helps members realize how they have progressed in their businesses since joining BNI. Rate yourself on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 5 (highest) before BNI and now. Some of the non-monetary benefits of BNI membership: Feeling like you have a team people helping you in your business Being able to speak clearly and confidently about your business Being able to ask specifically for the kind of clients you need. Leadership teams, take note: a good time to ask members to fill these out is shortly before renewals are due! Brought to you by Networking Now. Podcast intro recorded by Tony Wolfe. 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? Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla, and it reminded me that I had somebody recently say, “Oh, BNI is in Berkeley, California.” No, that is where we are recording. You are located in Berkeley, but BNI HQ is actually located in southern California in Upland, and we do this recording through your studio remotely. For those interested, Priscilla is in Berkeley and BNI HQ is in southern California. And you are in Dawn Lyons' region, who is my guest today, right? Priscilla: I am in Dawn Lyons' region. I am a proud member of her region. Ivan: Dawn is my guest today. Dawn has been a BNI Director for more than 12 years. She actually operates three franchises of BNI and is also the Vice President and partner with the Referral Institute, which is an international consulting and training company. Dawn is a contributing author to the NY Times best selling Masters of Sales, which I co-wrote. She is also a keynote speaker on networking and referrals. Dawn's also my co-author of my brand new book, which just came out: Room Full of Referrals. Dawn, it's a real pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Dawn: Yes. Thank you very much for having me. Ivan: I love the topic. The topic for today is about assessing the value of your BNI membership. You have put together some material, which for those of you listening to the podcast, there will be either a PDF or a Word file of this document that we are talking about. It will be available here on the podcast where you can download it and take a look at it while we are talking. Dawn, assessing the value of BNI membership- can you tell us about how you put this concept together and how members can use it? Dawn: Yes, the interesting thing is that I know a lot of BNI folks actually get a lot of referrals and business and things like that out of their membership. At the same time, I really feel like there are so many other things that come from being a BNI member, no matter where they are in the world. I was sitting down one day and thought I wonder if there are some questions that we can ask our members, almost to take a poll or to learn from them what else have they gained from being a member of BNI? We started to come up with some questions. I was sitting at my kitchen table and I thought, you know what? This would be a great assessment to help people understand where they were as a business owner before they got started with their BNI membership and where they are today. Ivan, you know me pretty well. I am a results oriented type of person. I always want to see people succeed as much as possible, so I ask people to take kind of a reality check. Where are they right now in their business,

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 211. Synopsis This episode has its origins in a video for Entrepreneur.com. Everyone experiences fear of rejection. In Dr. Misner’s case, the overwhelming experience came when he was trying to persuade stores to carry his first book. He found himself afraid to get out of the car and walk into the store to ask. Finally he realized that the worst that could happen if he asked was the same thing as if he did nothing at all: the store would not carry his book. So he picked up a copy of the book and went into the store. They asked for 20 copies. When you ask people to do something—including joining BNI—some will, some won’t, and either way, it’s not a big deal. Mark Goulston recently said, “We have a lot less control over winning or losing at something than we have over trying or quitting at something. If you always try, you’ll eventually win. If you always quit, you can never win.” Success doesn’t necessarily go to the smartest person: persistence is critical. If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right. So don’t let fear of rejection stop you. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 211 - Priscilla: Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the web for networking downloadables. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, 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? Ivan: I’m doing great, thanks. Priscilla: I heard it’s your birthday tomorrow. Ivan: It is my birthday. June 30th is my birthday, so I’ll be 55. Everyone is going to be going, “Gee. I wonder how old he is.” I started BNI when I was about 28 years old. Priscilla: You are so young. That’s great. I hope you have a very happy day. Ivan: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Today I am going to be talking about an interesting topic. It’s fear of rejection. I’ll tell you why I am doing this one. I am doing this one because I did a video for entrepreneur.com. They asked me to do something on fear of rejection. This is another one the staff saw and said I had to do this as a podcast. I was like, really? Why? I don’t know why BNI members would be interested in it. I’ll tell you I am going to take the advice of my staff because the person who said to do episode 203, The Rest of the Story, where I talked about my background before I got BNI started--we had so many comments. I got a lot of emails and responses on that podcast, just talking about how I got to where I started BNI because most people know the BNI story but they don’t know the story before that. We had such a positive response. This is a little bit different. It’s not about networking, but I think it will resonate with everyone. Fear of rejection. We all have all dealt with the fear of rejection. Maybe you haven’t, Priscilla. Priscilla: I have definitely had fear of rejection. I think that’s a great topic because I think it is universal. We all worry about it. Ivan: I think you’re right so I am going to take the advice of my staff and do the podcast today on this topic. They were absolutely right with episode 203. If you haven’t listened to it, go listen to episode 203. It’s really good. So fear of rejection. What I did for Entrepreneur is talked about one of the more poignant  times in my life where I was really concerned about rejection. That’s when my first major book, The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret, came out in 1994. Let me tell you, if you ever feel like you are a big shot, write a book. That will humble you very quickly in terms of doing book signings and what not. Some people have heard me talk about some funny stories in doing book signings.

Synopsis Just a reminder that the new intro to the podcast was produced by Tony Wolfe. Stewart Emery shared a story with Dr. Misner recently about a billionaire CEO who used the same company cafeteria as the rest of the employees. Prospective buyers of the company wanted that to change if they bought the company. The CEO halted the negotiations that day. Chapters have a choice about whether to be inclusive or exclusive. The more successful you are, the easier it is to be standoffish. A good power team might be tempted to be exclusive, but a GREAT power team will be inclusive and share its success. Leaders within BNI should be approachable. When the members understand that the people on the leadership team care about their success, it creates a healthy culture. Leading from among makes us better leaders in our own businesses as well as in our chapters. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 295 - 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 doing great, and I am away this week at a retreat with my executive management team and the executive council of BNI. The executive management team who work for the company and the executive council are the top 7 countries for BNI. They re the countries that have the most chapters in them. We get together several times a year to talk about where the organization is going and improve it as much as possible. I like to share that on the podcast so that you know the organization does a lot of planning and analysis. The key players of the organization do that regularly to keep BNI the largest and most successful networking organization in the world. So that is what I am doing this week. Priscilla: That sounds great. So what do you have to share with us? Ivan: Before I go into today's topic, I want to mention again that we have a new opening to BNIpodcast.com. It was done by a good friend and BNI member, Tony Wolfe. For people who would like to see Tony and what he does, you can go to tonywolfe.com. Tony did the voice recording. Tony is the man of a thousand voices, and to get more information, please go to tonywolfe.com. Tony, thank you so much. Your voiceover work is great, and I am proud to have you do our opening. Today, I'll talk about leading from among, not from above. I got this idea- today's podcast is going to be a little more seminal, a little more strategic. I try give a lot of hands on very technique oriented things as much as possible. Today is more conceptual, but I think it is really important. I have a good friend by the name of Stewart Emery. Stewart has written many books like Do You Matter?, which is a book about branding. There is another book called Success Meant to Last. I think Stewart is one of the brilliant minds of our time. He was responsible for the “priceless” series of commercials with MasterCard. He was over at my house a few months ago. At breakfast, he told me about an interview. He was talking to my wife, his wife and me. It was one that he did with a really well-known billionaire in the computer industry. The billionaire shared an intriguing story with Stewart about an experience he had when the senior executives of the company, interested in purchasing the billionaire's company, visited his office to discuss a possible purchase. At lunch, the billionaire- I am not naming him by name, but it would be a name that most people would recognize, told the senior executives that he was negotiating with that he was going to take them to the executive dining room for lunch. They followed him to this dining room.

Synopsis A BNI member asked Dr. Misner how to combine attracting and retaining new members with passing high-quality referrals. There are three factors in this. System BNI works best when you use the whole system as outlined in the manuals. If you r...

Synopsis New podcast intro by BNI member Tony Wolfe. Special guest Mark Goulston joins Dr. Misner on the podcast today to talk about his new book, Real Influence: Persuade without Pushing. Lasting influence Go for great outcomes Listen past ...

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 110. Synopsis Phenomenal reviews can convince you to go to an out-of-the-way restaurant. Written testimonials can do the same thing for your business. Consumers trust testimonials from other people more than they do y...

Synopsis Today's podcast is a response to a new member's concern that the current reporting system pressures BNI members into valuing the quantity of referrals they pass over the quality of those referrals. "I believe I understand what a good referral is and is not, but the temptation to stick a fellow BNI member with an anemic referral increases with each PALMS Report. Perhaps a solution to this dilemma–at least in part–would be to replace the stuffing-of-the-big-envelope-with-referral-slips with a brief reminder of what constitutes a good referral and how to avoid bad referrals." So why can't BNI adopt this suggestion? In business, you achieve what you measure. Goals without measurement are just wishful thinking. That does NOT mean you should give out bad referrals. What we should be measuring are legitimate referrals. Here are 5 places you can go to learn more about what constitutes a good referral. The orientation CD that every member gets in the New Member Packet. The Member Orientation Guide, also in the New Member Packet. The Member Success Program Training. The book Givers Gain. Dr. Misner's article, "What Is the Definition of a Referral" in SuccessNet Online. Brought to you by Networking Now.     Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 291 - 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? Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla, thank you very much. Today we have a great topic, the value of evaluating. It is based on an email I received from a BNI member. I am going to read part of the email to you that he sent so you understand where he was coming from and then you will get what I responded to him because I think this is of value to all members. The member's email said, “If I am not generating referrals, will it make me look like I am not a team player?” He said this is a flaw in the system because of the way we report stuff. He went on to say, “I am a new member and already a believer in the philosophy of givers gain, but my concern is that I have to hustle the referrals so I am not counted as a slacker. In my mind, this is reinforced by the weekly issuing of reports that publicly display the number of referrals.” You can find that in the reports. You can find it in the thank you for closed business, which we did a podcast on with John Meyer just a few weeks ago. He says it's being reinforced by the weekly issuing of reports. He went on to say that if he didn't fill out a referral slip and he isn't generating referrals, it would make him look like he is not a team player. He said there is a temptation to stick a fellow BNI member with anemic referral. That's an interesting one, just to increase the palms report. He was basically suggesting that we don't do those reports. It's not necessary because referrals are the lifeblood. We shouldn't do reports because it makes people feel on the spot. So here is my response. I truly believe that you achieve in business what you measure. So goals without measurement is just wishful thinking. So you have to have a way of measuring performance. Does that mean then that you should be giving out bad referrals? Absolutely not. I think that any interpretation of giving out bad referrals because of the report is a misinterpretation of the intention when I incorporated the report process into BNI. The truth is you do what to measure what is being generated, but you also want to make sure that it is legitimate referrals. Saying we are not going to measure because it reinforces bad referrals is a bad idea. Giving inappropriate referrals so that you look good is a bad idea.

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 138. Synopsis BNI conducted a survey for the book Masters of Networking that asked business professionals what the most important traits of a master networker were. The most important trait was following up on referrals. Not giving them, following up on them. See Week 20 in The 29% Solution, “Follow Up Today,” for a networking follow-up report card. Remember, the best system for following up is the one you’re going to use. There are many kinds of follow-up. You should follow up when you meet a person, not just when you get a referral. Following up is part of building a relationship, not just closing a deal. Leave us a comment to tell us about your experiences with following up. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 138 - 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. Hello, Ivan. How are you, and where are you? Ivan: Doing great, Priscilla! And this week I’m at the Transformational Leadership Council in Puerto Rico. This is Jack Canfield’s network that I was invited to many years ago, and I’ve been a member. We’re in Puerto Rico this week for their conference. Priscilla: That sounds great! Well, what do you have to share with us? Ivan: Well, today I want to talk about the Number 1 Trait of a Master Networker. Many years ago I wrote a book called Masters of Networking, and we did a survey. It was one of the contributions. My wife and I did this article that was in the book, and the article was based on a survey that she and I did almost 2,000 business professionals from several countries, and it was published in Masters of Networking. We asked business professionals what they felt were some of the most important traits of a master networker, and the number one trait that came back was that master networkers follow up on the referrals that they’re given. So giving referrals, giving referrals didn’t even show up in the top five. But I thought it was interesting that the number one trait was following up on the referrals that you get, and the reason for this top ranking is that, in my opinion, if you present opportunities to someone who consistently fails to follow up successfully, whether it’s a simple piece of information, a special contact, or a qualified business referral, it’s no secret that you’re eventually going stop wasting your time on that person. They’re an embarrassment to you. Because when you give a referral, you give a little bit of your reputation away. Priscilla: Right. Ivan: If it works out well, it enhances your reputation. If it doesn’t work out well, it hurts your reputation. And so following up is so, so very important. I talk about it in The 29% Solution at length, and I recommend, if you have a copy of the book, pick it up and take a look at Week #20, Week #20, which is on page 114 of The 29% Solution. And Week #20 is Follow Up Today. It talks about the fact that good follow-up is not just doing what’s required or what you’ve promised to do, it also involves going beyond what is expected. One last thing, and then I’d like to maybe just open it up and chat a little bit about this, if we can. I’m often asked, Priscilla, “What’s the more effective system for following up and staying in touch with your clients?” Do you have any ideas, what’s the most effective system to follow up? Priscilla: I think I know. Ivan: What do you think? Priscilla: I would guess it would be a personal note. Ivan: It could very well be. Here’s my answer. It’s very simple, and it’s very surprising.

Synopsis This week John Meyer, U.S. National Director of Field Affairs for BNI and Executive Director of BNI Ohio, joins Dr. Misner on the podcast to talk about the Thank You for Closed Business (TYCB) system, which measures the business passed betwee...