The Official BNI Podcast

Synopsis Bill Ulvund from BNI Michigan joins Dr. Misner to offer some suggestions for ways to make use of this podcast. Members who invest time in the podcast will have stronger relationships because they focus on the fundamentals. Executive Direc...

Synopsis Lawrence Conyers from the BNI Prince Bishop chapter in the UK joins Dr. Misner today to share some points from the educational videos he created for his BNI group. Lawrence decided to set the example for his chapter to do better one-to-ones. He created a video demonstrating bad and good One-to-Ones, then went on to make one for Power Teams. He takes all these roles in both videos. There's a third video he made with his whole chapter on How to Pass Referrals. You can see them all in the next post. If you engage with the material for the educational slots, you'll have a lot more success. Being proactive in your BNI membership makes all the difference to getting referrals. Use your own backgrounds and strengths. Lawrence was a video producer, so he made videos. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 257 - 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. I have Lawrence Conyers with me. Lawrence is a BNI member, and I am really excited to have him on. I think once you hear some of his background, you'll understand why. Lawrence has always been involved with the creative media industry. He initially worked for large global companies like PWC. He did work in museum and attraction design. He's done over 100 stage production credits while performing and directing local theater. He joined BNI in early 2009 after being invited by a web designer. So he has been a member now for a few years. He set up a small business in the north of England in some of the toughest economic times. I met Lawrence as a result of him winning the International Conference chapter videos. Lawrence did what has to be by far the best video I have ever seen. What I love about this video- we'll have a link to it in this podcast. You have to go watch it so you can just see how when I tlk about keeping the fun in the fundamentals, these guys did it. It was really funny. So that link will be in here. But Lawrence has done two other videos and those links will also be in here. He has done a video on one to ones and how to do a good one to one. And he has done a video on power teams. You can really see his acting background and his sense of humor. Lawrence, it's a real pleasure to have you on this podcast today. Lawrence: It's been my pleasure. Thank you for letting me join you. It's been a real honor. Ivan: Thanks a lot. Make sure to speak up real loud so everyone can hear you. There are three things that you wanted to talk about for being a member of BNI. I think this is great because you are a member. You are out in the field. The members are mostly the ones who listen to this, of course BNI Directors too, but members are listening to this. From the member's perspective, you had three points that you wanted to make as to advice you can give members. What are those three points? Lawrence: I was looking at spending some time with you in Long Beach having this conversation. A lot of what you said really sunk in. I was thinking about this on the flight home. Ivan: Can I just say it was a result of you winning the contest to come to the conference and part of it was a one to one. I was very pleased to be able to do that with you. So you came back home. Lawrence: It was so effective, and I was thinking on the way home that we're just not doing this right. We're not doing one to ones effectively. We're not getting the benefit for our membership, and we're not generating referrals. We're not receiving referrals. At the time, I was even questioning whether to stay in BNI or not. It just wasn't worthwhile.

Synopsis This is a rebroadcast of Episode 99, published in April 2009. Melinda Potcher adapted Dr. Misner’s Ten Commandments of Networking (discussed in Episode 32 and Episode 33 of this podcast) into the Ten Commandments of Business Networking. Thou Shalt Not Sell to Me. Thou Shalt Understand the Law of Reciprocity. Thou Shalt Not Abuse Our Relationship. Thou Shalt Not Be Late. Thou Shalt Be Specific. Thou Shalt Take Your Business Seriously. Thou Shalt Follow Up on Referrals. Thou Shalt Communicate. Thou Shalt Protect My Reputation. Thou Shalt Prepare for Success. What do you think of this list? Would you change or add anything? Read the post on Dr. Misner’s blog. Transcript is in the show notes for Episode 99. Brought to you by Networking Now.

Synopsis The full title for today’s podcast is “Getting to the referral stage with a new contact.” If you remember Episode 253, there’s no way to rush a business relationship. So how do you get to the referral stage with a new contact? It d...

Synopsis Morgan Rothwell of D&M Creative Limited in Lancashire joins Dr. Misner to talk about the importance of branding and to introduce the new BNIBranding.com website to members. Here are some of the advantages of successful branding. Branding influences buying decisions. Branding creates new customers Branding creates loyalty. Branding gives you a competitive advantage. Branding helps grow your business. If you want to learn more about branding, Dr. Misner recommends the book Do You Matter? How can branding build your chapter? BNI is unique among other organizations, but without a consistent visual identity, we didn’t have the visibility and recognizability of a really great brand. Now individual members and chapters can download BNI logos and other artwork from BNIBranding.com to use on their websites and display publicly to proclaim their BNI membership. If you want to know why it's so important to use these official logos, imagine what it would be like if you had 40,000 clients and they all wanted to create their own versions of your logo. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 254 - 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. This week, I am in Spokane and Portland visiting BNI members in those two areas. It's going to be great to meet a lot of new members. As you can tell, I have been doing a lot of traveling this year and having the chance to meet a lot of BNI members. Priscilla: Who do you have on the podcast with us today? Ivan: Today I have a special guest, Morgan Rothwell. Morgan is the co-owner of D & M Creative Ltd. It is a full service marketing and advertising design firm. Typical projects that they do include corporate identities, brochures, websites- that kind of thing. Morgan attends the University of Manchester. He is an assistant BNI director in BNI Lancashire. He is the person responsible for the new branding. He is the person that the organization selected to do the new branded look. If you have been a member of BNI for a few years, you may have noticed that all of our content visually has changed. He is the man behind all of that. We are real believers in using BNI members whenever possible with everything we do. Morgan was the person we chose to do the new BNI brand. Morgan, welcome to the podcast and let me start by saying thank you for all the work that you do to create the new brand. Morgan: Thank you very much, Ivan. I appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity to do the work. Ivan: It's been fun working with you. You are going to talk about three things today. Benefits of branding to a business- why branding is important. You are going to talk about how strong branding builds BNI chapters. Then we are going to spend most of our time talking about a new website that is available to members, BNIbranding.com. With that, Morgan, why don't you get started and talk briefly about the benefits of branding to any business, whether it is BNI or whatever the individual members do and why that is important. Morgan: Thank you very much, Ivan. I think one of the key things that I would like to say first of all about branding is that branding creates emotional responses. What branding can do for a business is actually influence the decisions that people make when they are deciding whether or not to purchase from one supplier or another supplier. One of the other key aspects is that it creates loyalty. So branding can create not just a customer that will just buy once but repeat customers.

Synopsis Emory Cowan of BNI Colorado joins Dr. Misner for today’s podcast. He tells a story about the time he tried to make peach wine from some leftover Georgia peaches, following a recipe from his parents’ farm. After a few weeks he got impatien...

Synopsis This is a rebroadcast of Episode 65, originally recorded in 2008. This week Dr. Misner describes a unique experience: a meeting about storytelling. Academy Award-winning movie producer Peter Guber invited about 16 people, including Dr. Misner and individuals such as Warren Bennis, one of the world’s foremost experts on leadership; Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone; and Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, as well as many other “storytellers” from various businesses, backgrounds and areas of expertise. One lesson particularly appropriate to BNI is that “What if?” is more powerful in a story than “How to.” Make your messages personal and concrete. Think about this next time you give a presentation at a BNI meeting. Brought to you by Networking Now. Read the complete transcript on the post for Episode 65.

Synopsis Every contact you have with someone is a chance to either construct or de-construct a relationship. Be sparing about the way you criticize people, especially if you don’t know them well. Before you either press the “Send” button or open...

Synopsis A member recently asked Dr. Misner why you can’t belong to two BNI chapters or two groups like BNI. This is a more important issue than people realize at first. In 1985 and 1986 BNI allowed members to belong to two groups. It was a DISASTER. The Board of Advisors received floods of complaints from members. The divided loyalties of members who belonged to more than one group created serious trust issues in both chapters. A few years later, a member asked why BNI members were allowed to belong to organizations that competed with BNI (other referral networks) if they weren’t allowed to belong to two BNI groups, since that created the same problem of split loyalties. The only person who benefits from being in two groups is that individual member. The other members of the groups benefit more from having all their members fully committed to them. If you’re not sure that belonging to competing groups is a bad idea, the next time you’re at your BNI meeting, look to your left. Look to your right. Imagine those people are in another BNI chapter with your profession represented in it. Who is going to get the referrals? Leave a comment and tell us how you would feel in this situation. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 250 - 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 today? Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla, and I have an interesting topic. Priscilla: Okay. Tell us about it. Ivan: When is two not better than one? Two of everything is always better, right? Priscilla: More is better, right? Ivan: Well, not on this topic. I was recently asked a question by a BNI member as to why we can't belong to BNI chapters or why we can't belong to two groups like BNI. Here is sort of an edited version of my response. I hope this is of value to BNI members as to why this policy exists. There is really a long history relating to this issue, and it's important to frame the reason why this is such an important issue. The reason for framing it is that people don't really care about the how until they understand why. Once they understand why it makes more sense as to how to do something. Here is why you can't be in two BNI groups or two groups like BNI: In 1985 and 1986, we actually allowed members of BNI to belong to two BNI chapters. Did you know that? Priscilla: No, I had no idea. Ivan: You could. You could belong to two groups. It was a disaster. It was a huge disaster. There were so many complains that when I created the board of advisers in 1986- remember this is created of BNI members- one of the first things they did was vote on this policy that I had created that you could belong to two BNI chapters. They thought it created animosity among members because a BNI member was splitting his or her loyalty between the two BNI groups. Back then, there were more complaints among members on this one issue than any other issue in the organization, including attendance. Priscilla: That makes sense. Ivan: In retrospect, everything is 20/20. When I look at this, I think that was a really dumb idea that I had. There were some stipulations. They couldn't be side by side. They had to be a significant distance from each other, but it was really all irrelevant. It all came down to split loyalties. The answer seemed really obvious to the board of advisers. Allowing someone to belong to two BNI chapters split their loyalties and created serious trust issues in the affected group. So one of the very first policies that the board created was that you can't belong to two BNI groups. Now fast forward a few years.

Synopsis Tim Paulin from BNI Louisiana Mississipi joins Dr. Misner this week to discuss the four pillars of a successful BNI group: Many (4-7) visitors or guests at each meeting. Not all of them have to qualify to join: bring people who can do business with members. A well-run professional meeting. Pay special attention to the hidden elements. (See Episode 9 and Episode 16 for more about these.) Follow-up post meeting. The leadership team needs to follow up with visitors and guests, and members need to follow up about the business they’ve passed. Accountability for the chapter members. One of the most important parts of accountability is attendance, and it’s up to the membership committee to maintain this. If you can do these four things well, you’ll have a successful chapter. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 249 - 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'm doing great. I got to do a webcam with your chapter recently. I really appreciate the opportunity to do that. Priscilla: That was really fun. They loved it. So thank you. Ivan: I do that with a lot of- usually regional- events, but Priscilla- She's my lady. I have to do that for her chapter itself. I do it for a lot of regional and sometimes chapter visitors days. Talk to your local director if you would like me to do some kind of webcam like I did with Priscilla's chapter. Priscilla: Oh yeah. I highly recommend it. So who is with us today, Ivan? Ivan: A good friend of mine. Just to answer the second part of your question, I am in San Diego this week. As the listeners know, I like to let members know that I am out visiting regions and trying to meet as many members as possible. If I come to your area, please come visit and say hello because I love to meet BNI members. I have with me today Tim Paulin. Tim is the Executive Director for BNI in LA and MS. He and his team manage over 50 BNI groups. He is the US National Training Director and has been doing that for about 7 years. Tim went to the University of New Orleans focusing on business administration. He is a native of New Orleans. He currently resides there with his lovely wife Elizabeth, whom I know. My wife is Elizabeth as well, so don't confuse the two. But he and his wife have twin boys, God bless you. Tim is a great trainer and a good friend. His topic today is the four pillars of the successful BNI group. Welcome to the podcast, Tim. Tim: Thank you. Ivan I appreciate it. You know, Ivan, when we first announced that we were having twins, you looked at me and said, “Sleep now because you won't once they are born.”Man, you were right. I haven't slept in 8 years. Ivan: I know, it's really bad. Then when they become teenagers, believe it or not, it's even worse. Tim: I'll have to wait for that. We are going to talk today about the four pillars of the successful BNI group. Ivan: Let me just throw the four out there and then you jump in and hit them one at a time. First one is many visitors each week. Second one is a well-run professional meeting. The third one is a follow up, a post meeting. The last is accountability for the chapter members. Those are the four pillars that Tim has put together. I love them. Jump in on the first one, Tim. Tim: Many guests, many visitors at a chapter meeting each week. I go around and do this presentation to many chapters and I like to ask them what does many visitors mean to you? Ivan, I will ask you what would many visitors mean to you at a chapter meeting? Ivan: It's a variable.

Synopsis This episode is a rebroadcast of Episode 107, from 2009. Dr. Misner shares three networking faux pas that he’s run into over the years. Not responding quickly to referral partners. Don’t put off returning phone calls to your referral partners even if you’re not sure they have a referral for you. Confusing networking with direct selling. Networking isn’t about collecting business cards and then sending them sales pitches or making cold calls. Abusing the relationship. The worst example Dr. Misner is aware of is someone who disguised a sales pitch as a 50th birthday party. Read Dr. Misner’s complete article on Entrepreneur.com. What kind of networking faux pas have you encountered? (No names, please!) Brought to you by Networking Now. Read the complete transcript of this episode.

Synopsis Marketing and sales is not something Dr. Misner was always confident about, but he unexpectedly became the marketing manager at a business he worked for, so he started reading and learned on the job. Sometimes our lives and our businesses go in unexpected directions. The key to success in referral marketing is helping other people do what they do  best. So whatever business you’re in, build your own brand. Name recognition is the biggest challenge for small companies. For Dr. Misner, brand building was about writing (newspaper articles, blogging); for others, it may be video or podcasting. If you demonstrate expertise in your field, people will follow you. Read Dr. Misner’s Entrepreneur.com post about this topic and tell us how you’re making your mark. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 247 - 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. I am here at BNI HQ this week, trying to catch up from the book tour that we are doing. The topic that I have this week, making your mark, is kind of an interesting one. It was my communications rep that suggested it. In the social media, we get a lot of members that like some of the personal stories that we have on either BNI got to where it is or how I went in the direction I did. This is one of those. There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there that find themselves in a business that they didn't see themselves in 10 or 20 years ago. Like I say, marketing and sales isn’t something I was always confident about. As a matter of fact, when I started out in business my bachelors degree was in political science. My masters and doctorate was in administration and organizational behavior. I had virtually no experience in marketing. I think it is ironic that I ended up very much in marketing. What happened that got me into marketing a bit was that I worked for a transportation company in southern CA in the early 80's. In the first month of the job, my boss asked what I knew about purchasing. I said I didn't know anything about purchasing. He said, “Well, read some books because in about an hour I am going to fire the purchasing agent for the company and you are now the purchasing agent. You are going to do that and you're assistant to the president.” I thought okay, I can do that. So I took on purchasing. Then about a month later, he said, “Ivan, what do you know about marketing?” I said, “Boss, I know less about marketing than I do about purchasing.” He said, “In about an hour, I am going to fire the Director of Marketing Services. You are going to be the manager of marketing services. You had better read up.” So I found myself for six months as the manager of marketing services. I really didn't know anything when I took that over. My marketing experience was really trial by fire and it was reading. I just started reading books on marketing, and I just learned as I went. It gave me enough knowledge to do some marketing on my own. Then when I became a business consultant, I was able to take some of that experience and apply it. It kind of brings me back to where I started. If anybody would have asked me when I was 25 years old in marketing for this company where I saw my career 30 years down the road, I would have had no clue that I would be in marketing and that I would be the founder of the world's largest referral marketing group. Sometimes we go in places- this is sort of a message that my communications staff feels would be of value when they talk about the podcast and social media.

Synopsis This week Dr. Misner answers a question from a BNI member named Robert: “How do you handle requests from people you barely know or don’t know at all, who ask you to give them names of your contacts so they can connect with those people fo...