Summary: This is a rebroadcast of Episode 120. Synopsis Dr. Misner had an experience at a restaurant in Japan that inspired todayâs podcast. The waitress and all the patrons greeted every new arrival with âWelcome to the restaurant.â Shouldnât a networking group be just as welcoming? If BNI chapters make visitors feel welcome, visitors will return. Sometimes a BNI groupâs members can get so connected that they forget to talk to visitors. If you see that happen, share this podcast with your group. How does your group make visitors feel welcome? Share your tips here. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 120 - 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. Iâm Priscilla Rice, and Iâm 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: I am doing great Priscilla. I am at BNI headquarters this week. We have directors training with dozens of BNI directors from around the country, around the United States, and a few internationally, that are going through three full days of training, so that is what I will be doing for the next couple of days. Priscilla: Wow, that sounds good. What are you going to share with us? Ivan: I have a fun topic today; it is about making visitors feel welcome in BNI. This topic came about by an event in Japan. I was speaking throughout Japan last month to BNI networking groups and to the public. I was there with my eighteen-year-old daughter; she just turned eighteen. She wanted to do a language program, so I went there for BNI, and I took her with me. We did some BNI meetings together with her speaking in Japanese, which is great. Before leaving the country, I took my daughter to a little restaurant called Gonpachi. I understand that is it a chain, it is not a one of a kind, but there are many of them. It was pretty near the hotel that we were staying at. It was a nice little place in Tokyo, had great food and good service. What really got my attention was the reception we received when we entered the dining room. As we entered the room, one of the waitressed yelled, and I know I am going to mess up the word, my Japanese is horrible, but it was something to the effect of âirasshaimasei.â She just yelled that out and all the patrons joined her in yelling it, âIrasshaimasei.â I turned to my daughter and said, âWhat in the world are they yelling at us?â She said, âThey are more or less saying, âWelcome to the restaurant.ââ I thought, âWow, that is really impressive, what a nice touch!â I sat back and watched as the patrons flowed into the restaurant, and with each group of people the waitress, and even the patrons got into it, and they would yell out âWelcome to the restaurantâ in Japanese. As people slowly started to trickle out of the restaurant, they started yelling, âThank you very muchâ in Japanese as they left. âThank you very much.â I even jumped in. I could barely say the words, but I jumped in. I thought it was fun. Isnât that what a good networking group should be like? When visitors come to BNI and the members say through their actions and words, âWelcome to our networking group; thanks for visiting us,â when they say that with enthusiasm and just genuine interest, you have to come back to the group again. I think this is truly an important secret to a good network, make visitors feel welcome. When people feel welcome, they want to come back. So if you started yelling âWelcome to our groupâ at the end of the room, you might not actually get the response I am thinking about here, but I think you get the idea. If BNI chapters, through their actions and through their words,
