The Official BNI Podcast

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 189. Synopsis In order to evaluate your sphere of influence, you need to take inventory of the people you know. When was the last time you really went through your complete contact list? Check your e-mail address book...

Synopsis It's possible to spend so much time running around and making appearances that you don't have time to build deep relationships and develop credibility. Activity is not the same thing as accomplishment. If your network is a mile wide and an inch deep, it isn't really very helpful. Visibility is important, but by itself, it won't create credibility or profitability. Not to mention running around attending every possible networking event in order to establish visibility is a good way to get burned out. Take the time to build depth in your relationships. Choose a few networking groups and attend regularly. Meet with people one on one and get to know them. Have conversations with people on BNI Connect, so that if you visit their groups, you'll already have something in common. You might even find a power partnership with someone in another chapter. Do you know someone who suffers from hyperactive visibility? Share your stories in the comments. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 347 - 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. We have an interesting topic today about hyper active visibility being good or bad. As a rule, I would generally say it is not as good as people think. Let me tell you why. Years ago, I met a woman who was really known in the community as a consummate networker. She had hundreds, I mean hundreds, if not thousands of contacts. It gave her a wide ranging network made up of people of all walks of life. She was really well known as a go-to person if anyone needed anything. Then one day during a conversation with her, she dropped a bomb on me. She said her networking efforts weren't paying off. She actually went on at length about all the groups that she went to, all the people that she met and how she made all these contacts and was continuing to make more or spend more and more time in going to networking events, but she wasn't actually getting much solid business from her efforts. She asked me why wasn't she seeing any real results? Despite her great talent for making contacts and gaining tons of visibility, she really was never very good at getting to the heart of what networking is really about, that is building the relationships. She was so busy running around and making appearances that she never really learned how to work the networks that she had built in order to build these relationships with people and build credibility with them. It's true, I believe, that she was visible in the community. Very, very visible. The problem was that she viewed activity as accomplishment when it came to her networking efforts. Her network was- and I have used this expression in podcasts before. Her network was a mile wide but only an inch deep. Everyone thought that she was incredibly successful because everyone knew who she was, but the truth is she hadn't taken the next and the most important step in the networking process. Many people do this. She hadn't devoted the time to developing the kind of rapport with many of the people in her network that would allow them to really get to know her, like her, trust her, and want to pass business to her. Now, I bring this up because I just recently saw the exact same thing happen with somebody whom I have known for a few years. This is a guy who made a consistent habit of going to every single networking meeting event that he could go to. He was incredibly visible. He was not only at networking meetings, but he was always full of energy and enthusiasm from the time he arrived. He was the first to arrive and the last to leave.

Synopsis This is the halfway point of the twelve month Get Connected--Stay Connected campaign, so today John Meyer and Dr. Misner are talking about checking your progress with BNI Connect.  What does your profile look like now compared to when you started? Are you passing referrals online? How is your chapter doing? Encourage the rest of your chapter to get involved with BNI Connect. Get the rest of your referral sources involved. One chapter spent the time usually reserved for the speaker filling out their profiles. Are you using BNI Connect on an ongoing basis? Over time, using BNI Connect should become second nature. It takes a little practice, but it gets easier. For an overview of the Get Connected--Stay Connected campaign, see the November "From the Founder" column in SuccessNet. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 346- 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. Thank you very much. I have a guest, someone who is not new to BNI Podcast. He has been on probably more episodes than anyone else. That is the US National Director for BNI. He manages over 6200 chapters. He is also the Executive Director of BNI Ohio and a contributing author to the New York Times bestseller, Masters of Networking. That is my good friend and National Director for the US, John Meyer. John, welcome to the podcast today. John: Thanks, Ivan. It is good to be with you. Hi Priscilla. Priscilla: Hi there, John. Ivan: It is good to have you back on and today we are going to be talking about the Get Connected, Stay Connected program. This is such an important program for BNI because it is all about bringing BNI Connect to the forefront of the organization. BNI Connect is absolutely helping BNI change the way the world does business. We are for the first time in the history of the company, connected worldwide with our online program. We keep enhancing it and making it better and better. But it will only do all of the things that we want it to do if members get connected and stay connected. Today, you want to talk about checking your progress on BNI Connect. You have three things that you want to talk about. Can you share the first of the three recommendations that you have for checking your progress? John: Yeah. I would love to. Part of the excitement I really like about this topic, or this month I should say, is this is the halfway point of our 12 month program. What we wanted to do was we wanted to see where everybody is at, bring everybody up to speed and make sure they are following along with the program. So the first topic that I wanted to talk about is how are the members doing? We have gone through five different topics and have asked to, through the Get Connected, Stay Connected program, increase their visibility. Increase their credibility with members, with the whole BNI Connect community, if you will. Part of what I wanted to talk about today is just have people take a reflective look as to where have they come from and where have they gotten to in the Get Connected, Stay Connected campaign? What do their profiles look like now versus what they did when we first started? Are they starting to pass referrals online? Are they booking their one to ones online? Have they seen an increase in some of the production and activity that they have had in their chapter and their BNI experience? So this is an exciting month. It is about reflection. Ivan: That begins with how you are doing as a member and keeping your profile up to date, adding things in.

Synopsis Most of us have been in a situation where someone has asked for a favor before the social capital to make that kind of request. If you want to amass financial capital, you have to invest and grow your assets. Social capital works the same way. You have to invest before you can withdraw. If you can answer "Yes" to most of the following points about a person, you are in a pretty good position to ask a favor of. Do you trust them to do a great job and to take great care of your referrals? Have you known them for at least a year? Do you feel comfortable explaining at least 3 of their major products or services to others? Do you know the names of their family members? Have you met them? Have you asked each other "How can I help you with your business?" Do you know their goals for the year, including personal goals? Would you be able to call them at night if you needed to? Would you be comfortable asking for help with either a personal or business challenge? Do you enjoy the time you spend together? Do you have a regular appointment scheduled? Do you enjoy seeing them achieve success? Are they top of mind for you? Do you think about them frequently? Can you have open, honest talks with them about your overlapping areas of interest? If you haven't answered "Yes" to most of those questions, you're not yet ready to ask for a favor. If you can't yet answer "yes" to those questions, you need to invest more in that relationship. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 345 - 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. This week, I am holed up in my lake house in Big Bear with my Executive Management Team. We get together at least twice a year plus conferences to strategize in the organization and take a look at where the company is going over the next year or so. Top management and I are meeting this week to do that. It is always exciting to take a look at what our goals are for the year. Priscilla: That sounds good. So this is an interesting topic. What is this about? Ivan: Well, most of us have been in situations when they have been asked for a favor long before they have built the social capital to make that sort of request. I had somebody do that to me today, as a matter of fact, actually, in the context of BNI. It is almost completely dependent on the social capital that you have built with someone. Social capital, I have talked about this before, is similar to financial capital. In a really important respect, if you want to amass financial capital, you have to invest and grow your assets. You have to have money in the bank before you can make a withdrawal. So your relationships are really very much the same. Referral relationships, in particular. Here is a great example of someone who amassed quite a bit of social capital from me. His name is Alex and Alex is what I would call a casual business associate. From early on, from our introduction, every time I spoke to him, he invested in the relationship. He gave me ideas. He gave me his comments. He even did some work on a website for me, mostly as a favor. He invested and he invested and he invested in the relationship. I kept asking him, “How can I help you? How can I return the favor and reciprocate for all the things you have done?” He always would say to me, “I don't need anything. I am happy to do this.” This went on for almost a year. For almost a year this went on. Every couple of months, Alex would show up on my radar and he would do something for me. Then one day,

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 167. Synopsis People like to talk about themselves; giving them the time to tell their own stories is more likely to result in a genuine connection. Here are five good questions to ask in your first conversation with a new person. What do you like most about what you do? What led you into that field? Where else do you network? What are some of your biggest challenges? How can I help you? Brought to you by Ask Ivan Misner. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 344 - Priscilla: Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com, which is a Web site where you can ask any question you have about networking. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, 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 and where are you? Ivan: It’s August, so I am up at my retreat at the lake house in Big Bear, and this is kind of a special day, the 11th, we have a staff day today, so all of the BNI employees at headquarters in Southern California are up here at my house. We closed down the office, and it’s sort of a little team building, relationship building day. All of the staff come on up, and we have fun on the lake and get to know each other a little bit better during the work day and have a little bit of fun. Priscilla: That sounds beautiful. Ivan: It’s a great place to do it up here. Priscilla: What are you planning to share with us today? Ivan: Today I want to talk about asking the right questions. People like to talk about themselves, and my now, we all know that people refer business to people they like and that they respect. So when you give others the time to tell their story and explain what their business is, you’re much more likely to be able to make a connection. All it takes, really, is asking the right questions when you’re meeting somebody for the first time. So BNI members, when visitors come to a meeting or if you’re at a Chamber event or some business function, write these things down, because this can be of value to you. There will be five specific questions that I’m going to share with you. It really starts by understanding that everyone has a story. So make it your job to find out what that story is. This all begins with your first conversation. If you lead by asking the right questions, questions that can demonstrate a genuine interest in the other person’s business, you’ll begin to cultivate an atmosphere of trust and rapport right from the very start. So by asking the right questions, I don’t mean prospecting or qualifying questions, like questions about whether they need your product or service. You’re not trying to size up the other person’s potential for selling them something; you want to connect with them on a relationship, on a business relationship basis, so the questions really apply to that. Here are the five questions that will keep the conversation rolling and, I think, set you apart from other networkers and eventually lead to referrals. First question, “What do you like most about what you do?” If you’ve been out networking before, you already know that “What do you do” is one of the first questions people ask, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I’m not saying don’t do it, but it really doesn’t leave you much room to maneuver after you’ve both have answered that question. So a follow-up question, when somebody tells you what they do, is, “What do you like to do? What do you like most about what you do?” And I think that’s a great follow-up question to, “What do you do?” Second question is, you say to them, “You mentioned you were in the [blank] industry, you mentioned you were a printer,” or whatever, “what got you started in that direction? What led you into that field?” Priscilla: Yeah. Ivan:

Synopsis This week Glenn Warner from the Referral Paradise Chapter of BNI in Northern Kentucky joins Dr. Misner to share a story about coach Vince Lombardi, who got frustrated one day and said to his team "This is a football. This is a yard line. You're the players. I'm the coach." Sometimes it's important to get back to the basics, even when you're an experienced pro. We don't always think about how important the basics are to our fellow BNI members. Some of the basics of BNI are to give each other great referrals, teach each other what we do with our commercial, open network with meaningful conversation about our companies, do our CEUs every week to better inform us as members, use BNI Connect, keep up with our Thank You for Closed Business, have One to Ones with other members to build relationships, and give great testimonials for other members. And remember to complete your profile on BNI Connect. If you don't follow up on referrals, pretty soon you won't get any! Share an idea that you learned from a sport or hobby that you  can apply to BNI. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 343- 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. Thank you very much. I have a guest on my podcast today. His name is Glenn Warner, and I met Glenn some time ago in St. Louis. He is a member of BNI in Kentucky, a new employee with American Computer Solutions. He has only owned the company for 32 years. 32 years with American Computer Solutions. Glenn, it is great to have you on the podcast. You are are with the BNI Referral Paradise Chapter in Florence, Kentucky. Is that correct? Glenn: Yes, sir. Ivan: 32 years with the computer solutions company. We were reminiscing before we went live about the computer industry and how much it has changed in the last 32 years. We had one thing in common, and that was we both knew Kpro computers. Most people are going, what? But we remember those. one So listen, the reason that I have invited Glenn on the podcast today- and for those of you who don't know, Florence, Kentucky is near Cincinnati. The reason I invited Glenn on is because he had this really great concept that he sent to me about Vince Lombardi and how Vince Lombardi and BNI actually have a few things in common. Now, for those of you listening to the podcast and you don't know who Vince Lombardi is- and we are a global organization so not everybody will know. Vince Lombardi is one of the classing American football coaches. He is probably the quintessential American football coach. The Super Bowl trophy is called the Lombardi trophy because he was an amazing coach. What is also interesting about Lombardi is that he did a lot of speaking engagements for business organizations, and the things that he taught as a coach are things that transcended into the business community. Business organizations would bring him in to teach. So this jumped out at me when Glenn was kind enough to send me a copy of what he was doing as Education Coordinator for a BNI chapter. So Glenn, do you mind talking for a minute or two about why you used Vince Lombardi and then lets jump into your first point with Lombardi and the basics of BNI and the basics that Lombardi taught. Glenn: Thanks, Ivan. It was very interesting that Vince Lombardi got frustrated and blew his whistle and had everybody to gather around and started with, “This is a football. This is a field. These are the markers. I am the coach.” When I was reading that in a book a few weeks ago, it made me think about BNI,

Synopsis If you're new to the Get Connected--Stay Connected campaign, read about it on SuccessNet. You can find all the podcasts in this series under the tag "Get Connected Stay Connected." (Punctuation isn't allowed in tags.) They come out on the fir...

Synopsis International Networking Week begins on February 3rd and runs until February 7th. The topic for International Networking Week 2014 comes from a question asked by Stewart Emery: "Who's in your room?" Imagine that you were to spend your life in a single room with only one door, and once you let people in, they could never get out. Would you be more selective about who you let into your room? The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the people in your room. You need a "doorman" who knows your values and doesn't let anyone pass who doesn't match those values. In a BNI group, the membership committee acts as the doorman. Think about the people you really want in your room in BNI. This is the perfect opportunity to invite them to your meeting. Watch the 2014 International Networking Week Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fowc6EGcE-U Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 341- 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 am really excited to remind all the listeners that next week is International Networking Week. It begins on February and runs until February 7, all week. We have been doing International Networking Week now for a number of years. It is an initiative of BNI's. BNI created and has introduced International Networking Week globally. Next week is the week. I am going to have a link here in this podcast that leads to the video that accompanies this year's International Networking Week. I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about the topic that I address on the video. It's an interesting topic. It comes, actually from a good friend of mine, Stewart Emery. Stewart wrote a number of really good books, Success Built to Last and Do You Really Matter? I heard Stewart ask a question a question that I thought was absolutely brilliant, and it made for a fantastic networking topic. It is the topic for International Networking Week 2014. His question was pretty simple. His question was, “Who's in your room?” Who is in your room? What he meant by that was who are the people that you are surrounding yourself with? Who are the people that are close to you, particularly in a networking environment? Here is the metaphor that he established. He said to imagine that you lived your entire life in one room. One room. That's it. There is only one door to that room. It is an enter only door. Once you enter you cannot exit. Let me ask you, Priscilla, if that were true, one room, enter only room, no exit and you let somebody into your room and they can never, ever get out- once you let them in, they cannot leave your room. If that were true, Priscilla, would you be more selective about the people you let in your room? Priscilla: Absolutely. I am thinking for myself about my clients and who do I want to be associated with? Who do I want to work with? That's what I am thinking. Ivan: Right. Every single person that I have ever asked this question to, every single person has said absolutely, or right, or yes. Every single person would be much more selective about who they let in their room. When I heard him describe this, I thought wow, this is a perfect example not only of networking but of BNI in particular. Who do we let in our room. Who do we let in our group, in our chapter? Stewart went on to describe that your room where you live could be an angry room, a loud room, a chaotic room. It could be a busy room, a boring room. It could have too many people in it. It could be a room of full of drama. I hate those rooms. A room full of drama.

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 154. Synopsis This year BNI celebrates its 25th anniversary. In 25 years, the organization has gone from a spare room in Ivan’s house to a multi-national with more than 1000 employees worldwide. Last year BNI members passed 6.2 million referrals and generated $2.6 billion in business. BNI’s first employee and four of the original founding members are still with the organization. BNI is now working on the single largest project in its history: BNI Connect, which not only integrates an online social network with the in-person networking, but connects chapters around the world to each other. Watch for the catchphrase “Local Business, Global Network,” which BNI has trademarked. We believe BNI is the world’s largest business networking organization because we spend so much time on education and training. Take advantage of it. Exercises: Check in with your chapter and see who’s been there longest. Find out about the history of your group. Keep an eye on SuccessNet for further developments with BNI Connect. Read Givers Gain if you haven’t already. Brought to you by Ask Ivan Misner. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 154 - Priscilla: Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by AskIvanMisner.com, which is a Web site where you can ask Ivan any question you have about networking. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, 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 am doing great, Priscilla. Things are really good. Today I’m going to be talking about BNI 25th anniversary. Priscilla: Congratulations! Ivan: Thanks! This year celebrates our 25th anniversary, and I just thought it might be good to talk a little bit about where we came from and how we got to where we are a little. And if you have some questions as I reach the end, don’t hesitate to jump in. I think it’s really important to share traditions of an organization, and the fact that we’re celebrating this milestone is really important, and how we got here is also important. It started as a humble enterprise in the spare bedroom and garage of my house; has now turned into an organization with about 5,600 groups and over 125,000 members in well over 40 countries around the world. Priscilla: Wow! That’s a lot of folks! Ivan: It really is. BNI headquarters now resides in a commercial building in Southern California. We’ve got roughly 30 employees working onsite, and we’ve another 1,000 people who work for the company all around the world in locally operated regions all around the globe. Since the very beginning, our focus has remained unchanged, our mission has remained unchanged, and that’s to help business people increase their business through a structured word of mouth marketing networking program. And with that focus in mind, I’m really pleased to say that last year BNI members passed roughly 6.2 million referrals last year. Priscilla: Wow, that’s a lot of referrals! Ivan: [It] generated $2.6 billion, $2.6 billion, with a B, U.S. dollars worth of business for our members all around the world globally. And it’s a little bit surreal to look back over the last 25 years. One of the things I think I’m most proud of is that many of my employees and even members have been with the organization for decades, for decades. After 25 years, our first employee is still with the organization, Lonie Misner-Feigerle. My sister has worked with us for 25 years in the organization as well as four of the original founding members, not counting myself, four of the original founding members are still associated with BNI. Mike Ryan and Carolyn Denny still active with the organization; Lee Shimmin is on our Board of Advisors; and Dr. Jim Labriola.

Synopsis Priscilla came up with this week's topic. She's been the educational coordinator for her chapter and has been going through Networking Like a Pro and she was particularly struck by the chapter on Networking at Non-Networking Events. In Epi...

Synopsis Welcome back! This week John Meyer, U.S. National Director for BNI, joins Dr. Ivan Misner for the next episode in the "Get Connected--Stay Connected" series. Today we're talking about entering referrals online. BNI is not doing away with paper referral slips, but now you have an additional way to pass referrals through BNI Connect--with instant gratification. The person to whom you're giving the referral receives an email with the details immediately after you fill out the form online. You can also track the referrals automatically. Another advantage is that this system allows you to pass referrals outside of your chapter and thank members from other chapters for close of business, which was almost impossible before because you didn't attend those meetings. You still need to report these referrals at your meeting. You can print weekly slips out from BNI Connect and hand them in, or write the slips out on the paper forms but make a note that the referral is already recorded in BNI Connect. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 338 - 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: I am up in your neck of the woods this week. I am up for the Referral Institute and a BNI event. Hopefully, you can come on out for the public event. Priscilla: I know. Or maybe I can drag you over here to the studio. Ivan: Anything is possible with my schedule. Today we are going to talk to John Meyer again. I think he now holds the record for being the individual who is guested on my show the most. John is the US National Director for BNI and he resides in Ohio. He has been the US National Director for a number of years and he has put together this Get Connected, Stay Connected campaign. He is going to talk related to the Get Connected, Stay Connected campaign because I believe this will really make a difference to members success in BNI. This month is all about passing a referral online. Last month, we started some proactive topics. The first month was about developing profiles and education. It was really about positioning for success, one to ones and the GAINS exchange. This month, we are talking about finding a referral for a chapter member and entering it into BNI Connect. Passing a referral online. John, welcome to the BNI Podcast and tell me about entering referrals online. John: Thank you. It is good to be back. Hello again, Priscilla. It is good to talk to you as well. Priscilla: Hello John. John: This is a fun part. It really is and I am not the most technologically savvy person in the world, but writing slips out which I have done for the last 20 years in my career in BNI- now we can enter those from an automated perspective. The first thing I want to do is be very clear that BNI is not doing away with paper slips. We will a lways have paper slips. This is just an automated version of that. To be really clear for people to understand that we are keeping the paper slips. This is just an additional way for people to pass referrals. It's exciting. Especially with the age of technology, this becomes a spontaneous gratification, if you will. The person on the other end receives an email as soon as you hit send. You don't have to wait until the weekly meeting to pass the referral slip. That is still the reporting process. You still report it at the chapter meeting, but now you can leave your chapter at 8:30 in the morning and by 9:00, you can be passing referrals to people in your chapter and then report for next week. So this is really exciting stuff. Ivan:

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 158. Synopsis This week Dr. Misner provides three essential questions to ask yourself in order to develop a networking strategy and decide which networking events to attend. Who are my best prospects? Are they businesses or consumers? What industries are they in? Where can I meet my best prospects? Corporate representatives are more likely to be in service organizations or on non-profit boards than in chambers of commerce. Whom exactly do I want to meet? The more specific you can be, the better. Go to your BNI meetings and ask your fellow BNI members these questions. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 158 - 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’m 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: I am doing great, Priscilla. This week I am in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the U.S. National Conference for BNI, and Pittsburgh is my home town. I was born in Pittsburgh. I only been back a couple of times. It’s exciting to be here again. We have directors from all over the United States and a few directors from other countries that are here for our really big conference. Priscilla: That sounds great! So what are you going to share with us? Ivan: Today I want to talk about three essential questions, and it really relates to how people, time-strapped business people can figure out what kind of networking events that they should be attending and which ones that they don’t need to focus on. Of course, we certainly love having you in BNI, but there are other networking groups that are active that you need to take a look at, like Chambers and service clubs and other business networking associations. So you want to ask yourself a little bit about the kinds of prospects, and you want to have a little bit of a networking strategy, so here are three easy but definitely essential questions you need to answer in order to create a plan for getting out there and connecting with people in the right venues. The first is: Who are my best prospects? It’s important to know that each target market will have a strategy that requires you to network in different places. If you’re not sure who your target market is, look at your list of past clients. What industries were they in? How long have they been in business? Were your clients even businesses to begin with, or have your worked mostly with consumers? Once you’ve put together a profile of your past clients, ask people close to you for patterns you may have overlooked, and get their input on who might be a good fit for your business. That’s a good question to ask your fellow BNI members. Who are my best prospects? This is the second question: Where can I meet my best prospects? As you begin targeting specific niche markets, there are other venues and opportunities that fall outside the typical networking event. Here are some examples of specific target markets where you should network to find people in these markets. Small business owners. Small business owners you can find at a Chamber of Commerce or a local business association, certainly a referral group like BNI. Representatives from big corporations in your area, well, there you can find them in service clubs, in non-profit organizations. They participate in those, as well as small businesses, but you’re going to see the bigger companies as well. Volunteer work, homeowners associations. These are places that you’ll meet representatives from big companies. Consumers, your kids’ events, Little League, Boy Scouts, so forth, church events.

Synopsis This week Dr. Misner shares his experience of what Wayne Baker says in Achieving Success through Social Capital: people with strong networks are healthier. When Dr. Misner was diagnosed with prostate cancer, the possible side effects of su...

Synopsis John Meyer joins Dr. Misner today for another episode in the "Get Connected--Stay Connected" series, which airs on the first Wednesday of every month. Today's episode is about how to be proactive using BNI Connect and really get to know your referral sources by conducting one-to-ones and creating GAINS profiles. One-to-ones allow you to get to the "why" behind the "what" your fellow BNI members are looking for. Bring your GAINS profile to your one-to-one meetings--it will turbocharge your referral success. So why track all of this in BNI Connect? It shows your chapter that you are a proactive networker. It lets both you and the chapter track your success, and you achieve what you track. Listen to more episodes about the GAINS profile. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 335 - 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. I am at BNI HQ working on training new National Directors. National Directors are here from all around the world. We have new countries like Morocco, Cambodia, Cypress, some Directors from Mexico, Poland- being trained here after our international conference. Priscilla: Okay. That sounds good. You have a guest today, right? Ivan: I do have a guest. Today's guest is John Meyer. John has been on some previous podcasts. John has helped to develop the Get Connected, Stay Connected program. John is the US National Director for BNI. We have over 150,000 members now in BNI. John handles the operations for the United States. He is also the Executive Director for BNI Ohio and directly has over 3500 members under his management. I don't think I mentioned this is the last podcast, but he is also a contributing author to our New York Times Bestseller, Masters of Networking. It did really well. It was my first New York Times bestselling book, and it was great to have you as part of that, John. John: It was an honor to be part of that. Good to be with you, Ivan. Hello, Priscilla. Priscilla: Hello, John. Nice to hear you. Ivan: It's nice to have you on again, John. This is part of the Get Connected, Stay Connected campaign. Go ahead. You were about to say something. John: No, it;s just that I love doing these because it allows members to hear what is going on instead of reading memos and emails going out. This allows us to touch the members, I think, a little better. Ivan: More and more, I am hearing members say, I am listening to your podcast with John or whatever topic you are doing. So we are getting more members engaged in the process. I am really pleased to see that. Let's jump into today's topic. The first two months- just as a reminder for everyone, we are doing a whole campaign on Get Connected, Stay Connected, which relates to BNI Connect. The first of every month, we have a new topic. The first two months were about positioning for success. They were about establishing your profiles on BNI Connect and the importance of that and how to track education on BNI Connect. This month, let's take a more proactive approach. We want to talk about what do you do to use BNI Connect to be really proactive in building your network. It is about getting to know your referral source. It begins with arranging one to ones, sharing the GAINS profile, and of course, entering all of that into BNI Connect. So, John, my question for you is why do one to ones? Why are one to ones so important? John: Well, the importance of one to ones is basically that the basics of passing a referral and developing a relationship. I can't pass you a referral,

  Synopsis This is part two of "How Big Is Too Big?" The essence of a successful chapter is creating more referrals and passing more business for members. The more members you have in your group, the more referrals you can pass, the more one-to-ones you can have, and the more energy there is in the group. Larger chapters still have growth goals. Keep inviting visitors. You have to consider attrition. And if a prospective member applies for a position that's not available, you can forward the application to the region and make sure the person is placed. (Listen to Episode 308: 3 + 1 = Member Success and read Dr. Misner's SuccessNet article on this subject.) Visitors bring in money. Remind concerned members why they should welcome growth and make the larger chapter a success. A shorter commercial can get you more business if more people hear it--as long as you create a good one. As long s you maintain an abundance mentality and welcome visitors even if they are members of your profession, your referrals will grow exponentially. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 334 - 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 today? Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla. I know this is a topic that is really of interest to you, so if you have a question as we go along, feel free to chime in. Our three guests from last week’s podcast, Regina Russo who is a Director Consultant for BNI, and Lisa Frederick who is President of Unity Printing and President of BNI Inner Circle chapter and Phillip Pasek, who is with Fast Breaks Entertainment and also President of the BNI Referral Net chapter in Florida. Last week, we talked with Lisa and Regina a great deal about chapters getting large and how do you handle the long term members and how do you handle the categories so there is not too much overlap and what some of the goals are for a 55 member chapter. We had discussions with Phil in addressing those concerns. Just to sort of recap, the have Lisa whose chapter went from the high 20’s to, I believe, the high 40’s. Where are you at now, Lisa? Lisa: We are at 53 now. Ivan: 53 members. 53 members rocks. Congratulations to your group. That is really exciting. So you are over 50 members. You had these concerns and you reached out to Phil down in Tom Fleming’s region in Tampa and asked some questions. Phil responded. So Phil, I have some questions for you, and then I would like to have an open dialogue for the next 10 minutes. The first one is Deanna Tucci Schmidt from Pennsylvania, the Executive Director, was really impressed with your ability to bring most of the answers that you had about growth back to the essence of more referrals and more business from members. Do you want to talk about and how a large group impacts the number of referrals? Phillip: Sure. Growth is in members, so obviously the more members you have, the more closed business you are going to pass. In addition, you are going to gain more referrals because you’re having good one to ones and there is just more energy in the room for those meetings. So those people are wanting to help you more. The more people you have, the more money it is always going to make the group. So 55 members, that’s common in our area, so that is what we are used to. Ivan: You mentioned in the previous episode that that’s what you are used to. It is a little bit of a paradigm shift. It’s interesting that what we are used to can hold us back in some ways. I will give you an example. When I started BNI, the average sized membership was just under 20.