The Official BNI Podcast

The Official BNI Podcast is a weekly discussion with Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner shares tips on referral marketing, networking, and getting the most out of BNI.

Synopsis This week David Alexander, co-author of Networking Like a Pro, joins Dr. Misner to share a concept he calls The Thin Line. At the age of 44, David Alexander was competing in a triathlon with a 28-year-old friend. Everyone said that his younger friend would beat his time. David knew he’d done the work to prepare for the race. He ran his heart out and beat his friend by a matter of seconds. The difference in times was a thin line, but it was enough to send him on to podium in his age group. This ties into the Member Traffic Light system in BNI Connect. David found that green members gave an average 28.9 referrals over the past six months. The gray members gave an average of 5.6 referrals over six months. It occurred to him that the difference between yellow and green is that thin line. Think about the volume of referrals that would be generated if half of a chapter’s members go green. If you’re determined to accomplish something, whether it’s going green on BNI Connect or winning a triathlon, avoid distractions. If you’re an education coordinator, take this podcast back to your chapter to inspire them to go green. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of Episode 485 – Priscilla: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you? Ivan: Hi Priscilla. I am actually at home in Austin this week. I figured I would reintroduce myself to my house, I haven’t seen it very much. I am here in Austin this week. I have a guest on today’s show, David Alexander. David has been an Executive Director for BNI for more than 17 years. He has been associated with this organization for more than 17 years. I consider David a friend. I have known him for a long time. He invited my wife and me to his wife’s, Kimberly, and his wedding quite a few years ago. What I loved most, David, about that was it was looking like it was about the rain. It was outside. The rain held off until the very last sentence and then the heavens opened up right after the wedding was done and everyone went inside, it was like somebody had a direct line to God to say, “Can You hang on to the water for just a little bit?” It was an amazing wedding. David was also my coauthor for Networking Like a Pro. David and I are actually here in Austin working on the second edition of Networking Like a Pro. You have a great concept today, David, called a thin line. People/ are going to be wondering what does that mean? I had to ask what does that mean? So share with us this concept. I think it is perfect for BNI networks. David: Absolutely. First, I want to thank you for bringing me on your podcast today. Yesterday, for the audience, it was kind of funny. Yesterday, I said to Ivan, “You know, I would really like to do a podcast.” Ivan was like, “We have one tomorrow. How would you like to participate?” I love when the universe/ opens that quickly, so thank you so much, Ivan. Ivan: My pleasure. David:

The Official BNI Podcast is a weekly discussion with Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner shares tips on referral marketing, networking, and getting the most out of BNI.

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 104. Synopsis Dr. Misner developed this technique for getting referrals in the earliest days of BNI. He realized that he needed to be the “go-to” guy whenever anyone needed a referral—to anyone. He started sending the following letter to his clients three or four times a year: “Dear _____, I really believe in the process of referrals, so part of the service I provide is to be sure to refer my clients and associates to other qualified businesspeople in the community. Attached is a list of areas in which I know very credible, ethical and outstanding professionals.  If you’re looking for a professional in a specific area I’ve listed, please feel free to contact me.  I will be glad to put you in touch with the people I know who provide these services. Sincerely, Dr. Ivan Misner He didn’t include direct contact information for the professionals, because he wanted to make sure people came to him first. It worked like a charm, and people really appreciate the service. Read Dr. Misner’s article on Entrepreneur.com. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 104 – 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 the beautiful 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’m doing great, Priscilla. I’m going to be talking about a topic today that really helped me a great deal in my business many years ago. Priscilla: Okay, what would that be? Ivan: Well, we titled this, when I first wrote about it, Entrepreneur.com titled it The Networking Trick to Increase Business. When I first saw that, I was like it’s not really so much a trick. But when you think about it, it is certainly a technique that really helped me a great deal, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about in my podcast today. One of the most important networking questions, and certainly one of the common networking questions I get asked is, “How do I generate referrals for other people? Because I understand that if I want to get referrals, I have to help other people. So how do I generate those referrals for other people?” Well, this is the same question that I asked myself in the early ‘80s when I was just starting my consulting business before I started BNI. I came up with a technique that had a huge impact on my ability to provide quality referrals to others, which, of course, led to me getting referrals. I first did this before I started BNI, and then when I started BNI, this technique became even easier for me to employ, and I’ll explain it in a minute. I realized that I needed to be the person who people came to if they needed a referral for anything, for any kind of business. I wanted to be the gatekeeper of referrals, sort of the “go to” guy. So what I did is I composed a letter that I sent out to my client list several times a year. Today you could send out a quick e-mail to your database, but you should be able to send it out – I would recommend that you send out a hard copy at least once a year as well so that you stand out from everybody else who’s doing all the e-mailings. So here’s a sample of the letter. “Dear ‘Blank,’ I really believe in the process of referrals, so part of the service I provide is to be sure to refer my clients and associates to other qualified business people in the community. Attached is a list of areas in which I know very credible, ethical, and outstanding professionals.

The Official BNI Podcast is a weekly discussion with Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner shares tips on referral marketing, networking, and getting the most out of BNI.

Synopsis Jeremy Walsh joins Dr. Misner again this week to explain some recent enhancements to BNI Connect: * Members who send a visitor invitation through BNI Connect receive a copy of the invitation, so they can be sure it’s been sent and follow up if necessary. The invitation itself contains a link to RSVP. * BNI Connect emails the leadership team, director, and consultants when a new member joins a chapter. * The renewal reminder for existing members has been streamlined so that the leadership team is notified of anyone whose membership is due for renewal. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of Episode 483 – Priscilla: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you? Ivan: You know, I am still in southern California. I mentioned last week that we had the global convention. I didn’t mention where it was. It was in southern California in Orange County. I am still here. The convention is over but we do Director Orientation. We think that it is really important that Directors get thoroughly trained on how to run chapters in BNI. They go through 24 hours of training in three days, eight hours a day. So we are just wrapping that up today. Priscilla: Oh great. Ivan: I have a guest again, Priscilla. Jeremy did such a great job in last week’s podcast and previous podcasts that I have asked him to do another topic related to BNI Connect. Last week’s topic was very, very specific to a policy change. This is a little bit broader and something that every member has an opportunity to really use, or every member can certainly improve on. We have had some enhancements on BNI Connect. I have asked Jeremy to maybe cover what some of those enhancements are and talk us through it in ten minutes. So Jeremy Walsh, your great customer service for BNI Connect- everyone loves the work that you do. We appreciate what you do and tell us about the new enhancements that are going on in BNI Connect. Jeremy: Absolutely. So we have really been doing a lot of thinking- and this is mainly due to the global support team that has been doing a lot of thinking about the member experience and all of the different parts of the member experience. Not just from when they are there as a visitor, but all the way to when they become a member and all the way through when it is time for renewal. How can we touch people at different parts of that process and improve that experience with them? A lot of these changes that we have made in BNI Connect recently are really aimed at improving the member experience. Again, we start that off with the visitor experience. One of the things that sometimes members struggle with is how do I invite somebody to BNI and how do I get them to the meeting? Quite some time ago, we put in a visitor invitation into BNI Connect. We have just recently updated the format of that so it has some great, new gorgeous branding on that, but the one tweak that we did here was people were saying, ” You know what? I don’t quite trust BNI Connect here that this email went out to the visitor and I am not quite sure what it said, either.” So we made it so it automatically includes a copy to whoever is sending that message. That way, you know two things. Number one, it went out and the potential visitor should have received that invitation, which also gives you the opportunity to say maybe you can follow up with that person...

The Official BNI Podcast is a weekly discussion with Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner shares tips on referral marketing, networking, and getting the most out of BNI.

Synopsis Jeremy Walsh joins Dr. Misner to explain the recent change in BNI’s attendance policy. In the past, the six month period for counting absences started when a new leadership team took office. This meant a member could have more than three absences in a given six-month period. The new policy changes the requirement to say that a member is allowed three absences within a rolling six-month period. A study of all BNI chapters showed that groups that had already been using a rolling six-month period for determining absences had 50% less absenteeism than those who determined absenteeism based on when a new leadership team takes office. For the leadership team: after you’ve taken attendance, go to the absence report in BNI Connect and enter the absences. Check to see whether you need to send an accountability letter to any members. The report has already been updated to use a rolling six-month period. Individual members can also pull up the absence report in BNI Connect in order to see how many absences they have. Feel free to contact Jeremy Walsh at jeremy@bni.com if you have any questions. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcription of Episode 482 – Priscilla: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast, brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you and where are you? Ivan: Hi Priscilla. Good talking to you. Jeremy and I – my guest who I will be introducing in a moment- are at the global convention, the BNI Global Convention, which is open, by the way, for members all over the world, so come next year in November – or October – take a look at BNI.com or our Facebook page and we would love to have you join us here at the convention. We have about 1000 members here every year and it is open around the world. Todays’s topic is about attendance. This is a very specific topic. You know, most of our topics, I like to keep evergreen. But this one is kind of timely. It is time based. But it could be valuable down the road for people to understand why we have the attendance policy that we have. There is a change to the policy in the policy and guidelines sheet. For many, many, many years, we had attendance based on a term, a leadership team term. So as leadership teams transition every six months, they wipe the slates clean. The Board of Advisors, the International Board of Advisors, just voted to change that method. This is being rolled out all across the world to a rolling six months. So it is the past six months. We have with us Jeremy Walsh. I am going to introduce Jeremy in just one second, but before I do, remember that all policies in BNI are created by the Board of Advisors. The International Board of Advisors is made up of BNI members from all around the world. It is the members who help guide this. We talked about with the members through the Board that there was a really significant difference between attendance where wiped the slate clean every six months versus a rolling six months. We are going to share that number with you after we talk to Jeremy here a little bit. Jeremy Walsh is Customer Support? What is the exact title, Jeremy, in BNI? Jeremy: I am the Director of Support, Training, and Documentation for BNI Connect. Ivan: Jeremy has been on my podcast in the past. But Jeremy is one of the few technical support teams that actually gets huge, huge positive customer service reports. I am always so impressed with the customer service reports that we get from Jeremy’s teams.

The Official BNI Podcast is a weekly discussion with Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner shares tips on referral marketing, networking, and getting the most out of BNI.

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 70. Synopsis This week Dr. Misner shares his surefire technique for difficult-to-refer businesses, like psychotherapists, recording studios, and management consultants. * Educate people on how to refer you. * Accept speaking engagements as referrals for BNI purposes. * Write a letter to program chairs and distribute it to your chapter members so they can help you get speaking engagements. * Give great presentations that compel your audience to contact you. This technique made Dr. Misner’s company one of the easiest to refer, instead of one of the hardest. Read the blog post for more details. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 070 – Priscilla Rice: Hello everyone. 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 Berkeley, California. I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, how are you? Ivan Misner: I’m doing great Priscilla, thanks. Priscilla: Where are you today? Ivan: I am at my lodge in Big Bear. I have a vacation retreat in Big Bear that I use for business and pleasure. I have BNI directors coming up for top management meetings for the organization. I am also a senior partner with a company called the Referral Institute and have Referral Institute people coming on up. We’re working while we have a great view of the lake. How cool is that? Priscilla: That sounds beautiful. What are you going to share with us today? Ivan: I want to talk about something that comes up from time to time. It’s a technique for the difficult to refer business. I blogged on it last month. We changed the name of the blog, the old URL still works, but the new one is a little easier. It is networkingnowblog.com. Go back to August and take a look at that. I have a blog in there about this topic,” A Sure Fire Technique For The Difficult To Refer Business.” That’s what I want to talk about today. There a lot of businesses that are really difficult to refer, more so than others. For example, psychotherapists have to be one of the toughest professions to refer. I would think someone in your profession, doing studio work, is not easy to refer or myself, as a management consultant. When I started BNI, I didn’t start it to be a separate company. I was a business consultant, and it was part of my consulting business in the beginning. It was very difficult to get referrals as a business consultant. People didn’t know how to do it, how to refer me. So, if you’re struggling to get clients or referrals through networking, there are a number of things you can do. First and foremost, you have to educate people how to refer you. That is key. You have to remember that your presentations each week are not about trying to close a sale, they’re trying to train a sales force. There is at least one technique that I found really worked well for me when I was a business consultant. I’ve had particularly psychotherapists, and a few other professions, do this a lot.

The Official BNI Podcast is a weekly discussion with Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner shares tips on referral marketing, networking, and getting the most out of BNI.

Is your BNI chapter On Fire, On Hold, or In a Hole? Use the Rate Your Chapter Worksheet to find out--and learn what you can to do be On Fire.

The Official BNI Podcast is a weekly discussion with Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Dr. Misner shares tips on referral marketing, networking, and getting the most out of BNI.

Synopsis Over the years, Dr. Misner has recognized that there are people who are positive and supportive–people he really wants to be around. These people are engines: they help him to be his best self and motivate him to drive forward. There are also people who complain as though it was an Olympic event. They […]

This four-step process can help you in remembering the names of people you meet at networking events--and elsewhere.