Summary: 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:
