Summary: 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 youâre 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. Misnerâs Entrepreneur.com post about this topic and tell us how youâre 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 isnât 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, âWell, 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.â I thought okay, I can do that. So I took on purchasing. Then about a month later, he said, âIvan, what do you know about marketing?â I said, âBoss, I know less about marketing than I do about purchasing.â He said, âIn 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.â 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.
