Summary: Synopsis Today's topic was suggested by a BNI member who couldn't find the topic covered in the podcast. He said "A member came to me with a referral, and said that if I did business with the referral, they would like a commission." He was shocked; he had never heard of such a thing before. He asked what BNI's policy about this was. There's no formal BNI policy about referral fees, but here is Dr. Misner's own very strong opinion about it. "Givers Gain" does not mean "Give me some money and I'll give you a referral." It means that I'll give members referrals and in return they'll support me by giving me referrals. It's based on social capital theory, on the law of reciprocity. It's not a transactional law, it's a transformational law. BNI is about relationships. Asking for finder's fees in BNI is a really bad idea. And offering them rarely works, though there's nothing wrong with a thank-you gift. (For more on that, read Dr. Misner's article about finder's fees on Entrepreneur. com.) Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 286 - 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 doing? Ivan: Doing great, Priscilla, and I have another interesting topic, I think today. I have a BNI member who wrote to me and said he a big fan of the podcast. He's been a member for 14 years. Thank you so much. He has been on the leadership team. He had a specific question that I think was so important. He asked that I cover it in a podcast. Really great idea. I invite people that if you have a topic that you can't find on the podcast- you can do a search. If you can't find that topic, then please drop me a note or post something on the podcast and say you would like to see this one done. That's exactly what one member did. It's one that I think is really important. He said, âA member came to me with a referral and asked if I did business with this referral, they would like a commission. I was shocked. I was silent. I would never ask someone for this. It had never been brought up before.â He had never seen this before. He didn't close the business with the referral, so he didn't end having to have what he felt was an uncomfortable conversation. He didn't bring it to the membership committee. He asked me what are the rules, policies and procedures for BNI because it has never been referenced before. I would like to give you my response to that, Priscilla. There is no policy on it. The Board of Advisers has ever chosen to do a policy. I am happy to run this by them. As you may recall from another podcast, the Board of Advisers are members from BNI who help create policies. So let me give you my very strong opinion on the topic, an opinion that I have written about in books. I first wrote about it in the World's Best Marketing Secret in 1994 and I recommend it for any networking group, particularly BNI. I wrote an article about it a decade ago for Entrepreneur.com. There is a link to it in the podcast if you want to read it. This article is not BNI-centric, but it will give you information on how I feel about finders fees. Here is how I feel about finders fees: the whole philosophy of givers gain does not mean give me some money and I will give you a referral. It doesn't mean that at all. It means that I will give members referrals and they will support me in return by giving me referrals. It is actually based on social capital theory, the law of reciprocity. The dies that if I help you, you'll help me. We'll all do better as a result of it. It's not a transactional law. It's a transformational law, which means if I said, âHey Priscilla.
