Show notes
This is a rebroadcast of Episode 424.
Synopsis
Thoughtful engagement is the answer to a return on your investment in BNI. Engagement is a critical step in the networking process. It involves a promise to support one another, and action to fulfill that promise. The law of attraction only works if you take action.
That means you have to connect with your fellow BNI members on a deeper level than you do with most business contacts. Here are five ways to be more engaged:
Have you taken the time to meet one-to-one with your fellow BNI members?Have you taken the time to educate your fellow members---individually---on the key elements of your business?Have you taken the time to become educated on the key elements of other members' businesses?Have you visited your fellow BNI members at their places of business?Have you used the products and services of other BNI members?
What new ways can you find to support your networking partners? Share your answers in the comments.
Brought to you by Networking Now.
Complete Transcript of Episode 424
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 today?
Ivan:I am doing great, Priscilla. I have, I think, a fun topic for today.
Priscilla:Oh great.
Ivan:I got on a rant last week about what success is. This week, I want to talk about networking is a contact sport.
Priscilla:Okay. Tell us about that because I have no idea what you mean by that.
Ivan:For everyone listening to this podcast, I am guessing that you would like a return on your investment of time and money in BNI. The truth is that it really is thoughtful engagement that is the answer to a return on your investment in BNI.
Engagement is an absolutely critical step in the networking process. It involves a promise and an action. So in order to achieve success with your fellow members in BNI, you have to promise to support one another. And then you have to take action to fulfill that promise.
Most people have either read the book or seen the movie, The Secret. Have you either seen the movie or read the book, The Secret?
Priscilla:Yeah.
Ivan:It is about the Law of Attraction. I believe in the Law of Attraction, but you know, the word "action" is part of the word "attraction". So part of attraction is taking action. You have to make a promise and then you have to take action to achieve that promise, commitment, or that attraction that you want to bring into your life.
The only way to do this effectively is to connect on a deeper level than you do most of your business contacts. So in a BNI context, you want to connect with people on a deeper level than you do with the average business contact that you have. There are several ways that you can become more engaged with your fellow members.
I am going to share those with you. I have five.
One, have you taken the time to regularly meet with the people in your group on a one to one basis? This means setting up time to meet with them outside of normal meetings and getting to know them on a professional level.
Now, here is the thing. I know there are people going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I am supposed to do it but I haven't done it." Okay, why not? Stop making excuses. That really is the way to help not only generate referrals for other people but to generate referrals for yourself. You have to do those one to ones and make a deeper connection with people than you can make in a group meeting like in BNI. That is so important.
Number two, have you taken the time to educate them regularly, your fellow members? Individually and regularly on the key elements of your business so that your products or services will be top of mind in the event that they meet someone with a need for what you do.
What we tend to do at BNI meetings is try to sell. We are there to sell products and sell services instead of educate. We have to remember that BNI meetings are really an opportunity to train a sales force more than an opportunity to close a sale. It is more of an opportunity to train a sales force than it is an opportunity to close a sale. If we can train people how to refer us, that is the classic example of networking being more about farming than it is about hunting. It is about cultivating those relationships.
Three, have you taken the time to become educated on the key elements of your networking partners' businesses, your fellow members' businesses, so that you can do the same for them? This is reciprocal. You not only have to educate them, you have to be educated by them. If you don't do both parts, it is not going to work effectively at all.
Four, have you- this is an interesting one that I haven't talked about a lot. Have you visited their offices? You get a firsthand understanding of what they do. I think that is really important. These are your referral partners. You should go to their office. You should go to their facility, their business, so that you can see their operation. They should do the same for you. Have you done that?
I know a lot of chapters will do, you know, a chapter mixer three or four times a year. Some of the chapters do it at one of the member's location so that they get everybody visiting their members' locations. I think that is a brilliant idea.
I don't recommend you do that every month. It is too much. But a few times a year, do a business mixer just for the chapter. Invite the public, but do it at a member's location rather than at a hotel or a restaurant. I like the idea of doing it at a member's location so that you get people there to see what you do.
Number five is have you used their products or services, if possible, to get firsthand knowledge of the quality of what they do? I think this is really important. This is all part and parcel in becoming fully engaged in the process. Networking truly is a contact sport. It involves full engagement in order to get solid results.
In fact, research has shown that reciprocal engagement in a business relationship results in higher productivity. According to Psychology Today, people who are actively engaged in a business environment are 43% more productive. That is an incredible number. 43% more productive than those who are not. This is based on a study published in Psychology Today.
Furthermore, they say engagement includes regular dialogue, quality of working relationship, perceptions of ethos and values, and recognition of the relationship. So effective networking is really truly about building meaningful relationships that include most if not all of the characteristics or things that I was talking about earlier.
So every time I hear someone talk about how networking doesn't work for them, and I hear this, you know, because it is what I do. It is what I am known for. And people say, "This networking thing doesn't work for me."
When I talk to them, I discover it is because they have never done a deep dive on the relationship building process related to their network. Most of their networking activities are really superficial, or worse yet, it is mostly an attempt at direct selling. Networking is not a face to face cold calling opportunity. Not when it is done right.
When it is done right, it is about building those long-term meaningful relationships. It is about the slow process of cultivating those long-term relationships. So over time, this long-term process gives you the opportunity to harvest a substantial amount of business with the concept that networking is more about farming that it is about hunting.
It happens only with the engagement process, so what I would love for BNI members to do this week is to spend some time thinking about new ways that you can support your networking partners in addition to the five that I gave you for the podcast. I think that by thinking of these five and how you can incorporate those and others, it will help you promote engagement with your networking group - and the more that you have that full engagement, the more I think you are going to see referrals go up substantially within the chapter.
So that is my message for this week, Priscilla.
Priscilla:Okay great. One thing I want to comment on is the one to ones. It's amazing when you do a one to one how miraculously either you or they end up with a referral. It is amazing.
Ivan:It really is. It seems amazing but it is totally predictable. You walk out of it going, wow, this is amazing. On the other hand, from a statistical perspective, it is completely predictable. The more one to ones chapters promote, the more they actually do in a chapter, the higher the referral ratio. It is a completely predictable phenomenon, and I can tell you it comes from the relationship building process. That is where it comes from.
So stop making excuses. Go out. Do one to ones. Do these other things. It is really about full engagement. The more you get full engagement- because networking is a contact sport. The more you get that full engagement, the more successful you are going to be in BNI.
Priscilla:Okay, then. Thank you.
Ivan:Thanks, Priscilla.
Priscilla:I think that is it for this week. I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.