The Official BNI Podcast

Synopsis Dean Jackson explains to guest host Spencer Reynolds how you can use the psychology behind referrals to your benefit in BNI and in business. Referrals are driven by self-preservation. People make referrals to add value to their own social groups. People are highly protective of their close connections and want to share good experiences and warn against bad ones. Recommending useful resources raises a person’s standing within their group, creating a natural sense of mutual value exchange. Instead of asking your referral partners to tell people about you, train them to identify opportunities and report them back to you. Make the referrer the hero. Create valuable, easy-to-share materials your referral partners can pass along. Links Visit Dean’s website: https://deanjackson.com. Listen to the I Love Marketing Podcast. Visit the BNI Tampa Bay website. The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs. Complete Transcript of Episode 981 Priscilla:Hello, everybody, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I’m joined on the phone today by Spencer Reynolds, who is standing in today as a guest host for Dr. Misner, and he will be joining us from time to time. Hello, Spencer. Welcome to the podcast. Spencer:Thank you, Priscilla. I appreciate it. Excited to be with you. Priscilla:It’s great to have you. And who are you presenting us with today? Spencer:Today’s guest is someone that has spent decades, honestly, with business owners and teaching them a really powerful truth about marketing, and that it’s the world happens through relationships and trust and referrals. He’s a legendary marketer. He’s a co-host of an iconic podcast called I Love Marketing, and he’s a brilliant thinker on philosophy. And this is a good friend of mine. His name is Dean Jackson. Dean, welcome to the show. Dean:Thank you. Welcome. Glad to be here. Spencer:Yeah, you know, Dean, it’s hard to believe that we’ve known each other for 24 years now. Dean:Is that how long it’s been? That’s crazy. Spencer:And I’m only 22 in my head, so that math. Dean:Yeah, exactly. Me too. That’s so funny. We actually had Dr. Misner on our I Love Marketing podcast years ago. Spencer:Fantastic. Well, Dean, today I really want to talk about some of the wisdom that you’ve learned over years inside of marketing, and referrals in particular. But let’s talk about why. You know, Simon Sinek says start with why. So let’s start with why do people refer? Dean:I think that’s the biggest misconception that people have is that often one of the first blocks we have to overcome to really optimize the number of referrals that you can get, is to understand that people are not referring as a favor to you or a gift to you. When you have this mindset that you have to earn referrals or that you are somehow asking for referrals, you’re going down a path that is kind of counter to what we, as species, have evolved to do. As long as we have been playing the cooperation game and escape the food chain, basically we’ve become the most successful species ever. That we have learned the importance of looking out for each other and maintaining what I call our status in the herd. That if we look at it, that that’s the primary reason that we do anything, and the reason that we avoid anything is if we feel like something might damage our status in the herd. And it’s a very, very… you know, it goes all the way back to when we were gathering as you know tribes of 150 people or groups, that we always had to kind of look out for each other, and we realized that we were going to be better off if we were constantly looking out for and adding value collectively. And so you see the remnants of these things happen, you know, evolve into even, our society things. The way we are today, we’re not kind of out on the savanna with our just 150 people. We’re in big cities, but we’re still among our group of 150 people. There’s been a lot of research on this, and you may have heard of Robin Dunbar. Spencer:Yeah. Dean:His research on what’s become known as Dunbar’s Number, and that number is 150, and it’s the number of relationships that we can maintain. Now we may know and recognize 1000 or more people, but we truly have relationship with 150, and we’re very guarded in those relationships. It’s our role to add value to our herd and to protect our herd from getting damaged. That’s why we’re…  If you look at everything we do, we want to recommend things to people. Spencer:Yeah, we do. Dean:You see it all the time. If you see a movie, or if we’re talking about movies, we already know, “You got to see this one.” or “Oh, don’t see that one.” We’re even guarding people’s experiences. We don’t want them to waste their time reading a book that wasn’t worth it or making sure that they do read a book that was. And it’s the same thing for service providers and products that we that we come in contact with. Spencer:Talk more about this status in the herd. Because you came out to Tampa [Florida] in our [BNI] region and did a conversation with me on stage at one of our big conferences, and that’s been talked about so much. That’s why I really wanted to bring you here. So give us that hunter-gatherer conversation so that people can hear you. Dean:If we look at it, that we constantly are looking to, I’ll call it like “keep our balanced books.” That this is what Robert Cialdini would talk about with reciprocation. That if I do something nice for you, then you kind of owe me a favor, and you see that all the time playing out just in our normal interactions. But how that would have worked back then is let’s say we’re out and we’re hunting and gathering, and I find a big patch of blueberries, and I see you on the trail, and I say, “Hey, Spencer, there’s a big patch of blueberries over that hill. Go get you some blueberries, too. And I’m going to carry these big ones all the way back to the camp.” Now, in that moment, I am higher status than you because I have just added value to you. You feel this need to balance that out, so you may say to me, “Well, watch out behind those rocks because I saw a lion over there,” and now we’re even. I showed you where the blueberries were. You protected me from the lion. That’s the way the give and take of society works. So we’re constantly looking for opportunities to protect our herd and to guide our herd to different things. And whenever we do something nice for somebody or thoughtful for somebody, that is raising our status. They kind of owe us one in a way, and that’s what really drives the way that we that we interact with people and the way that we introduce new things or protect people. That’s why you see, like you see it all the time. So many people, like we depend on all the people around us. That’s why testimonials, and that’s why reviews and things are kind of like… we’re by proxy taking somebody else’s… They’re helpfully giving us advice on something. Spencer:Yeah, and that’s what I was going to ask: is why does that matter more now than it ever has in the past? Dean:Yeah, because there’s so many people that we don’t know that are trying to take advantage of us, you know. And so that’s why we try and protect the people that we know in our 150. Imagine, a city is just all these interlaced herds of your inner circle of 150 people And let’s just talk about Dunbar’s Number there. The 150 that we’re talking about are people that if you saw them at the grocery store, you’d recognize them by name. You’d stop and have a conversation with them. You have a relationship with them, and we’re constantly in conversation with those people, and that’s the absolute key to the referrals – that we have a relationship with somebody, we’re going to have conversation with them, and in those conversations, certain things have to take place. They have to notice that the conversation is about whatever it is that would be useful for you. They have to think about you, and then they have to introduce you to the person that they have the conversation with, and that’s how referrals actually happen. Somebody, if I’m a real estate agent and I’m talking with one of my top 150, and they’re saying, “Oh, we’re getting transferred. We’re going to have to sell the house and move to Poughkeepsie.” Now, if I am, you know, if I’m in that situation and I hear somebody saying that, I may say, “Well, you should call Spencer because Spencer’s a great realtor, he can help you out. That’s my realtor. Tell him I told you to call.” That kind of thinking that we’re doing the right thing, and that’s often what people train their clients to do. They’ll tell people make sure and tell your friends about me, but what that doesn’t do is that doesn’t connect the dots between you and the person that you are referring. And it’s an important thing because then somebody you know, you may run into them at the grocery store, and they’ll say, “Hey, did my friend Spencer ever give you a call?” “No, no, I never heard from him.” “Oh well, I guess they’re gone now.” “But I tell people about you all the time.” You hear people say that, right? That you encourage people to tell people about you. That’s exactly what they do. And what would be more valuable is instead of concentrating on them telling people about you, we need to train them to tell you about people. To tell you about their friends that are moving, and the best way to do that is to give them the opportunity to be the hero. So if I have a book… Spencer:Yeah. And Dean, we are going to have to wrap up here in just a minute. So I’m just wanting to make sure that you got that, and that we can finish up with this thought because this is good. Dean:No problem. So if I have a book called How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar Fast, and I train my clients to say, “Hey, just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about selling their house, and then if you do, give me a cal

Synopsis Daniela Antongiovanni says kind leadership begins with listening beyond people’s behavior to the human needs underneath. Leaders fear that if they’re kind, they will be less effective, less authoritative, but the opposite is true. It’s much easier to judge or withdraw or hide behind authority instead of remaining open and curious and wanting to connect. Model the behavior you want to see in your company, your team, or your BNI chapter. If you make people feel valued and understood, it’s easier to work with them to look at the impact of their behavior and find a better way forward. Links Listen to Episode 295: Lead from Among, Not from Above. Listen to Episode 396: Host Leadership. Listen to Episode 475: A Path to Business Leadership. The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs. Complete Transcript of Episode 980 Priscilla:Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California, and I’m 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:I am in California today. I’m about to leave for the membership drive cruise, which we do almost every year, and I get to hang out with 100 of my closest friends, BNI members from all over the United States, so it’s always fun to do these. Priscilla:Oh, that sounds great! Ivan:Today I’ve got a guest, and she’s an interpreter, so she’s going to laugh at my interpretation of her… pronunciation of her last name. But I’ve known Daniella for a long time, Daniela Antongiovanni. Did I get it close? Daniela:Close enough, yeah.  (laughing) Ivan:Close enough (chuckling). You can call me miss-ner if you want then, Daniela. I’ve known Daniela a long time. Let me introduce her, and then I’ll tell you a quick story. She’s an interpreter, a business coach, an expert in nonviolent communication in a BNI franchise. What do they all have in common? Well, that’s what she’s going to talk about. So we’re going to listen to that. She had visited a BNI meeting, I think the first one was in 2014, and was really shocked about the way people were doing business. And she recognized that this was going to make a difference in the world, and she joined BNI in 2015, became a Director Consultant in 2016 and Executive Director in 2020. I first met her when she was an interpreter for me, and I do this with all interpreters. I say, “Hey, if I go too fast, just you know, have somebody raise their hands, raise their arms, so that I can know we’re going too fast.” And Daniela was like, “No, that’s not going to be a problem. Don’t worry about that.” And as soon as she said that, I knew I had a great interpreter because when the interpreters say, “Oh yeah, yeah, I’ll have somebody slow you down,” then I know I have an interpreter and I have to slow down. But with Daniela, she is right on it. She’s a great interpreter and a great Executive Director. Welcome to the BNI podcast, Daniela. Daniela:Thank you, Ivan. That’s very nice. Ivan:I told you that story, didn’t I? Daniela:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. (both laughing) If you want, I have a counter story to that. Ivan:Well, I don’t want to take too much time from the podcast. Daniela:No, no, no. We’ll do it in person. Okay. Ivan:Okay. So, what is kind leadership, and why is it better? Daniela:Yes, I’ll go into the definition. But before that, let me recall a moment when I saw it so clearly in action, and actually that was through you, because when we first met in 2016 at the BNI Italy National Conference in Milan, where I was for the first time honored to be your interpreter. Actually, I found something very surprising happening because after your keynote, I was supposing that you would retreat to the VIP room, as many other high-profile speakers I had translated were doing all the time. And instead you came up straight to the interpreting booth, and you said to me, “Come with me. I want to meet the members. I want to shake their hands. I want to do selfies. I want to answer their questions. I want to be there for them.” And you did. And there, I realized that you know I was working with a very special and kind leader, because you were not using status to create distance, you were creating connection. And that was a turning point in my professional evolution because that made me genuinely curious about BNI, and still today I’m learning from the way you lead. So… Ivan:That’s very sweet of you to say, Daniela, and I appreciate it. I think it’s important that I go out and meet as many members as possible, and I have members say to me, “Oh, thank you so much. You know, it must be really difficult to do this.” And I and I usually tell them, “Look, I could be digging ditches. This is way easier than digging ditches. I’m happy to take photographs.” Daniela:Yeah, yeah. Then kind leadership actually for me begins exactly with this. It begins with listening beyond people’s behavior to the human needs underneath. Because tension and conflicts arise at the surface. Because we like to judge people, we judge them by what they do, what they say, by what they don’t do or don’t say. And then we like to be right when we judge them. But everybody sees reality from a different perspective, and we speak from experience, from our values, from our wounds, from our needs and desires, and they’re not right or wrong; they just are. And the point is that very often the needs are unexpressed, either because we’re not fully aware of them, or because by expressing them, maybe we will be made uncomfortable, and so we don’t really like that. So a kind leader is one who likes to go beneath the surface, be curious. Ivan:Mm hmm. Daniela:Which doesn’t mean that every behavior is acceptable. It means that when you understand the need that is engendering that behavior, you can look at the impact together, and together you can find a better way forward. That’s a healthy relationship, and we can do that every day when we meet people. And you know, the usual question is, “How are you? Ivan:Yeah. Daniela:Instead of just settling with the, “Fine, great,” in America, you say “terrific,” right? (both chuckling) Why don’t we just stay there and remain present, and we’ll meet the human being before the business person? Ivan:Yeah Daniela:That’s kind, I think. Ivan:Yeah, that is. I try to say I have a full life when I’m asked that question. Daniela:Yeah. Yes. Ivan:It could be I’m crazy busy, but it’s still full. I don’t say I’m crazy busy. I say I have a full life. I talked about this on a podcast before. So, what are some of your favorite questions? Daniela:My favorite questions are, for example, when I meet people, the first one is very open. The very open question is, “How’s life working out for you?” And then I project that into the future, and I ask them whether they have a dream they’re working on, if they’re creating something. And then, since life is not always so sweet, it’s also important to know what challenges are keeping you up at night. Ivan:Yeah. Daniela:But my all favorite question is, “What would you need right now?” Because that helps them go inside, and when you go inside, everybody knows what they know. And I just sometimes joke about and say, “Well, you can’t say a clone,” but very often they tell you right away what they need, and we can do that for them. Ivan:Do you find that the question about challenges needs to be towards the end of the conversation, not in the beginning, because they don’t really know you? My experience is, I’ve got to get them to open up before I ask them that question. Daniela:Yes, there needs to be possibly a meaningful relationship already in place, or in any case, some degree of safety, because safety is what makes people take their armor off and speak openly, and they can listen deeply. You can connect on a more profound level with people. Yes. Ivan:And this works outside BNI as well as inside BNI, I’m guessing. Daniela:Absolutely. That’s where the skepticism is strongest, where I think the need is highest because they know…. Ivan:I like that. Repeat that. Repeat that. That’s powerful. Daniela:Yeah, because the skepticism is strongest outside BNI because there’s a very competitive culture around leaders, and the need is the highest, I think. Yes, absolutely. Because leaders fear that if they’re kind, they will be less effective, less authoritative. And let me tell you a story about that. Ivan:Yeah. Daniela:I was coaching the top managers in an automotive company there, and the production manager was very skeptical, and he argued, “You know, I have 138 males from different cultures. It can get very rough. We have war rooms to resolve conflicts,” which I think is quite ridiculous. They should be called peace rooms if they want to be constructive. (both chuckling) But anyway, this is what they do. And then I said to him, “You know, but why don’t you just, you know, it may not be easy, but it’s surely simple. Be what you would like to see in your department.” Someone else said that before me, right? So he started going down to the factory floor, greeting them, “Hey, how are you? Is there anything I can do for you?” And they were very uncomfortable at first, and they made jokes. Ivan:Yeah. Daniela:They were shy, but he continued. And after six months, they were starting to support each other and begin to work as a team. They were going out for lunch together, which is not so hard for Italians normally, but they need a special invitation. Ivan: (laughing) Daniela:Okay, and that was amazing because then the results came. Ivan:Right. Daniela:And so you see, kind leadership or kindness in general, changes the quality of the relationships, and when you change the quality of the relationships, that changes the results. Ivan:Yeah, it absolutely does. And you know, there’s a school of thought about aggressive leadership, and there are a number

Synopsis As a new BNI member, you need to look at every aspect of the way you present yourself to your chapter and your prospects. That includes your word choice. Using expressions like “honestly” and “to be honest” can backfire. Someone who’s just met you may wonder whether the rest of what you said was dishonest. They may wonder whether what you’re saying now is dishonest. Just make your statement. If you have to qualify the statement, Dr. Misner likes to say “In my experience.” Guest Jim Meadows prefers “to be clear” if you’re putting something in simpler words. If you say what you mean and back it up with your actions, people will know you’re honest. Links Listen to Episode 7: Simplify Your Story. Read the Reliable Insights Blog. Listen to Episode 858: The Makeover of Your Weekly Ask. The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs. Complete Transcript of Episode 979 Priscilla:Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California, and I’m 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:I am doing great. I’m at my home in Austin, Texas. I think I’m going to go out into the hot tub this afternoon. September is a great time to go on out into the hot tub. Priscilla:Okay, good. And who do you have with us today? Ivan:I have somebody who’s been on BNI podcast before. This is his second time on BNI podcast. He was on episode 858, The Makeover of Your Weekly Ask, and that is Jim Meadows. He’s entering his seventh year as a BNI member in Kansas City, Missouri [USA]. He’s been the Vice President, the Education Coordinator, the Chapter Success Coach. He’s a member of the International Board of Advisors. He’s earned a couple of master’s degrees. His four-decade career includes corporate training, leadership development, and change management. He specializes in credit card payment processing for the chiropractic industry. That’s a niche industry, and I love seeing niche industries in BNI, and his BNI experience has inspired a long-term goal, which is earning a DBA at Pennsylvania State University. DBA, I assume, is a Doctorate in Business Administration, Jim? Jim:Correct. Ivan:Well, welcome back to BNI Podcast. You and Kathy are now happy empty-nesters, I understand, and believe me, I get that totally. So, welcome to BNI Podcast. You’ve got an interesting concept here – A Better Word Than Honesty. So, every new BNI member wants to be a high performer as soon as possible. How is this relevant to them? Jim:Excellent question. Couple of things: when you’re new in BNI, you want to become a high performer as soon as possible, and that means everything you do, you need to evaluate. What do you look like on the power of one? Are you keeping up with all your training? How do you present yourself? What’s your deportment like? And we’re going to focus today on how do you use words. Words are very, very important. I think we’ve all been there, either as a perpetrator or a recipient or both. Someone wants to emphasize a point, create goodwill, sound persuasive, close a sale, and then it happens. You use some form of one of these phrases: “to be honest with you,” “in all honesty,” “if I’m really being honest with you.” Now Ivan, I call these phrases honesty validators. Ivan:Yeah. Jim:Because we believe that by incorporating them into our language, we somehow reinforce the truth of our words. Ivan:Right. Jim:Unfortunately, all of that belies the presence of honesty. Ivan:Yeah, I think we’ve all been guilty of that. I certainly have. Jim:Well, there was a 20th century British philosopher of language by the name of Paul Grice. He founded Gricean pragmatics. One of his key tenets is that language is supposed to be a cooperative activity, and it should also be economical. Don’t use words you don’t need. Any time you use a phrase or a word that technically is not required, it could actually be signaling the opposite of your intentions. In this case, if honesty is your default position, then why would you want to signal my default position is dishonesty? Ivan:Yeah, yeah. I think again, I think almost all of us have done it. I read a book many, I mean, decades, like 40 years ago, called ***On Writing Well, and he uses a term in there about deobfuscating your writing, to not obfuscate it by adding in words like honesty because it just…. or saying things like “honestly this is the way I feel.” Well, you know, you’re right. Do you often lie when you talk about how you feel? I mean, that’s the issue I think you’re bringing up. Yeah? Jim:Absolutely correct. Ivan:So how do you solve this dilemma? Jim:Yeah, how do we solve it? Well, a couple of points here. Naturally, most people hear this and immediately yell, “No, I’m always honest.” But unfortunately, the unintended message contradicts that affirmation, and it’s always the unintended message received by your audience that has consequences with which you might not be happy. So I asked the question many years ago: Do we have a better word than honesty? As a lifelong public speaker and writer, I’ve given a lot of thought to this perplexing problem, and I think I’ve arrived at a simple, elegant solution that works very well for me. It might work well for others, too. So I basically maintain that the superior solution is to replace honesty validators with what I’ve termed clarity validators, because these phrases come across so much better. Think about it: “to be clear with you,” “in all clarity,” “if I’m really being clear with you.” You see, people will forgive you for fumbling clarity because anyone can make a mistake. People find it very difficult to forgive you for fumbling honesty, because honesty is a thoughtful, willful choice. Ivan:What do you think about using a word like candidly? Jim:Candidly is sort of a substitute for honest, for honestly. So I avoid that word as well, because again, if I have to say to you, speaking candidly, I’m already shooting myself in the foot with my character and my integrity. Ivan:All right, what about the phrase “in my experience”? Jim:I think that’s an excellent one because that comes from a place of your personal professional experience, and that tends to carry much more weight with the audience because now they know they’re hearing something important, and your experience has proven it. Ivan:Alright. So if you embrace this clarity validator logic to replace the honesty validators, how do you do that? Explain that further. Jim:Yeah, that’s a wild ride. When I made the decision several years ago to replace all of my honesty validators with clarity validators, I had to prepare for a battle in my mind because so many times I would automatically just let it slip in, honestly, or to be honest with you, and then suddenly realize, “Oh, I didn’t want to say it that way.” So you have to really make a concerted effort to think through your linguistic mental library of what’s on autopilot, and get all of those autopilot honesty words out of there, and replace them with clarity words. Ivan:And so, generally speaking, you’re saying something like “clearly” or “in all clarity” or the one I like to use oftentimes is “in my experience” is more genuine than saying honestly. Jim:Yes, yes, it definitely is, and we also have to just simply remember that practitioners in deception research flag these kinds of words. They’re just not considered nice words if you’re concerned about integrity and how you want to convey who you are as a person. Ivan:So you maintain that there’s a vital dynamic between communication, relationship, leadership. Tell us more about that. Jim:Well, if you really think about it, your personal leadership and relationship and words are all linked together. Here’s what I’m talking about: your leadership is the foundation for all your success. But what builds your leadership? It’s built by your relationships. So you’ve got to have great relationships, relationships of integrity, that feeds into your leadership, and that is the basis for your success. But let’s go all the way back to relationship. Relationships are fundamentally driven by communication. Communication is the lifeblood of your relationships, so you have to go all the way back to the words you use, how you choose and use those words, if you’re truly wanting to invest in positive relationships. They’re all linked together. It’s a wonderful positive dynamic, and you have to play it that way. Ivan:I’m trying to think of times where, because I have purposely not tried to use the phrase “honestly” for the reasons that you’re describing, and I’m trying to think of the things that I’ve replaced it with. Certainly, “in my experience” is one of them. I’ve used a variation of clarity. I’ll say things like, you know, clearly that’s an important issue. Let’s drill down and talk about that. That kind of phrase. Does that kind of thing work better, you think? Jim:Absolutely. That’s exactly the kind of wording and verbiage that is only going to help you come across with strong integrity. And again, people will forgive you for making a mistake with clarity, but it’s much more difficult if they feel you’re making mistakes with your honesty, your integrity. Ivan:Yeah. So this is a really subtle issue, I think, for a lot of people that they may not see the real power in what you’re talking about. I’m not one of them; I believe you’re right, and I would urge people listening to this to really give this some thought and find other ways of describing or… I think oftentimes it’s used as a filler phrase. It’s almost like the “uh” “well” you know, it’s almost like that. It’s used as a filler phrase, and what you’re pointing out is that there are better filler phrases that are clearer than saying something like “in all honesty.” Is that a good assessment? Jim:That’s an excellent assessment. So many p

Synopsis If you can empower people to want to help you, then ultimately all they need to know is how to help you, as guest Phil Berg likes to say. But before they can want to help you, your referral partners have to trust you to uphold their reputations. Prospects have to feel safe giving you their money. Don’t introduce doubts about your reliability by showing up late to meetings or complaining about how busy you are. First, get clear on your own goals, how to achieve them, and a realistic timeline. Next, make sure you know why someone would want to hire you. Only then can you teach people how to talk about you in a way that results in the other person being excited to receive a call from you. Links Read Networking Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint. Listen to Episode 888: How to Educate Others to Refer You. Listen to Episode 889: Taking a Leadership Role in Your Chapter Visit Phil Berg’s website, philberg.coach. The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs. Complete Transcript of Episode 978 Priscilla:Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California, and I’m 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:I just got back in time to do this podcast. I’ve been doing a keynote presentation for an organization in Tampa, and of course, I made sure to stop by BNI and do a quick BNI event there in Tampa as well. Priscilla:Oh, that sounds good. So, who do you have on the line today? Ivan:I have a really good friend, longtime friend, Phil Berg. Phil has been on four, or this may be his fifth, podcast that we have done together. Phil is married to his childhood sweetheart Jackie, and they’ve been together for 50 years. They have two kids. He’s a former UK and Ireland BNI Assistant National Director. He’s the first person in all of Europe to develop a networking group, a BNI group of over 100 members. He’s been part of BNI for 29 years to date, and he’s an Amazon best-selling author in this book that I’ve heard of called Networking is a Marathon, Not a Sprint. Actually, Phil and I are co-authors along with Bharat Daga. And of course, he’s an international keynote speaker. Phil, welcome back to BNI Podcast. Phil:Thank you so much. Thank you for having me back. Ivan:Well, I heard you do a presentation in the United Kingdom when I was visiting on building trust or introducing doubt. So, talk to me a little bit about the necessity of relationship building to ensure that you ultimately achieve what you’re trying to achieve, which is building trust. Phil:Yeah, I think trust is a necessity, and I think people need to manage their expectations regarding this. So, for example, they join our amazing BNI, and I think it’s like the equivalent of I’ve joined the gymnasium. Why aren’t I getting fit? And for me, you’ve got to build those relationships. I have a saying that if you can empower people to want to help you, then ultimately all they need to know is how to help you. But the want to, in my eyes, comes first. You know, am I safe to pass you over to someone that needs you? Is my reputation going to be intact? Are you going to, you know, live up to my boast about you, which I think is an element of trust. Ivan:So let me understand this. Are you saying that you need to know exactly what you want to achieve, and why, in order to accomplish that? Phil:I think for sure, and that’s certainly in our Networking is a Marathon, Not a Sprint book. That ultimately, if I really don’t know my why… You know, why do I want this person? What do I do for them? Why do they want me? And ultimately, why are you safe to introduce me to them? So I think the why is a very big word, and if you connect all those three, I think all three need to be in place for the introduction to happen comfortably, safely, and trustworthily. Ivan:And if you don’t do that, is that how you introduce doubt? Because the doubt is what I found interesting for your topic. Phil:Yeah, I think so. I have a saying that people’s perception is their truth until they know the real truth. So, if I have any concerns, and as you know, you say this fantastically. The way we’re seen as doing anything is the way we’re perceived as doing everything, and that’s from your good self. And that stuck with me many years ago. So if you’re generally arriving somewhere at the last moment and breathing deeply because you’ve just been panicking and rushing, then I figure that that’s how you’re going to be a first impression to the person I recommend you to. If I say to you, “How are you doing?” and you say, “Oh my goodness, it’s fantastic, but I’m working 20 hours a day.” Even that is like, “Okay, well, that sounds great, but can I introduce you to somebody? Because can you cope with that? Can I trust that you are going to represent my reputation positively?” So I start with doubts. For me, I don’t trust anybody until I can, because I’ve made the mistake of I trust you and then I get let down. Ivan:All right, so just for the record, I should never say I’m busier than a one-armed paper hanger. Phil: (chuckling)I think there’s a way to say it, actually.  I actually teach people to say, “Hey, you know, it’s fantastic. I’m really, really busy. It’s great. I can always handle more, but it’s really good.” Ivan:Yeah, that’s a good answer. That’s a good answer. Phil:Yeah. Ivan:I actually, I have so many people say to me, “You must be really busy.” I’ve stopped saying, “Yeah, I’m busy.” What I try to do is say, “I have a full life.” Sometimes it’s really, really full, but I have a full life, which is to me a very much more positive way of describing it. Phil:I agree, and I think a lot depends on what the person wants when asked that question. If, for example, you don’t want anything more, then I think your answer is beautiful. But for people in business, there is an alleged saying that the number one reason people don’t close a deal is because they don’t ask for the order. Ivan:Yeah. Phil:So likewise, you don’t want to tell everyone how crazy hours you’re working, which stops people giving you the business opportunity because they’re just worried that are you going to phone someone back in an appropriate amount of time? Can you fulfill their need, or are you just going to squeeze this in? Am I going to be the one to give you a heart attack? Ivan:So you also talked about, at the conference, about knowing what you need to do, being able to achieve what you want, have realistic expectations of a timeline. You want to talk about that a little bit? Phil:Yeah, I think I said it. I think it’s the equivalent of going to a gymnasium and expecting to lose my tummy, which I’m not doing. I’m expecting to lose my tummy after the first session. I think there has to be a realistic expectation. However, as per our book, you can speed the timeline up. I mean, one-to-ones are a very, very effective way to, if you like, get people to understand you more on a personal level. As you know through BNI, we have the GAINS profile, and sometimes even answering that myself… I remember when I was first a member, and the G stands for goals, and it was okay, Phil, What are your goals? And honestly, I struggled because it was like, well, actually, Phil, what are my goals? And if I’m not clear with them, how can anybody help me? Ivan:Exactly. Phil:I think it was really, really important to know not just why do I want an introduction to that person, but why do they want me? And I think when we understand that we’re all solution providers, then I want people to phone somebody up and say, “Oh my gosh, you know, I’ve got to introduce you to Phil because I know he can help you with this challenge.” Ivan:Yeah. Well, let me let me throw a little curveball at you here, Phil. Phil:Great. Ivan:The title for this is “Building Trust or Introducing Doubt.” Phil:Yeah. Ivan:In just a couple of sentences, what do you think is the key element to that title for the listeners? Phil:I would say being what others need you to be is the answer that comes straight into my head. So, for example, you could think really well of yourself, and yet actually others don’t feel well of you. So I always say, you know, it’s one of my Bergisms, that reputation is what people say about us when we are not there. People work very, very hard to purchase your product or your service. Do they feel safe and comfortable to give [you] the money and know that they’re going to be happy at the end of it? Ivan:So it’s really sort of your perception versus your reputation? Phil:Yeah, I think my perception may not be their truth. Ivan:Yeah, yeah, good. Well, any last thoughts before we wrap up, Phil? Phil:I’d say make sure you know what you want. Make sure you know the activity to achieve it, and I think it’s very, very important to educate those around you and start prioritizing. You know, sometimes we wait for results because we don’t actually approach the people that could help us first. So have a look at who you know can help you and make sure they understand what you’re looking for, and particularly, and I’m passionate about this: how to talk about you in a way and a simple way that results in the other person being excited to receive a call from you. Ivan:Yeah. Phil, thanks for being back on BNI Podcast. For anyone that wants more information on Phil, go to www.philberg.coach. That’s Phil, P-H-I-L-B as in boy, E-R-G. dot coach. Phil, thanks again for being on BNI Podcast. Phil:My privilege, my honor. Look after yourself. Ivan:And by the way, thank you for everything you did with the book Networking is a Marathon. You’re a great co-author. Phil:Oh, you’re lovely. Thank you so much. Privileged. Ivan:Back to you, Priscilla. Priscilla:All right, I think that’s it for this week. Thank you both so much for the great information. This podcast is sponsored by www.misn

Note: This is a rebroadcast of Episode 748, first published on March 9, 2022. Some links and offers may no longer be valid. Synopsis To receive more effective referrals from the members of your BNI group, it’s really important to help them understand your business and your target market enough to identify a good referral. To do that, you need to make sure they know these four things. The Needs Assessment Your Unique Selling Proposition Why Are You in Business? What’s Your Emotionally Charged Connection? Listen to Episode 451 and read “Why You Do What You Do Is Your Key to Success” for more about Emotionally Charged Connections. What have you shared with your network that has helped you gain willing conversations with prospective customers? Share your answers in the comments. The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs. Complete Transcript of Episode 748 Priscilla:Hello everybody and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I’m 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: I am at home in Austin, Texas this week. And, you know, most of our podcasts, almost all of our podcasts, land a post on Wednesday morning. And many of you may not know this, but for the last couple of years, every Wednesday, I have Sam Horn come over in the morning. Sam wrote the book, “POP!” where she mentioned BNI, and that was before I knew Sam. And she also wrote the book, “Someday is Not a Day in the Week.” I talk about Sam and quote her in a number of places. She comes over every Wednesday morning after this podcast goes live. And we do what we call “Writing Wednesday.” But honestly, Priscilla, it’s oftentimes ‘talking’ Wednesday. We talk. We talk a lot about writing, but we talk a lot. And today’s topic is The Willing Conversation. Priscilla:Uh huh. Ivan:And so it’s about talking to people. Do you remember, Priscilla, when you were a kid how fun magnets were to play with? Priscilla:Yes. Ivan:Yeah, I loved magnets. And depending on which way you turn the magnet, they were either attracted or repelled by one another. And as an adult, we may find ourselves feeling six years old again when we make a phone call to a referral, who turns out to not be a referral at all. And similar to a magnet that’s turned the wrong direction, you’re not being embraced in that conversation, you’re being resisted. So the referral you were given that should have been a warm introduction quickly turns into a cold call. We all want good referrals, people who want to talk to us. We want to give and receive referrals that are willing conversations about the products and services that we have to offer. And to receive more effective referrals from the members of your BNI group, it’s really important to help them understand your business and your target market enough to identify a good referral. So here are four tips that you can follow that will help you with those willing conversations. The first tip is The Needs Assessment. It’s really your responsibility to be very clear; it’s our responsibility – I’ll talk about it with me as well. It’s our responsibility to be very clear and specific with our referral partners about what constitutes a good referral. And this is a combination of an ideal prospect profile and the problems that we can solve for them. Because it’s not just about what you do, it’s about what solutions you have for the people that you’re working with. It’s about what Andy Bounds calls the AFTERs —what are things going to look like after you’ve worked with them. So, the needs assessment really is an example of you clearly defining your target market. So for a corporate coach, as an example, you might say that a small to medium sized company with fewer than 100 employees, closely held business – family owned business, regional with locations, you know, local in a state or two, and that they as a coach provide themselves on higher than average retention, getting companies to have higher than average retention for employees. And they may be in a competitive industry and as an executive coach, you can help them gain an advantage. So, you know, you want to communicate your target market very clearly to the people in your BNI group. Ivan:You also want to describe your Unique Selling Proposition. So do you have dozens or hundreds of competitors in your marketplace? You probably do. And that means that your unique selling proposition, or USP, is really important because it allows you to stand out among your competition. Your USP is a brief description of the purpose of your business. It’s stated in the most concise and compelling way possible in order to help others understand the unique value of what it is that you do. So your unique selling proposition tells people the type of client you like to work with and the benefits that you can provide for them. And what you want to say is what makes what makes you stand out and why that makes you stand out. What do you do that your competition can’t touch? At the very least, figure out what you do better than your rivals and go beyond simply saying ‘good customer service.’ That’s really part of your unique selling proposition – what it is that you have that your competition doesn’t. The third thing is Why Are You in Business? What’s your passion? Why do you go to work? Unfortunately, one of the most popular answers to the question is ‘to make money.’ That’s the worst answer a business professional can ever give. You’ve got to be able to describe why it is that you do what it is that you do. Why are you in your profession? How do you change lives? You know, that’s what the referral partners in your business group, in your BNI chapter, that’s what they want to know. Remember, passion really is referable. You need to go deep and identify your why if you want to truly connect with people on a personal level. The fourth thing is, what is your Emotionally Charged Connection? Your emotionally charged connection, or ECC, is a phrase leading to a story that your referral partners can recite when referring to you. So for those of you who want to know what my ECC is, what my emotionally charged connection is, go to episode number 451: Why Do You Do What You Do? And in that episode, I shared my emotionally charged connection and why that was so incredibly important to me, and why I do what it is that I do in business. It really stems from that podcast, 451, the experience that I have, from the podcast that I talk about. We all have an ECC, it was something that happened to you, often during childhood, that lays the groundwork for who you are as a person. It can be positive; it can be negative. Many people are not consciously aware of their emotionally charged connection yet, it’s the reason that we get up in the morning and do the things that we do every day. It’s driven by the heart, not by the checkbook, or by the head; there’s a big difference. And I’m going to also include a link in here where you can read about my emotionally charged connection. I did a blog on the same topic and so I’ll have a link here for that blog as well. The bottom line is that the better you become at sharing the information in these tips that I’ve just given you with your BNI group, the more likely you are to feel like the magnet that attracts, instead of the magnet that repels. Your referral partners will be able to give you good referrals that lead to the willing conversation. Well, I have a question for everyone when we’re done here. Priscilla, do you have any thoughts before we wrap up? Priscilla:No, but I haven’t heard this before and I really like what you’re talking about. I don’t remember hearing about the emotionally charged connection. Is that what it is? Ivan:Yeah, well, you were there for me. It was episode number 451. Priscilla:I just made a note. I’m gonna go back and listen to it. Ivan:Go back and listen to it. It was the story — you’ll remember it as soon as I give you a little heads-up. There’s a story about my teacher, Mr. Romero, and asking who wants to be on the student council. Priscilla:Aha, yeah, I remember that. Ivan:Yeah. And that was my emotionally charged connection. Because after that experience, which I’m not going to restate here on this podcast, go back and listen to 451. After that experience with this teacher, who, by the way, changed my life in many ways. After that experience, I realized many years later, that almost every business I’ve ever been drawn to and ever started was about inspiring people or providing people with an opportunity to be their best. And that’s really what BNI is, isn’t it? It’s about giving people an opportunity. You know, you joined BNI, you gotta work. Priscilla:Yeah. Ivan:And I talked about this in the podcast, you know, in 451, it’s not like it was just a gift and I walked away and became successful. It was a gift that I had to work at. It gave me an opportunity, the gift was an opportunity, and that opportunity I had to work really hard at. And from that opportunity, I achieved the level of success in high school. And from that, I realized many, many years later, not at the moment, that that experience led me to try to give other people that experience, to try to give them an opportunity to achieve success. And that’s really what BNI is about. So, go listen to episode 451 everyone. Priscilla:Yeah, I plan to. Ivan:It’s a powerful story. It’s a true story. So for those of you who are listening to this podcast, let me ask you a question. I read all of the questions that get posted here, or comments that get posted here on BNI podcast. My question is, what have you shared with your network that has helped you gain willing conversations with prospective customers? Share them here on the BNI podcast. That’s everything I’ve got, Priscilla, over to you. Priscilla:Tha